Tag: Pacific Northwest

CSA Newsletter – Week 12

Embodied Knowledge & the Art of Noticing

Hello, veggie-lovers! We’ve got an amazing box of peak season Pacific Northwest produce for you this week! August and September are our biggest months. At no other time of year is there this much to harvest, so much work to do, so much to eat! We’re tired all the time, but we’ll sleep later when the plants do. Maybe we’re crazy, but we love it.

Our Mediterranean summers are a marathon of long, hot, dry days. With so much sunlight being captured every day, the crops seem to double in size before our eyes, as do the weeds. We have over a hundred different crops to harvest every week, only when they’re at their best, in their prime, not too young or too old. There are so many things to notice right now, and through exhaustion we must keep our eyes peeled. It’s time to make hay while the sun shines!

To farm is to always be thinking ahead to the next season while keeping your balance as you walk on the ground in front of you. Time changes when you watch plants grow. You experience time at their scale, their frantic scramble to photosynthesize that we follow in our own chaotic choreographed dance around our patch-worked fields.

There is such an art and a science to knowing exactly how to harvest everything at its peak perfection, to know how the crops change throughout the season, it all becomes embodied by those who have spent years honing their craft. Growing vegetables requires a combined mental and physical knowledge that only time and experience can give you. It requires the science of harvest, the engineering of tomato pruning, the mindfulness of weeding, knowledge on par with any complex calculus.

Every single vegetable and fruit that made it into your box was first looked upon by someone who was deciding whether or not it was ready to harvest. As we each make our way through tightly packed rows of plants bursting forth with life and fruit, we take years of experience and embodied knowledge and shove it into a single glance where we ask ourselves—should I pick this? All the while knowing that what is not ready today only awaits our asking of the same question tomorrow. Food is embodied knowledge, a physical bridge that connects us. Our relationships are always embodied in our food.

Best,
LB

Table of Box Contents

• 1 Candy-loupe—Part cantaloupe, part Galia (a green-fleshed cantaloupe from Southeast Asia), this larger cantaloupe is intensely sweet and everything one could want in a melon. If you somehow don’t just devour it all in one sitting sliced up or with a spoon, this is an amazing melon to slice up into a salad with feta and basil, or to have for breakfast in the morning cut in half with yogurt and granola in the center.
• 1 bu. Basil—Although basil is amazing chopped into salads in large quantities, whole leaves and all, pesto really is the bees knees. A true pesto with pine nuts is always lovely, but never feel boxed in when making a pesto! I often blend up whatever nut I have (walnut, almond, not peanut for some reason), and blend it with basil, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic, and parmesan cheese.
• 1 Shallot—We’ve been waiting for these flavor bombs all season! Dried shallots are even more potent like their garlic parent than their fresh-bunched past selves were. Enjoy!
• 1 Sweet Italian Pepper—This week you’ll get either a yellow or a red sweet Italian. On the farm we often eat these sweet treats like apples as is. But they are also delicious sliced thinly into salads, and slaws.
• 1 head Broccoli
• 4 ears Serendipity Sweet Corn
• 1 Green Bell Pepper
• Tomatoes
• Romaine Lettuce
• 1 bu. Carrots
• 2 Willamette Sweet Onions
• 1.5 lb. Potatoes

Recipes

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Pesto Potato Tomato Salad

Adapted from- https://www.lastingredient.com/roasted-tomato-pesto-potato-salad/

Ingredients

• 1-2 Tomatoes, sliced into chunks or thin slices as you prefer
• 2 tbsp Olive Oil
• Salt & Black Pepper
• 2 lbs Potatoes, halved or quartered as needed
• 1/3 cup Pesto https://www.lastingredient.com/fresh-pasta-with-pesto/
  
  
• 1 tbsp Chives, minced

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper.

2. In a glass baking dish, toss quartered tomatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper. Arrange in a single layer. On the other sheet pan, toss the potatoes with the remaining olive oil, salt and
   pepper, and place cut-side down.

3. Roast for 20-25 minutes until the tomatoes have let loose some of their water and are looking golden to a bit charred. Continue roasting the potatoes for an additional 20-25 minutes until they are golden brown and tender when pierced with a paring knife.

4.  In a large bowl, toss the potatoes with the pesto, and gently fold in the tomatoes and chives.

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Broccoli & Caramelized Onion Baked Eggs

Adapted from http://www.cookyourdream.com/2017/07/baked-eggs-with-caramelised-onions.html

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp Olive Oil
• 1/2 Sweet Onion, sliced
• 1/2 Shallot, sliced
• 1 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
• 1/2 head of Broccoli, broken into small pieces
• 2 Eggs
• Salt & freshly ground Pepper

Instructions

1. Heat olive oil in a frying pan, add the onions, cook covered for 5-10 minutes over a medium heat, stirring occasionally.

2. Remove the lid, add balsamic vinegar, season with salt and freshly ground pepper, cook over a high heat for another 5 minutes, stirring often, until caramelized.

3. In the meantime, place the broccoli in a heatproof bowl, pour over boiling water to cover the broccoli completely. Let it stand for 5 minutes, then drain the water.

4. Add the broccoli in the pan. Make two wells and crack in the eggs. Cover with a lid and cook over a medium heat for 5-10 minutes, depending on how runny you like your yolk. Enjoy!

CSA Newsletter – Week 11

On Melons – the Queens of Cucurbitaceae

You’ve got a fully packed August box this week, complete with sweet corn, heirlooms, bell pepper, melons, and so much more. As always, I like to notice when we have multiple members of a plant family present in one box, and though Solanaceae may be the leading star of summer, including such gems in your box this week as heirlooms, peppers, eggplant, potatoes, and cherry tomatoes, Cucurbitaceae, home to melons, cucumbers, and squash, comes in at a close second.

