weeks 6 & 7

OK - finally...

July 16, 2013 week 7

Tomatoes Peppers Yellow Wax Beans Lettuce

Garlic Cucumbers Eggplant Summer Squash

Fennel Green Onions Parsley Basil Sorrel

We're still shaking down the results of the nine inches of rain. The cutting herbs have recuperated fairly well. Some of the next patch of green beans took a hit, but we seem to be over-planting sufficiently to off set the loss. Your beans will be green next week!

The sun and heat is ripening the tomatoes. We'll be bringing increasingly more over the next few weeks. I try to vary the type, size, color, and ripeness in each bag so that you have some to eat now, some to last a little while, and a nice sampling of different varieties. We enjoy growing some really unusual looking but delicious tasting fruits. Please don't refrigerate your tomatoes. They are tropical fruits and lose flavor and texture in the cold. Hope you enjoy.

Eggplant came in thick this week. I only put what I thought you could eat in the bag. There will be more. Experiment with these beautiful fruits. They have the potential to be just as tasty as they are beautiful. Eggplant are also tropical by nature. You can leave them in a shady place on your kitchen counter and they should be fine. Sun will degrade almost anything. Recommended recipes to look up: ratatouille and baba ghanoush. I'm pretty sure there are a few renditions on our blog if you go poking through the archives.

We found our favorite treatment of fennel bulbs last week. Here it is. Maybe some of you still have a head of cabbage kicking around?

Simple Fennel and Cabbage Skillet. Thinly slice an onion (or leek if you've got one), a small head of cabbage, and a couple of fennel bulbs. Wash the fennel and cabbage, but don't dry it. Warm 1 Tbsp butter in a large skillet. Throw in the onion, cabbage and fennel. Stir and cover. Check it in a few minutes to make sure it's steaming, not burning. Let it cook 10-15 minutes total. In the meantime, mince a couple tablespoons of parsley and melt 2-3 more Tbsp butter. Mix parsley and butter with a few Tbsp lemon juice (fresh is best). Drain any excess water from cabbage mixture and add the butter. Toss, taste for seasoning and enjoy.

And, a versatile recipe for putting SO much food to good use: Roasted Summer Vegetables

8 to 10 cups fresh vegetables. Cut into bite sized pieces for even cooking time. Toss with one of the seasoning options below. Then spread seasoned veggies in a thin layer on a baking sheet and bake at 425 for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. Serve over cooked pasta or rice with parmesan grated on top. For a salad, cool the veggies and add some ripe tomatoes, feta cheese, and vinaigrette dressing.

Seasoning options: 1) Several Tbsp chopped fresh herbs, 1 Tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper, 1-4 cloves fresh garlic. 2)1 Tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp chili powder, salt, pepper, and dried thyme. 3) ¾ cup italian dressing. 4) 4 cloves minced garlic, 1/3 cup olive oil, 2 Tbsp fresh herbs, 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1 Tbsp dijon mustard, salt and pepper. Have fun with vegetables!

July 9, 2013 week 6

Tomatoes Peppers Yellow Wax Beans

Lettuce Garlic Cucumbers

Sugar Snap Peas Cabbage Summer Squash

Fennel Green Onions

We're getting into some serious veggies now, folks. Eat up.

Featured veggies this week: FENNEL. Those feathery wands of leaves poking from your bag? That’s fennel. At the bottom is a bulb. It has a strong anise smell and flavor. This is an old world vegetable. Let us know what you think. This is the only time of year we grow it, so if you don’t love it, just rest assured that it won’t last long. Some culinary suggestions for your fennel:

Cut the fine leaves into salads. Use the stems like celery. Chop stems and leaves fine and use them in cream cheese dips and flavored mayo. Store the bulb separately. Trim off the top and root ends and cut it in half or quarters lengthwise. Parboil it for a few minutes (7 to 10), drain it well, and thread it onto kebabs with the summer squash on the grill. Or you can roast it in the oven with potatoes and cabbage. It works as a gratin, too, and pairs well with potatoes.

