Farm Share...Week 13
Super nice share this week.... a little bit of lots of different stuff! Summer produce is really here. Harvested the first ripe melons, but not enough to put in the farm share yet...maybe next week, if not the week after. Hot weather is back! I just went and jumped in Goss Lake after a warm day on the farm. I am very happy to say we have finally gotten through all the moldy strawberry beds since the rain. It took a long time to go through all the beds twice and remove any bad fruit from the field, but we have finally finished the nasty job so now picking the strawberries is so much easier! Some of you may know that I drive the school bus for South Whidbey School District, so this is my last week of summer vacation! I am just a substitute, so it's hardly a full time gig, but it does make things more complicated planning around my school bus shifts. Here's what's in the share:
Cherry tomatoes- another pint of our delicious sungold and sweet baby girl cherry tomatoes. Easy to use up in salads, pastas or snacking.
Basil- goes great with the cherry tomatoes! Take a small, thin piece of toasted bread or a good cracker, put on a slice of mozzarella, a basil leaf, a cherry tomato sliced in half, and a bit of balsamic vinaiger and you have a delicious snack.
Tonda onion- one GIGANTIC red tonda onion. We were going to do two, but some folks at the farmer's market have been saying they just wanted one onion and we thought you guys may feel the same. Tonda means "top" in Italian (like the toy that you spin) as these are shaped like a top. According to our friend Georgie, there was some crazy festival of insanity in Italy specifically to celebrate this onion variety!
Summer squash- the squash plans got hit pretty hard by the rain and are suffering from some powdery mildew on their leaves. I meant to do a later planting of squash for September, but somehow misplaced all the seeds....sooooo...this could be one of the last time zucchini is in your share. Then again, maybe not. The plants that survived actually appear to be recovering a bit, and the squash they are producing is still great.
Fennel- fennel bulbs are in the share for the second time. i'm guessing a few folks may have some parsley and cabbage left in the fridge from last week's share, so you can put it to good use in this fennel slaw, along with some of the tonda onion from this week's:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Fennel-Slaw-232320
if you DON'T have cabbage and parsley, or the licorice flavor is too strong for you raw, try this:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Braised-Fennel-230997
or just cut them in half, brush with olive oil and throw them on the grill!
Carrots- more carrots! i was worried a few weeks ago about whether we'd have enough carrots for the Fall, but our new carrot beds are fantastic so i'm not worried anymore. we should be able to keep em coming over the next few months.
Lettuce- nice head of our crisp green leaf lettuce. hope everyone is keeping up with the lettuce...let me know if you think there's been too much in your share.
Baby kale- we are thinning out our Winter kale plants, and that gives us these nice smaller sized bunches of young kale leaves. Here's a great looking recipe for beef and kale tacos! you can use your carrots in this recipe too.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Beef-and-Kale-Tacos-51207630
Runner beans- I told you there were a lot of things in this share! the runner beans are very nice right now and I wanted to make sure to get them in a share before it's too late. you can basically use them interchangeably with green beans in any recipe, you might just want to cut them up into smaller pieces first. they are very popular in England and the British Isles, and many folks from across the pond have been excited to see them growing at Ebb Tide. they grow 7 feet tall on the big trellis you can see from the farm stand, and have beautiful red flowers. here's a recipe from, where else?, the bbc:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4718/runner-bean-and-prosciutto-pasta
Enjoy the veggies and thanks as always for supporting the farm! Sorry about the remarkably inconsistent capitalization in this blog post.
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