What’s Happening on the Farm:

Our Flowers have popped! This week we begin Cut-Your-Own Flowers for Locavores and Flower and Herb Share members. If you are either of these, be sure to bring a little extra time with you when you come to pick-up you share, in order to go and cut your bouquet and herbs for the week. We will provide picking baskets and shears.

What’s in this week’s box?

Veggies:

Green Beans-Provider, Jade, Concessa,

Beets-Red Ace, Merlin, Moneta, and Guardsmark Chioggia

Broccoli- Bay Meadows, Diplomat

Radish-Crunchy Royal

Head Lettuce- One of these varieties: Red Leaf, Green Leaf, Green or Red Bib, Red or Green Romaine, Red or Green Oak Leaf

Greenhouse Tomatoes- Rebelski, Geronimo, Trust

Zucchini-Raven, Dunja

 

Fruit:

Blueberries

 

Storage, handling and general cooking tips…

Green Beans

This tasty bean is among one of the only ones that can be enjoyed fresh, plus it packs a punch full of benefits! Green beans are an excellent source of folate, fiber, and  potassium. Surprisingly, green beans are also full of cancer fighting carotenoids. Toss it in with your salad, stir fry with some oil, or steam to go along with your chicken and rice.

Storage and Handling

Store unwashed fresh beans pods in a plastic bag kept in the refrigerator crisper. Whole beans stored this way should keep for about seven days. Wash in cold water right before using. Trim and cut the ends off right before using.

Cook tips

Use raw beans for dipping, (we love it with hummus) or in with your salad. Build a composed Salad Nicoise and combine with boiled potatoes and tuna. Marinate in your favorite dressing and saute with garlic to make a tasty side for dinner.

 

Beets

Storage – If your beets still have greens attached, cut them off, leaving an inch of stem. Keep these greens unwashed and refrigerated in a closed plastic bag. Store the beet roots, with the rootlets (or “tails”) attached, unwashed, in a plastic bag in the crisper bin of your refrigerator. They will keep for several weeks, but their sweetness diminishes with time; so try to use them within a week.

Handling – Just before cooking or consuming, scrub beets well and remove any scraggly leaves and rootlets.  If your recipe calls for raw beets, peel them with a knife or vegetable peeler, then grate or cut them according to your needs.

Try baking beets at 350-400 degrees, wrapped in tin foil, for an hour or until they are easily pierced with a fork.  Cut the tops and bottoms off and the skin should easily slip off. Why not add some other root vegetables to the dish along with olive oil, garlic, herbs, and salt. Beets can also be boiled–45 minutes to an hour depending on size, they  should easily pierce when done. Plunge them directly into cold water after boiling and the skins will slip right off. Then slice and top with fresh lime juice. Please don’t miss the opportunity to have your kids taste beets! They are chock full of fiber, vitamins (lots of Bs and C!), minerals (iron, magnesium), and antioxidants. Plus, they look beautiful on the plate.

 

Broccoli

Storage-

Wrap broccoli loosely in a plastic bag and keep it in the vegetable bin of your refrigerator. Don’t use an airtight bag, because broccoli continues to respire after being harvested and needs some room to breather. It keeps for over a week but is firmest and tastiest if used within a few days.

Handling–

Part of eating sustainably involves tolerating a few bugs on your produce. Broccoli in particular sometimes comes with innocuous friends tagging along in its depths. Immediately before cooking, soak your broccoli, head down, in cold, salted water (1 teaspoon salt to 8 cups of water) for 5 minutes. Any critters will float to the top. If you soak your broccoli in salt water and then store it, it will become too rubbery and wilted to enjoy. So wait until the last minute to salt and soak it.

After cutting or breaking off the florets, don’t discard the stem. Sliced stems are juicy, crunchy, and perfectly edible wherever the florets are called for. If the skin on the stem is particularly thick, you can remove it with a paring knife or vegetable peeler before adding the stem to your dish.

 

Radishes 

Storage- Remove radish or turnip leaves if they are still attached. Store the unwashed greens in a loosely wrapped plastic bag in the vegetable bin of your refrigerator. Because of their high water content, turnips and radishes deteriorate quickly. Store them dry and unwashed in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. Young turnips and most radishes should keep for a week. Black radishes will keep slightly longer.

Handling– Scrub radishes and young turnips well to remove any lingering dirt. Trim off he stems and rootlets. Slice, chop, or mince the roots or leave them whole.

 

Tomatoes

The sun-loving tomato’s arrival could mean only one thing—Summer is definitely here! This delectable, heart healthy summer fruit, beyond being a palate pleaser is fantastic in so many ways. Tomatoes can be eaten raw, stewed, sun dried, in soup, as a snack, with balsamic vinegar and fresh mozzarella, chopped into salsa, on sandwiches and burgers. The possibilities are endless.

