What’s In The Box with Recipe Suggestions
Baby Arugula: This isa tasty salad green by itself or combined with lettuce, spinach, etc. It pairs well with cheese, apples, pears, olives, nuts, salty cured meats and tangy vinegar. You can also wilt it into pasta and egg dishes.
Arugula Salad with Parmesan, Lemon and Olive Oil
15-minute Thin Crust Pizza with Arugula & Hot Honey
Asparagus: Our production is down this week due to the cool weekend and chilly nights we’ve had recently. This week’s boxes contain a one-pound bunch. Store it in the refrigerator with the base in a glass of water or wrapped in a moist towel to keep it fresh.
Cheesy Baked Asparagus with Gruyere Cheese, Garlic & Bacon
Sheet Pan 30-Minute Sticky Apricot Chicken and Asparagus
Blossoming Chives: Still boasting a powerful onion flavor, this week some of the chives are starting to put out purple blossoms. The blossoms are also edible and make a beautiful and delicious addition to soups, salads and sandwiches.
Honey and Chive Blossom Vinaigrette
Green Garlic: Green garlic is immature garlic that resembles a green onion. Both the white portion as well as the green leaves are edible and offer a bright garlic flavor. Green garlic has flat leaves/green tops while green onions or scallions have round tops. Use it anywhere you would use a clove of garlic or green onions. Store in a plastic bag in your vegetable drawer.
Green Garlic Pesto with Radishes and Jammy Eggs
Herb Roasted Chicken with Asparagus & Green Garlic
Hon Tsai Tai: This is not a mainstream green that you are likely to find in the grocery store, but it holds an important place in our spring vegetable lineup! It is in the same family as bok choi, but it differs in that it produces an edible flower stalk. The leaves and stems are often tender enough to be eaten raw, but you may also use it as a cooking green in any recipe that may call for bok choi.
Spring Greens Pasta with Greens & Green Garlic Pesto
Hon Tsai Tai and Shiitake Potstickers
Hon Tsai Tai Salad with Spicy Tahini Ginger Sauce
Horseradish Whips: We packed a ¼-pound portion for you in a clear resealable bag. These thin pieces are called “whips” and grow off the main root. Horseradish stores for a long time, so just keep it in the bag and store it in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it!
Parsnip Latkes with Apple Chutney and Horseradish Yogurt
Horseradish Cream Sauce on Charred Asparagus
Mini Green and Red Romaine Lettuce: We grew this mini romaine lettuce in our tunnel greenhouse so we could have head lettuce ahead of the spring head lettuce we’re growing in the field. Turn this into a salad, use the individual leaves in lettuce wraps or simply dunk them into your favorite salad dressing for a super simple and quick snack!
Nettles: This green is also called “Stinging Nettles” due to the “stingers” they have on their stems that can cause skin irritation if handled before they are cooked. For this reason, we have packed the nettles in a clear plastic bag. Before you open the bag, we encourage you to read our previous blog post for important information about how to handle and prepare nettles. Once nettles are cooked, the sting goes away and you can handle them with bare hands. They are packed with nutrients and are very flavorful.
Nettle & Lemon Cupcakes with Lavendar Icing
Savory Nettles and Ricotta Pie
Egyptian Walking Onions: This is an overwintered multiplier onion. It’s called a “walking” onion because it forms a “set” on top that makes the green top so heavy it falls over, thereby propagating itself and “walking,”. These onions have rounded leaves/ tops while green garlic has flat tops! This is a flavorful onion, so be sure to use all of it from the base to the green tops.
Overwintered Parsnips: While we harvest most of our parsnips in the fall, we always leave some in the field over the winter and dig them in the spring. One way they are able to survive the winter is by increasing natural sugars which act as antifreeze. The side benefit of this adaptation is they are super sweet and delicious! These parsnips may have small browning spots on them, but don’t worry, those blemishes are only skin deep.
Parsnip, Lemon & Poppy Seed Muffins with Lemon Drizzle
Red Radishes: Spring radishes are delicious simply dipped in butter and salt. You could also take that concept one step further by adding some good quality bread to turn it into a radish sandwich. Don’t forget to use the green tops too!
Upside-Down Puff Pastry Radish Tarts
Rhubarb: Our Rhubarb field is just starting so this week’s box contains a small amount of rhubarb, but enough to enjoy! If you don’t want to use it fresh, dice it up and put it in a freezer bag. You can successfully freeze raw rhubarb which may be used later in the year in baked goods, sauces, drinks, etc.
