Monday, June 24, 2019

BGF News - June 25, 2019-Vol. XLII, No.4


In this week’s box:


Amaranth: bunched greens with bright green leaves, remove stems to use.
Chard: Bright Lights mix
Green Garlic
Kale: asst. varieties
Lettuce: bouquet or assorted heads
Oregano
Spring Turnips: Hakurei

and perhaps one of the following: (please see **NOTE  after "A Little Detail..." below)     
Snow Peas: Oregon Giant

For those with the Egg option [Full shares only]: one dozen free-range eggs (asst. colors)
For those with the Herb option: Herb share will begin next week

Featured Recipes:  ** indicates a BGF favorite 

What’s up on the farm?

Baby spaghetti squash
Precipitation in the past week: 3.05"

We finally got our rain! Rather a lot of rain, but not so much as some other places so we aren't complaining and the crops and farmers are much relieved! All of the crops we listed as newly seeded last week are now germinating including the first few shoots in our "try-it-again" potato bed.
newly germinated pole bean


We also added some new plantings including more tomatoes in the high tunnels and new transplant sowings of New Zealand spinach, head lettuce and fall cabbages and fennel. We aren't dry enough to do any cultivating yet this week, but we did start hand weeding the shallots, leeks and onion crops that were getting buried in lush green grasses.


Hakurei turnips
You will notice a bounty of greens in your boxes this week, along with our favorite spring turnips. If you haven't enjoyed turnips in the past, we hope you will at least give these a try before giving them away to the neighbors. These aren't your grandma's turnips, which tended to be big and strong-flavored. These are Japanese salad turnips, developed to be enjoyed raw, though they work perfectly in cooked dishes as well. We like them straight out of the field, eaten like an apple.

We promise that there are more crops coming besides greens! It looks likely that the very first summer squashes and cucumbers may be ready next week. They will likely start with a trickle, but we hope to be sending out good, heavy boxes soon! 








Just a reminder, you can request a 12pk of  recycled, regular size canning jar lids . They have been washed and are ready for reuse in your fridge, pantry or craft room. 







A little detail on your produce this week:

Green Garlic: This is freshly harvested garlic that hasn't had time to cure yet. You will notice that the wrappers are soft and the garlic itself is very juicy. You can use it in any recipe calling for 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.Store loosely wrapped in the refrigerator for best keeping quality.


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.

Peas are best kept in a plastic bag or glass container in your refrigerator. Use within a week.  They are delicious raw on salads or in stir-fries.

Oregano:
Like most other fresh herbs (except basil), oregano keeps best stored upright in a glass of water (keep leaves out of water), loosely covered with a plastic bag in the refrigerator.

Turnips: keep best if separated from their greens.  Greens are stored in a plastic bag and can be cooked like mustard or collard greens (you can add them in with your Braising Greens Mix).  Trimmed roots can go into a lidded container or zip-close bag. These aren't your grandma's turnips. These are a sweet, Japanese salad variety that is particularly tasty for fresh eating. They will still work great in cooked dishes, but we love to eat them raw, often right out of hand, like an apple. One of the farm crew's favorite mid-field snacks.



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.  

** NOTE: You will notice over the course of the season that some box contents listed above say "Perhaps one of the following..."  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 on Facebook at Blue Gate Farm and/or share your recipes, experiences and questions with other BGF members 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 Luci, Indigo & Sky)

Monday, June 17, 2019

BGF News - June 18, 2019-Vol. XLII, No.3


In this week’s box:


Baby Choi: Joi & Shanghai Green
Garlic Scapes (curly green bundles)
Kale: assorted
Lettuce Bouquet: asst baby lettuces
Mountain Mint (small bundle of smooth, green leaves with firm stems)
Strawberries 

and perhaps one of the following: (please see **NOTE  after "A Little Detail..." below)     
Asparagus, the final hurrah!
Snow Peas: Oregon Giant

For those with the Egg option [Full and Half shares]: one dozen free-range eggs (asst. colors)
For those with the Herb option: Herb share will begin in a couple of weeks as herbs mature

Featured Recipes:  ** indicates a BGF favorite 
Minted Simple Syrup

What’s up on the farm?

