BGF News 6/24/14

Blue Gate Farm News – Volume XXIV, Number 4  –  June 24, 2014

In this week’s box:

Baby Beets with greens

Chard: Bright Lights Mix (a little beat up this week, but tasty nonetheless)

Garlic Scapes

Head Lettuce: Crisp Mint or Green Towers romaine

Peas: Snap AND Snow (our pea beds are exploding, so you get to enjoy the ridiculous bounty)

Tapestry Salad Mix

and one of the following:

Broccoli (the up and down temps are causing funny shapes, but still delicious flavor)

Summer Squash: 8 Ball (round, green), Golden Glory (yellow zucchini), Patty Pan (lt. green, dk. green or yellow, round scallop) or Slik Pik (lt. yellow, long)

           

For those with the Cheese option: Robiola & Black Pepper Chevre

For those with the Egg option [full]: one dozen free-range eggs (assorted colors)

For those with the Herb option: lemon basil, tarragon & peppermint

Featured Recipes (see below):  Summer Garden Pasta

Braised Whole Baby Beets

Pasta with Swiss Chard Bacon and Lemony Ricotta

Precipitation since last week: 1.69”

What’s up on the farm?

Another busy week has gone by and there has been lots happening on the farm this past week. The most important news is that our waiting and watching is finally over. On Saturday, our alpaca "herd" grew by one when the new baby was (finally) born. We're pretty sure it is a little girl, creamy white in color and as cute as they come, all long spindly legs and big eyes. It is such fun to see her out in the pasture with her mom. We haven't decided on a name yet, but probably something to do with summer as she was born on the summer solstice. You can see photos on our Facebook page and we hope to have more up on the blog this week.

Our other big event of the week was hosting a field day at the farm for Practical Farmers of Iowa. We had more than 45 people on the farm on Sunday to learn about building a walk-in cooler and about local pollinators. The day started with a tour of the farm and culminated with a potluck supper. In between there was lots of good information exchanging and learning. The weather cooperated nicely and it was a good day. This event was the impetus for making progress on the walk-in and lots happened in the week leading up to it. The concrete pad was poured on Wednesday and construction began on Thursday. Sean & Jill's dad worked hard and fast and got to a great stage in the build so that the field day attendees could really see the internal design and construction. It is an exciting project to see taking shape!

The balance of the week has been more of the normal work of the farm. Much weeding, cultivating and harvesting and trellising was done and things are looking quite good. As always, there is the occasional exception. The salad is really starting to show the stress of the recent heat. So this is likely the final delivery of salad mix until fall. We hope to have head lettuce available for future deliveries, but high temperatures may put a crimp in that plan as well. The garlic scapes are also wrapping up and this is probably their final appearance in the box for the season. Never fear, there is much garlicky goodness to follow in its other forms.

Just a quick reminder to try and remember to return your CSA box each week. This past week we had a pretty high percentage of forgotten boxes and while we understand that things happen and boxes get misplaced or plans change, it does slow down our packing progress when we have to make up temporary boxes and bag produce for multiple members. Do remember that there is always the option of bringing a bag along with you and just unloading your box at the pick-up location. A number of our members do this and then they never have to remember to return their boxes.

Upcoming Event: CSA member Ice Cream Social- Sunday, July 13th from 2 – 5pm at the farm. Come on out for an afternoon filled with fresh country air, homemade ice cream and farm-fresh desserts. We will be sending out an email next week to gather RSVP’s for this event, but we wanted to give you time to get it on your calendar. We hope everyone can join us!

Just a reminder, we have set up a new Facebook page for CSA members. You can find it here: Blue Gate Farm Community. If you have a Facebook account we encourage you to post recipes, photos and questions about your weekly produce box adventures. If you don't have an account, don't worry, you can still see/ read anything on the page, but you won't be able to post anything. We will keep an eye on the page and try to answer questions in a timely manner, but really this is to encourage the "Community" aspect of CSA and to provide you all a venue to share and connect with each other.

A little detail on your produce this week:

Beets: Cut off greens, leaving an inch of stem. Refrigerate the unwashed greens in a closed plastic bag and use with your chard mix. Store the beet roots, unwashed, with the rootlets (or “tails”) attached, in a plastic bag in the crisper bin of your refrigerator. They will keep for several weeks, but their sweetness diminishes with time. Just before cooking, scrub beets well and remove any scraggly leaves and rootlets. If your recipe calls for raw beets, peel them with a knife or vegetable peeler, then grate or cut according to your needs baby/young beets usually don't need to be peeled.

Broccoli: Wrap broccoli loosely in a plastic bag and keep it in the vegetable bin of your refrigerator for up to a week. Immediately before cooking, soak broccoli, head down, in cold, salted water (1 teaspoon salt to 8 cups of water) for 5 minutes. Any [organic] critters will float to the top where you can rescue them or allow them to suffer a salty death. (Note: If you soak broccoli in salt water before storing, it will become too rubbery and

wilted to enjoy.) Slice the juicy, edible stems and use them wherever florets are called for. Peel particularly thick skin before using.