This is the season of – how many cucumbers can you eat? They just keep coming. Our two year old Levon can polish off one a day. I hope you can keep up.

If the beans are too much for you – blanch them for four minutes in boiling water. Dip them immediately into cold water. Then drain them. Pack into a freezer bag and freeze for enjoyment when there are no fresh Yellow Wax Beans to be had. You can also blanch and cool them and use them in a salad – just like that.

One of my favorite fun things to do with a green pepper is slice it in thick rings, butter a frying pan, lay the rings out and crack eggs into them. It's egg-in-a-nest sans toast. Very fun food.

Wrap your cabbage up tight in a grocery bag. It will keep for a long time in the crisper drawer. You can also make a small batch of sauerkraut. Just shred the cabbage and salt it. Crunch it with your hands until it releases moisture and looks wilted. Pack it in a wide mouth jar. If it doesn't create enough liquid to cover the cabbage, add some salted water. Keep it on a room temp. counter for three days then store it in the fridge and enjoy your kraut. When the summer kraut happens, I start singing “Reuben Reuben, I been thinking....”. For more on kraut, look at our blog or look up wildfermentation.com.

We finally ripped the broccoli out to make room for the late season tomatoes. The chickens are picking over those dark green leaves. I would have sent you more chard, but there's simply no more room in the bags. It will be back.

In the upper garden, the Sugar Snap Peas are just about finished. This should be the final picking. We look forward to clearing them out and digging the potatoes. Melons didn’t enjoy the rain that much, but everything else in the upper garden is holding up and looking good. Next week, there will be eggplants. Take care and enjoy your food!

week 7

Lettuce Onions Fresh Garlic

Carrots Beets Summer Squash

Fennel Chard Tomatoes!

Parsley Sorrel Cilantro or Dill Basil

“The life of the soul is truth and the awareness of the soul is love.”

~Saint Bernard

We hope you all had a safe and fun Independence Day – free of excessive sparks! If the tomatoes didn't look so good, we'd have the raggedy blues this week. It's reached triple digits in the sun every day for the last several. It's too hot to walk barefoot in the garden, and definitely too hot to work in the sun for a good part of the day. The humidity has increased in the last couple days, and it looks like there's been rain in the area – but none in our valley. Surely, it will rain on us eventually. Bugs seem to love the heat, there are blister beetles, and japanese beetles all over the basil, sorrel, and chard. Wash well.

The orange tomatoes with green shoulders are our favorite heirloom variety by a long shot. They go by the name Paul Robeson, for the African American opera singer and athlete. They have a complex and smoky flavor different from your standard red slicer. We hope you enjoy them. They've come on early this year, and hopefully, they will stay late too, though they are making it clear by the condition of their leaves that they would appreciate some rain soon. Early Girls are the other main tomato this week. I remember being so skeptical when seeing them at a friend's farm – all so uniform, so firm and red – I couldn't imagine they would have much flavor, but I was wrong. They perform well and turn out buckets of tasty firm red slicing tomatoes. We love heirlooms, but we still grow Early Girls, too.

We just heard on NPR, verified by America's Test Kitchen – tomatoes keep better resting with the stem end DOWN. So, take some that are ripe, and some not so ripe, and keep them all with the belly buttons facing down until you eat them up. Our favorite tomato salad is so simple: cube or slice tomatoes, mince a clove of garlic and a sprig of basil, maybe some red onion sliced thin, salt and pepper, oil and balsamic vinegar. Crumbled feta cheese is a great addition, though Parmesan will do well, and nutritional yeast is great if you're not into cheese. Toss it all together and eat at room temperature.

Here's this year's fennel crop. We haven't irrigated it at all, and this is the first time we've seen it actually reach toward blooming. Usually it gets some kind of rot in the blooming sprout. I suppose the drought has made it happy enough to want to set fruit. Fennel grows wild in coastal California. We've remarked a few times this season that this must be what it feels like to farm in southern California – everything will be alright as long as we go on irrigating! Strange season, this one.

