West Hartford CSA Pickup – June 20th 2013

June 20, 2013 at 9:29 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

If you are a “bet” member and this is your first pickup, welcome! Check out last week’s post by scrolling down for “News from the Farm” and “Storage Tips.”

The sun has finally shined for two days in a row here at Adamah! Your shares were harvested amidst much joy as we all have an exuberant spring in our step and dry socks. The plants look much perkier as well!

Harvest Notes June 20^th 2013

Green Leaf Lettuce Heads Our lettuce heads have generally survived the rains and hail beautifully. Expect them weekly until high summer, when lettuce becomes more bitter due to heat.

Salad Turnips (also called Hakurai Turnips) and Greens It has been a good spring for these juicy and mildly spicy turnips as well. You make find dark marks on the turnip that you can simply cut out. Try them on salad, as a conduit for hummus or spinach dip, roasted, or sauteed. Don’t forget to enjoy the greens raw or cooked.

Lavendar This arromatic herb is great for bringing beauty and sweet smells into your life or for baking. You can dry this lavendar to keep around for years by just laying it out in a well ventilated space for a few weeks. You can enjoy it fresh by putting the bottom of the stems in water. Or, you can try one of http://whatscookingamerica.net/Lavender.htm. One of the Adamah fellows told me this morning the her favorite way to eat popcorn is with ground up lavendar and rosemary

Bok Choi Greens This is a purple variety of bok choi called “vivid choi” that lends itself well to individual leaf harvest. The leaves and stalks are delicious braised or stir-fried. You may notice some flea beetle bites on the leaves. Some say insect bites increase antioxidant amounts. (Read under “Maximizing Antioxidant Intake” on page two of the link for explanation.)

Garlic Scapes Garlic plants send up a flower stalk (the scape) about a month before the bulbs are ready for harvest. We remove the scape so that the plant will put more energy into making a beautiful big bulb. Conveniently, the scape happens to be delicious. It can be used in place of garlic in any recipe or you can look up specific scape recipes like scape pesto.

Young Red Russian Kale These young leaves of kale plants are more tender than fully grown kale – making them perfect for raw salads or sandwich greens as well as all of the delicious cooked recipes we are used to: kale chips, soups, casseroles, stir-fries, frittatas and so on.

Pea Shoots This is our first year growing pea shoots, the young, crisp, mild greens of pea plants, and we are really enjoying their delicate pea-like flavor. They are quick and easy to prepare in a simple stir-fry or in any of these salads and dishes. This would be a great week for a bok choi, pea shoot, and turnip stir-fry with garlic scapes and a little soy sauce, ginger, and rice vinegar.

This week everyone will get to choose either salad mix or spinach:

Salad Mix A triple washed mix of microgreens, baby lettuce, baby beet greens, baby spinach and baby mustards – this is pretty fancy stuff.

or

Spinach This is a perfect week to try making some saag panner, spinach gratin, or a simpler dish of scrambled eggs with spinach. These fully grown spinach leaves are probably best cooked, although they would also make a good salad or sandwich topper.