Aloha CSA members! Summer is pretty much here in good old Wisconsin fashion where we go from 50s to 90s and who knows maybe some snow next week right? The heat has got us bringing in the crops fast and we have so many great items ready for you this week if we can just get them all harvested and into our little walk in cooler. Today on sunday we’ve got hundreds of lettuce heads in and picked the first real pick on strawberries and baby zucchini. They are coming in slowly right now but I expect a big flush of them late this week and going into next week we will have a lot. For that reason they will be available at the farmstead this week but not in shares until next week. We do however have a lot of other great crops in and those berries and zucchini will be coming in more quantity soon. This week we have the following crops for you in shares.
Broccoli- My favorite green food, we don’t grow a lot of it but we need to get broccoli to our CSA members because I think its one crop everybody likes. This spring crop is looking awesome and tasting great and we have a very nice yield so expect a lot of broccoli this week!
Buttercrunch lettuce- This week you will receive a head of butter crunch lettuce in either green or red and green. These are so amazing for many reasons but the dense center head has a nice crisp texture and blanched center that makes for a great wedge style salad and the outer bib leaves I like to use for wraps and roll smoked salmon, or cheese, or turkey inside with some mayo and micro greens, or mustard.
Red leaf lettuce. – These two tone green and red frilly heads can be chopped up for a lofty salad or mixed with your buttercrunch for a red and green salad.
Kohlrabi – We are growing three colors of kohlrabi including purple, green, and white and they are all similar with subtle difference in flavor. They all have thin skins which should be peeled. The green are edible but a little on the tougher side but could be used with the stem removed in soup or stock. Kohlrabi is great in salads, coleslaw, and even sautéed with cream or roasted with other veggies. It’s like a cabbage and apple which is the root of its name it is great sliced up and served with cheese or other veggies.
Kale- We have our first bunching kale harvest this week and we have four types of kale this year. two green curly types, red curly kale, and blue lacinato kale. You will receive one bunch of one of these types likely the green curly but possibly some will receive blue lacinato. The first pick of kale is always the best so enjoy this tender and vitamin rich green. It can be used raw massaged with some oil for salad, made into chips, juiced, or sautéed into your dishes.
Beets, – we are growing four types this year and this week it it will likey be chioggia or white beets in your box this week. The chioggia has a bullseye pattern and the white beets have a light pink hue to them. both varieties do not bleed and have amazing greens so please try them if you have not before. The root is great roasted or made into beet salad. The greens are so good sautéed in a little olive oil and taste just like a rich spinach or swiss chard which they are related too.
Garlic scapes- These early summer savory shoots are actually the flowering shoot of a hardback garlic plant. In my opinion there are two great ways to enjoy them but they can also be used minced up in anything just like fresh garlic. The two ways i like them the most are made into pesto or paste with a little olive oil in the food processor and you can add basil or herbs if you like. This paste can then be used on anything really like flatbread, pizza, pasta, or whatever else you like. The second way I like them is cooked on the grill in a little foil wrap with oil in the wrap and they come out like the texture of asparagus with nice garlic flavor.
Sunflower shoots – Sunflower shoots will be our micro of choice this week unless we run short then some may receive pea shoots. We had a great harvest of them yesterday so I’m expecting there will be enough but sometimes we don’t find out exactly until packaging them all up. The sunflowers can be used anywhere you would use lettuce. They have a great nutty flavor and crunchy texture and are packed with essential amino acids.
Thats the lineup for this week folks! We will be working hard out here to get all these fresh veggies out the door to you. In other new we planted hemp this week and Madison magazine released an issue with our full spectrum hemp oil featured in it. Currently this month there is a 20 percent off promo running on it and I would be happy to honor that at the farmstand too. The code for that is rootsdownhemp20. Thanks everyone and I hope you enjoy the veggies!
