What’s In The Box with Recipe Suggestions
Baby Arugula: While arugula can be a pungent, spicy green, its flavor is more balanced in spring and fall. It pairs well in salads with fall fruit such as apples, pears and citrus. It’s also a good companion to peppers and tomatoes in sandwiches and salads.
Arugula Salad with Pears and Goat Cheese
Red Napa Cabbage: We like these beauties as they signal a change of season to the box contents with their crinkly leaves and vibrant colors. May be used raw in salads or lightly cooked such as in a stir-fry. You could also ferment them as a means of preservation!
Stir-Fried Napa Cabbage with Spicy Garlic Dressing
Orange and/or Purple Carrots: Carrots can be the star of the show, or they can be a subtle contributor to a dish in the background. Adding diced carrots to soups and sauces adds nutrition along with sweetness.
Moroccan Carrot Salad with Roasted Lemon and Parsley
Broccoli Romanesco or Cauliflower or Broccoli: Roasting Cauliflower or Romanesco is a great way to enhance the innate flavor of the vegetable. Consider using this week’s cauliflower or Romanesco to make a tasty bowl of Roasted Cauliflower Soup!
Italian Garlic: A little bit of garlic makes everything taste better!
Crushed Potatoes with Cream and Garlic
Jalapeño Pepper: Look for one large, green jalapeño pepper in your box this week. They are delicious when eaten as a condiment with quesadillas, fish tacos, eggs, etc.
Leeks: Leeks are unique in that we hill them with dirt to keep the lower “shank” portion of the leek white. As such, you need to wash them well before using them as there may be some dirt in between the layers.
Potato Leek Soup with Poblanos and Crispy Bacon
Leek and Goat Cheese Crustless Quiche
Sugar Cube or Canary Melons (not pictured): This will be the last week for melons. Cut them up and enjoy the last taste of summer melons from the farm!
Summer Melon Salad with Honey Lime Dressing
Yellow & Red Onions: It’s best to store onions in a cool, dry location and out of direct sunlight. Both of these varieties are good eaten both raw and cooked.
Grilled Hummus Sandwich with Sautéed Onion
Orange Italian Frying Peppers: The yields on this pepper variety this year are phenomenal! If you don’t have a need for sweet peppers this week, slice them up, put them in a freezer bag and tuck them away for use in the winter. Peppers are one of the easiest vegetables to preserve as you don’t have to cook them first.
Couscous Stuffed Sweet Peppers
Spinach: This week we have a beautiful new variety called Red Tabby Spinach. We think it is too pretty to cook with, but you can certainly do so. Try one of these recipes below or one of the featured recipes this week!
Apple Walnut Spinach Salad With Balsamic Vinaigrette
Spinach and Red Pepper Frittata
Variety of Tomatoes: If you have more than you can eat fresh, consider making a batch of tomato sauce or tomato soup and put it in the freezer.
Marcella Hazen’s Tomato Sauce with Onions and Butter
Sun Orange or Red Grape Tomatoes: The only difference between grape tomatoes and cherry tomatoes is the shape! Thus, you can use them interchangeably in recipes.
Roasted Cherry/Grape Tomato Salsa
Red Seedless Watermelon: Last week for watermelons too! Enjoy this personal sized watermelon and the convenience of our seedless or micro seeded varieties! The micro seeds are edible and small enough they really don’t need to be extracted.
Vegetable Feature: Spinach
Spinach is a crop that grows best in moderate temperatures, thus it does well in the spring and fall. We take a break from planting spinach during the heat of the summer because the soil is too hot to germinate the seeds. This fall we planted our usual variety as well as the beautiful Red Tabby variety you see in your share box this week. It has dark green leaves with bright red veins. That color combination makes a beautiful raw salad. That being said, these Spinach leaves are sturdy enough to dress with thick, creamy dressing. Spinach leaves may also be dressed with a lighter vinaigrette as well or just a simple drizzle of flavorful oil and a squeeze of lemon juice. Spinach salads can be garnished with a wide variety of ingredients including toasted or candied nuts, hard-boiled eggs, croutons, sunflower seeds, lemon zest, crumbled blue cheese or feta cheese, olives, dried fruit, crumbled bacon or chunks of fried tofu. If you are using cooked spinach, you can simply wilt it down in a sauté pan with a little bit of moisture. Be careful not to overcook it or you will lose the bright green color. Once it is wilted down, you can eat it as is or use it as an ingredient in other recipes.
Spinach pairs well with many other ingredients including bacon, butter, cheese, cream, eggs, chives, cumin, curry, ginger, horseradish, lemon, mint, mushrooms, nutmeg, nuts (especially almonds and walnuts), oranges, onions, olives, raisins, sour cream, tomatoes, flavored vinegars.
Short & Sweet Weekly Farm Update
This week we harvested a beautiful variety of spinach called Red Tabby. We hope to have enough to include in CSA boxes this week and next! Let us know what you think of it, we love feedback on new varieties. With our last melon harvest this week, we shifted gears to fall harvests. We are hoping to finish our voluminous winter squash harvest this week. We tuck them away in our greenhouse, all safe and sound from any outside critters that get hungry in the night.
It won’t be too long, and we will be talking about Sweet Potatoes and Rutabagas! It seems the winter/root crops will make their appearance whether we are ready for the weather to change or not.
