2007 CSA Week 7

News from Windy Willow Farm: 2007 Week 7

This week’s share includes:
Bag of spinach
1 head romaine lettuce
1 head green leaf lettuce
1 Qt snow peas – These great peas have really turned up the heat, with their production increasing dramatically with the recent weather. Enjoy them! Please return my quarts and pints if you haven’t already- we lost our local supplier for these items, making repurchase a challenge.
4 Heads Broccoli – It’s a lot of broccoli, I know, but broccoli is not a crop that holds well in the field. The moment it’s ready, you’ve got to start cutting. There is not a lot of time between the beginning and end of the harvest. If there’s more than you can use fresh, it freezes perfectly. We cut it up into medium-sized florettes and drop into boiling water for 2 minutes. Follow with a cold water bath, pat dry and pack into bags. It’s our kids’ favorite vegetable, and we put up a hundred or so heads every year! If this just whets your appetite for broccoli, let me know, we’ve got more coming.
1 bunch beets – one of our “staple” crops, this vegetable is great from head to toe. Our favorite method of cooking the roots (bulbs) is to scrub the dirt off, slice in the food processor, along with lots of garlic, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, and seal in a foil package (use 2 layers). Make sure the package is flat (cooks faster and more even) and lay it on the grill for 30-45 minutes, turning once. The garlic melts into the beets, which develop a wonderfully sweet, earthy flavor. We don’t even notice the skins. We also freeze lots of beets after cooking this way as well. I’ll be passing along some beet greens recipes as well in the coming weeks.
2 zucchini
1 bunch baby carrots – These are baby carrots by pedigree: they only grow about 4 inches long. As they mature, they will gain in width, but will never get longer. I like them because they are sweet and early, and are easy to harvest without digging. Don’t even bother scraping or peeling them, just scrub the dirt off of them.
3 bulbs kohlrabi
1 Asian Eggplant – It’s a funny looking eggplant, but it’s supposed to taste great (I haven’t even sampled one yet!). It’s about 2 weeks earlier than other eggplants and the plants are big and beautiful, purple-tinged. We haven’t had great eggplant years in the past several, so I’m excited to include these in the share.

Best guess for next week’s share: Yellow squash, zucchini, sun gold tomatoes, cucumbers, Swiss chard. Don’t hold me to it!

“Summer has officially started!” declared Mark early this morning as he munched on his first Sun Gold tomato in the foggy, pre-dawn garden. The fog was so thick, we couldn’t see the occasional car passing on the road, only hear them drive by. The third-inch of rain we received yesterday was enough to dampen the soil, but a nice, long soaking is needed for the garden. We do use irrigation to water the main crops, but most of our veggies are grown without additional water. We also enjoyed our first raspberries of the season, with Sarah taking the lead in stripping the bushes bare of the few ripe berries. The branches are loaded with unripe berries, so we hope to be enjoying the harvest soon. We’ll ask Sarah to save some for you!

We hope you enjoyed your July 4th holiday. We used the time to install our patio, on the west side of the house. The work went quickly, with 18-inch pavers. But those big pavers were heavy, about 40 pounds each. We’ve been planning a deck or patio in that spot ever since we rebuilt the house, in 2000, so it’s nice to see our plans finally come to fruition. Check it out when you get a chance and let us know what you think of our red and gray design. I’m a bit on the fence with it, being much brighter red on paper than in person! It’ll probably take a while to get used to it. We look forward to enjoying the beautiful sunsets on our new patio. We also have gardens planned for the perimeter.

Tuesday I was lucky enough to have several of the neighborhood kids here as mothers’ helpers while I rototilled the orchard garden. (This year the orchard garden is home to our garlic, sweet corn, third plantings of peas, beans and lettuce mix, second plantings of squash… and other crops I’m forgetting right now). However, I’m concerned about the slow rate of growth of these crops, partially due to lack of rain and partially due to low fertility. We will apply our organic fish emulsion fertilizer in hopes of jump-starting these plants, but it may be too late for the early corn. This crop is knee high (as it should be, “by the 4th of July), but it is tasselling already. We’ll keep a close eye and report back on the results after fertilizer application.

Each year we try to schedule a CSA gathering, including a picnic, bonfire or both. This year I’d like to propose a joint picnic and bonfire, starting with a potluck dinner around 4 or 5, moving to the bonfire area around 7 for dessert. The fall is the perfect bonfire time, when the evenings are cool enough to sit around a fire without being too hot. Let me know what you think of this idea and Saturday evenings in late September you may be available.

Thanks for your kind support,
Gwen, Mark, Sarah and Jason
© Gwen Hyde 2007


Broccoli Soup with Garlic and Olive Oil
2 bunches broccoli (about 3 pounds)
1/2 cup olive oil
8 cloves garlic, sliced (this sounds like a lot, but it mellows beautifully with slow-cooking)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried
6 cups good-quality vegetable broth
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
Toasted slices of French bread, for serving
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, optional, for serving

1. Cut off the broccoli florets and chop them. Trim off the bottom 2 inches of each stem, peel them, and thinly slice. Combine the broccoli, oil, garlic, thyme, broth, wine, and lemon juice in a slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW for 5 to 6 hours.
2. Puree the soup with a handheld immersion blender or transfer to a food processor or blender and puree in batches. Season with salt and pepper. Serve in bowls, passing the toast and Parmesan cheese.
Serves 6.


Spicy Eggplant and Snow Peas
½ pound snow peas, trimmed
4 tablespoons hatcho miso
3 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon mild-flavored honey
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 medium-sized eggplant, peeled and diced small
2 tablespoons safflower or vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced or grated
fresh ginger
8 green onions, both white part and green, sliced
½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes, or 1 small dried red pepper, crumbled, seeds removed

1. Steam the peas for 5 to 10 minutes, to taste. Refresh under cold water and set aside.
2. In a small bowl mix together the miso, water, honey, and sesame oil. Set aside.
3. Heat the oil in a wok or a large, heavy-bottomed frying pan and add the eggplant. Sauté for 5 minutes, stirring. Add the garlic and ginger and sauté another 10 minutes, stirring. Add the miso mixture and continue to stir-fry for another 3 to 5 minutes, then add the onions and pepper flakes or crumbled pepper and cook, stirring, until the onions and eggplant are tender. If necessary, add a little more oil or 2 to 3 tablespoons water. Add the snow peas, toss together well, head through, and serve over hot, cooked grains.

Pasta Primavera
(This has a lot of ingredients, but it sounds great, and most of the vegetables are included in this week’s share!)
1 cup sliced zucchini
1 cup sliced broccoli
1 1/2 cups snow peas
1 cup baby peas
6 asparagus spears, sliced
10 white mushrooms, sliced
1 heaping tablespoon salt, preferable kosher
1 pound fettuccini
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
5 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
2 tomatoes, coarsely chopped

1. Fit a steamer basket into a large pot. Add a small amount of water to the pot and bring to a boil. Place the zucchini, broccoli, snow peas, baby peas, asparagus, and mushrooms in the steamer basket, cover, and steam until tender, about 3 minutes. Rinse the vegetables under cold water and allow to drain.
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the salt and the fettuccini. Cook until al dente.
3. Meanwhile, in a large sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat. Ad the pine nuts and garlic and cook, stirring, until they begin to turn golden, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil, and then the steamed vegetables. Next add the parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Cook until all the vegetables are heated through, 2 to 3 minutes.
4. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauté pan. Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano, butter, cream, and basil, and heat thoroughly. Toss, then scatter the tomatoes on top. Serve immediately.
Serves 6.