Week 9; August 4, 2016

What's in the box? 

Sweet Corn! 
New Potatoes
Broccoli
Bell Peppers
Zucchini/ Summer Squash
Tomatoes!
head lettuce
carrots
sweet onions
 

Notes on the box.

Nice box of Summer favorites! 
Remove tops from carrots before storing.  These guys got pretty big.  Nice for cutting up and dipping into hummus or grating for salad or carrots cake.  Some shares got purple carrots, but we had pretty poor gemination on them, so there weren't enough for all. 
Sweet corn should be stored in the husk in your fridge.  The sooner you eat it, the better!  The sugars start to turn to starch after it's picked, so eat soon for the best flavor. 
Sweet onions are not cured and should be kept in your fridge.  They are so nice and mild.  Perfect for potato salad, piled onto hamburgers or BLTs, or if you are Otto or Sadie, you can eat the whole thing like an apple! 
Store tomatoes with stem side facing down on your counter.  The flavor and texture changes if you store them in the fridge, so we suggest storing on your counter.  If you don't get to some of them and they start getting too ripe, I will usually put those tomatoes in the fridge and use them for cooking. 
 

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese Shares.

Fresh cheese curds!  Perfect snack for a hot day.  Or you can add them to salads or put some into a soup at the end as a nice cheesy garnish.  Or go classic and fry em up!  To get the squeak back, let them warm up. 
Moonglow is our alpine style cheese.  It's so beautiful and golden.  Nice for cooking, but also wonderful on its own. 

Recipes.

Liberty's Carrot Salad
fresh carrots grated (about a pound)
1 handful finely chopped parsley (or carrot tops)
1/2 sweet onion finely chopped
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2-3 pinches Red pepper flakes
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste Kosher or coarse sea salt

Herbed Pasta with Sauteed Summer Vegetables
Dice sweet onion, bell peppers, and summer squash or zucchini and sautee in butter until tender in an oven safe pan.  Once tender, top veggies with cheese of your choice (cheese curds, mozzarella, grated cheese) and put in broiler until cheese is melted and slightly browned.
While your veggies are cooking, make your pasta.  Put a handful of herbs of your choice (basil, parsley, oregano, mint) into food processor or blender with one clove garlic, some olive oil, lemon juice, and a little salt.  Puree.  Mix blended herbs into warm pasta.  Put veggies on top of the pasta. 

Tonight's dinner here at the farm. The Moonglow cheese is going to be really nice with it!   Summer Squash Pizza from Smitten Kitchen

Grilled Corn and Cheddar Quinoa Salad

 

On the Farm

Today is the first delivery of meat for our Eat Like a Farmer and meat share members.  Your Meat Share is in a large box with an insulated box liner.  Feel free to bring the whole box home, but please bring it back to your drop site next week so that we can pick it up and reuse it.  The box liners aren't cheap! 
Try to pick up your meat share ASAP after we drop it off and send the email to get it into the freezer.  Please email or call if you have any questions or issues. 
The chicken in the shares are a slower growing and more flavorful breed called Freedom Rangers or French Rangers.  They are great foragers and have much fewer health issues than the standard chicken which is called a Cornish Cross.  The freedom rangers don't have the giant breast and they grow quite a bit slower, but the flavor is quite a bit better.  I suggest roasting at least one of them as simply as possible with just some garlic, lemon, salt and pepper and butter or oil rubbed on the skin so that you can enjoy the flavor of this type of chicken.  We hope you enjoy the first meat delivery!  The next one will be pork in late October. 

Next weeks boxes will have more of the same sorts of summer goodness.  No lettuce or carrots next week, though.  But beets will be included and and maybe melons will be ripe!