In the share this week:
1 bunch beets
1 bag salad mix
1 bag spinach
1 bunch fresh spring onions
1 bunch curly kale
1 bunch swiss chard
2 little gem lettuce heads
Thoughts from Farmer Anna:
Well hello there lovely CSA members! We are delighted that you have joined us, either for the very first time or back again for another year of local veg. For those of you that are new this year, I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and the farm. I'm Anna - pic above planting our mini garden by the house where we grow a few things we don't have on the big farm. I have been the head farmer here at Rains and Sun since my husband, Steve, and I bought the farm and began our CSA program in 2013. We started our farm focused on organic vegetable production for CSA and have grown from 10 members that first season to almost 90 weekly shares this year. While we have always used organic practices on our farm, we became certified organic in 2020 to deepen our commitment to those practices and to strengthen our connection to the Organic Association of KY community (https://www.oak-ky.org/). While we also attend two farmers markets, our community supported agriculture program is the backbone of the farm and directs many of our production decisions. I really strive to grow an approachable mix of vegetables that include lots of the vegetables you know and love, along with some things you may not be as familiar with but hopefully will grow to love :) I can't do this work alone and a wonderful farm crew that I'll introduce you to through the season. These folks are so valuable to the success of our farm and each one of them really shines in particular areas of farm work.
Alrighty, on to the veggies this week! We have a really solid share for you to start off the season. Spring shares are always heavy on the greens, both cooking types and salad types. For cooking we have some gorgeous and huge kale and chard, along with spinach and some luscious beet greens. I'm thinking maybe you want to just throw all of those greens together and cook up a mess o' greens something like the recipe below:
Or you could cook the beet greens separately, roast the beets, and toss those together in something like this:
Roasting is my preferred method of cooking for beets. They have such a wonderful texture when roasted. If you don't think you'll use them right away after roasting, you can store them in vinegar for a bit of a quick pickled beet that will keep for a couple of weeks. Uncooked beets will store well in the crisper of your fridge without their greens for a month or more.
You also have a good bit of lettuce with the salad mix and little gem lettuces, so I thought I'd share a link to a basic viniagrette recipe. While we do still sometimes purchase salad dressing, we really love making our own, and it's so much cheaper and tastier if you keep the right ingredients around. We find that adding some kind of mustard is key for the emulsifying effect. Check out this post here for some ideas:
https://goatsandgreens.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/dijon-viniagrette-salad-dressing/
That's all for this week! I didn't mention the onions, but they are pretty much used in everything we cook so I'm sure you'll have no problem figuring out where to fit those in. Keep them in your fridge and chop up the entire thing greens and all to add to your dishes!