This week your basket contains: potatoes, broccoli, zucchini, cucumbers, snap peas or snow peas, lettuce, cabbage (full shares), beet greens (half shares), RED ONIONS, and carrots. 

Thank you all for sending in your PAPER BAGS WITH HANDLES.  Your response has been so overwhelming that we have run out of space to store them!  Please hold on to them for now, and we will let you know when we need them again. 

Peas have been struggling in this heat, but zucchini and cucumbers have loved it!  On hot evenings, nobody wants to cook, so we’ve been making cold soup.  Fortunately, this recipe makes just about the tastiest cold soup imaginable.  We garnish with chopped onion, croutons, and chopped hardboiled egg.

CREAM OF CUCUMBER SOUP

2 lbs. Cucumbers

2 Tbsp. butter

1/3 c. chopped onions or shallots

5 c. chicken broth

1 Tbsp. wine vinegar

½ c. chopped dill

¼ c. farina or ½ lb. Cubed potatoes

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 c. sour cream

Peel and roughly chop cucumbers, reserving ½ a cucumber to slice into paper-thin slices.  Melt butter, cook onions or shallots until wilted.  Add chopped cucumbers, broth, vinegar and 1/3 c. of the dill.  Bring broth to a boil, whisk in farina or add potatoes.  Cook until soft.  Puree.  Before serving, reheat and thin if necessary with water.  Whisk in half of the sour cream, garnish with cucumber slices and a sprinkling of dill.  If you wish, this can be served cold, chilling instead if reheating.  Serve remaining sour cream at table as a garnish.  From The Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash

COLD ZUCCHINI YOGHURT SOUP

2 pounds zucchini, sliced

2 cups water

Salt (1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons)

3 cups plain low-fat yogurt

3 tablespoons finely chopped mint

Freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 garlic clove, mashed to a paste in a mortar and pestle, or put through a press (optional)

Place the water in the bottom of a saucepan fitted with a steamer and bring to a boil. Place the zucchini in the steamer, set over the boiling water, cover and steam 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for about 5 minutes. Do not drain the steaming water. Place half the zucchini in a food processor fitted with the steel blade, add 3/4 teaspoons salt, and puree until smooth. Add half the steaming water and pulse until smooth. Scrape into a bowl, and repeat with the remaining zucchini and steaming water, and another 3/4 teaspoon salt. Scrape into the bowl with the first batch. Whisk in the yogurt, the chopped mint, pepper, lemon juice, and optional garlic. Taste and adjust salt. Chill, either in the refrigerator or in an ice bath. Strain the cold soup through a medium strainer into a bowl. Use a rubber spatula to press the soup against the strainer and to scrape the soup off the outside of the strainer, to extract maximum flavor and to get as much soup through as you can. Toss the thinly sliced zucchini garnish with a generous pinch of salt and place in a strainer set over a bowl, or in the sink. Let sit for 15 minutes. The zucchini will soften. Rinse and pat dry. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with several slices of zucchini and a sprinkle of slivered mint leaves. Adapted from cooking.nytimes.com

Another recipe we use all summer long is this quick pickle recipe.  We try to keep some in the fridge at all times (a real chore when we had four kids at home all summer!)  These are a great quick snack that is amazingly refreshing.

QUICK PICKLES

2 unwaxed or peeled cucumbers

1 small onion

1 clove garlic, minced

1 Tb fresh dill or 1 ½ tsp. dill seed

1 cup hot water

1 Tb salt

2 Tb honey

3 Tb cider vinegar

Slice each cucumber lengthwise into 8 sticks.  Slice onion into rings.  Alternate layers of cucumber and onion in a broad non-metal dish.  Scatter dill and garlic on top.  Mix water with honey and salt to dissolve; add vinegar and pour this brine over the cucumbers.  Cover and refrigerate at least 6 hours before using.  NOTE:  When ready to replenish the pickle container, add 1 Tb vinegar and 1 rounded tsp of honey to the brine and add more sliced cucumber and onion as needed.  Prepare a fresh solution after 2 or 3 batches have been made.  From American Wholefoods Cuisine by Nikki and David Goldberg 

FLOWERS HAVE COME ON WITH A VENGANCE!  Polly can put together a large (25+ stems), beautiful bouquet that we will deliver with your basket for only $7.  All you need to do is email to order one time or as a standing order.