Week #11

 

  • Lettuce – keep eating your salads, we are growing your lettuce!!
  • Chinese broccoli – likely the last week of this amazing powerhouse! We have had 10 weeks of the delicious, nutritious, vitamin filled green.
  • Fennel – my sister’s favorite, add to salads, eat raw, see recipes below
  • Beets – likely the last for a few weeks
  • Sugar snap peas – enjoy them while you can they are nearing the end, the indoor beds are done and these are our only sugar snaps outside. We are racing the red winged blackbirds for these favorite spring time treats
  • Potatoes – we hope you are enjoying the purple and pink early potatoes! We enjoy them pan cooked, oven roasted or sliced thin and baked in the oven
  • Green onions
  • Garlic – fresh out of the ground and not yet cured, but nice flavor
  • Fava beans – the last of these difficult to prepare but oh-so-worth-it beans.
  • Zucchini and other summer squash – it might be time to make zucchini bread, some of those fellas got awfully large this week.
  • Cucumbers – just a few, but hopefully all will get one this week, they are coming!!
  • Kale – try a kale salad this week??

The work never ends for the farmer and this could not be truer this week. With the summer solstice and light until 9:45 we have been out there weeding and weeding until we can’t see the weeds from the cultivar. We managed to get almost all the onions weeded, just in time for the days to get shorter. Onions are generally very sensitive to this change and go from making the green part to sending energy into making the bulb quite abruptly. Take a look out at the field from the barn and you will see the sea of dark green erect onion leaves. Soon you will see the bulbs plumping up (if we can keep them weeded!).

We pruned tomatoes, added additional strings to keep them climbing. Juvencio created the largest trellis known to farmers to encourage our pole beans to climb, we will need only the super tall to help us harvest them, so consider signing up to help harvest in mid July if you are over 5’ 11”! The peppers in the hoop house are flowering and the ones in the field have been liberated from their forest of weeds. Juvencio managed to pull all the sugar snap peas from both hoop houses and turn over the beds. I came home from the farmer’s market and planted all the melons. We hope for a repeat of last year’s melon success, but alas farming is a gamble and melons are a luxury.

The cucumbers are coming!! The plants are growing and flowering like mad, I feel impending doom when I think about how many beds I planted. I just kept on planting as they did not seem to be growing and now the thought of harvesting all those hundreds of cukes is seeming daunting. Make sure to sign up to help harvest we are going to need your hands to get all that produce in. Think about when you can come and lend a hand. We would like all that can to help us harvest twice each season. We start harvest at 7:00 am and work until the job is done. That is usually 11 or 12 and really depends on the crop and who is there to help us.

Upcoming events:

1) TBA – Meet the Chef event – Lani, co-owner and chef from NOBULL will be at the farm sampling her delicious food concentrate that makes cooking at home with veggies easy.

2) August 25th – canning party

3) October 14th – Harvest Festival

Please consider staying engaged politically. So much is going on in this country that is absolutely not what our country stands for. Remaining silent is not an option, it supports the oppressor and never defends the oppressed. There are many ways to stay active and make a small difference every day. Call your member of congress, they need to hear what you are thinking, they need to be appreciated for what they are doing right (Merkeley going to Texas and raising awareness of separation of children from their families) and what they are doing wrong (cutting medicare, Medicaid, funding a border wall, etc. etc.). There are rallies all over the nation next Saturday June 30th. Find out about the one in Portland at:

https://act.moveon.org/event/families-belong-together_attend1/search/

Have a great week! Consider buying flowers they make your house bright, bring a smile to a friend and are all around nice! Here are some recipes to help you enjoy eating veggies every day.

Chicken Salad with Fennel, Almonds, and lemon Mayo

Ingredients

¼             cup mayonnaise

~             Juice of 1 small lemon

2              cups cooked chicken (grilled, roasted, or poached), cut or torn into bite-size pieces

½             cup fennel bulb and fronds (not stalks), diced

1              medium shallot, diced

¾             cup almonds, toasted and sliced

~             Salt and pepper to taste

~             Mixed salad greens, washed and dried

Steps

Put the mayonnaise in a medium bowl, then whisk in the lemon juice to taste (I like it lemony, so I err on the side of more rather than less lemon juice). Stir in the chicken, fennel, shallot, and almonds, then season to taste with salt and fresh ground pepper

Toast 1 slice per sandwich of artisanal-style whole-wheat bread. Top toasted bread slices with chicken salad and mixed greens.

