Share Notes July 7, 2022

Share Notes July 7, 2022

CSA Share Notes

Here’s your vegetable line up:

  • Potatoes— Red LaSota this week. Enjoy them wedged and roasted or grilled into big chunky fries, or cube and hash brown them for the yummiest breakfast tacos with egg, potato, and cheese.
  • Garlic— We are so excited about our garlic crop this year. It did well and is beautiful and delicious. Please enjoy it! We’ll have several more bulbs of it in your boxes over the summer season
  • Onions— 3 for the Large, 2 for the regular, and 1 for the mini.  A great staple we’ll have all summer long. If you notice a bit of black dust under the onion skin, that’s aspergillus niger, a mold that is totally harmless and grows on storage onions in our humid ETX climate. Just rinse it off, or remove that first layer of the onion and you’re good to go.
  • Melon—Large Shares received a lovely small watermelon from our friends in Van, Homegrown Farm. They don’t spray their crops with chemicals, so that’s fantastic! Most received a red flesh melon, but some received a yellow fleshed melon. It’ll be a surprise when you open it up.
  • Apple Yellow cherry tomatoes— These golden girls are so good! Give them a couple of days on your counter to complete ripening. Large shares only
  • Sungold Cherry tomatoes— For the regular and mini shares. This is our staple cherry tomato. It’s the most delicious and sweet tomato candy you’ll ever eat!
  • Tomatoes!—Just a few this week.  Slicers and green tomatoes for the regular shares, and San Marzano romas to the Mini shares. The mini shares are heavy in tomatoes, but in coming weeks, that’ll hopefully balance out between the other share sizes.
  • Squash— Tender and sweet. Straight neck, crook neck, and zephyr, which is half yellow, half green.
  • Zucchini—Tender, delicious. I enjoy mine every summer on some Mexican-spiced grilled fish tostadas with a tasty avocado cream sauce, and piled high with cubed and quick sautéed zucchini.
  • Cucumbers—Everyone received crunchy cukes. We have a few longer/bigger varieties that are slicing types, and shorter, squatty varieties that are pickling types. Both can be used interchangeably in any salad or for fresh, crunchy snacking

Veggie Storage tips:

Tomatoes want to stay above 55 degrees, so keep them away from the fridge! Potatoes, garlic, and onions prefer room temperature, with good air ventilation. If stored in the dark, the potatoes will begin to sprout, but don’t give them *too* much light, either, or their skin will begin to green. Everything else (squash, zucchini, cucumbers, melon) wants to be in your refrigerator, sealed up in bags of containers to prevent drying out. Everything will need a gentle washing before cooking, but leave the dirt on until you’re ready to use them to prevent spoilage.

We’d love to hear stories and recipes of your culinary adventures this week. Send us a note or post a comment of how you’ve used your CSA share.

Your farmers, Jess & Justin

Regular Share

Regular Share:  top left to right- A couple of Slicer tomatoes, onions, potatoes, sun golds, atop garlic (2nd row) green tomatoes, 1 pickling, 1 slicing cucumber, 1 zucchini, and squash.

 

Large Share

Large Share top left to right:   slicing cucumber and various yellow squashes, pickling cucumbers, onions (2nd row/center) melon, garlic, (bottom row) potatoes, zucchini, and yellow apple tomatoes

Mini Share

 Mini share: top left to right: Squash, lots of San Marzano roma tomatoes, sun golds (2nd row) garlic, onion, cucumber, potatoes