Delivery Week 8; July 23, 2020

What’s in the box?

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broccoli!
leeks
celery
carrots
zucchini
cucumbers
new potatoes
greenbeans
beets
green peppers

Notes on the box.

Imagine Billy Porter’s character, Pray Tell, on Pose saying “We are serving you French Summer Freshness!” New Potatoes, green beans, celery, carrots, leeks! Time for some lovely simple dishes that let the flavors of these fresh veggies do all the work.
New potatoes can be stored in a paper bag in a cool, dry place. They aren’t cured like storage potatoes, so you should eat them within a week or two. The skins are very thin and may rub off when washing them. Enjoy!
The green beans unfortunately had to be picked in the rain and may be muddy. You should give them a good rinse before preparing them. But they are so flavorful!
Remove tops of beets and carrots for best storage. Beet tops are edible and can be used as you would chard or cooked spinach.
If you are getting a celery pile-up, you can chop it up and put it in a freezer bag and put it in the freezer for use in soups and stir-fry later.
Broccoli finally popped this week! A lot of it all at once. We had expected it to be ready a few weeks ago, but it really took it’s sweet time (we will be adding a different variety next season to try to ensure we have some in earlier boxes in 2021). Worth the wait, though!

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese Shares.

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Fresh cheese curds along with Arcturus which is our cheddar style cheese! So if we took the cheese curds and put them into forms and pressed them and aged them, we would end up with Arcturus. Except that the fresh curds are pasteurized and the aged cheese is raw milk. When making the cheddar on a small scale by hand, it’s difficult to get the curds to press together well, so there are some flaws near the rind of the cheese. This isn’t uncommon and the molds aren’t harmful. Some of them are even quite delicious! You can trim them away of you can give them a taste!

Recipes.

Buttery New Potatoes with Leeks and Parsley

Chocolate Cake with grated Beets and Zucchini - veggies for dessert!

Garlic Butter Smashed New Potatoes

On the farm.

Next week.

sweet corn!

Turnip Rock FarmerComment
Delivery Week 7; July 16, 2020

What’s in the box?

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celery
dill
cucumbers!
sweet onions
green top beets
red or savoy cabbage (medium and large shares)
carrots
basil
zucchini/ summer squash

Notes on the box.

Cucumbers coming in heavy now. We had just had the hoop house cukes, but the field cukes are ready now. Time for refrigerator pickles and cucumber based salads.
The greens of the beets are edible and can be prepared as you would cooked spinach or chard. The greens are also great sauteed and added to beets that have been roasted or sauteed until tender.
Remove the tops from the carrots right away to keep them crisp.
Basil can be stored with stems in a cup of water on your counter. It doesn’t like to be in the fridge.

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese Share.

Herdsman cheese and garlic dill quark. Both are excellent on veggie sandwiches or on pasta. A quick dinner idea is to cook some pasta and while that is cooking, saute some zucchini and onion. Drain pasta and mix in quark cheese, the sauteed veggies, and some freshly chopped basil. So quick and easy! Bread with quark and sliced cucumbers make a great snack, or add a fried egg for a really yummy breakfast.

Recipes.

Cold Cucumber Soup

Saltibarsciai: Lithuanian cold beet soup with kefir

Zucchini, Rice, and Cheese Gratin

On the Farm.

Last Saturday would have been the Eat Local Farm Tour. We looked at the calendar and felt dissappointed that the tour couldn’t happen this year. The farm is looking really great with weeds mostly under control and things growing so beautifully. We would have loved to have people out to see it. If you will be in the area and want to stop by the farm, give us a heads up and we might be free to give a socially distanced farm tour.
A few days ago Sadie, 6, came up and announced that the corn will be ready soon. She went out to the field and picked some ears and saw tiny kernels. She’s right! We think we are a couple/few weeks out. Last week of July or first week of August. Sadie also found the first red slicer tomato in the greenhouse. Just a couple more weeks and we will be looking at some very Summery boxes! We are happy that Sadie is developing good observation skills. It’s nice to have more eyes observing things on the farm.
Have you all been able to see the NEOWISE comet? We are lucky on the farm to have very clear, dark skies at night so we are able to see it very clearly. A friend asked if there would be a NEOWISE cheese coming form Cosmic Wheel Creamery and I think that might be a good idea!

