- Lettuce
- Garlic
- New potatoes
- Zucchini – Get ready because it is time to make zucchini bread!
- Basil or parsley
- Kale or chard
- Broccoli
- Green onions (scallions)
- Sugar snap peas – all that heat really affected the peas. They went from green and lush with tons of flowers to grey and flowerless. This means it may be the last week for peas L. Enjoy them while they last
- Cabbage – we have two round types and the beautiful and sweet cone shaped variety “Carafex”. Try my roasted cabbage recipe and you will never have a wasted cabbage!
- Fava beans – this was a bad year for favas. First the chickens scratched up the bed when they were germinating, then they got no water as they were with the garlic so they all fell over. Enjoy them now, this will be it for the season.
- Beets – sorry got to eat them when we have them! Enjoy them in the sesame dressing recipe, so easy and delicious.
- Fennel
We are trying to keep up with the weeds. They alone are a full time job. We removed the cover from the winter squash (protection against the hideous cucumber beetles both stripped and spotted) to find three generations of pig weed (tiny, small and medium). Fortunately Juvencio is a human machine and has knocked down the majority, but it is no small task. We continue to plant where beds become free. We took out all the old lettuce and spinach beds and have replaced them with basil, Romanesco broccoli and Deadon cabbage. We replant lettuce every week in hopes of a continuous production.
The hoop houses are in need of transformation, from spring to summer crops. We hope to make that happen this coming week. We spent much of the past week with end of school activities and graduation celebrations. Now we can focus on getting the farm ready for fall! I managed to get fall broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower seeded. There is still a lot to get seeded and transplanted but one can only do what one can do.
We wait and wait for our goats to have their kids. We keep thinking it is time and they keep getting bigger and bigger. Roy helped me last week give their hooves a pre-birth trim so they are all walking sure footed and looking really good for kidding. We can’t wait to see the new herd.
We will pull the garlic today and prepare those beds for Brussels sprouts. It is hard to believe that they take that long (90 – 110 days) but many of the crops we grow are a long term investment. We hope they will do better this year than last, but a hot summer does not bode well. We are trying to companion plant them with flowers that attract bees and other beneficial insects to help deal with the aphids. We feel like they were part of the reason for our small sprouts last season, but who really knows.
Well time to take the zucchini bread out of the oven and run out to harvest the basil, zucchini, etc. Have a great week.
Please don’t forget:
- Sign up to help harvest while farmers are away: July 26, 29 and August 2
- Canning party – September 12 (just mark your calendar)
- Harvest Festival, October 18
Roasted Cabbage (Our family’s new favorite way to eat cabbage 2014)
1 head cabbage
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Parmesan cheese
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut the cabbage in half and now cut into wedges 3- 4 per half leaving a bit of the core on each wedge. Arrange the wedges on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper and now turn over and do the same. On the second side sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Put the cabbage in the oven for 20 – 30 minutes, it should be golden brown and crispy on the outer leaves. Remove from the oven and enjoy! We will never let another cabbage head go to waste.
Beet with Sesame Vinaigrette (family favorite)
1 pound beets (after cooking there should be about 2 cups)
6 tablespoons mild olive oil
2 teaspoons Oriental sesame oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons sesame seeds, additional for garnish
salt and pepper to taste
Trim tops from beets, leaving about ½ inch from the beets, so that they don’t bleed too much. Put the beets in a pot and cover with cold water. Heat to boiling, then reduce the heat and simmer uncovered until tender. Pour off most of the hot water and add cold water to the pot. Peel the beets while they are still warm. Or you may rub the beets with a little oil and bake them in a covered pan at 350 until tender. If the beets are large, cut them into ¼ inch slices. If they are small, cut them into 4 – 8 wedges. Place the beets in a large mixing bowl.
Whisk the remaining ingredients together, pour over the still warm beets, and toss to coat. Sprinkle more sesame seeds if you like and serve.
A great salad can be made with beets and broccoli. We steam the broccoli and beets together with the sliced beets on bottom. Generally, when the broccoli is done (i.e. just turned dark green and starting to get tender) the beets are also done. We then toss them in a simple vinaigrette and can serve either warm or cold. This vinaigrette is the one we use:
VINAIGRETTE
1 clove garlic
1 tsp salt
3 Tbs red wine vinegar
1 tsp wet mustard
5 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
black pepper
Press garlic into the bottom of your salad bowl. With a fork, mix well with salt until it forms a paste. Mix in vinegar and mustard until salt is dissolved. Whisk in olive oil to make an emulsion. Add black pepper to taste. These proportions are in no way set in stone. You should experiment to find the proportions you prefer. Also, other spices, herbs and vinegars can be used to vary the dressing.
