Cool Beans Week Three – mmmmm, Strawberries!!!!
Dear Beans –
Despite the heat the lettuces are staying mild – you have Bronze Arrowhead and Green Deer’s Tongue in this week’s box, plus spinach. The green variety of lettuce will keep longer, so you will want to use the red first. It’s a different batch of spinach (we like this kind better) than last week’s.
You have sensopai and maruba santoh this week. We like the Asian greens for their high vitamin content, but if you’re not familiar with them, you might need some tips on preparation. Katie’s favorite way to use Asian greens is to rinse them (we field-rinse everything but it is not cleaned thoroughly), dice the stalks and leaves, heat some toasted sesame oil, saute the not-quite-dry greens very briefly with some garlic, and add a splash or two of soy sauce. If you have leftover cooked chicken or fish, dice it and throw it in and stir to coat, make a pot of rice, and call it dinner. If you want more color, saute red peppers and some carrots in the oil before you add the greens – they’ll need longer cooking time.
It’s strawberry week! We hope to have them again next week, but it’s hard to predict with this heat. If you’d like more strawberries than what is incuded with your share, we can sell you some in between CSA days for $4 a quart depending on availability – email Katie or Judi and plan to pick them up at one of the farms.
An unlikely and amazing salad is sliced strawberries, crumbled feta, and diced onions over spinach with a simple dressing of balsamic vinegar, olive oil and a little bit of honey.
If you requested rhubarb, it’s included, as is a favorite recipe for using it. We sell a lot of this Strawberry Rhubarb Lemonade at our market, and on the rare occasion that there is a little left over, have discovered that it is excellent with vodka, rum or gin. We are not advocating anything other than responsible consumption, though!
Because there is no such thing as too much basil, you’re receiving basil plants from Katie’s greenhouse this week. Start snipping some off now, just above the point on the stem where there’s a pair of leaves, because it will branch out at the cuts. The plant will thrive in your garden, in a container, or just as it is on a sunny windowsill until our main crop of basil comes in. You’ll get a lot of basil later, so if you kill the plant, no guilt.
The not-parsley in the herb bundle this week is anise basil – just a tiny bit of it. It isn’t ready to harvest yet, but we had to prune some greenhouse plants. Use it in a glass of iced tea, it adds a nice licorice-basil flavor. It’s also good with fruit. There will be more later in the season, this is just a taste!
Remember, if you want to order fresh ground whole wheat flour ($2 per pound), email Katie (katie@komta.com) by Monday. If you’d like rhubarb for next week, let us know – it’s by request only since many people dislike it.
Coming soon – shell peas and snow peas!