FYI-Tomato paste will remove chlorine from hair, especially if you have blond hair and the recent heat wave has turned you into a pool diving mermaid and your locks are now greenish.

Did you know that tomatoes are thought to originate in Peru where their Aztec name “xitomatl’ means “plump thing with a navel”.

Storage

Tomatoes bruise easily, so handle them with care. Wash and dry your tomatoes before storing. Unless you’re planning to store your tomatoes for over a week, a windowsill, counter-top or bowl, stem side down, works fine. If you know you won’t use them in the next few days, then lower temperatures (a cool entryway) will help to preserve the fruit. Contrary to our common practice in the US, storing in a refrigerator is not otherwise recommended, as the cooler temperatures can reduce flavor and cause mushiness and mealyness. Your fresh-picked tomatoes will last longer on the kitchen counter than store-bought ones anyways, which are probably a few days old when you get them.

 

Zucchini

 Storage– Un-waxed farm-fresh zucchini and summer squash respire through their skins, so they need to be refrigerated as soon as possible. Store them unwashed in a perforated plastic bag in the vegetable bin, or refrigerate them in a sealed plastic container that you’ve lined with a kitchen towel. In the refrigerator they keep for about a week and a half.

 Handling– Rinse under cool running water to remove any dirt or prickles; then slice off the stem and blossom ends. According to the specifications of your recipe, slice the vegetable into rounds, quarters, or chunks.

Handle zucchini with care as they are easily damaged.

Cook tips

Zucchini is wonderful steamed, sautéed, grilled or stuffed and baked. You can also cut uncooked zucchini into strips and serve it as an appetizer, or dice and grate it into a salad. Overcooked zucchini will end up as mush. To salvage it, make soup!

 

Lettuce, Salad Greens and Mesclun:

Storage- Store unwashed lettuce, greens or mesclun in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. To store lettuce or greens that you have already washed and dried, roll the leaves loosely in a kitchen towel, put the towel in a plastic bag, and place the package in the vegetable crisper bin. Wet greens will wilt quickly, so make sure they are good and dry before refrigerating them. If you have a salad spinner, wash and spin the greens before refrigerating them. Eat mesclun mix within three or four days, and use lettuce within a week.

Handling- Salad greens are fragile, so make sure to be gentle with them.  For lettuce, slice the head at the base to allow the leaves to separate from each other.  Tear your leaves into smaller more manageable pieces for use.  Lettuce, greens and mesclun mix can be washed by swishing them around in a basin of cold water.  If you see a lot of dirt settling in the water, wash them again, until they’re nice and clean.  The best way to dry your greens is in a salad spinner if you’ve got one, or if not, you can always pat them dry with a towel.

Cook Tips- Salad greens taste great lightly braised or stir-fried, but keep an eye on them, as they cook very quickly.

Try adding salad greens into sandwiches, tacos, burritos, omelets, or whatever else you can think of!

Salad greens are a great addition to quiches, lasagna, and other baked dishes, wanna green up your pizza? It’s great on top, right after you pull it out of the oven.

Our mesclun mix isn’t that spicy: a combination of peppery arugula, mustards, mizuna and some tat soy. These greens are great as a pizza topping, on top of an egg and toast, or simply added to your daily salad.

 

Eggs:

Store- Our producer, Pete & Gerry’s, recommends storing the eggs in a refrigerator, reason being that they wash their eggs before sending them to market. This makes them slightly more porous and in turn the eggs age a little faster.

FYI-You may be wondering why there is a discrepancy between eggs and refrigeration around the world. Well, we did too and did some research. In the US, industry standards are to wash the eggs before sending them out, in order to lower the risk of transmitting diseases. That’s not to say that local small scale egg producers’ eggs aren’t clean, but they probably haven’t been subjected to a pressure wash.

 

Recipes of the Week!

Take a fancy foodie picture with your Applecrest fruit and veggies? Let us know and post it on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter with #applecrest !

• Zucchini Butter
• Roasted Beet and Broccoli Slaw
• Crispy Broccoli with Lemon and Garlic
• Grilled Summer Squash with Green Beans and Quinoa
• Quick Radish Pickles
• Salad of Edible Radish and Beet Greens
• Blueberry, Beet and Feta Salad
• Nigel Slater’s Extremely Moist Chocolate Beet Cake
• Blueberry Shortcake

 

 Roasted Beet and Broccoli Slaw

Ingredients:

• 2 large beets
• 2 stems from broccoli, peeled (save the florets for another dish).
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground white pepper
• ½ cup red onions, sliced thinly

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425°F.
2. Wrap beets in aluminum foil and roast for 1-1.5 hours. They are done when they are easily pierced with a fork or knife but should still be firm. You can do this step way ahead of time. We often throw beets in the oven when its on for other purposes and then just keep the roasted beets in the fridge for a day or two until  ready to use them.
3. When beets are cool, shred them through the large grater side of a box grater. Do the same with the broccoli stems.
4. Slice the onions.
5. Stir together the oil, vinegar, and sugar, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
6. Toss together the dressing and the veggies. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour before serving. It is even better the next day.