Summer Squash/Zucchini: Refrigerate unwashed zucchini and summer squash for up to a week and a half in a perforated plastic bag or in a sealed plastic container lined with a kitchen towel. Before using, rinse zucchini and summer squash under cool running water to remove any dirt or prickles; then slice off the stem and blossom ends. Slice the vegetable into rounds, quarters, or chunks according to the specifications of your recipe. Summer squashes and zucchinis can be used interchangeably in recipes.

A few other details: Your greens will keep best if stored in a plastic bag, with the top folded over and placed in the produce drawer of your refrigerator.  For those of you who are new to our salad mix, yes you can eat the flowers. 

Is a weekly newsletter not enough for you and you want to read more about our daily adventures or see pictures of the farm?  Follow us at our blog at http://beyondthebluegate.blogspot.com/ and on Facebook (just search Blue Gate Farm) and “Like” us or hit the new CSA page at Blue Gate Farm Community

That’s about it this week, if you have any questions or comments be sure to let us know. 

Best from the farm,

Jill & Sean (and Blue, Luci & Indigo)

Summer Garden Pasta

Small bunch young beets, assorted colors with greens

1 tbs Olive Oil

1 tsp garlic, minced or garlic scapes, chopped

1 cup fresh beans or peas, stemmed and snapped

2 tbs Dried Tomatoes, chopped

Feta or parmesan cheese. crumbled/shaved

1 tbs Balsamic vinegar

Penne pasta

Prepare pasta according to directions.

While pasta is cooking, separate beets from greens (discard stems), cut beets into quarters or eighths and

cut beet greens into a chiffonade.

Place dried tomatoes into a small heat-proof dish. When pasta is about half done, take 2 tbs of pasta water and pour over dried tomatoes to re-hydrate.

Place olive oil, garlic, beets and beans into a sauté pan over medium heat for 3-4 minutes, stirring often. Remove dried tomatoes from liquid (reserving liquid) and add tomatoes to sauté pan along with beet greens. Cook until greens are wilted and bright green.  Remove from heat.

Place pasta in a serving bowl, add sautéed vegetables and feta cheese. Sprinkle with reserved water from dried tomatoes and balsamic vinegar, toss gently to coat.

This recipe serves two as a main dish, but is easy to multiply to feed any number.

Recipe source: Blue Gate Farm

Braised Whole Baby Beets

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

1/4 cup butter

2 lbs beet thinnings or whole baby beets with their greens (washed well and patted dry)

2 cups fresh chicken broth or roasted chicken stock

2 tbsp chopped fresh mint

2 tbsp cider vinegar

Melt butter in a skillet over a moderate flame. When it froths, neatly place beet thinnings into the skillet so that all the root tips rest in one direct and the greens in the other. Sear in butter until the greens are wilted. Pour two cups chicken broth or chicken stock into the skillet, cover, and simmer until roots become tender – about ten minutes.

Turn off the heat and transfer the beets to a serving dish using tongs. For best presentation, lay the beets together so that all the beetroots rest at one end of the serving dish with the greens resting at the other. Sprinkle with fresh chopped mint and dress with cider vinegar.

Recipe Source: http://nourishedkitchen.com/

Pasta with Chard, Bacon and Lemony Ricotta

1 lb corkscrew macaroni
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 slices bacon, coarsely chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped (or garlic scapes)
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 bunch Swiss chard, cleaned and coarsely chopped
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup ricotta cheese (or chevre)
1 lemon, juice and zest of
1 cup parmesan cheese, grated

Bring a large pot of water to a boil for the pasta. When the water comes to a boil, add salt and cook the pasta al dente.  While the pasta cooks, preheat a large skillet over moderate heat. Add the olive oil and bacon, and cook until the bacon crisps, about 3 minutes.

To the bacon add the garlic, onions, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes or until the onions are lightly caramelized.

Add the chopped Swiss chard, toss to coat, and wilt the chard down. Then turn the heat up to high and add the chicken stock. When the liquid comes to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 6 to 7 minutes.

In a small bowl, combine the ricotta with the lemon zest and season with salt and pepper. Place ¼ cup of the ricotta mixture in the bottom of 4 bowls. Set aside.

Add the lemon juice to the Swiss chard. Drain the pasta well and toss with the greens for a minute to let the juices absorb into the pasta.

Turn the heat off and add the grated Parmesan cheese and toss to distribute. Serve immediately, dishing it up on top of the ricotta cheese. Stir before eating.

