Week Two

We so enjoyed delivering our first share last week. Having a CSA has been a dream of ours for years and here we are. We have so wanted to nourish and nurture people with truly good food, nurture and nourish the land with farm practices that add to the health of our ecosystems instead of subtract, and make more clear the connection of faith and justice to the choices we make about everything - especially our food. We want to keep a small CSA so we have a strong relationship with our shareholders and can tailor what we grow to them. And while we may expand in number a small amount, most of our expansion will be in variety - orchard, vine, and bush fruits, grain, milk, cheese, grains, and meat. We want to be diverse - feeling that is the best way to maintain the health of the land, providing more food to fewer people. We are small for a reason, so give us feedback. We will use it to make your baskets better for you each week.

Seeing all those vegetables in the baskets looked almost like art to me - and we hope the food tasted as good as it looked. And those baskets inspired two new members to join our CSA. We are so glad to have you.

The spring plants do not care for this sudden shift to such hot weather. It was a fast change to temperatures that are more like mid-summer than late May. If it keeps up our lettuces and greens won’t last for long. On the other hand, our summer plants are loving the heat and really taking off.

In your basket you will get:

spinach (full shares only)

speckled romaine lettuce heads

looseleaf lettuce

kale (full shares only)

garlic scapes

radishes

shelling peas (full shares only)

strawberries

snow peas

There are not many peas. You will receive a small bag of snow peas. In fact, Ben was for just mixing them in with your salad mix (which is what we do with ours and they are really good) but we decided that some of you might want to toss them in a stirfry or something. So they will be separate and there are only a few.

We will have shelling peas over the next few weeks. Again, there are not a huge amount (although there should be more next week) so you might want to mix them in pasta or something else. Samantha and Lila love to shell them and eat the peas raw. I like to cook them for just a few minutes in a little butter or olive oil and eat them. Even when there are only a few they are so good.

Shelling peas are quite sweet right after they are picked but turn to starch quickly. You might want to plan to eat these as soon as you can. The sooner you eat them, the sweeter they will be. We will do our part by picking them Friday right before you get your baskets.

The other things you may wonder about are garlic scapes. Some of you may never have seen these. After you get over the what-in-the-world-do-I-do-with-these reaction, we think you will love them. They are the flowers and stems that garlic plants send up in the spring. You cut off the top, where the flower bud is. They are delicious chopped into salad or sauteed with almost anything, like you would use onions. We have heard of people roasting them and eating them that way, although we haven’t tried it. Our favorite way to eat a lot of scapes is in garlic scape pesto.

Garlic Scape Pesto

8-10 garlic scapes, top flowery part removed, cut into 1/2 inch slices

1/3 cup nuts (walnuts, pine nuts, or almonds work)

3/4 cup olive oil

1/4 - 1/2 cup grated parmesan

1/2 teaspoon salt

black pepper to taste

Put the scapes and nuts in the bowl of a food processor and whir until combined. Add the oil, cheese, salt, and pepper and process until smooth.

This pesto is terrific tossed with pasta and veggies, on pizza (YUM!), or on chicken or fish.

See you Friday!