This week's features
Our first tomatoes! We have just 12 lbs of Black Beauty heirloom tomatoes this week from Humble Bee and Tree Farm (more on the way!) so I left them out of the prebuilt shares. If you're really quick you can grab a pound, but please don't be greedy so 11 others can enjoy them too. We also have 50 pints of yellow cherry tomatoes this week from Detweiler Farm.
More cucumbers! Not only do we have slicing cucumbers again, but pickling cucumbers make their first appearance. I love pickling cucumbers for cucumber salads because they stay crisp longer. Both types of cukes come from Detweiler Farm.
Shiitake mushrooms! Just five half-pound bags this week, so act quickly.
Beets! Spur Hollow Farm responded to my plea for CSA beets with 25 bunches this week.
New product: baby cilantro from Harmony Grove Farm. This fern-like green is a great garnish with bold cilantro flavor.
Baked goods of the week are Blueberry Peach Muffins and Cranberry Soda Bread from Mimi's Backwoods Bakery.
Honey! Humble Bee and Tree Farm recently extracted spring honey. Limited supply is available this week until they can get more bottled.
A new product for man's best friend: Deer Antler Dog Chews from The Way Nature Intended. All-natural deer antlers are a long-lasting chew toy that is good for your furry pal.
Please Remember
Our Site Coordinators volunteer their homes or businesses to host our CSA pickup. Please be considerate of them and pick up your CSA share during the designated time. Not only will you receive fresher products, but your site coordinator will be happier. Of course, if you find you can't pick up on time, you can send someone else as long as you instruct them to find the box with your name and take only the contents within, as well as any cooler items listed. If you don't pick up your share, then you forfeit it and the the site coordinator can use or donate your share however they want.
Also, please make sure to take any cold items you ordered out of the cooler bag. Check your packing list on the outside of the box to ensure that you have all of your items. Last week, we received a cooler bag back that had ground beef and cheese sitting in it all week. Ugh!
Farm News
At Spur Hollow Farm, cultivating with human power keeps the weeds away and lets them grow nutritious veggies.
At Glacial Till Farm the garlic harvest has begun. The garlic will be cured for a few weeks and then will be stored away until fall when you will see it in your CSA shares.
Wanna know what I'm doing with my CSA veggies? We are always anxious for zucchini season to start because it's such a versatile veggie. This week we have eaten Panda Express Mushroom Chicken using zucchini, mushrooms, and garlic scapes from our CSA share with chicken we raised on our farm.
We've also made Italian Zucchini Boats filled with ricotta cheese or goat cheese along with a mixture of the scooped out zucchini, mushrooms, and garlic scapes, smothered with marinara sauce (or nomato sauce) and topped with mozzarella. Because of food restrictions, I sometimes make two versions of the same dish, one with standard ingredients and the other with allergy-safe ingredients.
For a different twist on zucchini, we had grain-free Chocolate Zucchini Muffins for breakfast one day this week. We greatly reduce the amount of sweetener, but that's the only tweak we do with this recipe.
Another fabulous meal this week was fish tacos made with Alaskan Pollock, with kohlrabi slaw rather than the traditional cabbage slaw. Here's the recipe we used as a guideline, with tweaks to suit our family. I served it with kale and beet salad with goat cheese (easy peasy with leftover roasted beets from the night before).
What have you been making with your CSA Share? We'd love to hear from you, either via email or on Facebook!
On behalf of your NWPA Growers farmers,
Amy Philson