Zucchini Pesto
Lyn–this is the one that was in the Oregonian–it’s quite good! Pretty tasty straight up, but seems like it would be great on crostini or pizza, or w/chicken or fish, for instance…
1/2 c olive oil
1 large shallot chopped (I used a sweet onion)
6 garlic cloves
3 Tbs toasted blanched almond slivers
1 medium zucchini, cut into 1/2 ” dice
1 c basil leaves
1 tsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste.
Sauté garlic and onions in 1Tbs oil until softened, not browned. Transfer to blender or processor and blend with remaining ingredients (except oil) until smooth. Gradually add in oil with blender running until smooth and creamy. Season w/S&P to taste.
Apparently keeps several days in fridge or freezes well
Lonnie’s chocolate Zucchini Cake
½ c soft butter
½ c cooking oil
2 eggs
1 ½ c sugar (can be cut down)
1 tsp. Vanilla
2 ½ c flour
1 tsp soda
½ t salt
½ c chocolate chips
½ c sour milk (buttermilk)
4 T cocoa
½ tsp. Cinnamon
2 c grated zucchini
¼ c chopped nuts
Mix butter,oil, eggs, sugar, vanilla and milk together. Add cocoa, soda, cinnamon and salt and mix well. Add flour, mix well, add zucchini, chocolate chips and nuts. Mix well. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. 13 X 9 inch pan or 2 loaf pans.
Chocolate Zucchini Cake 2
A great cake for all that zucchini at the end of the season, and the kids love it too!
Makes 1 9 x 13 inch cake
Printed from Allrecipe, submitted by Sandi
½ cup butter, softened 1 ¾ cup white sugar
½ cup vegetable oil 2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract ½ cup sour milk
2 ½ cups all purpose flour ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda 1 cup semiweet chocolate chips
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon 2 cups zucchini, finely diced
chocolate chips
Directions
- Preheat oven to 305 degrees F, grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan.
- Cream the butter, oil and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla and sour milk(sour milk = 1 teasopon vinager in ½ cup milk)
- Mix flour, cocoa, baking soda and cinnamon toger and add to creamed mixture. Beat well, stir in diced zucchini
- Pour into 9 x 13 inch pan and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake at 350 for 40 – 45 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Grilled Fava Beans as told to Andy by Bruce Hill of Bix in San Francisco
The easiest way to prepare favas is to grill them. The heat of the coals will pop the pods open and split the hulls that wrap each bean. Remove the beans with your fingers and they’re ready. If there’s a bit of char on your fingers from plucking out the beans from the grilled pods, it only helps the flavor.
Julia’s Desperation Favas
This works best with freshly picked young fava beans.
- Have children, guests, or domestic partners remove fava beans from pods.
- After taking the beans out of the pod but BEFORE removing the ‘skin’, sauté the beans with garlic, olive oil and salt. The skins come half off and the whole thing can be eaten hot over rice, noodles, as a side dish or as a salad if chilled. Enjoy!
Our Favorite Fava Beans
from Julia and Andy
These two recipes are similar to the desperation favas, above, but these can also be used with larger fava beans, or ones that have already been stored a few days since harvest.
2 pound favas, taken out of the pods
1-4 cloves of garlic, chopped AND/OR:
1/2 cup onions, chopped
olive oil
S & P The simplest version: sauté the favas with the garlic in the heated oil. the shells will come off in the pan, they are a lighter green, and the whole thing can be eaten like that. (Season with S & P) Version #2: Put the light green favas (that have been removed from the pod) into boiling water for 1-2 minutes. Remove immediately, rinse in cold water. Take the outer shell off each fava bean, so that you have just the bright emerald green bean. Then cook just the inner brighter green beans in the heated oil with the garlic for 2-3 minutes, then eat. We like both versions, and which one we do depends on if we have guests or willing children to help in the extra step of Version #2.
Fava Bean/Couscous Salad (you can adapt the vegetables to whatever you have on hand….)
-1 cup raw couscous (Trader Joe’s has whole wheat…) Cooked according to package intructions. (This is easy! Bring one cup water with a bit of butter or oil and a pinch of salt to a boil. Turn off heat and stir in 1 cup raw couscous and stir up well. Put a lid on and set the timer for 5 minutes. Fluff couscous and you’re ready to go.)
-1 small bowl or more shelled, blanched favas (the bright green ones)
-3 green onions, chopped
-large handful orach leaves, thinly sliced
-Green Garlic Dressing
Mix all ingredients above, making sure you don’t put in too much dressing. Eat!
Umbrian Fava Bean Stew (Scafata)
This recipe is about as simple as spring cooking gets. It’s adapted from Antonella Santolini’s La Cucina Delle Regioni D’Italia: Umbria The name comes from the Umbrian word for the hull of the beans.
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup shelled fava beans
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped fennel
1 1/2 cups chopped chard leaves
1 1/2 cups chopped, peeled tomatoes
salt, pepper
Cook oil, beans, onion, fennel, carrot and chard over low heat in medium saucepan. When beans are quite tender, after about 45 minutes, add tomatoes and cook for another 25 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.