csa-fun

Time Warp 2 - Electric Boogaloo

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 07:22:59 +0100

Yeah, so again...not sure what the hell happened to the June 15 bag notes. I guess one of the cats ate them; my choice is on Stella, she looks a little fluffier than normal.

So, here we are for June 22!

We received lettuce, scallions, beets, beet greens, basil, broccoli, spinach, and a small bag of salad greens. Again, I can neither confirm nor deny that we received these items, officer, or that I have any knowledge of said items should said items actually exist. I should probably weigh and write this stuff down when I unpack the bag because then I wouldn't have to add a disclaimer.

Moving on...

Polly discusses a pasta dish with baby beets and greens but honestly, I prefer the foil wrapped oven baked beet goodness Clarissa makes. This is a great simple recipe "she's been making for years" and I wanted to share it in case you have beets and are pondering what to do besides make Borscht. Fairly straightforward, no nonsense approach; you just need a little patience as you wait for the bulbous ruby veggies to get tender. She finishes the peeled beets by topping each sliced beet with Gorgonzola cheese and melting it in the microwave. Great mineral taste with pungent old shoe flavor to boot! Seriously, this is one of my favorite appetizers we share.

Beets with Gorgonzola

2 - 3 beets
3 - 4 tbl crumbled Gorgonzola (about 1 ounce?)

Steps
1) Preheat oven to 375
2) Rinse any excess dirt from beets and pat dry
3) Wrap dried beets in aluminum foil
4) Bake for about an hour, depending on size. The beet will be done when it is easily pierced by a fork.
5) Allow the beets to cool. When cool, peel the skin and slice the beets into 1/8" - 1/4" slices.
6) Top each slice with cheese
7) Microwave for about a minute, depending on the slice size

Time Warp - June 8 Delivery

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:53:06 +0100

Not sure what happened on June 1 but I can't find our bag notes for it. So we'll just plow ahead!

I'm sure we received lettuce, mixed greens, scallions, broccoli, spinach, and possibly some cabbage but don't quote me. Maybe even some beet greens, but don't quote me.

The bag notes mention garlic scapes being ready to pick and some were included in today's delivery. For those of you who have not used or heard of this before, a garlic scape is the flower stalk and flower bud of the garlic plant. This stalk and bud are cut off to send more energy to the root (the actual garlic head). It tastes a little milder than garlic and can be used in place of garlic. The garlic heads will be harvested in a couple of weeks and hung up in the barn to dry for three or four weeks.

Polly discusses the cabbage and Chinese cabbage progress and gives some tips on how fast/how long to use and store the different greens.

There was also an information packet distributed on some of the more unusual vegetables we will be receiving.

I don't know what happened since May 25 but it must have been good!

Week 2 - Green is good

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:42:08 +0100

Notes from May 25 delivery

I am confident this was a great decision Clarissa and I made to join this CSA. It has been great fun and a challenge to use the vegetables we received last week before we had to pickup our latest delivery.

We got lettuce, a slightly different salad mix purchased from Moon Indigo Organic farm with lettuce already mixed in, bok choy, scallions, radishes, and some spinach. Regarding the spinach, in my previous post I had mentioned Waterbear Farm had a bad cutworm problem. We learned they lost their whole crop because of it.

On a good note, Polly informed the CSA members that Richard from Waterbear Farm discovered a remedy for the cutworm problem. His solution is to sprinkel cornmeal around the plants and the cutworms eat it and die. See, I told you this was fun, and I'm learning quite a bit!

The new CSA shipments are here, the new CSA shipments are here...

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:21:18 +0100

May 18, 2010

Today marks the first harvest of the twentieth season at Seven Springs Farm and I've eagerly been waiting to receive the fruits (vegetables and herbs really) of the season.

Our first delivery of fresh off the farm veggies arrived at the Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op (www.roanokenaturalfoods.com) and Clarissa and I were both super stoked. I went and gathered our bag in the evening, thrilled to see what organic treats were packed in there. Now, this wasn't a blind date situation, we knew ahead of time what would be in the bag but seeing the actual produce versus the words in the CSA Veggie Info packet email was rewarding. I happily hugged my brown bag of greens as I hurriedly headed for home.

Contents

1 bunch (3 – 4) radishes
1 bunch scallions
3 boy choy
1 bag mixed salad greens (mustards, arugula, kale)
3? Heads of romaine lettuce

Polly had hoped to provide us with spinach from http://www.waterbearfarm.com/ while 7 Springs gardens grew but there was a pretty severe cutworm problem.

First recipe using ingredients.

Garlic Ginger Bok choy

1 head? Bok choy, stems cross cut and leaves slightly shredded
1 tsp Sesame Oil
Red Pepper flakes (to taste)
4 cloves Garlic, finely chopped or minced
1 tbl minced Ginger or fresh grated ginger
1 tbl Soy sauce
Salt (to taste, not much needed since we’re using soy sauce)
Pepper (to taste)
4 – 6 Scallions, sliced

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 15 minutes

Step 1: Wash and drain bok choy and scallions

Step 2: Cut the bok choy root stems so that the stalks of the bok choy become single stalks. Cut the stem section where the leaves first appear. Make diagonal cuts on the white stem sections and do a rough chop of the leaves. Keep the leaves and stems separate as the stems will require more time to cook.

Step 3: Slice scallions and place the white part in a container with the bok choy stems since you’ll want to cook them together. The white scallion pieces will be your timer for when to add the bok choy leaves and then green scallion pieces.