Fennel is an interesting vegetable. Any part of it that is tender enough to slice is good to eat. We recently enjoyed it sliced and sauteed with summer squash. First, we sliced and gently browned an onion and some garlic, then cranked up the heat again and threw in the sliced fennel and squash. Grated Parmesan on top once it was done. Use the long stalks like you would celery or carrot sticks. You could have one festive looking and sweet tasting raw platter with this week's basket – beets, carrots, and fennel sticks. Fennel can be served raw, as they do in Italy – brush raw slices with olive oil and lemon juice, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and serve as an appetizer. Try it grilled, braised or roasted. It likes Parmesan, basil, coriander, paprika, parsley, olive oil, lemon, garlic, and tomatoes. Play. Enjoy.

The Chard is being devoured by blister beetles. They skeletonize the leaves - we've really never seen anything like it. So we're cutting what's left and seeing what happens next! This might be the last of the Chard for awhile. In the top garden, the melons continue to grow unhindered by hot sun and drought. Peppers and eggplant are loaded with very small fruit. They're looking sun-burnt. We're working on irrigation plans, but rain would be a much simpler solution.

Here's a solid salsa recipe:

1 1/2 pounds firm, ripe tomatoes , cut into 3/8-inch dice (about 3 cups)

1 large jalapeño chile seeded (seeds reserved and minced), flesh minced (about 2 tablespoons)

1/2 cup minced red onion                  1 small clove garlic , minced (about 1/2 teaspoon)

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro            1/2 teaspoon table salt

  Pinch ground black pepper                2 - 6 teaspoons lime juice from 1 to 2 limes

  Granulated sugar to taste (up to 1 teaspoon)

1. Set large colander in large bowl. Place tomatoes in colander and let drain 30 minutes. As tomatoes drain, layer jalapeño, onion, garlic, and cilantro on top. Shake colander to drain off excess tomato juice. Discard juice; wipe out bowl.

2. Transfer contents of colander to now-empty bowl. Add salt, pepper, and 2 teaspoons lime juice; toss to combine. Taste and add minced jalapeño seeds, sugar, and additional lime to taste.

Tomato Fennel Pasta Sauce
(says blogger: You could use any pasta, but ideally it should be long pasta, like spaghetti. This is a thick sauce, so don’t go with any pasta shape that is too delicate, like angel hair. Once you make the sauce, it will store in the fridge for 10 days or so. You can also freeze it.) Serve 6-8, and can be doubled

4 tablespoons olive oil                                     1 cup fennel, finely chopped

1/2 onion, finely chopped                              1 garlic clove, chopped

1/4 cup ouzo or other anise-flavored liqueur    1 quart tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes

1 tablespoon honey                                         1 tblspoon mint or lemon verbena, chopped

Salt to taste                                                       Parmigiano or pecorino cheese to garnish

1) Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a wide, deep pan or a large pot. When the oil is hot, add the fennel and onion and saute for 4-5 minutes, until translucent. Sprinkle some salt over everything while they are cooking. Don’t let the veggies brown — turn down the heat if needed. Add the garlic and saute for another minute or two.

2)Pour in the ouzo and let this boil until it is reduced by half.

3)Add the crushed tomatoes, honey and mint and mix well. Taste for salt and add some if needed. Let this simmer gently for 30 minutes.

4)If you are going to serve this sauce with short pasta, like penne or bowties, you don’t need this step: Pour the sauce into a blender or food processor and buzz to puree all the bits of onion and fennel. Pour the blended sauce back into the pot and bring to a simmer. You’re ready to serve.

This is a powerful sauce, so use less than you think you need at first. Serve with a light red wine like a Sangiovese or a Grenache.

Next week – no more chard or fennel, but add some more tomatoes and green beans to the mix.  Maybe cucumbers too.

Remember to send in your blueberry orders asap.

Stay hydrated and eat well. The Entwistles