3rd week of July

mark and reeder terri and lydia
onions on biomulch
car's getting full! Time for the truck to run!

This is typically the time of year when all of our large expenses are behind us and the majority of the money we will live on for the rest of the year is rolling in through the farmers' markets. Well, it looks like that idea will take a hit this week. We took our refridgerated truck in to get inspected for the first time in a couple years as we are planning to get it back on the road. We expect in a couple weeks we'll need it to replace our Volvo as a market vehicle (see photo above). Well, it wasn't as easy as we hoped. The garage came back with a list of things that need to be repaired in order for it pass inspection. The first garage we took it to gave us a quote of $1700. Needless to say, that is a bit more than we were hoping to pay - we were thinking maybe $25 for the inspection. But it wasn't a complete surprise since it hasn't been driven in a couple years and even then very little. So we took the truck to another mechanic whom we like who quoted us a much more reasonable price on the same repairs and we should be able to pick it up it in several days. But in the interm, we are without our refridgeration unit, so we will be making due best we can.

Friday, July 11th, was the first time we had our working shares out in full force to help us with the harvesting. We are happy to say that we are very satisfied with the help we got! We are looking forward to the harvest help for the next ten weeks, too! Not only were the additional hands for harvesting was a great help and it was also nice to have such wonderful company. Hopefully they all had as nice a time as we did. It was great to see smiles even when the rain started, we'll have to get Harold's picture next week, he had to go before we thought to get the camera out.

Announcement:

Our next CSA Work Day will be this saturday the 19th. We will start at 4:00. We have two jobs we would like to work on. Both of them are probably likely to make CSA members around the world groan, but they do need to get done and many hands do make the work easier. First there are many vegetable beds that need to be weeded. And if weeding is not your thing we have many rocks that need removing from the field. As we have been tilling this year, we have been picking the big rocks from the beds and placing them in the paths for later removal. Now's the time! We'll keep the work time limited and then want to have a potluck dinner. Bring a zucchini or squash dish, the challenge will be to see how many different ways we can eat it! An email reminder will be sent later in the week. We also have bocce ball and badminton to really make it a fun picnic atmosphere, and the raspberries are ready for people to graze on, the flower bed is just starting, so there could be some bouquet picking, too- come on up!

We also would like to let you know that soon we will be harvesting garlic. We probably won't start until next week with the first variety. And then our other variety is usually ready 1-2 weeks later. When it is ready to harvest, we will put out an invitation to anyone who might like to help with the harvest. Its really, really fun to pull those beauties out of the ground!

This week's vegetables:

Lettuce

Cucumbers

Raddichio

Scallions

Onions

Carrots

Basil

Zucchini/summer squash

Next week's (expected) vegetables

Onions

Zucchini

Potatoes

Beets

Cucumbers

Salad Greens

Fresh garlic

PYO Beans

Recipe ideas:

Pan Fried 8 balls

round 8 ball shaped squash
Cornmeal mixed with your favorite Herb blend
Egg, beat with a little milk and Salt and pepper

Slice the squashes in ½’ thick slices. Dip into egg mixture. Dip into cornmeal mixed with herbs such as Italian seasonings or Mexican herbs. Place in a shallow layer of oil and cook a few minutes per side OR just spray pan with fine layer and cook a few minutes per side. Also can be grilled or broiled briefly.

Creamy Pesto salad Dressing:
1/4 cup raw walnuts
1 cup fresh basil, chopped
1 small clove garlic
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4-3/8 cups water
grind nuts in blender until fine, add other ingredients, blend until smooth.

Grilled Radicchio

Radicchio is a colorful salad green with a mildly bitter flavor. It can be cut raw into salad or used in any way that red cabbage is used. It is also tasty grilled and brushed with a with a light dressing. It will lose some of its brilliant color on the grill, but the flavor will be great!

Quarter the raddichio heads, down to the base, keeping the base intact.

mix up vinagrette (see below), set aside for later

Heat grill, brush raddichio with oil and grill for 3-4 minutes per side, until base is tender when pierced with a fork.

while on the grill, brush with dressing serve immediately or at room temp.

1 T balsamic vinegar

2 T. Extra virgin olive oil

1 T chopped fresh basil

1/2 t dijon mustard

salt to taste

3-4 drops melinda's hot sauce to taste

have a great week, hope to see you on saturday! matthew and liz