Hi everyone,
We’re officially on the back half of the season. It’s been an amazing season so far, and we really couldn’t do it without the support of you all, so thank you. With that, there is definitely room for more members in the CSA Club and if you have friends, family, or other loved ones that aren’t eating local, send them our way (tell them to mention you when they signup, and we’ll have a goodie for you).
As a heads up, our friend (and CSA Club member), Joselyn will be filling in for us at the tinyshop pickup window since Lisa and I have a flight to North Carolina to catch. We are heading out to visit my Grandma. Feel free to text me with any timing issues and I can forward it along to Joselyn.
This week’s share is filled to the brim with the best that the summer has to offer. Green beans, tomato, peppers, corn, and more tomatoes. This is the time of year that I dream about the rest of the year. The recipe this week utilizes a lot of the veggies in the share and is pretty quick and easy (and tasty). If you haven’t tried a recipe of ours yet this season, I’d definitely recommend this one.
Hope you all enjoy the share!
-Ben
Summer isn’t the variety, but rather a description of these early season apples. They were actually a surprise to us when we received our delivery since Nichols hadn’t listed them in the shares this week. Either way, we’ll happily take them. My best guess is that they are Jersey Macs but hard to know for sure. They’re crisp with a really nice cider/caramel apple flavor.
Greens offer a nice bit of variety to the “fruit”-heavy shares of peak season (tomatoes, peppers, corn, beans, etc.).
A surprise for summer shares. Radishes are some of the quickest growing crops, but typically do best in cool weather. Because of this, they are usually seasonal to both the spring and fall. These ones are a fun mix of red and purple, and taste somewhat mild.
Edamame are immature and still-green soybeans. We went ahead and steamed these for you all so they are ready to eat. You can eat them out of the shell as-is, cold or quickly warmed up (just salt or season however you’d like). Or shell them and use the beans in a dish.
We had green beans in share 4, all the way back on July 5th. Then I wrote that it would be the first of a lot. The constant rain of July wasn’t great for the green beans though. Finally bouncing back, these green beans are super tasty; surprisingly sweet with a bright, earthy flavor. That earthy flavor is thanks to octenol which is also prevalent in mushrooms.
Crisp, sweet and deeply carrot-y. A fun fact is that historically, orange carrots are the newest to be popularized with purple, yellow and even white carrots having been consumed for most of history.
Candy onions look just like your standard yellow but their flavor is mild and sweet. This lends itself well to slicing and serving raw over something like a salad, as well as roasting to further develop some of those sugars. We also like to pickle these, where their sweetness balances well with some acid.
Corn was domesticated in Mesoamerica some 9,000 years ago and has been a staple crop for cultures since. Today, it’s the third largest food crop in the world behind wheat and rice. In the U.S. though, livestock eats more corn than people do. We think that’s pretty silly.
Don’t be afraid to toss the container of corn in the freezer if you feel like you won’t be able to get around to cooking with it. You’ll be happy to have it in a couple months when you’re missing summer.
Continuing the tour of colored bell peppers, this weeks are red. The flavor is pretty similar to the orange: sweet and fruity.
There’s no such thing as too many tomatoes this time of year. Cherry tomatoes are great since they generally last a little longer, are easy to snack on, and slice into pretty cross-sections to cook with or garnish just about any dish.
August is for tomatoes and at their peak like this, we like to enjoy them just as they are (plus a little salt).
