CSA for August 23, 2011

It's time for all things fresh and vegetable!  Some of our favorite meals in the heat of summer involves the BBQ, of course.  We use our BBQ all year round, but the hot days of summer is when we most appreciate not having the stove or oven on in the house.  We love our veggies in tin foil packages and then onto the BBQ.  Last night, we did Blue Mac potatoes, patty pan squash, Hungarian hot peppers, onions and garlic.  We wanted to do the potatoes whole, so we did appropriate, large sizes of the summer squash, to match.  Farmer Man just dabbed quite a lot of butter on, added generous herbs, wrapped in foil and onto the grill at 375 degrees for about forty five minutes.  We had a large portion, because we wanted potatoes left over for hash browns in the morning.  If you do smaller personal packages, the time could probably be reduced, and if your pieces are smaller the time would also be less.  Since it's veggie season, here's a great link to everything you need to know, I mean step-by-step instructions, for marinated veggie kebabs!  From soaking bamboo skewers to a few different marinade recipes, this link has it all!  Sounds yummy!  More summer squash than you can use fresh?  Want to take advantage of our 'help yourself' bin?  Here's a piece from one of my favorite food/farm blogs called FarmGirlFare for freezing summer squash for use all winter!  Yes, you could be grilling Papaya Pear in the dead of winter.

Our growing partners have contributed hugely this week!  Linda Boys has brought some gorgeous celery for everybody!  Let me assure you, this is a hard crop to grow!  Her celery is beautiful and awesomely tasty: she was kind enough to send a little extra and we had snacks for lunch with fresh celery sticks with cheese smashed into the groove!  Divine!  And Amanda and Ed Wiebe are responsible for the lovely Super Sweet corn this week, as well as the herb packs and some of the cucumbers.  One of the herb packs is Summer Savory, one of my favs!  Our seeding, most unfortunately, keeled over in the greenhouse - damping off disease, I guess, but Amanda's crop is looking awesome.  Summer Savory is just perfect for vegetables - try it in your tin foil packs or chopped on cooked potatoes.  Absolutely perfect for a soup or stew, also.  The other pack is flat leaf parsley - a great taste!

Everyone is getting Blue Mac potatoes, a blue skinned, white fleshed potato which is somewhere between the smooth flesh of a red and the fluffy meat of a white.  Nice little potato.  You're also getting French Fingerling - one of my personal favs.  The fingerlings are all kind of waxy smooth - perfect for the tin foil packs, as well as roasting, soups and stews.  Won't get mushy like a red and will be smooth, unlike a white.  Enjoy!  Also, in everybody's box is an assortment of tomatoes.  If you have one big monster, that's a Brandywine, a rather famous heirloom that is meaty and juicy and tasty!  If you've got a smaller round tomato collection, that's largely First Lady or Celebrity, great slicers!  There's a few long ovals in the bunch - that's a Roma type, meaty and not as juicy.  There's also a few small grape-type: an heirloom called Black Plum which should have that dark shade.  If any one is interested or has a problem with the acid in tomatoes, we've got a couple of bags of yellow, low-acid tomatoes on the Farmers Market table.  Any questions, just ask us!

So, far the FULL SHARES:  3 lbs. Blue Mac potatoes, 3 lbs, French Fingerling potatoes, head of celery, 1 zucchini, 1 papaya pear summer squash, 4 heads garlic, 5 cobs corn, pack herb Summer Savory, pack herb flat leaf parsley, bag of purple beans, bag of yellow beans, bag of Dragon's Tongue beans, a cucumber, 2 lbs. assorted tomatoes, Swiss chard, bundle of carrots.

For the PART SHARES:  2 lbs. Blue Mac potatoes, 2 lbs. Danish fingerling potatoes, a head of celery, a zucchini, 1 Papaya pear summer squash, 2 heads garlic, 3 cobs corn, pack of herb Summer savory, pack of herb flat leaf parsley, bag of Dragons Tongue beans, cucumber, 1 lb. tomatoes, Swiss chard, carrots.