Precipitation in the past week: 12 drops

There was a lot of rain around the state in the past week. Unfortunately, all we saw at the farm was a very brief sprinkle. While this did give us more opportunity to catch up on our seed sowing, transplanting and cultivating, the crops could sure use a deep drink of water. But since the universe presented us with dry conditions, we took advantage of it. We got the herb bed prepped as well as the new rosemary bed and all the herbs are tucked into their new homes. We transplanted the melons and the last of the field peppers and sowed winter squash and popcorn. We also decided to hedge our bets a bit on the potatoes and planted one more bed with the remaining potatoes we had in storage. While they will be late season potatoes, we hope they will yield well. We have spent a significant amount of time recently in the original potato plot trying to give any potatoes that germinated a fighting chance. The wet conditions that kept us from cultivating earlier were great for germinating weed and grass see in those beds, so it was a real challenge (literally crawling on hands and knees) scouting out the tiny potato plants and hand weeding around them so we could come back and hoe the beds without fear of hitting them. We are nearly through the beds, and continue to find more potato plants alive than we first thought. It will still be a smaller harvest than we planned, but hopefully it will be better than we feared.

We did have a very disappointing discovery late last week. After spending hours transplanting hundreds of very nice cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, the deer discovered them and overnight ate or destroyed about 90% of them. We are just sick at the amount of lost time and product and having dreams of venison sausage. We do have broccoli and cauliflower in another location that they didn't find, so those should be fine, but they ate pretty much every cabbage on the farm. We are scheduled to start sowing seeds for fall cabbage this week, so there should be heads during the later season deliveries, but it will be a couple of months away. This is a new crop for the deer to bother, so we will have to go to greater efforts to exclude them from the east plot where the cole crops seem to grow the best (in the absence of deer.)


We harvested the final asparagus for the 2019 season this week, even though we thought we had done that last week. We know the boxes are a little thin so we wanted to send out everything we possibly could, including one last sweet celebration of strawberries! So what is coming next? The snow peas are just kitting their stride, so we will continue to send those out. The spring turnips are sizing up and we anticipate those being harvest-able in the next couple of weeks. Baby beets are likely to follow after that. We have lots of beautiful lettuces, kale and chard coming along and the zucchini, summer squash and cucumber plants are all blooming and preparing to fruit as are many of the pepper plants. We have a couple of  nice beds of carrots that are probably 3-4 weeks from harvest and some new greens that we are anxious to introduce to you. So lots of fun things to come!




Just a reminder, you can request a 12pk of  recycled, regular size canning jar lids . They have been washed and are ready for reuse in your fridge, pantry or craft room. 



A little detail on your produce this week:


Asparagus: Keeps best stored upright in a glass with about 1" of water, in the refrigerator. Delicious raw or cooked. 

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.

Mountain Mint: not a true member of the mint family, Mountain mint has a softer mint flavor and can be used in any recipe calling for mint. We like it in mint syrup and in fruit salsas or as a refreshing iced tea. Store upright in a glass of water, loosely covered in the refrigerator.

Peas

are best kept in a plastic bag or glass container in your refrigerator. Use within a week.

Strawberries keep best in your refrigerator in a vented container. Use within 3-4 days.

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.  

** NOTE: You will notice over the course of the season that some box contents listed above say "Perhaps one of the following..."  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 on Facebook at Blue Gate Farm and/or share your recipes, experiences and questions with other BGF members 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 Luci, Indigo & Sky)

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

BGF News - June 11, 2019-Vol. XLII, No.2


In this week’s box:

Arugula
Asparagus
Chard: Bright Lights Mix (large green leaves with multi-colored stems)
Garlic Scapes (curly green bundles)
Lettuce Bouquet: asst baby lettuces
Lemon Balm (lemon-scented, small leafy bundle)
Strawberries



and perhaps one of the following: (please see **NOTE  after "A Little Detail..." below)     
Snow Peas

For those with the Egg option [full shares]: one dozen free-range eggs (asst. colors)
For those with the Herb option: Herb share will begin in a couple of weeks as herbs mature

  
Featured Recipes:  ** indicates a BGF favorite 
Lemon Balm Simple Syrup
Garlic Scape Pesto & More
The Great Chard E'Scape** see recipe below

What’s up on the farm?