Recipe Source: www.food.com

BGF News 6/17/4

Volume XXIV, Number 3 –  June 17, 2014

In this week’s box:

Basil Trimmings: asst varieties (Genovese, Italian Large Leaf, purple, Thai Magic and lemon)

Garlic Scapes

Head Lettuce:  Bronze Arrowhead

Kale mix: Red Russian, Toscano & Beedy's Camden,

Pac Choi: “Win-Win”

Peas: Snow or Sugar Snap

Tapestry Salad Mix

and possibly one of the following:

* Broccoli

*Summer Squash: 8 Ball (round, green) or Golden Glory (yellow zucchini)

           

For those with the Egg option [full & half shares]: one dozen free-range eggs (assorted colors)

For those with the Herb option: Herb share will begin next week

Featured Recipes (see below):  BGF's Favorite Kale Salad

                                                     Blue Gate Farm Pesto

                                                     BGF Roasted Peas

Precipitation since the last newsletter:  0.43”

What’s up on the farm?

Well that was an exciting little storm last night that drove us leaping out of bed and running for the house windows and outside to shut down the high tunnels. Sixty mile an hour winds can do a real number on a tunnel with it's sides open. No immediate damage was seen during the lightning flashes last night, hopefully we won't find any more this morning. Not a huge rain event, but we did get a bit of needed moisture.

It has been a productive week on the farm and other than being a little short on rain, the weather was most agreeable. The first of the melons were transplanted out to the field as well as the last cucumbers in the high tunnels. We do still have some later sowings of melons, winter squash and lettuces to go out, but they will be delayed a bit as several flats were destroyed by our rambunctious porch cats (we might have had a few words with them over this transgression).  There was also much weeding, hoeing and cultivating in general and those beds look great! We got the all of the gardens mowed and the majority of the tomato trellis posts installed. The last of the mulching was completed and we started stringing the tomato trellis, which will be an ongoing task as the tomatoes grow taller. We started hilling the potatoes, but this too will require one more pass through.

One of the most exciting parts of this time of year is seeing the mid-season plants starting to set fruit, almost, but not quite as exciting as harvesting them (we farmers live simple lives)! The fruiting plants are really looking quite good and we are seeing fruit set on the tomatoes, peppers, summer squashes. The eggplants are blooming, but we haven't seen any baby eggplant yet. The potatoes are also blooming, which means they are starting to form potatoes, but we don't plan to start harvesting those until they size up some more.  Speaking of sizing up, the first of our broccoli is sizing up, larger and earlier than ever before so we will start sending those out in boxes today. These are just the first (overachievers) to be ready, but there are lots more to come, so don't fear if you don't find it in your box this time around, there are lots more to come!  The same is true of the summer squashes. The basil has also put on a bit of a growth spurt and needs to be pruned back to increase future production, so everyone is getting a bit of that today. It may be a weird assortment of sizes and varieties this time around, but we hope you enjoy this little preview of one of our favorite summer flavors!  The peas kicked it into high gear this week, so we are declaring this "Pea Appreciation Week" and we are pleased to get peas into all the boxes this time around. Enjoy!

Ok, it is possible that I might have overstated the excitement level of seeing baby vegetables growing, but that is nothing compared to the excitement that we are looking forward to with the birth of our baby alpaca…yep, no news there yet, still waiting.  There is a comparable surge of excitement over the birth of our "baby" walk-in cooler though! After a long delay, there is finally visual progress on our new cooler in the packing shed. The area is cleared, excavated, base layers of insulation laid and concrete forms set. The cement truck is scheduled to arrive tomorrow with four yards of beautifully messy muck that will make up the pad for the cooler as well as a new approach to the barn. Projects of this size are always a bit of a disruption in the regular work of the farm, but oh what a difference they make in the long run!

It seems that nearly everything is doing well on the farm right now. If there is an exception, it is the beans. Some of our first sowings took off quite nicely, but a couple were beset by some very hungry insects are are still trying to recover. Another bed simply didn't germinate, and even upon resowing, hasn't lived up to expndtations so that bed will be tilled under and resown to something else. What this means is that we should still have plenty of beans, but they might be a little later than past years.

A slight detour! We have been telling you about a cool new site we've set up on Facebook for CSA members to share info. Well, the theory was sound, but the reality wasn't great, so we've changed it out for a better version. You can find the new site here: Blue Gate Farm Community.  This one is a "group" rather than a "page" so that sharing info by the membership is much easier. If you have a Facebook account we encourage you to post recipes, photos and questions about your weekly produce box adventures. If you don't have an account, don't worry, you can still see/ read anything on the page, but you won't be able to post anything. We will keep an eye on the page and try to answer questions in a timely manner, but really this is to encourage the "Community" aspect of CSA and to provide you all a venue to share and connect with each other, in fact there have already been some great looking recipes shared by a number of members. Thanks and keep up the great work! We will close the original (BGF Member Interchange) down next week to avoid confusion.

A little detail on your produce this week:

Basil: Basil should generally not be stored in the refrigerator, as it will turn black.  We like to keep ours in a vase of fresh water on the kitchen counter.  If stems are too short for a vase, wrap basil in a paper towel and place inside a plastic bag then store in the warmest part of the refrigerator (usually the door). For long-term storage, we like to process as pesto and freeze, see recipe below for details.

