What’s In The Box with Recipe Suggestions
Green Beans: Looking for a different way to enjoy green beans? Try including them in a summer salad such as pasta salad or potato salad. Links to several recipe suggestions may be found in this week’s Cooking with the Box article.
Italian Potato Salad with Green Beans and Tomatoes
Summer Succotash Salad with Orzo Pasta
Orange Carrots: These carrots are sweet, crunchy, and full of flavor. They’re delicious fresh for a snack, but roasting makes them even sweeter. They’re one of those vegetables that’s always good to have around.
Green and/or Silver Slicer Cucumbers: “Cool as a Cucumber!” Cucumbers are nature’s way of keeping us hydrated during the heat of the summer. Add thin slices of cucumber to your ice water along with a squeeze of lemon or lime for some refreshing summer hydration!
Edamame: If you’ve never tried fresh edamame, this is the perfect week! Edamame is one of our crew’s favorite summer vegetables! They’re fresh, crunchy, and super easy to cook. We simply boil the pods, add a little Tajín and lemon juice, or just lemon and salt, and enjoy them while they’re still warm. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do! You can read more about Edamame in our Vegetable Gallery portion of the website.
Crispy Parmesan Garlic Edamame
Porcelain Garlic: Fresh garlic makes almost every meal taste better! The flavor is rich and sweet. Keep it in a cool, dry place and use it in all your favorite recipes. Similar to cooking onions, the flavor of garlic becomes more mellow and sweet when cooked.
Roasted Tomato & Garlic Risotto
Red and Yellow Onions: The sulfur compounds that give onions their distinctive “onion flavor” are also responsible for making you cry when cutting them! As the onion is cut, the sulfur compounds volatilize into the air and can irritate your eyes. The process of cooking onions releases more of these compounds while concentrating the sugars which results in mild, sweet onion goodness.
Green Bell Pepper: This variety is called Ace. These peppers add beautiful color and fresh flavor to any meal. You can grill, stuff, or sliced them into salads for a little crunch.
Green Bell Pepper Yogurt Curry
Italian Frying Peppers: Transform this week’s selection of peppers into a culinary masterpiece for yourself or your family. These sweet peppers are long and slender with a pointed tip. They are excellent for roasting and grilling but are also a wonderful option to eat raw. Here are some recipes for you to explore.
Carola Potatoes: Carola potatoes have thin, tender gold skin and gold flesh. They are considered waxy, meaning they are best suited for roasting, pan-frying or adding to soups & stews, or you can turn them into potato salad.
Extraordinary Marinated & Roasted Chicken, Potatoes & Chickpeas
Sweet Corn: Remember to keep your sweet corn cold to preserve the natural sugars so it is truly sweet corn! If you are looking for a simple, easy way to cook sweet corn, here’s an option to try. Remove the husk and silks from the ear and place the ears on a baking sheet. Bake in a 350-375°F oven for about 10 minutes or until the corn changes to bright yellow and the kernels are tender. You can either serve it as corn on the cob or remove the kernels from the ear with a paring knife.
Corn & Zucchini Orzo Salad with Goat Cheese
Tomatillos: Tomatillos are the round, green vegetable enclosed in a green husk. Before using them, remove the husk and wash the green fruit inside. Eat them raw or cook them in salsas, sauces, soup, salad, etc.
Tomatoes Small: We’re finally starting to see more tomatoes ripening and we had enough for a full pint in every box! You will receive one of three varieties including Sun Orange, Red Grape, or Chocolate Sprinkles. Read more about this amazing Tomatoes in our vegetable feature this week.
Basil Chicken Saltimbocca with Tomatoes
Burst Tomato Galette with Corn & Zucchini
Variety of Tomatoes: The first of our assorted varieties of larger tomatoes are also starting to ripen. This week’s bag is just a little taste of more to come very soon! Store tomatoes at room temperature and monitor for ripeness. Read more about this amazing Tomatoes in our vegetable feature this week.
