It’s June, which means it’s finally time to begin this inaugural season of the Pitchfork & Crow CSA!  We’re glad to have you join us for the next five months in eating local, organic vegetables.

Here’s what’s in the box:

• Beets

• Broccoli – Just a taste this week, but we hope to have much more broccoli throughout the season.

• Dill & Parsley – Added to spice up your cooking. Throw a little in with your pasta dish or puree with mayo for a delicious homemade salad dressing!

• Green Garlic and Garlic Scapes – Use these both as a garlic substitute in recipes, but there is no need to peel the green garlic.

• Kale – This week we’re including Red Ursa kale, a cross between the red and white Russian varieties you may have seen in the past.  Use as you would any cooking green.  We suggest stir-frying it with a little butter or olive oil and adding to your morning eggs.

• Lettuce – Cardinal is a crisp leaf lettuce, somewhere in between a crisp head lettuce and a leaf lettuce and Blushed Butter Cos is a dense butterhead lettuce.  Both are well suited to salads with your favorite dressing added.

• Prize Choy – An Asian green similar to bok choy and can be substituted as such in the recipe below. Great in a stir fry.

• Radishes – These are the last of this spring’s radishes.  We’re glad to be able to share them with you before they’re gone until the fall.

• Spinach – Though tender enough to eat in salads, you may also want to cook this spinach for variety.

As we head to market today, and our first ever CSA pick-up, we’re very excited to share with you the results of our planning, hard work, and luck.  We spent the winter planning, began sowing flats of seeds for the greenhouse back in February, and then watched the spring rains continually delay our field preparation and planting plans.  Each week that passed made us a bit more nervous that we’d chosen a bad year to start the CSA.  We take the commitment very seriously and worried we wouldn’t be able to pull through.

But it’s June!  And it’s still raining and a little cold for this time of year.  This first CSA share feels momentous both because we’ve spent so much time and effort to bring it to you, and because we lucked out with just enough dry weather to have a variety of harvestable vegetables to share with you.  So the CSA season begins and we’re already looking ahead towards next week and the week after that to make sure the season will be filled with wonderful organic vegetables.  Today though, we’re glad to welcome you to the first day of the rest of your share of the farm!  We hope you’ll enjoy the eating the vegetables and look forward to more.

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Here are a few recipes to get you inspired:

Garlic Scape Pesto

1 ½ cups coarsely chopped garlic scapes or greens, lightly packed

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/3 cup toasted pine nuts

1 to 2 tablespoons water (optional)

Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Combine the garlic scapes or greens, cheese, oil, and nuts in the bowl of a food processor and process until fairly smooth.  Add water as needed to make a spreadable paste.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Yields about 1 cup

Total time: 10 minutes

Moosewood Restaurant New Classics, The Moosewood Collective

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Asian Greens & Spring Vegetables

6 oz snow peas or 8 asparagus spears

4 cups sliced bok choy, or 6 cups rinsed and stemmed fresh spinach leaves

1 cup carrot matchsticks

½ cup daikon matchsticks

Dressing

3 tablespoons dark sesame oil

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 ½ teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

1/3 cup scallions, sliced on an extreme diagonal

1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

Lemon wedges

Bring 1 quart of water to a boil on high heat.  Remove the strings from the snow peas, if using, and blanch for 1-2 minutes.   (Or, for asparagus, snap off the tough stem ends, cut the spears in half on the diagonal, rinse, and simmer until tender, about 7 minutes.)  Remove with a slotted spoon, drain, and set aside.  Blanch the bok choy in the same water for 2 -3 minutes (blanch spinach for 1 minute), then drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, whisk together the sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar. And ginger root.

Toss the bok choy or spinach with half of the dressing and spread on a serving platter.  Toss the rest of the vegetables with the remaining dressing and arrange them on top of the greens.  Sprinkle with the scallions and seasame seeds.

Serve at room temperature decorated with a few lemon wedges.

Serves 4 to 6

Total time: 20 minutes

Moosewood Restaurant New Classics, The Moosewood Collective

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Mixed Greens Frittata

2 cups chopped greens (spinach, collards, Swiss chard, kale etc.)

¾ cup chopped fresh parsley

¼ cup chopped fresh basil

1 ½ teaspoons olive oil

4 eggs, lightly beaten

¼ cup water

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup grated feta, Parmesan, or Cheddar cheese

In a 10-inch ovenproof skillet, stir-fry the greens, parsley, and basil in 1 teaspoon of the oil until wilted and tender.  Transfer the greens to a bowl.  Rinse the skillet and set aside.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, water, and salt and stir in ¼ cup of the cheese.

Lightly oil the skillet with the remaining ½ teaspoon of oil and place it on medium-high heat.  Stir the egg and cheese mixture into the greens and pour into the hot skillet.  Sprinkle the top with the rest of the grated cheese.  Lower the heat to medium-low and cook, without stirring, until the edges are firm and pulling away from the sides of the pan, about 5 minutes.  The frittata should be mostly cooked, but with the top still slightly undercooked.  Place the skillet under the broiler for 3-5 minutes, until the top is firm and beginning to turn golden brown.

Cut into wedges and serve, either directly from the skillet or turned out onto a large plate.

Serves 4

Total time: 30 minutes

Moosewood Restaurant New Classics, The Moosewood Collective

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Pretty Beets & Carrots

1 large raw beet, peeled

1 large carrot, peeled

1 walnut-sized piece of fresh ginger root

2 tablespoons vegetables oil

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

1 garlic clove, minced or pressed

Salt and ground black pepper to taste

¼ cup minced scallions

6 green or red lettuce leaves

Coarsely grate the beet and then the carrot to yield about 1 ½ cups each.  Place in separate bowls and set aside.

Grate the ginger finely and combine it with the oil, vinegar, and garlic.  Toss the beets with half of the dressing and add salt and pepper to taste.  Mix together the scallions, carrots, and the remaining dressing.  Add salt and pepper, if you like.

Arrange the lettuce on a platter, mound the carrot mixture in the center, and spoon the beets around it.

Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Serves 4

Total time: 25 minutes

Moosewood Restaurant New Classics, The Moosewood Collective