Greetings! Welcome to our first week of the 2008 EverGreen Farm CSA Season! We are happy to get this season underway. Again, I'd like to say "THANK YOU" for you patience and understanding with our delayed start date due to this crazy Wyoming weather.
Each week of the CSA season I will post a newsletter on this blog. It will include a list of the produce items that you'll receive in your share that week, some news and photos from the farm, and hopefully a recipe idea or two. If you have a favorite way to prepare the veggies you get in your share each week, I'd love to share it on this blog.
This week your share will include:
Salad Mix
Chinese Cabbage
Yep, I'm sorry to say that's it. We harvested all that was ready this week. Those of you who've been with us before will remember how the season's harvests start out small and then gradually get bigger and more plentiful. Shain summed it up by saying, "We've never had this many crops planted and in the ground growing with so little to harvest and show for our efforts." Trust me, there will be a time when you may even be struggling to figure out how to eat it all. :)
The Salad Mix we grow here on the farm is one of our most popular items. We hope to give you a bag of salad throughout most of the CSA season. We also sell it in area grocery stores and to a few restaurants. Our Salad Mix contains several varieties of lettuces: Red Salad Bowl, Fine Cut Oak Leaf, Tango, Cracovensis, Forellenschlus, and Rouge D'ver. We plant, cut, harvest, and wash each type of green separately and then "toss it all together" on a big table before it gets bagged. This is a very time consuming process, but the results are well worth it. We also package our salad in special vented lettuce bags, which we believe helps keep the salad fresh for a longer period of time.
The Chinese Cabbage is this week's share can be eaten in a variety of ways. One way I liked to use it last year was in eggrolls. Another idea I was introduced to recently is something called Lumpia, which is basically the Fillipino version of an eggroll. (I've browsed around on the internet for a while and really can't see what makes Lumpia any different from what I call and "eggroll".) My Sister-in-law, Angie, who has lived in Hawaii for the past 5 or more years, made these for us on Father's Day. She says there are lots of recipes around for the filling, but she receives more compliments on them when she keeps the ingredients simple, for example: cooked hamburger, green onions, and celery. She also wraps her rolls in spring roll wrappers instead of egg roll wrappers. So here's my thought on what to put in the filling: fried sausage (from our own pigs), chopped Chinese Cabbage, chopped green onions and some garlic. (Man, I get hungry every time I write a post for this website.) Shain and I are still arguing over discussing which type of wrapper to use. Guess that will all depend on who does the cooking, won't it? :)
You will probably wonder about all the holes in your cabbage. This the same challenge we face each year. The *#@! flea beetle. Those little buggers love to eat crops like Chinese Cabbage, boc choi, and other "Asian greens". This bug especially loves arugula, so much that it eats it to the ground before it has a chance to grow. (That's why we don't offer arugula with your share.) If the little bug holes bother you, just cut up the greens and wilt them in a stir fry, the holes will magically disappear.
Take Care and Enjoy!
Tara
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