CSA Newsletter

Greetings from the Garden! This week's box has parsnips, sunchokes, spinach, salad mix, lettuce, braising mix, green onions, and the first bit of asparagus.

Field Notes. Ken has been harvesting and planting. The greens that were planted in the fall, and most greens like cool, damp weather, so they have been very happy and productive this spring. Once we get temperatures above 80 degrees, the greens tend to stress and bolt. Bolt means go to seed.

May and June are busy months for planting. Ken has many sequential plantings during the season - greens, radishes, beets, carrots, broccoli for example. Other crops like tomatoes, cucumber, squash, peppers, eggplant, parsnips are planted once during the season in the next few weeks. As Ken pulls greens, he plants new crops.

From the Kitchen. Ken has been invited to go with friends to the Boundary Waters. So he has made venison jerky and sunchoke chips for the trip. He fried the sliced sunchokes in our lard and placed in the oven. Then he tried some in the dehydrator. That worked great - lots of crunch and less fat. He just used a bit of salt, but one recipe had rosemary and salt. That sounded quite good. We don't usually make chips, but we agreed we will be perfecting the sunchoke chip recipe.

Ken also has a batch of sunchoke pickles working on the kitchen counter. He uses a recipe from Euell Gibbons that he found in Stocking up - 3/4 part salt to 10 parts water with 1/4 c vinegar to a gallon of liquid. He also adds some hot pepper and garlic and turmeric. He fills a jar with scrubbed sunchokes and adds brine to cover, weighs down the sunchokes with a smaller jar of water that fits in the gallon jar of pickles so the brine always covers the sunchokes, and leaves them for a week or two. In cool weather the process is slower. In hot weather the processing time is shorter.

Asparagus is just starting, and I thought getting a small amount would be better than waiting a week. We often steam asparagus and serve with homemade mayonnaise. We also started grilling asparagus a couple years ago and it is great!. Brush with olive oil and top with a sprinkle of salt and pepper before serving. If you aren't using the grill, you can use a heavy cast iron skillet for similar results. The hot oil seals the flavor. And this smaller amount would be nice blanched and added to a green or pasta salad or stir fry.

For green identification and recipe ideas check the blog entries prior to this one. I tried to get snapshots and ideas for each of our less common greens.