50 Fresh Tomato Recipes to Make All Summer Long
Green and/or Italian and/or Yellow Scallopini Squash: Incorporate zucchini into lasagna. One option is to use larger zucchini to make “lasagna” noodles by cutting lengthwise into thin sheets. Alternatively, add shredded zucchini to the cheese portion of traditional lasagna.
Zucchini Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Vegetable Feature: Tomatoes
While technically a fruit, tomatoes are likely one of the most well-known “vegetables.” They find their way into so many different uses ranging from condiments such as ketchup, salsa and chili sauce to salads, soups, sauces and as a base flavor in meat dishes, stocks and more. One sentence is not enough room to describe the vast array of ways tomatoes can be used, so even if you aren’t a tomato lover, we are sure there are a few ways you can put these to use in your kitchen!
There are literally hundreds of varieties of tomatoes, so deciding which ones to plant can be overwhelming! Over the years we’ve trialed many different varieties of tomatoes, which are not exactly the easiest crop to grow in our valley. One of the most important characteristics we look for is disease resistance. If we have a wet year, leaf disease can be a very big problem and if the plant dies due to disease, it doesn’t matter how good the tomato may have been—we’ll never be able to harvest them! We use a stake-and-tie method for our tomatoes where we weave twine around the main stem and vines as the plants grow to keep the tomato plant upright and the fruit off the ground. It’s a labor-intensive system, but it helps the foliage dry out faster to help with disease prevention.
The next important characteristic we look for is flavor. We look for varieties that have a good balance of acidity and sweetness as well as good tomato flavor. If you’re wondering what “good tomato flavor” is, consider those tomatoes you get on sandwiches and salads in the middle of winter that are shipped in from the other side of the country. Those tomatoes are bred to withstand shipping, but if you really evaluate their flavor you’ll find they really don’t have any flavor! So yes, we look for tomatoes that taste like tomatoes! Many people are drawn to heirloom tomato varieties, however many of the heirlooms we’ve tried just don’t have the disease resistance we need. We do appreciate the flavor of many heirlooms, so we’ve sought out improved heirloom varieties as well as more disease resistant hybrids that feature the heirloom flavor with more modern hybrid characteristics which make them more appropriate for our growing situation.
It’s important to store tomatoes properly and keep a watchful eye on them. If they are a little on the green side and need time to fully ripen, it’s best to store them at room temperature. Check them daily and, if you see any spots or other signs of deterioration, eat them sooner than later, taking care to remove the affected area of the tomato. Once fully ripe, it’s best to eat them or store them in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use them. The flavor of tomatoes will be at its best eaten at room temperature. While a day or two in a cold environment will likely not impact on the tomato, longer storage in the refrigerator at temperatures less than 45-50°F may negatively impact both flavor and texture.
Aside from eating them fresh, there are many ways to preserve tomatoes for later use. One of the easiest things you can do is freeze them in their raw state. Just wash them, remove the stem, then either freeze them whole, diced, or pureed. If you freeze them with the skin on, the skin will separate from the flesh of the tomato once thawed. You can either remove the skin at that time or pure the skin and the flesh in a blender, so you capture all the nutritive value of the tomato. You can also turn tomatoes into tomato sauce or salsa and can eat them.
Nothing beats the vibrant flavor of a fresh, sun-ripened tomato. We hope these incredible seasonal tomatoes inspire you in the kitchen and that you enjoy savoring every bite!
Farm Update
We finally received some rain, not too much but enough to make the dust settle. The crew has been busy, as expected. On Monday, Alvaro and Tomas collected 22 different samples to send in for Sap analysis. This is one more tool we utilize for plant health. The data we receive back will indicate the current nutrient levels of the crop tested. This test will let us know if there are nutrient deficiencies or excesses before we see symptoms, meaning we can proactively adjust our nutrition management plan. Those 22 samples are from 11 different crops. They need one new leaf and one old leaf to test. We shipped them off to the lab yesterday and should have those results in a week or so.
