Keeping It Real…plus CSA & Mkts for 7.7.2018

July and August are trying times around here. It’s hot. The work is hard and demanding. The plants constantly cry for attention. What does one do?

Get goofy, apparently.
And make really delicious food.
 
Both things keep us grounded. They both remind us that the most difficult times don’t last forever, and they help us keep things in perspective. So what if yet another bed of Arugula died? It’s not the end of the world. And if you laugh hard enough, you forget about the dripping sweat and the salty-crusted sweat for a little while. And after the vegetables are cooled off in refrigeration, crisp salads and pickles are the reminders about why we do this, and the rewards for the work. At least, that’s what keeps things real for most of Monday through Friday. CSA members and customers that get our vegetables on Wednesdays are our other dose of real gratitude, and our CSA members and market customers that we get to see on Saturdays are the dose of gratitude that propel us back into the start of the next week.

See below for some delicious recipe suggestions, and we’ll see you at the markets (or our farmstand) this weekend. Thanks for eating what July has to offer!

Saturday’s Farm Share will likely include: 
Salad Mix, Lettuce, Red Onions, Garlic, Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Summer Squash, Mini Cabbage, and a small bunch of Chard.

Vegetable Notes & Recipe Suggestions…also cataloged on our Recipe Page and see our Pinterest Page  
Eggplant – {in boxes at Perk! today} This is a commonly misunderstood vegetable. Meaning, many don’t understand how to best enjoy it. All pick up locations will be getting some eggplant over the next two months, but not a lot. We don’t grow very much of it because we’ve seen it to be not as popular as other vegetables, and we grow untraditional varieties that we have found to be most delicious. It doesn’t have a strong flavor on its own, so combining it with the right sauce or spices is critical. One of our amazing work-share members made this Baba Ganoush recipe for us last week with our eggplant. It is garlicky and delicious, and you can adjust the garlic up or down according to your preference. Some of our eggplant are miniature varieties. Slice them in half length-wise and roast or grill. Then scoop out the cooked innards and process into this dip. Pro tip: Kids will often eat vegetables that are made into a dip! See this Baba Ganoush recipe for instructions about how to broil rounds of eggplant instead of grilling it. You don’t need to over think this. Just get the eggplant “meat” cooked, then blend it with tahini and other ingredients to make a crowd-pleasing dip. We also love eggplant roasted (in slices of our round variety, or halved miniature eggplants) and then topped with either Balsamic Glaze or Tahini Sauce.
Summer Squash – Yellow, Golden, or Light Green, our summer squash is great cooked OR RAW! This Summer Squash and Red Quinoa Salad with Walnuts recipe has the squash wilted in a bowl with salt, but not cooked, and comes highly recommended by a CSA member. We also love a big bowl of diced raw vegetables, including summer squash, mixed with a Tahini Dressing. Seriously, chop up any and all vegetables raw, except we don’t like raw eggplant, but some people do. Then pour that dressing over it. If you chop the veggies really small, you may fool your children into eating squash even if they are currently protesting it. (This is what happened at our house last night.) This is sort of like this Diced Vegetable Salad recipe, except that recipe calls for radishes and olives. See our version in the picture above with the happy kid face.
Onions – If you don’t naturally use them in any-old-dish during the week like we do, you can Pickle Onions and then keep them in the fridge to toss on top of sandwiches, salads, or anything of your choosing. Pickled Red Onions are great (this week’s share includes Red Onions) but we also love picking white and yellow onions, which you will get in future weeks.
Lettuce – Our family prefers our Lettuce Mix (rather than our “Salad Mix”) for Taco Salad and Tacos. It also works great for making Lettuce Boats, in which we put the above diced veg salad.
Tomatoes – These are great in the recipes listed above, and we also love making what we call Tomato Relish. We dice up Tomatoes & Garlic (and Peppers if we have them) and toss in a bowl with sea salt and a drizzle of olive oil. (Peppers are just starting to ripen! You will get them soon.) It looks like the red and orange dish above, and we eat it as a side dish or a green salad topping.
Cabbage – We made this sauce part of this Asian Slaw this week and mixed it with just our Cabbage, topped with pan-fried tofu and Peanut Sauce, plus diced Cucumbers on the side that were tossed with just salt and pepper. (The Peanut Sauce we made by just mixing peanut butter with the leftover Asian Slaw dressing above, as it made more than we needed for our head of cabbage.)It was one of the most delicious dinners we felt like we’d had in a while!
Rainbow Chard – We are making tasty raw salads like this Kale Chard Chicken and Feta Salad. You can sub other protein for the chicken. Walnuts and feta make almost any salad better around our house.

STORAGE TIPS – 
Garlic – Garlic prefers dry and dark. It’s best kept in a mesh bag or basket in a dark pantry. But the Farm Share will include a bulb each week for the next few weeks, so you don’t need to store each bulb for very long.
Cucumbers & Summer Squash – Keep refrigerated and dry in a container, perhaps with a towel to absorb any liquid as they “sweat.” The smaller and more thin-skinned the cucumber, the sooner it will get puckery.
Bunched Greens (like Kale and Chard) – Keep refrigerated in a sealed bag or container.
Bagged Greens – Keep refrigerated in the bag in which we pack them.
Cabbage – They can handle being kept loose in the fridge, or in a bag or container.
Bulb Onions – We are now giving you onions that we have dried. You can keep them in the fridge but they prefer a cool, dry, dark pantry. As long as you use them soonish, you can also just keep them on the counter.
Eggplant – These can handle being at room temp for a couple of days, and they can handle fridge temp. They don’t have a very long shelf life, so use within a few days of receiving.
Tomatoes – Keep at room temperature. Refrigeration compromises their flavor and texture.
Our harvest for Saturday’s farmers’ markets will include: