This week we embark on an adventure in eating locally.
There is something powerful about standing on the ground that grows your food and witnessing the process. Whether you visit the farm for a quick pickup or a longer linger, the farm experience is part of your eating experience. Whether you check in on what we are planting or help us plant it, you are learning how your food is grown and observing the cycle. It is all part of the farm experience and your adventure in eating locally. I hope you and your family love it!
Tip: Don’t let this adventure overwhelm you. Customize your share to work for you. If you want to limit the greens which can be bulky in these first few spring harvests, swap in scallions and salad turnips this week to balance the greens. Share an item with a neighbor or toss it in our Food Bank donation bin. Sharing some produce so that this is a positive experience for your family is a win-win. So don’t let quantities get in your way. If we offer too much quantity for you one week, let it go and enjoy the experience.
This week’s harvest is full of fun succulent spring greens. We have beautiful napa cabbages that we grew in the hoophouse so that they would be ready early. Make our version of kim chi, called Farm Chi. Some of these napas are a few pounds! Sweet salad turnips. Celery Cabbage is a delicate napa cabbage with a stem that is like celery and the leaves like lettuce. It can be gently stir-fried as well and the big leaves would also make fantastic wraps. Bok choy are edible spoons--to scoop and crunch with hummus or some saucey rice. We have two kinds of lettuce, red and green leaf lettuces. I use them interchangeably. And two kinds of kale. Curly kale, perhaps make massaged kale salad and kale chips. And more!
Join our Facebook group: House in the Woods Farm and Friends. I will post some extra recipes there. I hope you will share there too--recipes, questions, photos of what you make--so we can gain inspiration from each other.
Watch for recipe ideas that come in the emails and ask other members for ideas. I keep things simple in the kitchen. You might find when food is this fresh, it doesn’t take much to make it delicious. If you ask me, I will probably recommend a salad or a stir-fry. Those are my two main categories of cooking!
TWO RECIPES
- Make Kim Chi -- Read the story about “farm chi” and the recipe on my Mother Earth News blog here
- My tips for making great Curly Kale Chips
U-PICK THIS WEEK
- Flowers--pick a small bouquet of sweet william, snapdragons, and bachelors buttons
- Culinary herbs--oregano, thyme, sage--looking ready for some clipping in the herb beds
- U-Pick will expand as the weeks continue.
EXTRAS FOR SALE
Extras are for sale during customization. Most of the produce in your share is also available as an extra, if you want more items. Just add em! Sometimes I will offer an Extra from another farm. I will always tell you the source if an Extra is from a different farm. As you customize your harvest, check out the extras!
- Seedlings for sale in the Extras, lots of tomatoes and herbs and a couple peppers and eggplant, all grown in our hoophouse.
- Nick’s Organic Eggs from his farm just a couple miles away. Nick is a longtime farming friend. His hens are pastured on grass and he even grows some of his own organic grain.
- Beautiful blank cards with photos from the farm.
