What’s in the Box this Week?

WEEK #1 STANDARD VEGETABLE BOX:
Large size boxes will get a double portion of the standard box.

MILD MESCLUN ~ A customer favorite! This salad mix is a delicate blend of lettuces that is perfect for a fresh salad. It has great shelf life too! Store in a Debbie Meyer Green bag or glass container right away and leave it in the fridge. Don’t wash until you’re ready to use it, then spin it dry in a salad spinner.

MINI ROMAINE LETTUCE ~ Store in a Debbie Meyer Green bag or glass container right away and leave it in the fridge. Don’t wash until you’re ready to use it, then spin it dry in a salad spinner.

SPINACH ~ Keep dry, unwashed greens in a sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator up to 2 weeks. To prep, wash leaves in basin of lukewarm water to remove grit. Spin dry. Add uncooked spinach to a mixed green salad. Blanch spinach until it wilts, 2-4 minutes, or steam for 5-8 minutes. Saute greens until tender in a covered pot or large sauté pan with olive oil, a pinch of salt, and garlic or onion. Watch for color to brighten as this signals it is done.

RADISHES ~ Remove radish greens and store the unwashed greens in a loosely wrapped plastic bag in the crisper bin of your refrigerator. Store radish roots unwashed in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for 1 week. Eat radishes raw with a sprinkle of salt. Grate radishes into slaws and salads. Try small young radish leaves in salads or scrambled eggs. Blanch whole radishes in boiling, salt water for 5-10 minutes, or steam them until just tender, 8-12 minutes. Top with butter, salt, and pepper or with a vinaigrette. They’re also great grilled and pickled.

KOHLRABI ~ Download our Kohlrabi eBook here. This plant was developed by crossing a cabbage with a turnip! The edible part of the plant is an enlarged section of the stem that develops just above the ground. It has a crisp interior like a potato. Store kohlrabi globe and leaves separately. The bulbs will last for 2 weeks refrigerated in a plastic bag. To prep, rinse under cold running water just before use. Cut the outer skin off with a knife. Trim off the remains of the stalks and root. Grate, slice, or chop as desired. Cut raw kohlrabi bulb into sticks for a refreshing addition to a raw vegetable tray or grate it for salads. Try raw kohlrabi smeared with peanut butter. Lightly boil, steam or bake it, or add it to stews and stir-fries.

GARLIC SCAPES ~ Download our Garlic Scape eBook here. (Super helpful if you’re new to scapes!) Scapes have a curlicue shape, and a garlic flavor. Chop/mince the scape (even the flower bulb part), and use it wherever you would use garlic. You can eat the scapes roasted on the grill whole. Store the scapes whole or chopped in a storage bag or container, and use within a couple weeks. If you can’t get through them fast enough, just chop them up and throw them into the freezer in a freezer bag. Use them all winter long as a garlic substitute.

SCALLIONS ~ Place your scallions into a glass filled with an inch of cold water and place it in your fridge (or leave on the counter). We like to place a bag over the tops of the greens, if it’s going in our fridge to keep them from drying out. Refresh the water every 3 days. These will last a long time stored this way. You can trim the green tops off the scallion and use them to garnish tacos or salads or meat dishes. You can also chop them up and freeze them for later use in a freezer bag! The whites of the onions are often used in salad dressing vinaigrette, on salads, or enjoyed grilled with a little olive oil and salt and pepper.

DILL ~ For short-term storage, stand upright in a container with an inch of water. Then cover the herbs loosely with a plastic bag and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks. To prep, chop the leaves and stem before cooking. Dill goes well with green beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, tomatoes, parsnips, potatoes, spinach, cucumber, squash, eggplant, and eggs.

What’s a Garlic Scape?

If you’re new to the CSA, you may be scratching your head at the bunch of curlicue veggies you uncovered in your first CSA box. Don’t panic! These are super easy to use. They’re called “garlic scapes.” And they are the flowering part of the garlic plant. (Yes!! Garlic produces a flower if you let it!)

Garlic is planted in the fall at the end of October. If you’re wondering what a garlic seed looks like, it’s the actual garlic clove. Garlic seed is THE most expensive seed we buy. Every year, we try to save some of our own seed by separating the biggest and best cloves from our harvest. We plant the biggest cloves root-end down, spacing them about 4 inches apart, 2-3 inches deep.

The garlic grows roots during the winter. In the spring, green tops shoot out — they almost look like green onions or leek plants at first. The plants get very tall, and eventually (right around early June) a curling garlic “scape” forms, which is the flower part of the plant.

We must snap off the scapes, because it makes the bulbs bigger when we do. (The plant is directing its resources and energy to flower formation, so we want to encourage it use that energy to grow bigger bulbs under the ground instead). Turns out you can actually eat the scape too! These scapes are delicious, and taste like a cross between garlic and a scallion. (You can chop them up and use them like garlic in cooking. Or toss them with olive oil, grill them, then sprinkle with salt. Watch your party guests be amazed as they wonder, “What is this thing I’m eating?”).

We know the garlic plant is ready to harvest when the foliage has died off. (We also leave a few scapes attached to act as “indicator plants.”  When the curling scape stands up straight and starts to flower, we know it’s time to pull the actual garlic plant — usually in early or mid July).

In a few weeks, we will begin the task of digging out the garlic bulbs. Some of this garlic can be sold as “fresh” garlic. It has to be refrigerated and eaten within a week or two. To cure the rest of the garlic for long-term storage, we lay the stalks with their bulbs still attached in the greenhouse to “cure” for several weeks. This turns the skins papery thin and white. We’ll then cut the stalks off one by one, cut off the rootlets, and clean up any dirt still on the skin, sort the bulbs by size, and then prepare them for CSA or sale at market or for seed saving.

Week 1 Announcements

1. Don’t forget to bring back your plastic veggie tote on week 2. We’ll sub it out with a fresh one. Do not use your veggie box for anything else besides storing our food — don’t let your pets or your kids play in them.
2. Watch our weekly unboxing video that we post on Thursday evenings inside the private Facebook group. Melissa will show you what’s in the box, share storage tips and ideas for how to use your produce.
3. Schedule a reminder for box pickup in your phone. If you miss your box pickup, call one of us as soon as you can. Please review our “Missed Box” policy in our CSA handbook. Note: If picking your box up at the farmer’s market, we recommend that you come early in the day when your box is freshest and the market is less busy.

Week 1 CSA Recipes

Members: You can download these recipes as a PDF. These recipes are designed to inspire you to use your box this week! Please check inside our private Facebook group to find your fellow members sharing ideas for what to make with their box! Share a photo and you might be featured in next week’s newsletter!   

Veggie Cream Cheese
White Bean & Garlic Scape Dip
Olive Garden Breadsticks
Easy Spinach Frittata
Creamy Dill Sauce
Garlic Scape Dressing
Pickled Scallions
Quick-Pickled Horseradish Kohlrabi
Marinated Chicken (Dry-Rub)
Crispy Apple and Kohlrabi Salad
Mini Romaine and Savory Granola Salad