Share Notes 7-28-16

Share Notes 7-28-16

CSA Share Notes:

Welcome to this week’s CSA share. Here’s your vegetable line up:

  • Eggplant— Small shares received pale purple Japanese eggplant variety, and Large shares all received a the dark purple (it’s almost black!) Japanese eggplant. These eggplant are tender and soft and don’t store for long. This week we pan seared them in the cast iron skillet and then served them diced up into a chilled pasta salad and it was really good. We also sliced them down the center and grilled them like sausages until lightly charred and they were wonderful.
  • Bell peppers—Each share received a whole bunch of our colorful bell peppers.  This with our wonderful Japanese eggplant gives you the base ingredients for one of my favorite dishes: Summer Veggie Green Curry!
  • Jalapenos—Each share received a handful of bright, juicy jalapenos.
  • Squash—Everyone received a few squash this week.  Some are smooth and straight necked, others are bumpy and crook necked.
  • Zucchini—Large shares received a zucchini or two this week.
  • Pearl Onions—Each share received a nice large bag of pearl onions-great for tossing into a roast, a pot of green beans or new potatoes, or my favorite: pickling!
  • Sungold tomatoes—Each share received a pint of our most prized summer offering: sungold cherry tomatoes.
  • Cucumbers—Large shares each received Armenian cucumbers. These babies can get looong! They’re really delicious and so unique. We hope you like them. Small shares received a couple of our small slicing varieties. Give our Fridge Pickles recipe a try!
  • Tomatoes—Each share received about 5 of our finally ready tomatoes.  Seriously, we can’t believe that it’s late July and we are just now getting a small harvest of tomatoes!  But boy are we thankful to be getting some now! Large shares received our nice slicing tomatoes, which are one of three varieties: big boy, better boy, or celebrity. We harvested them all into the same bins and they’re tough to tell apart off of the plants, but all three are wonderful varietals. Small shares received some of our regular slicers, but also have a few of our San Marzanos which are an heirloom Roma tomato, and a few of our Japanese Black heirloom tomatoes which are pear-shaped, and ripen in an almost rainbow gradient of color staying green at the top, and darkening to a dark reddish-purple at the bottom. If any of your tomatoes are under-ripe just yet, leave them out on the counter to finish ripening before you dig in. Split or cracked tomatoes will spoil faster, so don’t wait too long, and a good number of the tomatoes do have small splits in them.  Just cut out the cracked part and enjoy the rest. Storage notes, below.
  • Basil—Each share received a small bunch of our healthy Genovese basil. This crop doesn’t wanna quit in the heat! It may arrive to you wilted from its journey. Follow our storage notes below.

Veggie Storage tips:

As a general rule, wait to wash any veggies until you’re ready to use them to help retain nutrients and prevent spoilage from excess moisture.

The onions, and tomatoes should be kept at room temperature. Tomatoes cannot tolerate temperatures below 50 degrees, so make sure you keep them cool but don’t put them in the fridge or they will begin to turn mealy. Bell peppers, and jalapenos can be at room temp as well, especially if you’re going to use them up within a couple of days. If it will take you longer than a week to use them up, we suggest storing them in the fridge sealed up, along with your cucumbers, squash, zucchini, and eggplant.

Basil should not be refrigerated, as it will turn black below 50 degrees. Trim the stems daily and place in a glass of cool water on your counter to perk it back up and keep it fresh.

Thank you so much for being a part of our Summer CSA!

Your farmers,

Jess & Justin

 

Large Share

large-share-csa-summerLarge Share: Zucchini, yellow squash across the top. Then from left to right: basil, assorted sweet bell peppers, Tomatoes (two Japanese Black and three slicing tomatoes pictured here), pearl onions, sungold tomatoes, Japanese eggplant,  jalapenos, and Armenian cucumbers across the bottom.

Small Sharesmall-share-csa-summer

Small share: Top row: cucumbers and yellow squash.  2nd row: basil, tomatoes (three slicers and two San Marzanos pictured here) pearl onions and jalapenos. bottom row, assorted sweet bell peppers, sungold tomatoes, more pearl onions, and Japanese eggplant.