Summer CSA Share – #6

Welcome to the 6th share of the Pitchfork & Crow 2021 Summer CSA!  Here’s what’s in the share this week:

  • Salad Mix – a mix of four lettuces
  • Lacinato Kale
  • Broccoli
  • Celery
  • Snap Beans – Just a handful this week. I’m thinking a small batch of quick pickles may do them justice. Or grilling them. Tasty.
  • Cucumbers! – We’ve got green and yellow slicer cucumbers for you to choose from.
  • Zucchini & Summer Squash – All the successions of summer squash are colliding! We’ve got zucchini (green and yellow, yellow straightneck, yellow patty pan, and a new-to-us short zucchini called Mexicana.
  • New Potatoes – These are straight out of the ground, so fresh their skins haven’t hardened. No need to peel them. Not great for storing, we suggest using them up sooner than later and keeping them in the fridge until you do.
  • Beets
  • Torpedo Onions
  • Fresh Garlic – This is uncured garlic, mostly meaning it hasn’t yet had a chance to dry down. You can use it just like cured garlic but it will be moister. Store it out of the sunlight in a cool, drafty spot if possible.
  • Mixed Tomatoes! – They didn’t make it into the photo, but there’s enough for everyone this week!
Harvest day! First new potatoes and we’re into the second succession of summer squash already.

Hello July! It won’t be long before you’re eating corn on the cob weekly and tomatoes on everything. For now we’ll have to be happy with the first cucumbers and new potatoes of the season. We wait all year for those summer treats and July isn’t disappointing. Just a taste of tomatoes and snap beans this week, but we promise there will be more to come!

Tomatoes!

Over the past couple of harvest days I’ve been listening to a book by Mark Bittman called Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal. It’s made for an interesting listen as I’ve gone about the harvesting tasks of gathering your vegetables from the field. Thinking about the history of agriculture in this country and around the world certainly puts things in perspective. It’s easy to get lost in the day to day grind of the work, but there’s purpose here growing food in this small scale way and it’s good to have a written reminder.

A little more transplanting, including a dill/cilantro experiment.

Speaking of the day to day grind, there will be more of the same here on the farm this week. We’ll be transplanting and sowing seeds and cultivating and weeding and irrigating before it’s time to begin harvesting once again. We’ve also got our annual organic inspection on Thursday morning, just in case we didn’t have enough things on the list to do. It’s shaping up to be another productive week.

Enjoy the vegetables and we’ll see you here next week!

Your farmers,
Carri Heisler & Jeff Bramlett

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Here are a few recipes to get you inspired:

Lettuce and Beet Salad with Sour Cream Dressing

  • 2 medium beets (about 8 ounces)
  • 2/3 cup sour cream
  • 2 tablespoons grated onion
  • 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 5 cups (packed) mixed torn lettuces (such as romaine, red leaf, and butter lettuce)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Wrap beets tightly in foil. Bake until tender, about 1 hour. Cool; peel beets. Coarsely shred beets.

Whisk sour cream, onion, vinegar, sugar and mustard in small bowl to blend. Season with salt and pepper. Place lettuces in large bowl. Add dressing and toss to coat. Divide salad among 4 plates. Top each with beets, dividing equally.

From Epicurious.com via Bon Appétit, https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/lettuce-and-beet-salad-with-sour-cream-dressing-846

Old-Fashioned Potato Salad

  • 2 lb equal-size boiling potatoes
  • 3 tablespoons cider vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup chopped celery
  • 1/2 cup chopped white onion
  • 3 large hard-boiled eggs, chopped
  • 1 cup mayonnaise or boiled dressing

Cover potatoes with salted cold water; by 2 inches in a 3-quart saucepan and simmer uncovered until just tender, 15 to 25 minutes, depending on size of potatoes. Drain in a colander and cool slightly.

While potatoes are simmering, whisk together vinegar and salt in a large bowl until salt is dissolved.

When potatoes are just cool enough to handle, peel and cut into 1-inch pieces, adding to vinegar mixture as cut, and toss gently with a rubber spatula to combine. Let cool to room temperature, then add remaining ingredients and salt and pepper to taste and stir gently to combine. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

From Epicurious.com via Gourmet, https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/old-fashioned-potato-salad-106585

Zucchini Cucumber Soup

  1. 1 lb zucchini, chopped
  2. 3/4 lb seedless cucumber (usually plastic-wrapped), peeled and chopped (2 cups)
  3. 1/3 cup chopped sweet onion such as Vidalia
  4. 1/4 cup white-wine vinegar
  5. 1/4 cup water
  6. 1 teaspoon chopped fresh hot green chile
  7. 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
  8. 1 teaspoon ground coriander
  9. 1/2 cup creme fraiche (4 oz)

Purée zucchini, cucumber, onion, vinegar, water, chile, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon coriander in a blender until very smooth.

Whisk remaining 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon coriander into creme fraiche. Serve soup topped with dollops of creme fraiche.

From Epicurious.com via Gourmet, https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/zucchini-cucumber-soup-235460