What’s in the box?

lettuce
cilantro
bagged spinach
green top carrots
green top beets
green onions
garlic scapes
bagged arugula
tender kale
summer squash
zucchini

Notes on the box.

Remove tops from carrots and beets for longer storage. Both are edible, though it’s a lot easier to cook up beet tops than carrot tops. See last weeks blog for some carrot top recipes.
Everything in the box should be stored in the fridge. Put lettuces and greens into plastic bag or container to keep them from getting wilted.

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese Shares.

Our Whole Milk Ricotta! This is a favorite for many members. This ricotta is so good, you can think beyond just lasagna. I like it fresh on toast with a bit of arugula pesto on the bread, then the ricotta, a pinch of salt, a drizzle of olive oil, and a good amount of black pepper. Or you can have it sweet with a drizzle of honey.
Antares is our cow’s milk manchego. This one is great as a snack, on a cheese board with fruit, nuts, and cured meats, or grated on salads.

Recipes.

See last week for lots of good carrot top recipes.

Spinach Ricotta Baked Pasta

Greek Beet Salad (uses beet tops, also)

On the Farm.

We want to invite you to come out to the farm on Saturday from 10-4 for the Co-op Eat Local Farm Tour! We will have tours every hour and burgers cooked up by our friends from Modern Times for sale starting at 11:00. We will have a farm store set up where you can buy farm goods including meat (bring a cooler with you) and cheese. If you have an Eat Like a Farmer or a Meat Share, you can pick up your share at the farm tour on Saturday if you’d like to. Bring a large cooler to put the frozen meat in. It’s going to be a fun day! If you bring a t-shirt, we can print on it to make you a Turnip Rock Farm/ Cosmic Wheel Creamery shirt! For directions, you can type Turnip Rock Farm into google maps and it will get you to the farm. If you come to the farm tour and are a CSA member, let us know! We love to meet our members. Let us know if you have any questions.

Hope to see you there!

found and saved on lettuce! we don’t weed out the milkweed. So fun to find treasures like these among the veggies!

the crew bunching it up

Jasper and his green top beet

What’s in the box?

Strawberries
carrots
zuchinni / summer squash
rainbow chard/ aka swiss chard
garlic scapes
cilantro
leaf lettuce
roamaine lettuce
bagged arugula
green onions

Notes on the box.

Remove the tops from the carrots as soon as you get home to keep carrots from getting soft. Some people like to make carrot top pesto or use the carrot tops in place of parsley. Give it a taste to decide if you want to keep and eat it or not. The carrots can be put in a bag in the crisper. We haven’t been cooking any carrots yet, just snacking on them because they taste so good fresh!
The stems of the rainbow chard aren’t just beautiful and festive, but also edible! They take a bit longer to cook than the leaves which wilt very quickly, so start stems cooking a little before the leaves.
Garlic scapes are the stem of a flower that the garlic bulb sends up. We pull off the scapes to help more energy go to the garlic bulb as it grows, and we get to eat the scapes! Think of them as a green onion with garlic flavor. An arugula and garlic scape pesto would be delicious on sandwiches or a pasta salad.
All greens will keep best in a plastic bag in the fridge.

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese Shares.

If you’ve had a cheese share before, you’ve gotten this fun cheese lesson. I love showing people the effects and difference that what our cows are eating has on the milk they make and the cheese we make from the milk. These two cheeses, MoonShadow and MoonGlow, are made using the exact same recipe. But if you hold them up to each other, you notice that MoonShadow is more a white creamy color while MoonGlow is a bright yellow. This is because MoonShadow is made in the early spring before pastures have started growing and so the cows are eating hay, this makes the cheese milder and whiter. The MoonGlow is made later in the season when the cows are on pasture so the cheese has more beta carotene and looks more yellow and has more grassy flavors. Both cheeses have much better Omega 3 profiles than non-grass based cows milk products. Be sure to have a little cheese tasting. Taste them side by side remembering that the only difference is some aging time and what the cows were eating.
Here’s an article about the difference between 100% Grass Fed cow’s milk like ours vs. conventional milk.

