CSA Week 8, 2016
slowly catching up with the blog 🙂
You MAY have these things: lettuce, summer squash of some variety or color, beans or cucumbers, chard or beets, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, arugula…
The tomatoes are beautiful right now, so enjoy! If you have plans to can, this is the time to order. Contrary to popular belief, the time to process tomatoes is when they are at their best, if you can get them, not to wait until the end of the season.
This past week is a perfect example of what I refer to as “splitting the CSA week”. What does that mean? You may recall in the first letter I explained that it can be hard for me to write about what’s in the box this week because things are ever changing around here. One day the picking can be great (and this year we are settling for “not bad) and four days later the picking can be slim to none.
Another crop may not be ready to harvest and a few 95 degrees-no-water, days later it looks like it will bolt. This past week looked like we would have berries, then it turned out not; suddenly there was a bunch of arugula that needed picking, and then the garlic was ready to go. Thus the split week. This week we will try to finish off what we started last week and get the rest of you some arugula and garlic J
As for blueberries, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen. We got some greatly needed rain and the blueberries will probably rebound enough to get back on board for CSA.
Definitely check out all the zucchini bars, cakes, breads, beet cake, and many pickle recipes on the blog!
This recipe is obviously not a stretch for me; just look- more olive oil, garlic and Dijon! Of course you can use any snap bean if you don’t get the skinny haricot vert in your box. Also, one really needs to halve the amount of oil called for, so if you halve the recipe, don’t forget to adjust the oil too, now that I have warned you 😉
Haricots Verts, Corn and Carrot (NYT)
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt, more as needed
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
- ¼ cup minced fresh chives
- Black pepper, as needed
- 1 pound haricots verts, trimmed
- 2 ⅔ cups cooked fresh corn kernels (from about 4 corn cobs)
- ½ pound carrot, peeled and coarsely grated (2 cups)
In a small bowl, whisk together salt, vinegar, garlic and mustard. Whisking constantly, slowly whisk in oil until incorporated. Whisk in chives and pepper. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Drop in haricots verts and cook until just tender, 2 to 3 minutes. Drain, cool and chop into bite-size pieces. In a large bowl, toss together haricots verts, corn and carrot. Toss in dressing and season with salt and pepper.
Uncle J’s Super Roasted Tomatoes (from member Debbie)
Cut ripe tomatoes into halves (small tomatoes) or thirds (large tomatoes) along the midline, not through the stem.
Arrange tomatoes on cookie sheet and sprinkle each with a pinch of salt, some thyme and some rosemary. Drizzle on a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Add a thin slice of fresh garlic clove on each.
Roast at 325 degrees for about 1.5 hours, or until they shrink in half and look done. They will be very soft and extremely delicious.
You can line the cookie sheet with parchment paper to make it easier to clean.
Arugula Pesto
- 4 cups (packed) arugula leaves (about 6 ounces)
- 1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
- 1/4 cup (packed) freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup olive oil
Blend arugula, pine nuts and Parmesan cheese in processor until almost smooth. With machine running, gradually add olive oil; process until well blended. Season pesto to taste with salt and pepper. (Can be made ahead. Cover and let stand up to 2 hours at room temperature or refrigerate up to 1 day. Bring to room temperature before using.)
Farm Dirt
It rained! Twice!
We had a nice rain on Sunday morning and a pretty solid rain this morning (Tuesday). Glenn even announced it should stop raining today, lest all the parched fruits split. Lots of water, when there has been little, often leads to fruits like tomatoes and melons filling up with water so quickly their skins split. That would be its own mini tragedy after all those fruits (and farmers) have been through this summer.
The black box above is a little capture of the thunder storm at our farm
The fruit set on the winter squash and peppers is pretty pathetic right now due to the heat and drought, though mostly the heat. Squashes tend to put out only male blossoms when it is too hot and the peppers just won’t set and if they do they usually abort. The other sad news about the bell peppers last week was we left about 75% of them on the ground because they had sun-scalded. The rain came too late to save the onion crop, so that crop is pretty much a complete loss. I know, it sounds like all gloom and doom, but it is real.
BUT
The rain and cooler temps bring us hope that the potato crop will develop and that the winter squash will grow. The tomatoes are AWESOME right this minute, we are picking nice beans, tasty corn again and the things we just seeded are germinated and up!
Other great news: we have had a few Yellow Warblers feeding on the fennel (or rather the insects on the yellow flower heads) and lots of Indigo Buntings all over the farm. Love it!
Eat well, Geneviève Stillman