Chicagoland and Monroe Week 4
by Anna - June 26th, 2012.Filed under: Food.
Welcome to Week 4. We hope everyone is staying cool out there.
We are pleased to report that all shares get the first of our potatoes!
We’re also excited because we thought we’d pull up a few heads of garlic Sunday to see how the bulbs were looking, and bam, the garlic is looking great! So everyone this week gets a head of fresh garlic, along with enough basil to make pesto.
Fresh garlic. This fresh garlic has not been cured yet, so it will take a sharp knife and some patience to open the bulb and dissect the garlic. Once you open the bulb, keep the garlic head in the fridge. If you’d like to cure it yourself, leave it out on the counter (unopened) until the skins get papery (all shares will get cured garlic later on this summer after we harvest ours). We’ve left the stalk intact so you can see what the entire plant looks like. Most of the stalks still have a scape left on them (which we had in shares earlier this year, so you should use your scape too!). This garlic is a hardneck variety (hence the hard stalk)–most garlic you get at the store is softneck, which is more shelf stable and a lot easier to grow. Hardneck is a much more sensitive garlic and is known for its intense flavor.
Basil. We recommend that everyone make pesto this week with their basil and garlic. Combine basil leaves, a little olive oil, cheese (parmesan or goat both work well), a few garlic cloves, pine nuts or walnuts, and some salt in a food processor or blender. Use the pesto on pasta, or make thicker and use as a bread spread.
New potatoes. We harvest these baby potatoes before they grow to full size for their tender skins and rich flavor. Leave the skins on when you cook these–great for roasting.
Kale. Porter, the chef at Bushel and Peck’s, came up with a super slaw this past weekend that I loved. He sliced chard, kale, and spinach very finely, added a little onion and carrot, and tossed with a small amount of mayonnaise, rice vinegar, pepper, and salt. This would also be delicious with kale, chard, beets, and garlic scape instead of onion. People often ask me at farmers’ market how to eat kale and chard raw, so wanted to pass on this recipe.
Chard.
Beets.
Large shares also include:
Turnips. This is the last week of turnips, which I find tends to disappoint some, and please others.
Carrots. These carrots come from our friends Brad and Cyndi Paulson in Brodhead, WI. Ours will be ready in the next few weeks.
Anise Hyssop. This herb is great boiled and steeped with black tea.
Chives. Dice these up and top your new potatoes.
Happy eats to all!