Broccoli: Wrap broccoli loosely in a plastic bag and keep it in the vegetable bin of your refrigerator for up to a week. Immediately before cooking, soak broccoli, head down, in cold, salted water (1 teaspoon salt to a 8 cups of water) for 5 minutes. Any [organic] critters will float to the top where you can rescue them or allow them to suffer a salty death. (Note: If you soak broccoli in salt water before storing, it will become too rubbery and

wilted to enjoy.) Slice the juicy, edible stems and use them wherever florets are called for. Peel particularly thick skin before using.

Summer Squash/Zucchini: Refrigerate unwashed zucchini and summer squash for up to a week and a half in a perforated plastic bag or in a sealed plastic container lined with a kitchen towel. Before using, rinse zucchini and summer squash under cool running water to remove any dirt or prickles; then slice off the stem and blossom ends. Slice the vegetable into rounds, quarters, or chunks according to the specifications of your recipe. Summer squashes and zucchinis can be used interchangeably in recipes.

Leafy Greens will keep best if stored in a plastic bag, with the top folded over and placed in the produce drawer of your refrigerator.  For those of you who are new to our salad mix, yes you can eat the flowers. 

* You will notice that some of the box contents listed above say something about the first group, second group, ect.  These are items that we can’t harvest in sufficient quantities for the whole CSA to receive at one time.  We do track who gets what and we will do our best to ensure that everyone eventually receives each item.  On some items this may take several weeks, so please be patient.

Is a weekly newsletter not enough for you and you want to read more about our daily adventures or see pictures of the farm?  Follow us at our blog at http://beyondthebluegate.blogspot.com/ and on Facebook at Blue Gate Farm and/or Blue Gate Farm Community

That’s about it this week, if you have any questions or comments be sure to let us know. 

Best from the farm,

Jill & Sean (and Blue, Luci & Indigo)

BGF's Favorite Kale Salad  

(this is also our favorite balsamic vinaigrette recipe, so you might want to make extra of the dressing!)

Yield: Makes 6 to 8 servings

2 tablespoons dried cranberries
5 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, divided
3 tablespoon seasoned rice vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 bunches kale (about 1 pound), center ribs and stems removed, leaves thinly sliced crosswise
2 tablespoons sunflower seeds, (if using salted, cut down on the 1tsp salt above)
Parmesan cheese shavings

Place cranberries in small bowl; add balsamic vinegar, seasoned rice vinegar, honey oil and salt and allow to soak several hours (overnight is even better).

Place kale in a large bowl, add cranberry mixture and toss to coat. Let marinate 20 minutes at room temperature, tossing occasionally. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with cheese shavings and sunflower seeds just before serving.

Recipe Source:  adapted from an epicurious recipe by Dan Barber

Blue Gate Farm Pesto

2 Tbs Sunflower seeds-toasted (can substitute pine nuts)

2 cloves Garlic (garlic lovers can add more) green garlic or garlic scapes are also good.

2 c. Basil (any variety, a mix is particularly nice)

1-2 leaves Sorrel (optional)

½ c. Olive oil

1 tsp Salt (if using pre-salted sunflower seeds, can reduce salt amount)

½ c. Parmesan cheese, fresh grated (not the stuff in the can)

Place sunflower seeds and garlic into food processor then pulse several times. Add basil and sorrel, drizzle with half of oil. Pulse several times.  Add remaining oil, Parmesan cheese and salt if desired.

Pesto should be stored for a week or less in the refrigerator in a sealed container.  If storing longer, freeze in snack-sized, zip-top bags (about 1 1/2 TBS per bag), pressed flat. Once frozen, they can be stored upright in a larger plastic bag. To use a little, just break off the amount needed and return the rest to the freezer.

Also, if we are making a large batch for the freezer, for best quality, we omit the cheese and seeds. Freeze as is and then add those items in when we are ready to use.

BGF Roasted Peas

Sugar Snap or Snow Peas

1-2 tbs olive oil, divided

garlic, garlic scapes or shallots, minced

sea salt

freshly ground pepper

seasoned rice vinegar

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Toss peas with olive oil. Spread in single layer on baking sheet and roast 5 minutes. Stir in garlic, salt and pepper. Roast for another 5 minutes. Remove from oven, place in serving dish, toss with rice vinegar. Season with additional salt and pepper if desired. They are a little messy, but we like these as finger food.

