In Your Box:

• Broccolini
• Garlic Scapes
• Head lettuce, “Starfighter”
• Radishes
• Salad mix
• Scallions
• Tat soi

Farm News

I’ve had some great teachers and professors throughout my education. But somehow not one of them succeeded in imparting one of the most important lessons of life: brush your teeth before harvesting garlic scapes. Not afterwards. Maybe I was absent from school on the day it was hammered into the minds of my classmates. Maybe it was considered too self-evident to spend time on. Maybe pursuing college degrees in literature and philosophy somehow didn’t prepare me for the life lessons of a small farm.

And so I learn the hard way. Then I forget and somehow repeat the mistake every year. The problem is that harvesting scapes releases just a little bit of oil from the plant, and when you pick hundreds of scapes a week, it adds up to quite a bit of oil and garlic residue. This aroma follows me around all day like a cloud of garlic stink. When brushing my teeth my garlic soaked hands are right next to my nose and mouth, blending with the taste of toothpaste for an experience that can only be described as an unpleasant mistake.

This week is the final week of garlic scapes, as I’ve finally removed them all from the plants. The garlic bulbs will grow for just a couple more weeks before harvest and curing. And somewhere in that time frame I’ll forget the simple lesson I should have learned so long ago, and next June I’ll forget to brush my teeth before harvesting garlic scapes and relearn my lesson anew.

This week’s box

This week brings the last of our spring stir fry greens, Tat Soi. Tat soi is not a fan of summer heat, so in the past I’ve only grown it in the fall. I finally found a heat-tolerant variety, and I’m really impressed with how it’s performed this year. Tat soi can be used just like bok choy, but the leaves are tender and smaller and cook down to a more manageable size. We highly recommend pairing it with Soba (buckwheat) noodles, as in the recipe below.

This week brings the last radishes of the spring. If you’re not a fan of radishes, try the recipe below for the dip. With that much cream cheese and butter, anyone will become a fan!

As we move into the heat of July, we’ll start encountering some more common veggies and fruits over the next few weeks. We enjoyed our first handful of tomatoes this week, and they’re certainly in the near future. We do plant stir fry greens and radishes again in the fall, so once the weather turns we’ll get another shot at some of those flavors.

Buckwheat Noodle Dish

From Fields of Greens, by Annie Somerville

Ingredients:

• ¼ lb. Fresh shiitake mushrooms
• head of tat soi or bok choy
• salt to taste
• 6 oz. dried buckwheat (soba) noodles
• 2 TB oil
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 TB grated fresh ginger
• 1 to 2 jalapeno chilies, finely sliced
• 1 scallion, thinly sliced on a diagonal
• 1 TB dark sesame oil
• 2 TB mirin (sweet cooking sake)
• 2 TB soy sauce
• 2 TB coarsely chopped parsley or cilantro
• 1 tsp sesame seed, toasted
  

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of water with a pinch of salt to boil. Cook the noodles according to box instructions.
2. As the noodles cook, remove mushroom stems and chop the bok choy/tat soi. Heat the oil over medium heat and add the mushrooms. Stir-fry for 3-4 minutes, then add garlic, ginger, chilies, bok choy/tat soi, and saute for 2 minutes.
3. Drain the pasta in a colander when it is just tender. Reduce the heat under the saute pan and add the scallion, sesame oil, mirin, and soy sauce. Quickly add the noodles, taking care not to overcook the greens. Remove from heat, toss the noodles with the vegetables and cilantro/parsley, and season with salt. Sprinkle with sesame seed.

Serves 4

Coming up

 We are expecting fennel, scallions, head lettuce, turnips, salad mix, zucchini, kohlrabi and broccolini.