Fennel Salad

Make 4 servings

Preparation time: about 20 minutes.

NOTE: The amounts are all approximate and flexible. This is a very improvisational recipe.

Ingredients

1 small head organic butter (Boston) lettuce, cleaned and spun dry

1 medium-sized bulb organic fennel, sliced paper thin (a mandolin works best.)

2 organic navel oranges, peeled and sliced into thin rounds

15 oil-cured or Kalamata olives, pitted and sliced

5 or 6 organic dried figs, cut into small pieces

1 – 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon organic lemon juice, plus more to taste if you like

1/2 cup blanched, slivered almonds, lightly toasted (optional)

Directions

  1. Wash and dry the lettuce, then tear it into bite sized pieces into a large salad bowl. Add the fennel, oranges, olives, and figs, and toss.
  2. Drizzle the salad with the olive oil, and toss until everything is lightly but thoroughly coated. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, if you like, and toss again. Refrigerate until serving (but not longer than about 1 hour).
  3. Just before serving drizzle in about 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice and sprinkle in — or top with —the almonds and cheese shavings, if you like. Toss quickly but thoroughly, and serve right away.

 

Beets with Fennel (My version as I couldn’t find the book I got the delicious recipe from)

 

1 bunch beets (steamed, leave 1” of tops and the whole root on, steam and then peel)

1 fennel bulb cut in quarters and then slice thinly

1 sweet onion, chopped finely

Toasted walnuts, about 1 cup

2 tablespoons of chopped parsley

 

Vinaigrette

4 T extra virgin olive oil (is there any other kind?!)

1 teaspoon walnut oil (I used sesame)

1 T, plus a dash more Champagne vinegar

Salt and pepper

 

Mix cooked beets, onion, fennel and walnuts together, add parsley and toss with vinaigrette.  Chill or serve warm, we loved it.

Chinese Scallion Pancakes
recipe by Elsa Chen

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups flour, plus more for flouring the rolling surface
1 cup water
2 teaspoons oil
A bunch of green onions, green and white parts, chopped medium-fine

A few tablespoons of oil to brush on pancakes (a mix of canola or corn oil and sesame oil is good) some salt A few tablespoons sesame seeds (optional)

Directions:
Mix together the first three ingredients by hand or in a food processor. Flour a surface and knead the dough. Let it rest for 20-30 minutes before continuing.
With a rolling pin, roll the dough out on a well-floured surface into a big, flat square or rectangle 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick.
Brush the pancake with a bit of oil, and sprinkle with spring onion pieces and a little salt. Starting at one short end, roll up the dough tightly, jelly-roll style, so you have a “snake.”
Cut the “snake” crosswise into 8 – 10 pieces. Then flatten each piece again gently with your palm and rolling pin to make a little rectangle. Don’t flatten it too firmly, because you want a little air to remain trapped between the layers of the pancakes so they’ll puff up a bit between the layers and be lighter.
Press one or both sides in sesame seeds (optional).
Heat a tablespoon or two of oil in a large skillet. Shallow fry the pancakes until both sides are golden brown and crispy. Drain on paper towels.
Serve plain or with dipping sauce. An easy sauce can be made by mixing soy sauce with a little minced garlic, scallion, and rice vinegar.

Green Onion Pancake by Stella Fong

2 cups flour
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 to 1/2 cup cold water
vegetable oil spray
1/2 cup minced green onions
Mix together flour and boiling water. Add 1/3 cup cold water and knead until dough is smooth and elastic. Add more water if necessary. Cover and let dough rest for about 15 minutes. In a small bowl, combine sesame oil, salt and green onions. Set aside. Divide dough into 10 pieces. Flatten each piece in the palm of your hand. Then roll out into a 6-inch circle. Spread each piece with the green onion mixture.
Roll up dough into a jellyroll. Then wind up into a snail shape. Flatten slightly; roll on lightly floured surface to 5-inch circle. Spray pan with vegetable oil spray. Heat over medium-high heat. Fry pancake until golden brown, about 2 minutes, turn and cook other side. Serve hot. Makes 10 pancakes

 

 

 

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