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Tag: spring garlic

… And, We’re Off! … Spring CSA 2016 Week 1

Here we go! Welcome to the Spring 2016 CSA. Here at Oak Hill, we love this time of year. The world has exploded in greenery and growth and we’re starting to see the results of planning and hard work that started back at the beginning of the year. Reminder: We wash your veggies each week after harvest, but we always recommend you wash them again, most especially on damp and rainy days like this one.

This week, you have in your boxes:

Clockwise from top center: Turnips, radishes + arugula, Lacinato kale, spring onions, lemon balm, and baby garlic.

Turnips: These year-round simple favorites soak up the flavors of anything you cook them with. Boil them on the stove and then mash them with salt and butter, or roast them with a little honey at 400 degrees until tender for a sweeter treat.

For a more adventurous favorite of ours (especially if you’ve done one of our hog shares), try this Chinese Pork and Veggie Hot Pot from Eating Well. For a down-home variant with a little Asian flare, omit the store-bought chili-garlic sauce and anise/aniseed. Instead, saute our spring onion and baby garlic (equal parts white ‘bulb’ and green stem) in a little butter or oil of your choice, sprinkle with just a smattering of salt, and use 2-4 teaspoons of that easy, homemade nomminess in place of the garlic-chili sauce. Add the toasted sesame seeds or omit, depending on availability and personal taste. If you want to add some heat, throw in a little Rooster Sauce (or try it with our hot peppers later in the year!)

Radishes and arugula: There are a million online recipes for salads that use arugula and radishes; we’re partial to this apple, radish, and arugula salad with a tasty vinaigrette. Or keep it simple… chop the radishes and their greens, wash the arugula and remove roots, and add all of it — in moderation — to a lettuce mix for a flavorful and spicy salad. Or get a little goofy… this “eyeballtini” garnished with a radish “eyeball” is a funny weekend treat with friends.

Lacinato Kale: known by other names as black kale, Tuscan kale, cavolo nero, or dinosaur kale. It was once grown for Thomas Jefferson in Monticello’s vegetable gardens, so it’s one of the oldest plant varieties in our garden this year. It is also grown in Italy; it’s a traditional ingredient in the Tuscan soup called ribollita. For more on this fascinating, everything-resistant heirloom kale, check out our blog post on the plant.

Spring Onions: Our yellow spring onions have a tender and delicate flavor. Use the stem as you would a scallion or green onion (they’re basically the same thing, just slightly more mature). Use a spring onion anywhere you’d use a storebought onion, in cooking and grilling or raw on salads. Or, along with the radishes, replace the leeks in this buttered leeks and radishes recipe from Real Simple for a hot, delicious, slightly sweeter take on these traditionally spicier delicacies.

Lemon Balm: Lemon balm is a powerful mint variety with a million uses. Delicious on a sweeter salad or as a garnish in homemade lemonade, it also makes a tea that’s delicious by itself or sweetened with honey–and that’s said to relax like chamomile and to be beneficial for stomach troubles. Bruise a handful of the leaves and drop into a glass or glass jar, cover with boiling water, and steep with a cover on it for 10 minutes so none of the vapors escape. Then drink on its own or sweetened with honey and/or lemon. Thanks to the Nerdy Farm Wife for my favorite post on Lemon Balm, 12 Things to Do With Lemon Balm–go for it! We left the roots on this one so you can plant it if you like; keep it in a pot or somewhere that it can’t overtake other plants, since it grows like crazy and can become invasive.

Baby Garlic: At this tender age, our garlic can be chopped stem and all and used in sautes, stir fries, salads, as garnishes, even in homemade bread recipes for a kick to traditional garlic bread (saute it first!).

Just a reminder: Please keep your bag; we’ll swap a full bag for that empty one next week. You’ll receive two bags as part of your share. We’ll trade out each week, and at the end of the seven weeks, the bags are yours to keep. If you lose one, you can buy a replacement from us for $8 (with or without custom artwork by our 7-year-old artist-in-residence Evie). We’ve implemented this policy because we’ve had trouble getting bags and boxes back from customers in previous years; we hope you understand.