Roast Chicken with Rhubarb Butter & Asparagus
Salad Mix: Salad mix is a beautiful blend of baby lettuce and greens. It’s a delicate item and will have the longest shelf life if you keep it cold! It is full of delicate greens, so best to serve with a light dressing.
25 Easy Salad Dressing Recipes
Fresh Spring Rolls with Pork, Mango and Mesclun
Sorrel: This is the bunched green that is lighter in color and has arrow-shaped leaves. Sorrel is a tangy green that adds bright flavor to raw salads, smoothies, etc. It can also be cooked and is unique in that it literally melts into liquid when it is heated, such as in soups and sauces. It also changes color from bright green to olive green, which is totally normal. Use it in soups and sauces.
Potato Salad with Sorrel Dressing
Overwintered Spinach: This is the last of our overwintered spinach and we knew it wouldn’t last long in the heat. We encourage you to use it within a few days of receiving it. You may eat this spinach raw, but it’s also a great choice for cooking since it is thicker that newly grown spinach!
Vegetable Feature: Red Radishes
Radishes are one of the oldest cultivated plant foods. There are two classifications of radishes – ‘Table’ or ‘Spring’ radishes and ‘Storage’ radishes. Table radishes are one of the first crops we plant in the spring, with harvest just 4 to 6 weeks later. Green top red radishes are a very popular and well-loved type that we grow for both CSA and Wholesale accounts. They are tender with thin skin and are meant to be eaten within a week or so after they are harvested. We actually plant them all throughout the summer and into the early part of the fall.
The other type of radishes we grow are storage radishes which include daikon, Black Spanish and beauty heart radishes. Winter radishes are sturdier, with a longer growing season, thicker skin and more dense flesh and they store very well. You’ll be receiving some of these varieties in some of the last boxes of the season.
Radishes are eaten extensively worldwide. Often, they are pickled, cured, dried or fermented to preserve them. Historical reports date back to 2000 BC where radishes are thought to have been included in the daily ration, along with onions and garlic, for the people building the Egyptian pyramids. Radishes are a good source of vitamins A, C and B6 as well as magnesium, calcium and potassium. In traditional Chinese medicine, radishes are used to promote digestion, break down mucus, soothe headaches and heal laryngitis. They are beneficial in helping to cleanse and detoxify the body and it is thought that they help prevent viral infections, such as colds and the flu, when consumed regularly.
Radishes may be eaten raw, pickled, cured and may be cooked. When cooked, either sautéed, stir-fried, braised or roasted, radishes lose their peppery flavor and become mild and slightly sweet in flavor. If you are one that shies away from radishes because you are still learning to like their peppery bite, consider cooking them. Don’t forget to eat the radish greens as well as they are packed full of nutrients! Radish greens may be added to stir-fries, simply sautéed alone or with other greens and dressed with salt and a splash of vinegar. They are often incorporated into soups and can also be eaten raw in salads. Quick pickled radishes make a nice condiment to enjoy on tacos, alongside grain dishes, lentils, beans or layered onto a sandwich.
We hope you will look at radishes with a new set of eyes and take advantage of all they have to offer to your diet and your health.
Farm Update
This week has been a crazy one for our crew! With both meat and regular CSA boxes going out this week the packing shed has been what we refer to as organized chaos, and we are ending the day today with a cleaned up/organized freezer and our Thursday CSA boxes packed and ready for delivery. Another well deserved kudos to our team, we could not do this without all team members doing their part.
Rafael and the field team have been equally busy with more planting, transplanting, cultivating and now irrigation too! We had a little rain on Monday, and when I say a little, I mean barely enough to wet the dirt. With luck, we will receive that much rain that we need this weekend, but the forecast changes each day!
The office staff has their hands full too! With all the order processing, CSA scheduling, and all the little details that make for a seamless CSA delivery (including the newsletters and recipes) we haven’t had much time to plan for the Strawberry Day event at the farm. Since we are changing the event to a Saturday event, we want to know if there are other ideas that you want to see when you visit the farm. We have thrown out lots of ideas internally (including maybe a morning fun run to our Hammel Farm), but what so you want to see/do? Email us at csa@harmonyvalleyfarm.com with your suggestions.