Recipes.

Swiss Chard with Orzo, Cannelini Beans, and Pancetta

Sauteed Swiss Chard and Summer Squash

Garlic Scape and Arugula Pesto for sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, mixed into hummus, served with grilled chicken, or with pasta, and it freezes really well!

Carrot top Chimichurri

On the Farm.

If you want to schedule a vacation hold for another week, let us know and we can get it on the schedule for you.
We got some rain at a good time, but it was kind of heavy and we are hopeful that it didn’t washout some of the direct seeded crops that we seeded right before some very big storms came through.
We are enjoying the summertime and hope you are, too! Thanks to Otto and Josh for taking pictures for the blog this week!

berry perfection

box packing

scapes

fresh green top carrot

green onions

summer squash

ready to fill em up!

storms rolling in

the drama! lots of wind, but everything was okay!

dew on the webs

exploring what pops up from the soil

farmer tip: a hanky tucked into a hat to keeps bugs and sun away from ears and neck

making time for summertime!

What’s in the box?

Strawberries!
Green Onions
Radishes
Kale bunch
Romaine Lettuce
Leaf Lettuce
Salad Mix
Cilantro
Spinach bunch

Notes on the box.

Hope you enjoy these Strawberries! They are grown by our friends at Sleepy Root Farm. It’s always fun to go pick them. If weather cooperates, we will be picking again next week!
All greens will store best in a plastic bag in the fridge. Remove the tops from the radishes for best storage. The bunched spinach is tender enough that it can be chopped and used for salad.

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese Shares.

Deneb is our gouda style cheese. This batch was made last August. Also, fresh cheese curds! A great snack. Enjoy!

Recipes.

Radish Salsa
1/4- 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves with tender stems
4 radishes, trimmed, quartered
2-4 green onions sliced
½ hot pepper - jalapeno or serrano pepper (optional)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
Put all into food processor and pulse to a rough chop. Serve on tacos, nachos, with beans and rice, or with chips.
Kale Chips
Creamy Kale and Turkey Sausage Pasta with Sundried Tomatoes
Strawberry Spinach Salad
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp maple syrup
whisk or shake above together for dressing
toss together with bunch of chopped spinach (add arugula or salad mix also if you like)
top with sliced strawberries and toasted nuts of your choice

On the farm.

Head’s up! The 4th of July is on a Thursday this year! We will be making that weeks delivery on Wednesday July 3. We know this is a tricky one, so if you need to schedule a vacation hold, let us know! This year we are allowing for one week of rescheduled delivery per member. If you know when you would like the hold scheduled, please email us so we can schedule it for you. You will have the option of doubling a delivery for another week or adding a delivery to the end of the season. When you email with your vacation date, let us know how you would like to handle the schedule. If you have additional weeks that you won’t be able to pick-up, you can arrange to have a someone else pickup your share (please give them detailed pick-up directions) or you can let us know and we can donate your share. Let us know if you have any questions.

Mark your calendar for the Eat Local Farm Tour on July 13th. Come visit the farm. It will be a great time!

our wonderful crew berry picking

Elston!

small, but beautiful and tasty!

Sadie loving berry picking

After the berries are picked. The van smells AMAZING!

beautiful berry bounty

Andrew and John prepping beds for another planting

John and Mille bunching kale AND being fabulous!

Jasper says Kale Yeah!

Sunny cilantro

bunches of bunches

bok choy that has gone to flower. We were going to pull them out to replant the bed, but it’s so full of bees and pollinators and beneficial insects that we decided to keep it there for them.

garlic scapes next week!

Otto with twisty carrots. not quite ready for picking, they should be in the boxes next week.

mamas and babies grazing

magical

Double Rainbow!

Next week

strawberries
zucchini/ summer squash
carrots
garlic scapes
napa cabbage?
greens
lettuces
cilantro?