Thank you all for joining us on this springtime journey. See you next week!

To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.

–Audrey Hepburn

April 30, 2016
Spring 2015 CSA Week 1
Red Russian kale, giant kale, mustard greens, green leaf lettuce, lemon balm, green onions, fresh garlic.

Welcome to the Spring 2015 CSA! Here is what we have in the box this week:
- Green leaf lettuce (in the bucket)
- Green onions
- Green garlic: One of our favorite tastes of spring. Use it like you would green onions; it is not so pungent as mature garlic. You won’t believe the amazing flavor–and you will probably never find this in the store. Here are links to several recipes to make the most of this spring treat!
- Mustard greens: This is a wonderful spring green; we usually sauté them with just a little garlic, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Here is a recipe if you don’t feel like “winging it”.
- Red Russian kale: For both of our kales, you can’t go wrong making kale chips (warning: they are addictive.) Chips not your thing? Try kale in a frittata. Hint: the recipe doesn’t call for it, but a little green garlic would be amazing here.
- Giant green kale
- Lemon balm: What do you do with this? Well, you can take it outside (or to a pot) and bury 1/2 the stem–it should root and make more lemon balm. Otherwise, use it in iced tea, in a lemon julep (in place of mint), or in a salad (chop the leaves so they aren’t scratchy). The lemon flavor doesn’t hold up to long cooking, but the scent is amazing and a lemon balm tea is soothing.
As usual, we rinse our veggies before they come to you–but they do come right out of the garden. We don’t use herbicides or pesticides, but bugs and dirt do occasionally come along for the ride. We recommend washing your veggies before you eat
May 23, 2015
Spring 2013 CSA: Week 3
Lamb’s Quarters – Chenopodium album

by Susun Weed, c. 2009

I told the new apprentice we were having lamb’s quarters for dinner.

“I won’t have any. I’m a vegetarian,” she replied.

With a smile, I corrected myself. “Some people call it fat hen.”

“I don’t eat chicken either,” she responded with a frown.

“It’s also called goosefoot,” I countered, suppressing a grin.

“Not goose, not even the feet, do I eat,” she said with force.

And I agreed, “Pigweed is a more common name for it.”

“No matter what kind of animal it is, I am NOT going to eat it,” she stated firmly, her eyes shining with fervor and unshed tears.

I confessed, now openly laughing. “It’s a weed. A plant. A cooked green!”

In this weeks box: Mixed herbs (thyme, mint, rosemary), beets, spring onions, bibb lettuce, lollo rossa lettuce, lamb’s quarters (in the small bag), spinach, broccoli greens, kale, arugula, spring garlic

CSA Week 3: What is in the box?
- Kale: This is a spring favorite, but it will come to an end eventually as hot weather hits. Enjoy while you can. If you want a fresh adventure, try this chilled kale and apple soup. We haven’t tried it, but I bet this would be great with a dollop of sour cream and a sprig of fresh mint…
- Spinach: Say farewell to our little friend. This looks like the end of the spinach. Luckly, her wild cousin has made an appearance–see lamb’s quarters below!
- Lamb’s Quarters: Goosefoot, fat hen, whatever you call it–this is a delicious spinach cousin; use it where you would use any other green. Like spinach, be sure you rinse it well, since it tends to accumulate garden dust. If you dig around the Interwebs, you can find lots of ideas–but here is a starting point. In Mexico, Lamb’s Quarters is known as quelites (as are some other greens). Let us know what you think–we have a TON of this, but harvesting the small leaves is time consuming.
- Beets: Beet greens are delicious this time of year, when they’re large but still succulent. Wilt them with other greens in a stir fry or saute. Beets are one of our favorite vegetables. You can roast them and put them a salad–but sometimes I like to wash them and eat them raw.
- Arugula: Wham! That’s flavor. Arugula picks up spice as it gets closer to bolting, and ours definitely has a zing. It is a shame that tomatoes don’t really come in until summer, because arugula and tomato mix well. (Hint: try a BLT, but with lots of arugula instead of lettuce and with added avocado. Bacon, Arugula, Tomato, Mayo, Avocado, and a pinch of sea salt (NaCN). The BATMAN sandwich is born!)
- Green Onions: Do you notice a trend? Our baby onions are growing up. Yes, we still remember when these were just little sprouts. Before long, they will be all grown up.
- Spring Garlic: What else can we say about Garlic? This is one of our specialties, a favorite of the Farm. We put it in almost everything; use it like a green onion, or use it like garlic. One of our heroes, Alice Waters, has this recipe for green garlic spaghetti. Wow. Just… wow.
- Broccoli and Cauliflower Greens: We served these up last week, and they are back; the chard needs a break for a week, and the strange spring weather is not helping our broccoli to form heads. We had broccoli greens in a crustless quiche this morning, along with baby garlic and three cheeses, and it was amazing. This one is an original, not a link:
Crustless Quiche with ???

