Showing posts with label fresh garlic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fresh garlic. Show all posts

Monday, August 15, 2011

This Week's Share-Garlic and the Effects of a Whole Lot of Rain

All of a sudden its feeling like monsoon season. We have had a lot of rain at the farm, and unfortunately the strength and volume at which it has been coming down is not good for tomatoes. When tomatoes (and sometimes melons) get a sudden deluge of water then tend to split. See picture below.
I manged to pick a bunch of the larger red and yellow tomatoes for Monday's share before the rain really started coming down. However, I am afraid Wednesday's share will be lacking in slicing tomatoes--whereas Mondays share will be minus the cherry tomatoes. Luckily the rain (keep my fingers crossed) has not effected much else, and in fact is great for the fall greens that were recently planted.

This weeks share includes:
Potatoes (red and fingerling)
Melons
Carrots
Eggplant
Cucumbers
Summer Squash
Tomatoes (just a less than last week, especially on wednesday)
Peppers
and the first of the cured Garlic
Parsley, Mint and Tomatillos


One note about the melons, all this rain increases the potential contamination of the melons from the soil (actually you will notice all the vegetables are muddier)-cut melon left at room temperature has the potential to harbor food born illness--click here for the Livestrong guide to safely preparing melon.

If you starting to get a little sick of this CSA share line up, next week will be a little different with some winter squash, cooking greens, and a few more new items. In the meantime here are two great recipe ideas for this weeks share.

Parsley and Garlic Roasted Fingerlings

Roasted Eggplant and Tomatoes with Tangy Cucumber Yogurt

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

This Week's Share-Bitter Greens, Fresh Garlic and Baby Carrots

This week's share includes:

Snap Peas
Leaf Lettuce (starting to have a bit of a bite)
Baby Carrots
Bulb Fennel
Italian Dandelion
Frisee Endive
Fresh Garlic


Bitter greens like the Italian Dandelion and the Frisee in this week's share might be something new to you. Their "bite" can be tempered with a little heat from either braising or a warm salad dressing; and consequently are a great base to a "wilted" salad. Their strong taste pairs well with nuts, dried fruit, and flavorful cheese like blue, a sharp chevre, and parmigiano. Their cleansing bitterness is also well suited to bacon. One of my favorite salads is frisee, blue cheese and bacon.

Speaking of strong and pungent, the share this week also includes fresh garlic. This garlic has just been dug from the ground and has not yet been cured. Curing mellows the flavor of garlic, so this garlic is HOT. It also still contains a bit of water, so it lends itself to roasting, which will mellow the heat and become extra creamy because of the moisture still in the cloves. Click here for some roasted garlic recipes (I like this link for its vampire references, for all you True Blood fans out there).

This week's share is not all bite, on the sweeter (but very flavorful) side are the last of the snap peas, the baby carrots and also the last of the fennel until the fall. Enjoy the share and let me know if you have discovered any new recipes for the items mentioned above.