In Your Share (Week of June 12th)

Nice to have some dried cayenne peppers in the share this week to spice things up a bit! We grow quite a few of these peppers in the summer so that we’ll have plenty to give out the rest of the year. They have a relatively thin skin, so they dry down quite easily and store really well. Once dried, the color and flavor and heat last for a long time. If you like red pepper flakes on your pizza or pasta then just chop these up and sprinkle away. I often put a whole one in a pot of soup to add a moderate amount of heat – then pull it out before serving – unless you want someone to have a super spicy bite!

Amazing recipes for hot peppers and everything else in your share are available to members at Cook With What You Have. If you joined our Summer CSA you will find your password in the member email. Enjoy 24/7 access to recipe inspiration!

This week your share may include…

  • Collard Microgreens: These tasty little sprouts are great on top of salads, toasts, soup and roasts. Full size collard greens are super nutritious and these baby greens pack an even bigger nutritional punch.
  • Garlic Scapes: These are the stems and small flower buds of the garlic plant. They can be chopped up and used in almost any dish that calls for regular garlic. I also like to roast them whole with a bit of salt and olive oil. Just put them under the broiler or on on the BBQ until they begin to darken and wilt. Makes for fun finger food!
  • Spring Garlic: It’s starting to look a little more like a big bulb of storage garlic, but these are still considered “fresh” garlic and should still be stored in the fridge and eaten this week. Storage garlic only stores well after it has fully formed bulbs with individual cloves, then the top of the plant dries down and the wrappers form around the head. Only then is it metabolically prepared to perform the miraculous trick of storing in a cool dry place for up to 9 months without any sign of spoilage. The white part on the bottom that will eventually form the bulb is the most tender. Chop it up and sauté the same way you’d use regular garlic cloves. The upper green part isn’t as tender, but still has great garlic flavor and makes nice soup stock and really good pesto!
  • Lettuce: Beautiful little heads of red romaine.
  • Dried Cayenne Peppers: Adds a nice bit of spice to whatever you’re cooking!
  • Radish: Usually such a harbinger of spring, the radish plantings were delayed like everything else because of record wet weather. Happy to finally have them!
  • Red Potatoes: Roasted, boiled, whatever – they’re good no matter how you slice them.
  • Spinach: These larger leaves definitely have more flavor and character than the ubiquitous bags of baby greens : )

Coming soon… Kohlrabi!