Recipe Source: Blue Gate Farm

BGF News 6/10/14

Volume XXIV, Number 2  –  June 10, 2014

In this week’s box:

Chard: Bright Lights Mix (big, leafy greens with bright, multicolored stems)

Garlic Scapes (the curly, green things)

Head Lettuce: Bronze Arrowhead (maroon oakleaf) and a bonus/misc. head

Purslane (small bundle of succulent green leaves)

Radishes (the final few)

Spinruts (baby turnips) Hakurei (white) & Scarlet Queen (pink)

Tapestry Salad Mix

and possibly one of the following:

*Snow Peas (next group in alphabetical order)

*Spinach (next group)

           

For those with the Cheese option: Roasted Red Pepper Chevre & Plain Chevre

For those with the Egg option [full]: one dozen free-range eggs (assorted colors)

For those with the Herb option: Herb share will begin in a couple of weeks as herbs mature

For those with the Honey option: We are on the bees' schedule, deliveries will likely start in July

Featured Recipes (see below):  Spring Turnips with greens and Raisins

                                                     Garlic Scape Pesto

                                                     The Great Chard E'scape

                                                     Huevos con Verdolagas

Precipitation since last week:  2.13”

What’s up on the farm?

The season is cruising on here at the farm and we are doing our best to keep up. The recent rains have been nearly perfect and we were so thankful to miss last week's damaging weather that took place south and west of us. Nearly everything here is green and lush, desirable plants and weeds alike! If we could possibly place an order for this weather to just continue through the season, we would all be perfectly happy (farmers, crew, animals and crops alike). Well, maybe not ALL of us. The very earliest crops have begun to decide that they are finished. Yesterday we cleared the early salad from the high tunnel and replaced it with the last of the tomatoes and peppers to be planted. Never fear, there is more salad in the field. The radishes are mostly done, so we will tuck the very last few into the boxes this week. The spinach was an unexpected loss, as we usually can coax it farther into June. Not this year, last week's rain and then warm-up put it over the edge and we were able to harvest just a few bags before the whole crop just melted. What this means is that the spinach is done until fall. We know that there are a number of you who won't have gotten spinach in these first two deliveries, so you will be the first to get it when the fall crop comes in. We wish we could have gotten it out to everyone now, but it just wasn't possible this time around.

Other notable crop happenings; the garlic is "scaping"! For those of you who are new to the CSA, scapes are the emerging flower stalk on a hardneck garlic plant. We remove them to redirect more of the plant's energy into the bulb, but it also provides us with a delightful fresh garlic treat. It is one of our favorite crops of the season and we hope you enjoy their curly, garlicky goodness as much as we do. They are a short season treat though, so we will likely have them in boxes for the next 2 weeks and then they will be done.  What else is happening? Main season transplanting and sowings are mostly done. Exceptions include melons and some succession sowings for things like beans, beets and edamame. So now our focus moves to cultivating/weeding, mowing, harvesting and otherwise attempting to manage the riot that is growing in the gardens. We have a little mulching left to complete and a lot of tomato trellising in our immediate future. We are still on "cria watch" for our impending baby alpaca. We thought there were some promising developments this weekend, but it appears we are just paying more attention now.

We had two swarms of bees on the farm this past week. No worries, it is a natural movement of bees from one home (hive) to find a new home, but it is always an impressive thing to see. Sean was able to re-hive one of them for sure, and hopefully yesterday's capture was successful as well. Both involved him standing at the top of a tall extension ladder, armed with an extended pole trimmer. So hopefully all will settle into their new digs and his efforts will translate into two new permanent hives of bees.

Just a reminder, we have set up a new Facebook page for CSA members. You can find it here: Blue Gate Farm Community. If you have a Facebook account we encourage you to post recipes, photos and questions about your weekly produce box adventures. If you don't have an account, don't worry, you can still see/ read anything on the page, but you won't be able to post anything. We will keep an eye on the page and try to answer questions in a timely manner, but really this is to encourage the "Community" aspect of CSA and to provide you all a venue to share and connect with each other.

A little detail on your produce this week:

There might be a few unfamiliar items in your box this week, especially if you are new to the CSA.  Most people know what peas are, but maybe not the types that we are growing.  We have snow peas (flat pod with little bumps showing immature peas inside) and sugar snap peas (rounded pods with mature peas inside).  Both have edible pods and can be used interchangeably in recipes.  They are particularly good in stir-fries and salads, though we tend to eat them fresh as a snack.  Peas keep best in their plastic bag in the produce drawer of your refrigerator.

Chard: A mild-flavored, leafy member of the beet family that can be used raw or cooked. Chard will keep best if stored in a plastic bag, with the top folded over and placed in the produce drawer of your refrigerator.  When cooking chard with large stems, separate stems from leaves and start cooking the stems first, as they will take a bit more cooking time.

Garlic Scapes: One of our favorite crops of the year. These curly green things are the emerging flower stalk from a hardneck garlic plant. We remove them to redirect more of the plant's energy into the bulb, but it also provides us with a delightful fresh garlic treat. These keep very well in a plastic bag in your produce drawer and can be used in any recipe calling for garlic. They would be perfect in last week's garlic salt recipe, make a great pesto and can be minced and added to room-temperature butter, which is then stored in log shape, in the freezer for a last minute dollop of goodness for vegetables, breads or meat.

