Meet this week’s Mac veggies:
(Photos coming this week. Seriously!)
- Cherry tomatoes — Hoorah for August! Even though most of the year has felt (and been) unseasonably cool and mild, the increased warmth this late summer has brought abundance to the fields finally. In fact, Casey had a hard time narrowing down this week’s share to the items here, because so many veggies are ready to pick and eat NOW! He decided to lean toward the new exciting options, including the first of our cherry tomatoes! Enjoy this beautiful mixed assortment of different cherry tomatoes.
- Basil OR eggplant — Do you want to make a curry dish for dinner (eggplant)? Or, how about pesto pasta (basil)? Both sound delicious, but this week you’ll have to choose!
- Cabbage — In lieu of lettuce-based salads this week, enjoy creamy cole slaw! Or, add chopped cabbage to an eggplant curry dish.
- Beans (green and yellow) — We have two colors of green beans this year (as usual): the standard round green bean (yum!) and a flat “romano” yellow bean. Both are delicious eaten fresh (make a great snack) or roasted in a pan and tossed with pasta. (Can you tell that we eat a lot of pasta this time of year? So easy on a hot busy day, and it goes with every kind of vegetable!)
- Beets
- Carrots
- Potatoes — Another new item on the list — potatoes are back! These are “new” potatoes, which means that their skins haven’t “cured” yet. That gives them extra tender flesh and good flavor, but it also means the skins are tender and flake off easily (as you probably noticed when you picked them up).
- Cucumbers OR summer squash
- Sweet onions
I’ve become negligent in some of my newsletter duties over recent years. Part of my goal with the weekly written check-in is to provide you all with important information about various veggies, recipes, and storage tips.
However, as we’ve gathered a core group of CSA members who stuck with us for many years, it started to feel as though everyone knew the basics. But lately, we’ve added many new members, and of course there are always good tips to be shared, so I thought I’d take a moment to provide useful, practical tips on effectively storing and using your CSA veggies.
Veggie storage
The first step in making good use of your CSA veggies is to store them properly for maximizing freshness and good flavor! Here are some different places for storing veggies and the types of veggies that should be stored there …
In the fridge — First of all, it is so important that every item stored in your fridge be in a sealed plastic bag, plastic container or the crisper!!!!!!!! (An alternative to plastic is to use a wet cloth bag, but this requires rewetting and changing the bag every day or so to maintain moisture). The reason is that our modern frost-free fridges have constantly moving air, which dries and wilts veggies in just a few days. Yuck! You don’t want to store things wrapped up tightly so that they get squashed – just loosely covered or sealed so that the moving air can’t suck the moisture out.
Ok, so what goes in the fridge? Most things actually! Essentially anything that feels like it has moisture or is a living plant, so that includes all fresh greens (cooking greens, salad greens). Greens are the most perishable of all vegetables (especially salad greens), so plan to eat them within a few days of pick-up for best flavor and texture.
Root crops also go in the fridge: carrots, beets, potatoes, radishes, etc. For best results, remove greens first and if you plan to eat them, store them separately in a different bag. The greens won’t store as long as the roots, so eat them as soon as you would any green.
Also store other green type veggies in the fridge: broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, green beans, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, etc.
Some summer fruit crops — tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, eggplant — can go either way. They do okay for a few days on a cool counter or open basket in a pantry, but the will store longer if kept chilled (they actually prefer a warmer temperature than most fridges, but they will do fine there). Tomatoes can be nice to store on a shady counter, simply because they will continue to ripen and increase in flavor as they sit — just don’t let them go too long and get mushy!
Dry storage veggies will want to be in a dry, dark, cool-ish environment, such as an open basket on a pantry shelf. This includes: winter squash, dry onions, and dry garlic (mostly fall and winter crops). One thing that is confusing about being in a CSA is that you sometimes receive the same vegetable in different stages of its growth, requiring different storage measures. For example, the fresh sweet onions we’re giving out now are not yet cured, and they are best to store in the fridge with your other veggies. But in the fall when the onions are dry, they will do best in a cool open pantry space. If in doubt, feel free to ask us at pick-up for suggestions, but generally you can tell if something is dry by simply feeling it — does the crop feel dry and paper-like to the touch (dry), or is it succulent and moist (fresh)?