Precipitation in the past week: 0.00"

What a difference a week (without rain) makes! Finally it dried out enough that we could work soil on the farm. This means much tilling and bed prepping so that we can transplant or sow seeds. Because of the weather, we were running about 4 weeks behind our normal planting schedule which means our crops are also running about 4 weeks behind. So the past week was all about playing catch up in the fields. In the last week we have transplanted: cucumbers, okra, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, melons and more peppers. We've also sown seeds for lettuce, arugula, beets, carrots, turnips, choi and lots of winter squashes. While we're not quite caught up yet, we are so much closer! The drier conditions also means that we can start cultivating our earlier planted crops. These poor crops were stuck out there in wet soil and inundated with weeds. We're not done cultivating (we're never done cultivating), but we are making progress. We were pleased to find that the potato crops don't look to be a total loss, but it does appear that we have lost about 50% due to rotting in the wet soil. Before we cultivated, it looked more like 90% loss, so the numbers are improving. It sounds odd, but what we need now is a nice, slow 1/2" of rain to soften the soil crust and let the new seeded crops germinate. So what does all this mean for your boxes?  We're just not sure yet. It is possible that we will skip a week in the coming month (and add it on at the end of the season). It all depends on the weather and how quickly the new crops come along. We are working really hard to be sure that you get the range and volume of crops that we all expect and we anticipate a successful season ahead. That said, we need you to understand that we are struggling a bit to manage the conditions at hand. 

So let's talk about bright spots! STRAWBERRIES!! Our new strawberry plot is outperforming our greatest expectations! Like last week's oyster mushrooms, for the first time ever we have an unexpected bounty so we are sharing them with you. It isn't a huge amount, just a bit of a sweet treat to savor. If you can't decide what to do with them, we suggest mixing them with the lemon balm syrup (link above) and eating over ice cream! 



Garlic scapes are always one of our highlights of the season and the season is now! They are bright green, curly and full of fresh, garlicky goodness. Chop and add to any recipe calling for garlic, or oil and grill as a side dish on their own. We like to make & freeze garlic scape pesto for use all winter.


Another positive is the continuation of asparagus harvests. We really thought last week was the end of the asparagus for the year, but the sunny, cooler conditions brought on another flush of growth, so we all get to enjoy it a bit longer. This will likely be the final hurrah for the 2019 asparagus so be sure to enjoy it!  Other things to celebrate include blooming summer squash and zucchini crops which should mean those starting to appear in boxes in the next couple of weeks. And finally we started harvesting the start of the snow peas! These always start a bit slowly, so it will take some time to get into everyone's boxes, but we'll start sending them out today. They would be delicious in a stir fry with asparagus and garlic scapes, though we tend to just snack on them.

Finally one last little perk we are offering this year that might be of interest to some of you. As most of you probably know, we make a lot of jams over the season for sale at market (that's where most of those strawberries are headed). We encourage folks to return their jars for reuse and many of them also return the one-piece lids that we use. These lids are grate for refrigerator or dry goods storage, but can't be reused for canning. The problem? We are buried in more lids that we can possibly use so we are offering them to CSA members. They fit any standard, regular mouth canning jar.  They have been washed and are ready for reuse in your fridge, pantry or craft room. If you would like us to include a 12pk with your box next week, just shoot us an email by end of day Sunday and we'll set you up!

A little detail on your produce this week:


Asparagus: Keeps best stored upright in a glass with about 1" of water, in the refrigerator. Delicious raw or cooked. 

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.

Lemon Balm: a member of the mint family, lemon balm has a bright, lemony flavor that pairs well with other greens, potatoes, eggs and poultry. We like it as the main ingredient in pesto or as a refreshing iced tea. Store upright in a glass of water, loosely covered in the refrigerator.