Head Lettuce: We prefer to store heads wrapped in a cotton or linen dish towel, then placed in a plastic bag. This helps maintain a little bit of moisture, while keeping the leaves from touching the plastic to extend their "drawer-life".  Wash lettuce just before using. The inner-most leaves of the head are the sweetest, so save those for salad use and take advantage of the bigger, outside leaves for use on sandwiches or wraps.

Purslane: This succulent plant is a valued green in many parts of the world, though here in the US, it is mostly known as an invasive weed. It is rich in vitamin E, vitamin C and beta carotene, and quite high in protein.  Most noteworthy of all, it is considered a better source of essential omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy plant.  Enjoy raw or cooked in any recipe calling for greens.  Store in a paper towel-lined plastic bag in your crisper drawer and use within a week.

Spinruts/turnips: keep best if separated from their greens.  Greens are stored in a plastic bag and can be cooked like mustard or collard greens.  Trimmed roots can go into a lidded container or zip-close bag. You are probably also wondering what the story is with the term "Spinruts"?  Well, “spinrut” is just the word turnip spelled backwards and we borrowed this from a larger CSA in northern Iowa.  They decided that people have some pre-conceived notions about turnips and many of them are not very nice.  But most people have also only experienced the old stand-by “purple-top turnip” and these glowing white orbs that we are growing are a totally different eating experience.  This is a Japanese spring (or salad) turnip.  It is sweet, crisp and juicy and our favorite way to eat them is straight out of hand, or maybe chilled with a quick sprinkle of sea salt.  It is tasty sliced or grated into salads and even thin-sliced on sandwiches.  Of course you can also use them in any turnip recipe, but fresh is when they really shine.

A few other details: Your greens will keep best if stored in a plastic bag, with the top folded over and placed in the produce drawer of your refrigerator.  For those of you who are new to our salad mix, yes you can eat the flowers. 

* You will notice that some of the box contents listed above say something about the first group, second group, ect.  These are items that we can’t harvest in sufficient quantities for the whole CSA to receive at one time.  We do track who gets what and we will do our best to ensure that everyone eventually receives each item.  On some items this may take several weeks, so please be patient.

Is a weekly newsletter not enough for you and you want to read more about our daily adventures or see pictures of the farm?  Follow us at our blog at http://beyondthebluegate.blogspot.com/ and on Facebook (just search Blue Gate Farm) and “Like” us.

That’s about it this week, if you have any questions or comments be sure to let us know. 

Best from the farm,

Jill & Sean (and Blue, Luci & Indigo)

Spring Turnips with Greens and Raisins

2 T butter, divided

2 t olive oil

1 medium yellow onion, diced

1 bunch spring turnips and greens (about 10 small or 5 large turnips

about ½ cup raisins (we especially like this with dried cranberries)

salt

12 ounces orzo or bowtie pasta, cooked and cooled (optional)

Heat 1 T of the butter and all of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium flame. Add onions and cook, stirring often, until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, wash turnips and trim the leaves from the root. Chop the roots into 1-inch dice. Discard any yellowed turnip leaves and roughly chop the nice ones. Once the onions are softened, add the turnip roots. Sprinkle with a bit of salt, stir and cover. Cook until the turnips can be easily pierced with a knife, about 8 minutes. Uncover, turn the heat up to medium high, and cook, stirring now and then, until turnips turn light brown at the edges. Add the chopped greens and raisins and cook until the greens are wilted and tender, another 3-4 minutes. Add the remaining 1 T butter and salt to taste. Eat this as a side dish or toss it with cooked pasta for a main dish. Makes 3-4 servings.

Recipe Source: From Asparagus to Zucchini: A guide to cooking Farm-fresh Seasonal Produce

BGF Garlic Scape Pesto
1 bunch tender scapes, cut into pieces, and processed in a food processor until finely chopped
Add the following and process until well blended:
1/3 cup olive oil (add more if you like a thinner pesto)
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup sunflower seeds

optional, toss in some basil for additional pesto flavor if you have it.

This can be served now or frozen for future use. I freeze it in small (1/2 c.) zip-top plastic bags, flattened. Then you can just break off whatever amount you need.

The Great Chard E’Scape

½ lb Swiss chard (or other greens like kale, choi, braising greens, ect)

1 tbs olive oil

5-6 fresh garlic scapes (or more to taste) or 1-3 cloves minced garlic

Sea salt

Cut garlic scapes into 1” chunks. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add garlic scapes. Trim large stems from chard leaves. Cut stems into 1” pieces. Add stems to skillet. Stack chard leaves and roll into a tube. Cut into ½” strips. As scapes and stems just begin to soften, add leaves to skillet. Cook until leaves wilt. Sprinkle with salt to taste.

Great served over pasta with a red sauce or as a side dish. Leftovers are tasty in eggs the next day.