Next Week.

broccoli
cauliflower
beets
carrots
greenbeans
celery
kale or beets
peppers?
squash
cucumbers
fresh garlic

Turnip Rock FarmerComment
Week 6; July 8, 2020

What’s in the box?

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Cucumber
Zucchini/Summer Squash
Celery
Green top Beets
Butter Head Lettuce
Green Onions
Carrots
Cilantro
Basil
Fennel (medium and large shares)
Napa (large shares)

Notes on the box.

Remove the tops from the carrots and beets for best storage. The beet greens are edible and can be cooked as you would spinach or chard.
Fresh celery! What a treat. It has a lot of really nice celery flavor. Tuna salad with finely chopped celery is a favorite no-stove summer meal.
The butterhead lettuce is so tender. It’s a favorite on the farm.
Fresh basil should be stored out of the fridge. I like to have it in a little cup of water on the counter like a bouquet until I’m ready to use it.
All the other veggies from this week should be stored in the fridge.

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese Shares.

This week I included Moonshadow and Moonglow. These two cheeses are made with the same recipe in the same way. The Moonshadow is made early in the Spring before the pastures are ready for grazing, so the cows are eating only hay. The Moonglow is made the rest of the season when the cows are eating all fresh pasture. I like to send the two together so you can taste them and look at them side by side to see what a difference what the animals are eating makes in the finished cheese. The Moonshadow has a creamy color and the Moonglow is more bright yellow. The Moonshadow has more tastes of broth and hay and the grassy flavor in the Moonglow is more apparent by comparison. It’s a fun side by side that I like to do each year. Hope you enjoy it! Besides snacking, I like theses cheeses on pizza with summer squash or diced in a salad with some roasted beets and nuts.

Recipes.

Basil Cilantro Oil - great for drizzling on top of hummus, roasted beets/fennel, or any grilled meat for an extra flavor kick

  • 1 cup basil leaves

  • 1 cup cilantro leaves and stems

  • 1 large clove garlic or garlic scapes roughly chopped

  • 1/2 jalapeno (optional)

  • 1/2 cup olive oil

    Add all ingredients to blender and process until smooth.

Thai Cucumber Salad
Cucumber Salad Ingredients:

  • 2 cucumbers, sliced

  • red or white spring onion thinly sliced with thinly sliced tops

  • thinly sliced celery, about a half cup

  • 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

  • 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

  • 1/2 cup chopped peanuts

  • optional toppings: toasted sesame seeds, red chili flakes

Dressing Ingredients:

  • 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

  • 2 tablespoons avocado oil (or olive oil)

  • 2 tablespoons rice vinegar

  • 1 tablespoon fish sauce

  • 1 small clove garlic, minced or pressed

  • 1–2 tablespoons sweetener (such as maple syrup, honey or brown sugar), to taste

Mix all ingredients together.

Roasted Beets and Sauteed Beet Greens

Beef and Celery Stir-Fry

Shaved Fennel and Celery Salad - you can substitute sunflower seeds or walnuts for the pinenuts in the recipe

On the Farm.

We got an inch of rain this morning. The heat! Summer crops are growing beautifully. We think we will have new potatoes in a couple of weeks. Tomatoes and peppers are putting on fruit and looking great and loving the hot weather. We have sweet corn tasseled out so probably a month until that’s ready to go.
The cows aren’t the biggest fans of hot weather. They prefer about 50 degrees. The milk production has gone down, but the grass is still growing.

Next Week.

beets
celery
zucchini/ summer squash
cucumber
carrots
green onions
red cabbage/savoy cabbage??
broccoli/cauliflower??????!

Turnip Rock FarmerComment