What’s In The Box with Recipe Suggestions
Green Garlic: This will be the last week for the green garlic. Green garlic and green onions look very similar, but green garlic has flat leaves and green onions have green tops that are rounded.
Spinach: Spinach salad topped with radishes, chicken and croutons makes a nice light lunch or dinner. Top it off with a creamy green garlic dressing.
Green Top Diana Radishes: These are the purple and white radishes in this week’s box. Don’t forget to eat the radish tops as well.
Radish Top Pasta with Chickpeas & Parsley
Potato Onions: These are the last of our overwintered onions, planted in the fall for harvest this spring. Use them as you would use any green onion.
Sesame-Soy and Hon Tsai Tai Chicken Salad
Baby Arugula: Arugula is a spicy green that pairs well with other rich ingredients such as cheese, cured meats, nuts and fruit.
Greens & Grains Breakfast Scramble
Salad Mix: Our salad mix is a blend of baby lettuces combined with some spicy Asian greens and sometimes kale. Because of their delicate nature, it’s best to dress them with a light vinaigrette instead of a thick, creamy dressing. For the greatest storage potential, store salad mix in the refrigerator.
Hon Tsai Tai: This is the bunched green with yellow flowers and purple stems, both of which are edible. It has a mild mustard flavor and may be eaten either raw or lightly cooked. Read more about Hon Tsai Tai in last week’s newsletter.
Baby White Turnips: These are sometimes called “hakurei” turnips. They are a mild, sweet salad turnip with tender, edible green tops.
Turnip Salad with Yogurt, Herbs & Poppy Seeds
Cilantro: While many recipes call for using the leaves only, the stems have a lot of flavor as well. Chop them finely and add them along with the leaves.
Spring Shiitake & Cilantro Soup
Pea Vine: Read this week’s newsletter article for more information about using pea vine. This is the large bunch of crazy looking greens that have small rounded leaves on a main stem that has a vine-like appearance.
Pea Vine & Asparagus Soup with Buttermilk & Mint
Baby Broccoli: This was a new ‘early broccoli’ called Castle Dowr. Like every other early variety, it ‘buttoned’, making a very small, loose head on a small plant. So, we call it a baby broccoli and say, ‘Thank you’! Don’t forget to eat the broccoli stem as well!
Cold Noodles with Miso Lime and Ginger
Kailan Branching Broccoli (Not pictured): Branching Broccoli is similar to Broccoli in appearance and flavor but has a slightly bitter taste. It has a thick central stalk, glossy blue-green leaves, and small florets that emerge from the center. All parts of the plant are edible and nutritious, rich in vitamins A, C, and K, and minerals like potassium, calcium, and magnesium.
Kailan (Chinese Broccoli) with Garlic Infused Oyster Sauce
Chinese Broccoli (Gai Lan) Two Ways
Vegetable Feature: Pea Vine
Pea Vine is actually an immature heirloom snow pea plant that is harvested before the vine starts to develop blossoms. It has a mild, sweet pea flavor and may be eaten raw or lightly cooked. While the tendrils and leaves are tender, the main stem can sometimes get-tough depending on how mature the plant is at harvest. This week’s pea vine is young and tender. In the coming weeks, you may find the pea vine a bit more mature and you may find some of the lower stem is a bit coarser. If you find this to be the case, pick the leaves, tendrils and thin, tender stems off the main stem. Nobody wants to spend a lot of time sorting through a bunch of pea vines so you may want to try to use as much of the bunch as I can…plus there is a lot of flavor and nutrition in the stem! Thus, when the pea vine is more mature and some of the stems are a bit more coarse, try to use pea vine in ways that use a blender or food processor to make things such as Pea Vine Pesto Pasta Salad or Pea Vine Cream Cheese.
The other way to like to use pea vine is in sauces, soups or broth. Generally, you chop the pea vine into smaller pieces and add it to hot broth or a sauce base. Let the pea vine simmer briefly to extract the flavor, but don’t overcook it or you’ll lose the bright pea flavor. Once you’ve infused the flavor of the pea vine into the sauce or broth, you can strain it out to remove it. If you’d like to extract just a little more flavor, blend the mixture before straining it. Store pea vine loosely wrapped in a plastic bag in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator until ready for use.
Short & Sweet Weekly Farm Update
All of our heat-loving crops, including sweet potatoes and pumpkins, are transplanted into their fields. Many were covered with a breathable plastic cover over hoops to create a tunnel over the rows. When Monday’s temperature reached 88°, it got too hot under the tunnels, so we scrambled to pull the covers off! Then the next day a cold front blew in! – That makes for hard decisions, to cover or not to cover!
The Zucchini is beautiful and blooming! We have uncovered it now so the pollinators can access them. The tomatoes have grown and are ready for the stakes that will keep them off the ground.
All of the winter rye is cut, waiting to dry and bale for next years mulching. Plantings continue on and cultivating continues when it is dry. Out tractor cultivators get 90% of weeks, but some weeds in the row need to be pulled by hand. Any spare time the crew has is now busy with hand weeding the carrots, beets and parsnips.