 

Crispy Broccoli with Lemon and Garlic

From Smitten Kitchen 

(Check out her website, some of the best & tastiest recipes we’ve ever used have come from her adaptations. Bonus: she’s super witty and funny!)

Serves 2 as a side

1 pound fresh broccoli
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/2 teaspoon coarse or kosher salt
A few pinches of pepper flakes, to taste
Finely grated zest of half a lemon, or more to taste
1 large or 2 small garlic cloves, minced
Juice of half a lemon, or more to taste, to finish

Heat oven to 425°F (220°C).

Prep your broccoli: Wash broccoli well — seriously, there is always a stem-colored worm hidden in the florets when I buy organic or from a farmer’s market, hooray for fewer pesticides! — and pat dry. Slice straight through the broccoli stem(s) as close to the crown of florets as possible. The crown should naturally break into several large florets, and you can cut these down into more manageable chunks. I find that less mess is made and less broccoli rubble is lost when I cut not down through the florets tops to halve chunks but up through the attached stems. (See 2nd photo above.) After cutting through the stem, I use my hands to break the floret the rest of the way in two. Don’t let the stems go to waste. I peel off the tough outer skin and knots and cut the stems into 1/2-inch segments; they cook up wonderfully this way, and at the same speed as the florets.

Drizzle the first tablespoon of oil over your baking sheet or roasting pan and brush or roll it around so it’s evenly coated. In a large bowl, toss prepared florets and stems with remaining olive oil, garlic, pepper flakes, salt and lemon zest until they’re evenly coated. Spread broccoli in an even layer in prepared pan.

Roast for 20 minutes, then use a spatula to flip and move pieces around for even cooking. Roast another 10 to 15 minutes, checking every 5, until broccoli is toasty and as crisp as you like it. (As you can see, we like a serious char on ours.)

From the oven, taste a floret for seasoning and add more salt and pepper flakes if needed. Shower with fresh lemon juice and eat immediately, as-is or follow one of the adventures below.

 

Quinoa with Grilled Summer Squash & Green Beans

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked quinoa (or brown rice, orzo or other favorite small grain)
2 cups water
Pinch of salt
2 large zucchini and/or summer squash, sliced
1 1/2 cups green beans, ends snapped off
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced
Salt and black pepper, to taste
1/3 cup freshly chopped basil leaves
Extra balsamic vinegar and olive oil, for drizzling over dish, optional
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, for garnish, optional

Directions:

1. First, using a strainer, rinse the quinoa under cold water. Add quinoa, water, and salt to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil for 5 minutes. Turn the heat to low and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until water is absorbed. Remove from heat and fluff with a fork.
2. While the quinoa is cooking, place the zucchini, yellow squash, and green beans in a large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and garlic. Pour balsamic dressing over the vegetables and toss until vegetables are well coated. Season vegetables with salt and pepper, to taste.
3. Heat grill to medium-high heat. Place the vegetables in a grill basket. If you don’t have a grill basket, spread out the vegetables on a large sheet of aluminum foil. Add a top sheet of foil and crimp the edges of the sheets together to make a packet. Place on the hot grill and cook until tender crisp, about 10 minutes. Remove the vegetables from the grill.
4. Place the cooked quinoa in a large bowl. Add the grilled summer squash, green beans, basil, and stir. Drizzle with extra balsamic vinegar and olive oil, if desired. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Garnish dish with Parmesan cheese, if using. Serve warm.

 

Quick Radish Pickles

From Gourmet

• 6 oz radishes (about 7), quartered
• 3 tablespoons rice vinegar (not seasoned)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 (1-inch) piece peeled ginger, cut into thin matchsticks (1 tablespoon)

1. Toss radishes with 1 tsp salt in a bowl and let stand 30 minutes. Drain in a sieve but do not rinse.
2. Heat vinegar with sugar in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring, until sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and add radishes, then stir in ginger. Transfer to a small bowl and marinate, chilled, at least 2 hours.
3. Enjoy on salad, or with cured meats and cheeses, use as a garnish in a martini or Bloody Mary.

 Salad of Edible Radish and Beet Greens

From White on Rice Couple

As a reminder, part of the fun of being a member of a CSA is collaborating with your community, so always feel free to post cooking suggestions or feedback on recipes that we post, or favorite recipes of your own that you’d like to share.