Recipe Source: Blue Gate Farm

Huevos con Verdolagas (Eggs with Purslane)
Ingredients for 2 servings

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion (or garlic scape)
1/2 cup chopped Verdolagas (purslane)
Small ripe tomato, seeded and diced
4 eggs, beaten with a fork
salt and pepper
Salsa, your choice green or red
4 corn tortillas

1. Heat olive oil in a heavy-bottomed skillet set over a medium flame. Add onions and verdolagas and cook for a few minutes or until the onions begin to soften and the verdolagas begins to wilt. Then pour in the eggs, and continuously lift and move them about with a spatula until they have firmly scrambled.

2. Set the corn tortillas between two paper towels, and microwave for exactly one minute. (If you don't wish to microwave, heat the tortillas in the skillet after you've removed the egg mixture.)

3. Place an equal amount of egg mixture on each tortilla, top with diced tomato and a dollop of salsa. Then fold the tortilla over, taco-like.

Recipe Source: www.agardenforthehouse.com/

BGF News 6/3/2014

Volume XXIV, June 3, 2014

In this week’s box:

Braising Greens Mix: Senposai (round, green leaf), Tokyo Bekana (chartreuse leaf) & Osaka Purple Mustard

Chive Blossoms

Green Garlic

Pac Choi: “Win-Win”

Radishes: Easter Egg & Cherryette (pink, red, purple and white, round roots with leafy tops)

Tapestry Salad Mix

and possibly one of the following:

*Snow Peas (1st group in alphabetical order)

*Spinach (2nd group)

           

For those with the Cheese option: first delivery next week.

For those with the Egg option [full & half shares]: one dozen free-range eggs (assorted colors)

For those with the Herb option: Herb share will begin in a couple of weeks as herbs mature

For those with the Honey option: We are on the bees' schedule, deliveries will likely start in July

Featured Recipes (see below):  Braised Greens with Green Garlic and Lemon

Traditional Chinese Pac Choi

Chive Blossom Vinegar

Precipitation since the last newsletter:  1.52”

What’s up on the farm?

Welcome to the first delivery of the 2014 season and the start of weekly newsletters!  The CSA boxes are a little light at this time of the season and you will notice the abundance of greens and not quite as much variety as we like.  This is part of the joy of eating fresh, seasonal foods.  As the season continues the weight and variety of the contents will increase with the arrival of heavier crops including beans, tomatoes, potatoes and squash.  One thing that does remain somewhat consistent is the presence of some cosmetic damage caused by our local insects.  This is another of the indications that we are truly a chemical-free farm.  We try to keep the insect population under control, but they are simply a fact of life in a naturally grown system.  We hope you can overlook some minor leaf damage and we will do our best to keep it to a minimum.  Also we do our best to provide you with clean produce, but you may find a little dirt here and there or, yikes, possibly an insect.  We do wash the produce and sort it to the best of our ability, but we are processing a significant volume and it is possible that at some point you will find a little “nature” in your box.  If and when it happens to you, we apologize ahead of time and hope you will forgive the oversight.  Remember, while we do clean the produce, it is always good practice to wash your vegetables before using.

A big thank you to our pick-up site hosts: Ritual Café in Des Moines and The Next Chapter in Knoxville.  Over the course of the season please consider supporting these independent, local businesses who offer us a great place to deliver your produce.

It has been a busy couple of weeks on the farm. The warm-up in the weather pushed us into high gear for transplanting, and at this point we are nearly done with the early/mid-season crops including eggplant, peppers, cucumbers, okra, winter & summer squashes, sweet potatoes and more than 700 tomatoes plants (all of which are now tucked safely into their organic straw mulch).  Most of our earlier sown crops are looking pretty good. The snap and snow peas are both doing extremely well, possibly the best crop of those we've ever had. They are a little behind the HT crop that is producing peas now, but those in the field are growing and blooming and looking quite promising, so we are hopeful for a bounty of peas in the not-to-distant future. The only things that aren't doing quite so well are some of the potatoes, which were planted right before we got 4" of rain, which caused a number of them to rot. We did have some extra seed potatoes though, which we replanted into the failed rows, so we hope to see some progress on those soon. We also had some trouble with our melon transplants this year, with a large number of them not germinating or dampening off. So those are on the "try it again" list for later this week.

Other things on the farm are rolling forward. In the light of last week's unseasonable heat, the farm crew rolled out the full irrigation system, just in time for the rains to start again. We had hoped that would be the case! Amid planting, irrigation work and harvesting, we've also managed to get a fair amount of cultivating done and the weeds are being discouraged almost daily. Indigo is making very nice progress in his puppy-way and is learning to listen more and bite a little less. We are still on "Cria Watch" but no baby alpaca to report as of yet. Sean is beginning to suspect Abby is pretending to be pregnant, but Jill still thinks it will happen at any time.

All in all things are looking very lush and green here at the farm. We hope you enjoy this first delivery and are looking forward to this season as much as we are.

