Big, big shares this week. We’ve got a lot out in the field, it looks great and I’m still anticipating some shortages later in the season, so let’s celebrate it now while we have it.
As if we needed any more reason to relish that brief, very intense stretch of summer we had a few weeks ago, it was punctuated by some alarmingly cool night temperatures. We covered our outdoor hot crops (peppers, eggplants and basil) and resumed closing our hoophouse every evening to protect what remains of our tomatoes. Even so, we had some chilling damage to some basil. Late summer also means that some of the work in the gardens begins to relent and we get to think about some other things for a change. Since we don’t have as many crops left in the field to keep us busy, (I mean that both in relation to earlier in the year and to this time in previous years) this might be the year when we actually get our fall cover crops planted on time. As we grow veggies in one field, we spend some time preparing another field for veggies next year. Getting cover crops planted on time will let them grow large and lush and produce lots of organic matter for the soil, as well as lots of nitrogen to help next year’s crops flourish.
We lost a couple of hens this week; we think a hawk is getting them. Still working on how to handle that, but at least it’s not a fisher or something; they pretty much just kill everything and leave it all behind. Hawks seem to take out one bird at a time and at least attempt to carry them away to eat them.
You might have noticed that there are still tomatoes in the share. It was four weeks ago that we found late blight in our field and feared that everything would collapse around us in a heartbeat. In fact, we’ve had some of the highest quality tomatoes we’ve ever grown and we continue to harvest them. Late blight is all through the plants, but it’s progressing much less quickly than I was expecting. Yeah!
Detailed share information, notes about the veggies, storage tips and recipe tips are all inside the full post.
All shares contain:
- Basil
- Fresh Onions
- cut Lettuce
- Tomatoes
- Parsley
- Garlic
“Full” shares also contain:
- more Lettuce
- more Tomatoes
- a little bit more Basil
- Kale
- Fennel
Bread shares: no bread this week
Veggie Notes
Basil – a big bag of Basil for making some pesto! There should be enough for a double or triple batch, so make extra and freeze some for winter. We’ve included a recipe below. Note that we haven’t washed this basil as too much moisture can hasten spoiling in basil, so rinse it before you use it. Also note that we’ve had a couple of cool nights here at the farm, and that has tinged some of the leaves a darker green or brown color. They’re fine to eat, but don’t look so nice … which makes them perfect for pesto!
Fennel – a Mediterranean classic. With texture like celery (juicy & crunchy) and flavor like licorice, it’s delicious in fruit salads, chicken salad, caramelized (like onions) and on pizza. Of course, the licorice flavor means that people either love it or hate it. We’ve never met a market customer who was ambivalent about this stuff.
Storage Notes
Store onions, lettuce, parsley, kale, and fennel in a plastic bag in the fridge, tomatoes are fine on the counter and we’ve kept a bag of basil on our counter for a week or so without too much degradation. Keep it closed so that it won’t dry out.
Recipes
Pesto – Kendra & I really enjoy listening to podcasts of The Splendid Table. We recently bought their cook book (How to Eat Supper) and one of the recipes in it is for pesto. A real Genoan pesto. I had always made the the “handful of parsley, two handfuls of basil, some garlic and pine nuts” kind of pesto and thought that my recent lack of desire for pesto was just the general ambivalence that develops toward a dish when you’ve had it one too many times, regardless of how good it is. Thank God for Kendra, who decided to actually make pesto — GASP! — from a recipe! She used the recipe in this book and it’s totally reinvigorated our love of this sensory overload of a pasta “sauce”. Of course, when we say that she “followed the recipe”, we mean that she did follow the recipe, except that she toasted the pine-nuts and also added a few stalks of parsley. Most pesto recipes tell you that pesto shouldn’t be made with anything but a mortar & pestle before telling you that a food processor will suffice. We can attest that a food processor does only an acceptable job of making pesto — it’s cuts everything up, it doesn’t grind it — but also that only Manhattan trust funders and Italian grandmothers have the time to actually use a mortar and pestle. Pesto made with basil that has been ground and thoroughly smashed has a wonderful, creamy texture and flavor that food processor pesto never matches. We have found that a hand cranked meat grinder does a very good job of grinding the basil to fully release it’s flavor without taking all night. In fact, it’s downright quick and fun to boot.
Short of buying the book, the same recipe (albeit with a much pickier introduction) appears on the show’s website: A Classic Pesto of Genoa. We suggest that you ignore the admonitions about the size of the basil leaves to use and that you lightly toast the pine nuts in a skillet as well as adding some fresh parsley. And try the meat grinder thing if you have one!
As always, we welcome your feedback. Please let us know if you have any questions, concerns or problems. Also, please send along any recipes you’d like to share.
We hope you enjoy the share!