1/3 cup cooked quinoa
4 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup feta cheese
1/3 cup parmesan
1/3 cup cheddar
Salt and Pepper to taste

We added:
Chopped broccoli greens
3 chopped mushrooms
1 chopped baby garlic
Chopped spinach

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a glass pie pan. Mix all ingredients, pour into pan, bake for 45 minutes. We actually baked it for 30 minutes, then turned off the oven and came back to the house an hour later, and it was fine. This is a forgiving recipe–play with it!
- Lollo Rosa and Bibb Lettuce: “Looks like we’re having salad again…” WAIT! Not so fast! Sure, you can use these lettuces for a salad, but why not make something like these Vietnamese spicy shrimp wraps (you can do this with tofu, too)? Make the filling, put the lettuce on a plate, and let your family and/or guests fill each leaf on their own. Be sure not to forget the lime dipping sauce (see link above).
In other news…

So, a few months back we mentioned on the FaceBook that we might try to start selling coffee through the farm. Turns out, almost all of the coffee we can get is sold through one of the big coffee brokerages, and we really wanted to develop a relationship with a particular farmer, someone who had stories we could share about specific people and specific coffee. We don’t have a deal yet, but we may have a lead! We met someone who sells coffee from a farm in Honduras. As of now this is just a teaser, but we will let you know how things go!
May 26, 2013
Spring 2013 CSA: Week 2
Ellie here, with your CSA share list for Week 2. Things went a bit more smoothly this week than last!

Thinning

This week, most of our beds needed to be thinned. When we plant, we plant more seed than we think we’ll need, in case some doesn’t germinate. Then, as our veggies mature, we pull some to make room for the others to grow big and strong. It’s a customary practice among farmers and gardeners to insure a good harvest.

A Taste of Spring…

The thing is, the plants we pull are just as delicious as the ones we allow to grow to maturity. Waste not, want not! So this week, I’m giving all our CSA shareholders a little taste of spring. We’ve included a wide variety of salad greens and cooking greens, as well as a few treats that won’t be mature for a couple more weeks–like the beets (which are good for their greens now, though the beets themselves are still teeny).

In your box, you’ll find:

Clockwise from top: Kale (tied with white string), spinach, Chinese pac choi (bok choy), mixed baby lettuces (in plastic bag), baby beets, red romaine lettuce and green arugula bundled together, radishes, green onions, spring garlic, mixed broccoli and cauliflower greens, and swiss chard. Lollo rosa red-tipped lettuce in the center.

