CSA Week Two
In the spirit of the holidays we'd like to say Thank You for being a part of our farm this season. It's important for us to share as much of the process with you as possible so we'd like to invite you to a farm open house in a few weeks (it's on Sunday December 20th, official invite coming soon). We're opening the farm gate to everyone in town, but you guys are the bread and butter of the crowd. Please stop by, even if just a few minutes. We think it'll blow your mind to see where and how your food grows.
Overall the first harvest and share distribution of the season went pretty smoothly last week. The rain battered our salad mix more than we'd like (it caused some leaves to be torn and most leaves to be very dirty), but we heard back from many of you that it was great to have a salad mix so different from the ones at the store. We were also hoping our Gailan broccoli had more flowers, but the leaves and stems were so yummy in a stir fry that we're not sorry at all! It's all about the added fun and inspiration to cook at home.
Nopales are sort of the star of this week's share, only because they are such a specialty item. Everything else in the share will be yummy too! If you've never cooked nopales, or even eaten them, don't be intimated and check out this helpful blog post. It's a nice introduction to nopales and the the look of the their nopales salad (featuring fresh mexican cheese and sliced radishes) is mouth watering. Or look at this nopales taco recipe which might be my favorite thing in the world right now.
Week two of the CSA includes:
Small Shares
Eggplant
Nopales
Lettuce
Scallions
Large Shares
Eggplant
Nopales
Lettuce
Scallions
Red choi is making a second appearance because the beds we planted yielded more than expected. It's usually a favorite so we felt it would be ok to share it again so soon. The choi family, which includes the popular bok choi, is part of the brassica family, the kale, cabbage and broccoli family. It's flavor profile is cabbagy, it's texture is watery and crisp. One of the simplest ways to eat choi (or most Asian greens, including turnip and radish tops and mustard greens) is to quickly wilt it on an oil-free skillet (maybe put the lid on it for a few minutes) and serve with a drizzle of good quality fresh oil (think toasted sesame or a flavored olive oil; my current favorite is a smoked olive oil) and a generous pinch of coarse sea salt.