In the share this week:
1 bunch spring onions
6 oz bag salad mix
1 bunch salad turnips
1 head mini romaine lettuce
1 head bok choy
1 bunch green curly kale
1 bag baby kale
Thoughts from Farmer Anna:
Our big exciting news this week is that we are finally(!) closing on the construction loan for the strawbale home that we are building this summer! It was pretty difficult to find a lender that was willing to take on this unusual project, so we are thankful that we've made it to this stage. We are a little tight on our timeline to get the foundation, framing and roof done before our scheduled strawbale workshop at the end of July, but it's totally doable. Thankfully, Steve is able to take some days off in the next couple of months to move things along and my dad is now retired and living super close, so he's able to pop over and talk to contractors when needed. We'll keep you posted on our progress with that in the newsletters and on Instagram and Facebook if you want to follow along there.
The farm is still bursting with greens this week, but we are getting excited for the solid veggies that will be coming on soon. I've spied many baby broccoli heads this week, the kohlrabi is sizing up and sugar snap peas look like they may be on for next week. New and exciting items in the share this week include our spring onions, (planted in October and overwintered for the earliest possible big onions) and mini lettuce, which is so beautiful it's almost hard to eat. The kale is just gorgeous right now too and you will be in your happy place if you are a kale lover. If you haven't yet discovered the joys of kale, here are a couple of our favorite ways to use it. Both are kid tested and approved :)
We've found that kale chips need to be baked at lower heat for a more consistent product. We usually find that 20 minutes at 300 F works to crisp them up. I typically add just a bit of salt and garlic powder after the oil.
We also really love a kale, bean soup. I tend to make different variations of this soup, sometimes with a tomato base instead of the creamy base here. We've also often made this with sausage instead of bacon. There is just something magical that happens to the greens in a delicious broth. Our kids don't typically eat sauteed kale as a side dish, but they really love it in soup (they call it seaweed). This recipe calls for lacinato kale, but you can use either your baby kale or curly green kale from your share this week.
The lettuce is also looking great, so you are getting a bigger bag of salad mix plus a mini head of lettuce. We've thrown some fresh salad on our plates most of the nights last week. I think for farm lunch on Wednesday we'll have customizable meal salads with quinoa, hummus, feta cheese, nuts, sunflower seeds, chopped onions, turnips, radishes, etc as toppings. So filling and tasty!
I know this is week three of the salad turnips, but dang they are just fabulous right now. This is the best time of year for these tasty roots and they won't be around much longer. They do stay good in your fridge for a month or so if you remove their greens and put them in a glass or plastic container. If you want to try something different with your turnips this week, you could make this roasted turnip soup with bok choy. It's actually cool enough this week that soup sounds pretty good!
I hope you all have a great week!