Winter squash is beyond amazing, so dense, creamy, and filling. Cucumbers are so refreshing, so crisp and full of sweet, summer water filtered through the vine. Summer squash are so tender and buttery, so versatile in muffins or on the grill. But, as much as I believe in vegetable equality, let’s be real— melons are the best. Melons mean summer! You don’t do anything to them except impatiently wait for your body to slice them up so that you can finally devour the sweet fruit waiting inside. No cooking. No prep. They’re just perfect. They woke up like that.

This is the side of melons that most people enjoy—the tasty part. Here at the farm, we’re lucky to get to enjoy an entirely different aspect of what it is to bring melons into existence—the fun part! Unlike any other item we grow, harvesting melons is like our farm’s version of a company baseball game.

For those of you who have driven past during melon season, you may have seen the joy that is melon tossing. First, our select melon whisperers go out and harvest all the melons that are perfectly ripe, gently picking each one up for the first time. We’re all used to having to try to tap out a tune on melons at the grocery store in fear of buying a bland one picked before it was ripe, but at our farm our melon whisperers weave through the fields and pick only what is perfectly ripe. They stack the ripe melons in piles to await the great toss.

Because our melons are picked ripe and full of sugar, they are quite fragile to transport. It is for this reason that we take as many as eight people out to a field, stand in a long line from the melon rows to the flatbed truck lined with bins, and we toss melons from one end to the other for hours. It’s super fun!

The melon gets touched for its second time when pulled from the ripe pile and tossed to the next person, and, depending on how far the row is from the truck, another seven people might gently catch and then toss each precious orb. We all talk and laugh as we toss melons in the sun, a task that feels much more like play than work. From harvest to consumption, melons are so precious, thus they receive the utmost care. Only the best for the Queen of Cucurbits. Enjoy!

As always, all my best
—LB

Table of Box Contents

• Watermelon Surprise!—You’ll have to cut open your melon to see what’s inside, whether it be red, yellow, or orange fruit. All our melons proudly bear seeds, as the development of seeds is what triggers the plant to produce more sugars in the fruit. And don’t worry, if you’ve never had an orange or a yellow watermelon and it seems unnatural to you, be assured these melons are as normal as can be! There has long existed a vast diversity of melon colors, shapes & sizes. It’s just the reds that have dominated mainstream grocers.
• 1 bulb Fennel—Be sure to use the bulb as well as the fronds if you can! Thinly slice the bulb raw alongside pork chops, or in a slaw. For those of you who are into brewing kombucha, I highly recommend using fennel fronds in your secondary fermentation process—it’s amazing.
• 1 pint Cherry Tomatoes
• 2 Heirloom Tomatoes—Harvesting our heirloom tomatoes is such a treat. To walk up to a plant and find this giant warped tie-die piece of art, to try to approach it from the right angle with your scissors like a game of Operation so as not to damage the fruit—it’s a joy. We are so lucky!
• 4 ears Serendipity Sweet Corn
• 1 bu. Purple Carrots
• 1 Sweet Colored Bell Pepper
• 1 Eggplant
• 2 Willamette Sweet Onions
• 1 head Red or Green Leaf Lettuce
• 1.5 lb. Nicola Yellow Potatoes

Recipes

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Heirloom Tomato & Fennel Panzanella

Adapted from https://kaleandcaramel.tumblr.com/tomatofennelpanzanella

Ingredients

• 2 large Heirloom Tomatoes, sliced or chunked as you prefer
• 2-3 inch chunk of a nice creamy Feta (I prefer the kind kept in water)
• large handful of Basil leaves, chopped
• 4-inch chunk of Sourdough (or other loaf bread, fresh or day-old, doesn't matter)
• 1/2 large Fennel Bulb, sliced
• a few Fennel fronds
• Olive Oil
• Fennel Seeds, crushed using a mortar and pestle, or simply broken between your fingers
• Sea Salt & Pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Tear the bread into crouton-like chunks and toast in a toaster oven until gently browned.

2. Mix tomatoes, basil, fennel bulb, fronds, and seeds with a good drizzle of olive oil and some sea salt, to taste.

3. When the bread is done toasting, add it into the mix, with more olive oil if
   needed. Plate and top with feta and black pepper as desired. [optional: add raw
   sweet corn]

Print

Baba Ghanoush with Purple Carrots & Bell Pepper

Adapted from https://thefeedfeed.com/becausegb/baba-ghanoush

Ingredients

• 2 roasted Eggplants, or 1 large
• 1-2 heads Garlic
• 1 tbsp Paprika
• 2 tbsp Tahini
• splash of Lemon Juice
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Cut the eggplants in half and score them diagonally. In a bowl mix together whatever herbs you have on hand, such as thyme, rosemary, cumin, salt, pepper and half of the olive oil.

3. Cut the head of garlic in half and place on baking sheet with eggplants. Roast for about 50-60
   minutes. Halfway through check the eggplants and pour the rest of the olive oil over them. 

4. When slightly cooled, scoop the eggplant meat out of the skins and add into the rest of the
   ingredients for the Baba Ghanoush in a blender: garlic, paprika, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, & pepper. Blend until smooth, adjust seasoning if needed. 

5. Serve with roasted or raw multi-colored carrots.  [The purple carrots you have are GORGEOUS sliced in half-lengthwise with bright orange centers. Also serve with raw slices of sweet bell pepper.] Enjoy!