June 2 – June 10, 2012 CSA Newsletter

This Week’s Share: Kale, Green Garlic, Radish, Arugula and a Head Lettuce.

KALE: More delicious, blue-green kale leaf for your taste delights. Try and win your family over to kale with the ever-popular huge hit, kale chips.

Kale Chips.

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a non insulated cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Tear the leaf away from the thick stems and cut or tear into bite size pieces. Discard or eat raw the mid-stalks (stems). Wash and thoroughly dry kale with a salad spinner. This recipe works best with kale pieces pretty dry.
3. Place in a large mixing bowl. Drizzle with a Tblsp or two of olive oil, a long sprinkle or two of Balsamic vinegar, and throw in your favorite seasonings and sea salt. Hand mix.
4. Place on your parchment lined cookie sheet.
5. Bake until the edges brown but burnt, 10 to 15 minutes.

Green Garlic: Some will be getting the same bulb/ramps of last week, and some of you will get the scapes, otherwise known as the pointy, curled tops of the hard-necked garlic varieties.

Love Farm Garlicky Goddess Dressing

• 2 garlic scapes, coarsely chopped, or two stems green garlic
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard or brown mustard
• 4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• pinch sea salt
• 1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1. In a blender, combine the chopped garlic scapes or ramps, honey, mustard, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Blend until smooth.
2. Set blender on low, while slowly adding the olive oil until well blended.

Makes 1 cup. Stores for a couple weeks in the refrigerator….but chances are you can make more next week!

Radish: Lovely sizable little red, pink and white globes are being bunched/banded for your eating pleasure this week. Our second sowing of radish quite like this drizzly cooler weather we are having. Some have some heat, but most do not. Most can enjoy radish raw in salads, but why not try them warm? Cooking these little gems makes any hotness all but disappear.

Glazed Radishes from Fine Cooking In Season

• 1 bunch radishes, scrubbed and trimmed
• 2 Tblsp butter
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste
• 1/2 lemon

1. Make radishes uniform in size by having extra-large ones. Wash and dry.
2. Arrange in small saute’ pan, just large enough to have in single layer.
3. Add the butter, sugar, and salt.
4. Add enough water to come halfway up the sides of the radishes.
5. Cover with a pot lid askew, bring to a high simmer, then lower heat and simmer gently.
6. Start testing after 5 minutes, but it may take up to 10-15 minutes. A knife should penetrate easily with just some resistance.
7. When water is mostly cooked away, and radishes are tender, squeeze  lemon juice into the pan and swirl to coat the radishes.
8. Plate and add more, lemon or salt to taste.

Arugula: This week baby leaves of a heavenly green called arugula, or rocket, make it into your share. It has a rich, peppery, exceptionally strong flavor for it’s diminutive size. Add a little to salads, or grain and pasta dishes. It also goes great on pizza’s or dishes with salty cheeses like feta.

Head Lettuce: More beauties to choose from. Prized speckled Trout’s-back romaine’s, deep green romaine’s, red-leaf, green-leaf, butter-heads, French crisp’s and many Loose-leaf varieties picked fresh and sweet for you to choose from.

FARM NEWS: Strange weather we are having isn’t it? First, all our crops want to bolt, now they are growing dense and lush as though they lived on top of a shrimp casting’s hill! This coolish-warm and misty weather is wonderful for greens, but also has the potential to start millions of  spores of pathology. The trials and tribulations of the farmer ongoing they are.

We all love the berries, and we are eagerly awaiting their ripening. The flower set on all of the berries has been and was very abundant. So we hope the fruit set heavy and lush to follow. These freaky torrential downpour’s we randomly keep getting aren’t helping matters any that is for sure. Usually it is at least week 4 or 5 before our strawberries ripen enough for the share.

So glad to see so many of you again last week, and so many remembering  bags. Hooray for us, and the tiny little part we do to help save the planet. Eating local foods is better for you, better for the environment, and (most importantly) much more enjoyable for your taste buds.  Hope you all are enjoying your share’s. Thank-you very much for your support!