Strawberries keep best in your refrigerator in a vented container. Use within 3-4 days.

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.  

** NOTE: You will notice over the course of the season that some box contents listed above say "Perhaps one of the following..."  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 on Facebook at Blue Gate Farm and/or share your recipes, experiences and questions with other BGF members 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 Luci, Indigo & Sky)

The Great Chard E’Scape

½ lb Swiss chard
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 area tasty in eggs the next day.

Recipe Source: Blue Gate Farm

Tuesday, June 4, 2019

BGF News - June 4, 2019-Vol. XLII, No.1


In this week’s box:

Baby Choi: Joi (white stems) and/or Shanghai Green (lt. green stems)
Golden Oyster Mushrooms (in plastic clamshell)
Green Garlic
Kale Mix  (large mixed leaf bundle)
Potatoes: Kennebec/Carola mix
Sorrel (bundle of long, dark green leaves with a tart, lemony flavor)
Tapestry Salad Mix (zip-top bag)

 and perhaps one of the following: (please see **NOTE  after "A Little Detail..." below)     
Asparagus

For those with the Egg option [full & half shares]: one dozen free-range eggs (asst. colors)
For those with the Herb option: Herb share will begin in a couple of weeks as herbs mature


Featured Recipes:  
BGF Favorite Kale Salad (see recipe below)
BGF Sorrel Soup (see recipe below)
Bok Choy and Oyster Mushroom Stir Fry

What’s up on the farm?

Precipitation in May: 9.1"

Welcome to the first delivery of the 2019 CSA season and the start of weekly newsletters!  The boxes feel 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 expect later in the season.  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 bit on our efforts be more mindful producers. Over the years we have tried to minimize our use of plastics and single-use products both in our field practices (we don't use plastic mulch, even though it would make our lives easier) and in the packing shed/kitchen. We use the waxed boxes for your CSA deliveries and encourage their careful use so they will last a full season. We use paper-pulp egg cartons not plastic or styrofoam and we have switched over to twist-ties or rubber bands on products that we used to bag like chard, kale and lettuce bouquets. We haven't yet found a good solution for our baby greens like salad mix and arugula. So how can you help us on this journey?

Clean & Return to Us
Paper egg cartons (clean ones only, please)
Plastic pint/quart containers
Plastic or paper berry boxes

Please don't return plastic produce bags or twist ties, we can't reuse those in the packing shed but we encourage you to wash and reuse them in your own home. The less waste we create, the less we have to clean up later.

Do you have questions or suggestions on our use of packaging materials? Please let us know!

A big thank you to our pick-up site hosts: Peace Tree Brewing Co - Des Moines and the Grand Theater 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 crazy year on the farm already. The exceptionally cold, snowy winter rolled over into a ridiculously wet spring. We are running about 4 weeks behind in our field work due to our inability to work wet soil. This is the latest we've ever been and it is making the farmer a little twitchy! The crops we did get in: onions, leeks, shallots, lettuces, carrots, beets, collards, cauliflower, kale & chard are looking ok, but really need a break from the rain and a good week of sunshine to push them along. At the end of last week the soil was finally dry enough to get in a few more plants and the crew transplanted eggplant, peppers, broccoli, summer squash and zucchini. Yesterday we finally dried out enough to do a bit of tilling so we could plant cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, basil, roselle and celery. These last two are both new crops for us and we look forward to sharing them with you. All of these recent transplants would all appreciate some moderate late spring weather to get settled in. The potatoes are all in, but they aren't very happy about their situation. The early red potatoes are up and while small, look ok. The later potatoes aren't germinating well and I am worried about them rotting in the soggy soil. Only time will tell. Don't let the potatoes in today's delivery confuse you, they are the last of our storage potatoes from last season. They are still perfectly good, but they won't last more than a couple of weeks at room temperature, so use them promptly. The garlic is tall and lush and the bulbs are just starting to swell. At the end of last week we saw the first signs of garlic scapes, so those should be appearing in boxes in a couple of weeks. The high tunnel crops look the best of all the plantings, though we've likely lost the spinach in there to the water-logged soil on the border beds. 
Golden Oyster Mushroom

There is one bright spot to all this rain...a huge flush of golden oyster mushrooms in our timber! We've never been able to offer mushrooms as part of the CSA before so we hope you are as excited about them as we are. 

