This week your basket contains: garlic scapes, kohlrabi, SNAP PEAS, turnips or Asian broccoli, carrots, sweet onions, lettuce, kale, Swiss chard, and spinach.

This is a greens-heavy basket this week.  One effect of the warmer than usual weather is that many of our early crops that grow best in cooler weather are rushing to maturity which means we need to “use it or lose it”.  In your lettuce bag you will see one head of lettuce that is relatively small.  This is a type called Little Gem.  It can be either red or green.  They are very tender and tasty.  Their compact size means we can plant more in a garden bed than we can with regular lettuce.  Most importantly, they taste great.  We hope you like them.  We don’t buy salad dressing as we find it very easy to make our own.  This is the basic recipe 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.

One of our favorite ways to use kale is to make kale chips.  This is one of the easiest recipes we’ve seen.

MICROWAVE KALE CHIPS

5-10 kale leaves

4 tsp. olive oil

Kosher salt

Remove stems from the kale leaves and tear into 2-inch strips.  Wash and thoroughly dry the leaves and toss them with oil in a large bowl.  Spread approximately 1/3 of the leaves on a large plate and sprinkle with salt.  Microwave for three minutes.  If leaves are crispy, transfer them to a serving bowl; if not, continue to microwave leaves in 30 second increments until crispy.  Repeat with remaining leaves in two batches.  The kale chips can be stored for up to a week in an airtight container.

SPICY KOHLRABI NOODLES 

2-3 kohlrabi

4 oz. cooked (and cooled) rice noodles

½ jalapeño, sliced and/or a few Thai red chiles

½ avocado, sliced

herbs: cilantro, basil, and/or mint

handful of crushed peanuts

sriracha, to taste

extra lime slices

optional: tofu or a protein of your choice

DRESSING:

juice and zest of 1 lime

2 tablespoons fish sauce

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon minced ginger

Mix the dressing together.  Peel the kohlrabi if you like, (I just try to peel off the fibrous nubby sections and I leave the more tender skin on). Use a mandoline to slice kohlrabi into planks and then slice the planks into thin matchsticks. Toss the sliced kohlrabi with the dressing and chile peppers. Chill for about 30 minutes. Toss the marinated kohlrabi with noodles, avocado, herbs, crushed peanuts and sriracha. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve cold or at room temp, with extra lime slices on the side. Adapted from loveandlemons.com

Polly’s flowers are coming on strong.  She can put together a beautiful bouquet of 15-20 stems for only $10.  Email to order.

RHUBARB is ready!  We can send along a bunch (approx. 1LB) for only $4 just email to order!

WE HAVE CHANGED THE PASSWORD TO THE RECIPE SECTION OF THE WEB SITE.  The new password is in the footer below and will be there each week.  We are also changing our email address (also in the footer).  The old one is being forwarded to us, but please update your email settings to our new gmail account.