In the share this week:
1 bunch gold beets
1 lb red onions
1 lb broccoli or turnips
2 kohlrabi bulbs
2 little gem lettuces
1 bag sugar snap peas
1 bunch curly kale
Thoughts from Farmer Anna:
We all have the first week of shares under our belts now. Just a few technical difficulties early in the week (thank you Tuesday shares for your patience!), but otherwise everthing seemed to work well on our end. We are loving our new pack shed space and much larger cooler this year. It's such a game changer for us because we can start washing veggies before the harvest is completely finished. That means we don't feel quite so rushed and the vegetables make their way into the cooler much faster, which helps preserve their freshness. The pack shed has helped to streamline our share packing process a bit as well, although we are still working around some leftover construction materials from our house build. We'll eventually figure out what we're doing with those materials and have a really nice space for working, but I'm amazed at how well we're doing with the space we've carved out.
We planted a last succession of tomatoes in one of our older hoophouses on Monday. There were a few crazy big weeds and veggie volunteers that needed to come out first (see pic above for the child-sized mustard green plant I pulled!). We are pretty much finished up with our big spring planting push as sweet potatoes went in last Monday and we seeded more carrots on Friday. We'll continue to plant lettuces weekly and will do some more successions of beans, squash, cucumbers and green onions, but we won't have a big planting push again until August when we start many of our fall plantings. Our work between now and the end of July has a strong, predictable rhythm through the week and I find that I can catch some moments to stop working and soak up the summer.
The share this week has lots more tasty spring veggies. The gold beets are looking very nice. I think these would be delicious and beautiful roasted and mixed into a hearty salad with your curly kale. Here's a recipe for ideas:
The broccoli is absolutely delicious! We have eaten it roasted and in a frittata and both were lovely. There are some heads that developed just a bit of yellowing on the florets, but don't let that dissuade you - these are very nice and tasty broccolis! It would be good to eat them up sooner than later though. Hopefully you are finding ways to enjoy the kohlrabi in your share if it is something you haven't tried before. I'm going to be making a curry featuring kohlrabi for our farm lunch tomorrow. Curry is one of my favorite meals to utilize so many of the different veggies we grow here on the farm. It's really just a spiced veggie stew of sorts - not particurly authentic (in fact I recently learned that curry is not really a dish in India - just found in Indian restaurants in other countries like the US and Britain). In any case, it's delicious and typically a crowd pleaser. Here's a recipe that looks good (roasted chickpeas are a texture and flavor win in a dish like this):
The red onions in your share were just harvested last week and are partially cured so it's best to store the in the fridge. However, if you are anything like our household, maybe they'll be gone in a few days anyway so then it wouldn't be a problem to leave them out on the counter :) We do love all of the alliums over here!
Have a great week!
I found a recipe in NYT Cooking that was a Greek-type quiche (think feta cheese and eggs) that had shredded kohlrabi and greens as key ingredients. You can bake in layers of phyllo for an attractive pie but we just ate it like quiche. I was happy to find something that used the greens as well aa the bulb.