As we mentioned in the recent newsletter, we have set up a new Facebook page for CSA members. You can find it here: BGF Member Interchange. If you have a Facebook account we encourage you to post recipes, photos and questions about your weekly produce box adventures. If you don't have an account, don't worry, you can still see/ read anything on the page, but you won't be able to post anything. We will keep an eye on the page and try to answer questions in a timely manner, but really this is to encourage the "Community" aspect of CSA and to provide you all a venue to share and connect with each other.

A little detail on your produce this week:

There might be a few unfamiliar items in your box this week, especially if you are new to the CSA.  Most people know what peas are, but maybe not the types that we are growing.  We have snow peas (flat pod with little bumps showing immature peas inside) and sugar snap peas (rounded pods with mature peas inside).  Both have edible pods and can be used interchangeably in recipes.  They are particularly good in stir-fries and salads, though we tend to eat them fresh as a snack.  Peas keep best in their plastic bag in the produce drawer of your refrigerator.

Pac Choi (a.k.a. - bok choy or pok choy) is the large, structural-looking vegetable.  It is a member of the cabbage family and is a traditional Asian stir-fry vegetable.  Both the stems and leaves of choi can be used and are especially tasty in cooked recipes.  If cooking them, separate the leaves and stems, and begin cooking stems first to avoid overcooking the more tender greens. You can also use the leaves like any green-leafy vegetable and the stems like celery.  We tend to use choi leaves as a sandwich wrap, or just roughly chop the whole thing and sauté with garlic and/or onion.  Cook until stems are tender and dress with a little seasoned rice vinegar. Store choi loosely wrapped in a plastic bag in your produce drawer.

Radishes keep best if separated from their greens.  Greens are stored in a plastic bag and can be cooked like mustard or collard greens.  Trimmed roots can go into a lidded container or zip-close bag.

Braising Greens: A combination of greens that are used mostly in cooked dishes.  Store like other greens, in a plastic bag, with the top folded over and placed in the produce drawer of your refrigerator. 

Chive Blossoms: These lovely mauve-colored blooms top the chive plants for a couple of weeks at this time of year. Store in a glass of water, upright in the refrigerator. They are delightful pulled apart and sprinkled over salads or cooked vegetables, but we really like them with eggs. They are slightly sweet with a remarkably strong chive flavor, so use them sparingly, or just toss them all in a jar and make the prettiest (and tasty) vinegar you can imagine.

Green garlic: Looks like a bundle of big green onions, but don't be fooled, it is ALL garlic! Store loosely wrapped in plastic in your produce drawer and use the white parts like you would garlic scapes or bulb garlic.  The flavor is so fresh and green that we like to use them in recipes that really highlight the flavor, like pesto or garlic butter, though it is also darn tasty on homemade pizza and really, in anything that "needs" a little garlic flavor.

A few other details: All of your greens will keep best if stored in a plastic bag, with the top folded over and placed in the produce drawer of your refrigerator.  For those of you who are new to our salad mix, yes you can eat the flowers. 

* You will notice that some of the box contents listed above say something about the first group, second group, ect.  These are items that we can’t harvest in sufficient quantities for the whole CSA to receive at one time.  We do track who gets what and we will do our best to ensure that everyone eventually receives each item.  On some items this may take several weeks, so please be patient.

Is a weekly newsletter not enough for you and you want to read more about our daily adventures or see pictures of the farm?  Follow us at our blog at Beyond the Blue Gate and on Facebook at Blue Gate Farm and/or BGF Member Interchange

That’s about it this week, if you have any questions or comments be sure to let us know. 

Best from the farm,

Jill & Sean (and Blue & Luci)

Braised Greens with Green Garlic and Lemon

1 large bunch of Braising Greens (or other mixed greens)

olive oil

1 TBS green garlic, finely chopped

sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

½ lemon

Half fill a large pot with salted water, bring to the boil and add your greens. Cook for 2 or 3 minutes until the greens are tender, or al dente, then drain in a colander.

To your empty pan add 4 large lugs of olive oil and the garlic. Fry the garlic until slightly softened, then throw in your greens Season and stir around to coat in all the lovely flavored oil.

After 1 minute, remove from the heat and squeeze in the lemon juice. Stir once more, check the seasoning again, and serve immediately. Great with grilled meats or scallops, or even served cold on an antipasti plate.

Adapted from a recipe at www.jamieoliver.com

Traditional Chinese Pac Choi

1 lb Pac Choi, cut into 2” pieces                                                           Dressing

1 green onion, sliced the whole length, then cut 1” pieces                       1 T. soy sauce

1 tsp. sesame oil                                                                                   ½ tsp. sugar

2 T. cooking oil             

Heat oil.  Add onion and cook until limp (1-2 min.).  Add Choi.  Quickly stir it around in pan.  Reduce heat to medium.  Cover and cook about 2 min. just until thoroughly hot.  (It should be crunchy.) 

 Mix the soy sauce mixed with sugar.  Season the hot vegetables with this sauce.

Recipe Source: Turtle Farm CSA

Chive Blossom Vinegar Recipe Link

 Chive Blossom Vinegar