And, the controversial question: where to store basil? Some people swear by storing basil on the counter with the stems in a cup of water, claiming that moisture and cold will turn it black. However, in practice we’ve had disappointing results with this method — the leaves always get limp and wilty so fast! Instead, we store it in the fridge in a bag that we partially inflate with air and then tie off (so there’s no risk of squashing the basil). If the basil is dry when we put it in there, we might even add a tiny bit of water to keep it moist. This method has kept our basil looking and tasting fresh for several days, even if it goes against conventional wisdom!
Trying new preparations/combinations
So, the next perennial challenge of being in the CSA is using the veggies! It’s rare that you find a recipe calling for exactly the same combination of veggies in each week’s share (with the same quantities, no less). We find that most CSA members use recipes for inspiration but tend to create meals in a more free-form manner, focusing their cooking on good techniques that apply to many veggies or similar flavors and spice categories.
Thus, dinner might be roasted veggies with rice and steak: what veggies are in the fridge? Which ones would taste good roasted together? In this week’s share, beets, carrots, onions, and potatoes would make a good hearty combination. But, perhaps that sounds too heavy, so maybe instead it might make sense to roast carrots, onions, and cherry tomatoes.
Having some favorite preparation techniques can really help aid this process. In fact, if you find yourself at a loss as dinner approaches, perhaps it would help to have a list of techniques and a list of the veggies in your fridge. Cross-reference and pick what sounds good! It also helps to keep a well-stocked pantry with some basic ingredients that pair well with veggies: pasta, rice, quinoa, curry powder, coconut milk, olive oil, butter, favorite herbs and spices, tuna, ground beef, bread, cheese, nuts …
These are some basic techniques or meal combinations we love and use all the time:
Roasted veggies + grain or pasta. Sautéed greens and/or veggies + grain or pasta. Salads as main dish (add lots of savory toppings to salad, serve with bread and cheese). Grain salads (cooked barley, wheat berries, rye berries + cooked or raw veggies + dressing). Stew-type preparations (curry base, tomato base, etc.). Various cooked veggies + good meat (steak, roasted chicken, etc.). Etc.
Good cookbooks for ideas
Even though we rarely open them for everyday meals, we do love browsing through cookbooks for flavor and preparation inspiration (and sometimes even to follow a recipe exactly). Here are some that we’ve found especially helpful for preparing seasonal, vegetable-rich meals (or that offer good basic food preparation info):
- Chez Panisse Vegetables
- The Joy of Cooking (we like the 1997 edition of this classic)
- How to Cook Everything
- From Asparagus to Zucchini
- Simply in Season
- The Art of Simple Food
I hope this information proves helpful as you continue walking through the season with us. In case you are wondering, we still have many weeks left in this year’s CSA experience — to be specific, we have 16 more weeks for the McMinnville CSA and 14 more for Newberg. We still have many delicious weeks of summer veggies ahead of us, and then in October we’ll start bringing in more fall flavors as well, transitioning to all fall and winter veggies by the end of the season in November. (And then we’ll start it all over again with winter veggies in February!).
Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
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Want more veggies? Switch to a Large share!
The Medium share has been popular this year, but lately we’ve been hearing a few folks comment that they’d like more veggies for the remainder of the year. If you have a Medium share currently, but would like to change to a Large share for the next 14 weeks, send me an email this week: farm(at)oakhillorganics(dot)org. We’ll get you switched for next week.
The prorated switch will cost an additional $130 (on top of the amount already owed/paid for the remainder of a Medium share), which can be paid by check now or added to your final payment due by October 1 (which would work out to $287, if you have been paying in installments of $157 up until now). I will email you your exact remaining balance upon making the switch.
Again, email me ASAP if you want to make the switch starting next week, August 16!!! Also, email if you have any questions or would prefer to switch up to a Double Medium.
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CSA potluck on August 27!
Our annual summer CSA potluck is coming up on Saturday, August 27! (Reminder: this is a week later than the date that went out with prior information.)
Join us at 6ish for a potluck dinner. Bring a dish to share (salad, side dish, main dish, dessert). If you can, please bring your own plate and cutlery (we have extras, but we don’t want to run out if lots of folks come!). We’ll share a meal, conversation, and then Farmer Casey will give a walking tour of the farm during “golden hour” (when everything glows!).
This is always a fun, intimate event, and it’s a great way to meet new people who have shared interests (good food, sustainable living, etc.)
(Directions will be in the next two newsletters!)