For a closer look:
- Kale: Last week, a couple of our shareholders reported a new love of kale chips! Check out last week’s blog for the recipe. They’re also excellent in salads or as a cooked green.
- Spinach: These little guys are starting to bolt, so we won’t have them around for much longer. As the life cycle of most green leafy vegetables plays out, they go from growing leafy greens outward to sprouting an upward central stalk that flowers and eventually bears seed. Once that stalk appears the plant has “bolted” and the leaves usually taste bitter. Bolting usually occurs for early spring greens not long after temperatures climb into the hot, humid summertime range. Enjoy them while you can–we may have one or two more weeks before true spinach is out for the summer. Keep an eye out for “Malabar spinach” later in the summer for another treat.
- Pac Choi: The pac choi is also starting to bolt, though it’s not as large as we would have hoped. The wet, cool conditions transitioning suddenly into sunny heat have our pac choi feeling a little confused. Still, it’s particularly succulent when small. Try this Food Network recipe for stir-fried bok choy with our green garlic and ginger to bring out the delicate springtime flavors.
- Mixed Baby Lettuces: Pinch off the roots, float the leaves in water to rinse, and toss into your favorite salad. These green lettuces have a punch of flavor when mature but are still sweet and fairly delicate this young. One is a “Big Boston” loose-leaf lettuce and the other an heirloom heading variety called “Tom Thumb” that produces tiny heads. We can’t wait to see the mature version!
- Baby Beets: Beet greens are delicious this time of year, when they’re large but still succulent. Wilt them with other greens in a stir fry or saute. Or chop/cube the baby beets into a stir fry with other veggies and then toss in the greens a few minutes before the stir fry is done.
- Romaine and Arugula: These classic spring salad greens pack a rich, almost spicy flavor that takes your lunchtime salad to a new level. We think they’re excellent as a bed under grilled chicken, but you’ll find your own favorite signature salad.
- Green Onions: Usually, we try to leave the protective outer coating on our onions (along with the roots) to help them stay fresher longer. There’s been so much wet weather lately that the usually papery outer shells were actually waterlogged, so I’ve stripped them back to reveal the healthy green onion beneath. Enjoy!
- Spring Garlic: We’ve added a little bunch of spring garlic to this week’s bounty, but we don’t want to overload you after the big batch last week. Expect at least a little garlic almost every week–it’s an Oak Hill specialty and a staple of a healthy diet. Almost anything tastes better when it’s cooked with garlic and onions!
- Radishes: Of course you can use these in a salad, but why not change it up? Radish greens fit right in in a potato soup and give a delicate, bright flavor. The wet conditions we’ve had have caused some of them to split–but eat them while they’re fresh, and there’s no effect on flavor or consistency. If you drink alcohol, try this springtime radish martini!
- Broccoli and Cauliflower Greens: Did you know that broccoli (and cauliflower) greens are edible, delicious, and even more nutritious than the parts we usually see in stores? Probably not… we don’t get the greens in stores often–another benefit of your CSA membership! They can be hard to tell apart, but the broccoli leaves are a little smaller and lighter green, while the cauliflower are a deep green on a broad, rounded leaf. Delicious raw or cooked like collards, they’re a nutritive powerhouse that tastes like broccoli–without the little green bits to stick between your teeth!
- Swiss Chard: This beautiful green is a heat-tolerant work horse that seems to love West TN conditions. It’s delicious and delicate in this small springtime state, but it’ll grow massive and robust as the weeks pass. Organic growers love it for its weed tolerance and longevity. We’ll keep it coming! While it’s young and fresh, let those simple flavors shine with this easy recipe for chard with balsamic vinegar and garlic.
- Lollo Rosa Lettuce: This lettuce is a nutritional powerhouse, packed with 100 times the antioxidant power of common green lettuces and rich in folate, iron, and vitamins A and C. It’s slow to bolt, has a rich nutty flavor, and boasts a beautiful color combination that’s excellent for garnishing as well. We think it’s gorgeous in a salad with our red romaine against a background of rich green spinach and light, fresh baby greens.
In other news…

We have baby pigs!

There’s your cute baby picture update of the week from your friendly neighborhood farmers :).

Time to get to bed… busy day tomorrow. We’re looking forward to a volunteer shift tomorrow morning–thanks to our CSA “Farm Friends” on the workshare program who are coming out to help us battle weeds. I’ll be in town delivering boxes; Ted will be be out here working hard with the volunteers. Sometimes we have to split our forces, but we always get it done in the end!

As always,

Peace, Love, and Veggies!

Ellie Maclin, Oak Hill Farm
May 18, 2013