New wash station! 
Other things on the farm are rolling forward. We've cleared most of the early crops from both high tunnels and are nearly done switching over to warm season crops in there. We installed an awesome new wash station on the back side of the barn for cleaning root crops as well as all our harvest containers. It may not sound very exciting, but we are thrilled!


We hope we haven't scared you with all this talk of sodden soil and late crops. We are still optimistic about the season, but want you to understand the the current state of affairs on the farm. There will be delays in getting some crops into the boxes but know that we are doing our best to share the bounty the farm has to offer.  We hope you enjoy this first delivery and are looking forward to this season as much as we are.
3/4 of the farm crew. These ladies could pretty much run the farm on their own!

We hope you enjoy the weekly online newsletter. One of the goals for this format is so you can go to the blog/newsletter at any time and search for specific vegetables, that should allow you to see any archived recipes for that item. It also allows us to include photos and links to more recipes and information. As we mentioned in the recent newsletter, in addition to the regular BGF Facebook page, we also have a 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:


Asparagus: Keeps best stored upright in a glass with about 1" of water, in the refrigerator. Delicious raw or cooked. 

Choi (a.k.a. - pac choi, bok choy or pok choy) 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.

Green Garlic: is immature or "teenage" garlic and should be stored in the refrigerator, where it will keep for 5-7 days. Wrap the green garlic in a damp paper towel and place it in a plastic bag; or for a non-plastic alternative, stick the green garlic in a tall glass with some water in the bottom. You can use all of the tender white and light green parts in recipes calling for fresh garlic. Dark green leaves can be frozen and saved for stock, or used to add flavor to a soup (pop them in whole, like a bay leaf).

Oyster Mushrooms: To maximize the shelf life of raw mushrooms, refrigerate them in a paper bag; do not wrap in plastic or store in airtight container, as this will speed spoilage.  Properly stored, raw whole mushrooms will usually keep well for 4 to 7 days in the fridge. To use, trim off the stems as they are tough and either discard them or save to make a vegetable stock.

Potatoes: Keep unwashed potatoes in a cool, dark, dry place, such as a loosely closed paper bag in a cupboard. They will keep for weeks at room temperature, longer if you can provide their ideal temperature of 40 to 50 degrees. Beware: the low temperature of your refrigerator will convert the starch to sugars, so if you store them there, bring them to room temperature for 24 hours before using. Moisture causes potatoes to spoil, light turns them green, and proximity to onions causes them to sprout. (You can still use a potato that has sprouted, however; simply cut off the “eyes” before use.) Potatoes store best if they haven't been washed, so we send them out in their "dust jackets". Just before using, scrub potatoes well and cut off any sprouts or green skin. (Clean delicate new potatoes gently.) Peeling is a matter of preference.

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.  

** NOTE: You will notice over the course of the season that some box contents listed above say "Perhaps one of the following..."  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 on Facebook at Blue Gate Farm and/or share your recipes, experiences and questions with other BGF members 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 Luci, Indigo & Sky)

BGF's Favorite Kale Salad  

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 

Sorrel Soup

2 C. Chopped Sorrel Leaves
3 Tbs. Butter
1 Med. Onion-chopped
1 Qt. Chicken Stock
½ lb Potatoes-peeled and cubed
1 Tsp. Salt
1 C. Milk
2 Tbs. Flour
1 Egg Yolk
1/8 Tsp. Nutmeg

In a medium saucepan, heat butter over medium heat. Add onion and cook for 4-5 minutes or until softened. Add chicken stock and sorrel and cook, stirring for 10 min.  Add potatoes and salt. Bring to a boil.  Cover and simmer for 30 min. Combine egg yolk and flour, then add to milk and mix well. Add egg mixture and nutmeg to soup, stirring to combine. Heat through, do not boil.  Delicious served with French bread.