This week your basket contains: snap peas (full shares), Asian broccoli OR broccoli, bok choy, spinach, kohlrabi, TURNIPS (half shares), beets (full shares), BUNCHING ONIONS, and lettuce. 

OUR FIRST SUBSCRIBER DAY OF THE YEAR IS THIS SUNDAY, June 24^th  from 11AM to 3 PM.  Come out to the farm to meet us, share a pot luck lunch (we’ll be baking pizza in our wood-fired oven), tour the farm, and get to know other families who get our veggie baskets.  Bring along a dish to share and your preferred beverage and enjoy your farm!

We’ve hit something of an inflection point in the gardens.  This is the last week for spinach (until fall) and the strawberries will be finished soon.  On the other hand, we harvested the first few zucchini and cucumbers and they will soon be in everyone’s baskets.  We are also transplanting and seeding all the summer crops we all crave (sweet corn has germinated!)  At the same time, we are starting all the winter and over-wintering crops that will be harvested well into next spring (cabbage, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, etc.) and the leeks are in and growing well.  It is amazingly busy here, but that makes it exciting, too.  This warmer than usual spring has been hard on our broccoli, especially the earliest varieties.  We grow several varieties with various lengths of time from seeding to harvest.  This allows us to seed and transplant all the broccoli at once and still have staggered harvest.  This year, the fastest varieties got too much heat to quickly which made them form heads before the plants had good size.  Fortunately, the later varieties look bigger and better, so we are looking forward to improved harvests over the coming weeks.  This recipe is a good way to use both your beets and either the Asian broccoli or regular broccoli.

BEET AND BROCCOLI SALAD 

A great salad can be made with beets and broccoli. We steam the broccoli and beets together with the sliced beets on bottom.  Generally, when the broccoli is done (i.e. just turned dark green and starting to get tender) the beets are also done.  We then toss them in a simple vinaigrette and serve them either warm or cold.  This vinaigrette is the one we use:

VINAIGRETTE

1 clove garlic

1 tsp salt

3 Tbs red wine vinegar

1 tsp wet mustard

5 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

black pepper

Press garlic into the bottom of  your salad bowl.  With a fork, mix well with salt until it forms a paste.  Mix in vinegar and mustard until salt is dissolved.  Whisk in olive oil to make an emulsion.  Add black pepper to taste.  These proportions are in no way set in stone.  You should experiment to find the proportions you prefer.  Also, other spices, herbs and vinegars can be used to vary the dressing.

This recipe can be made with either turnips or kohlrabi (or both).

SPINACH AND TURNIP BHAJI

7 ounces small turnips, peeled and finely chopped

1 pound frozen chopped spinach or other greens

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons grated ginger

1 onion, finely chopped

1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

Bring 1/2 cup water to a boil.  Add the turnips.  Cook 1 – 2 minutes. Add the spinach and paprika.  Cook 2 – 3 minutes or until all the water has evaporated. Mash the mixture to the best of your ability and remove from heat. Heat the oil in a second saucepan over low heat. Add the ginger and onion and cook 2 – 3 minutes.  Add the vegetables from the first saucepan.  Mix well and toss until everything is well seasoned.  Serve with the lemon juice.

For her farmers’ market booth, Polly is in need of PAPER BAGS WITH HANDLES.  Just leave them out with your empty basket, and our driver Terrance will pick them up.  Thanks.