CSA Newsletter for June 8, 2015

Farm Update

Fred harvested the first strawberry of the year a
few days ago, and there should be plenty in a
few days when the CSA starts!

Hello everyone!  It has been a flurry of activity around the farm and around our home office!  With all the craziness getting the CSA up and running, I didn't actually get a real newsletter out this weekend!  But I did want to let all of you know what to expect in your shares for this week at the Midland and East Lansing drop-offs.  (Alma and Mt. Pleasant folks will be starting next week on the 15th and 16th, so stay tuned for next week's newsletter!) So here is the extremely abbreviated CSA newsletter for this week!

What to Expect in Your Share This Week

• Choice of radishes or bok choy
• Choice of spring mix or large-leaf salad mix
• Green onions for everyone!
• Choice of kale or Swiss chard
• Strawberries for everyone!
• Choice of spinach or head lettuce
• Choice of cilantro, micro basil, or frisee

Apparently the deer are
getting a little too comfortable
at the farm!  This one walked
right up to Keegan last week
and started checking out
his hand.  Yikes!

So if you are at one of the regular drop-offs, these will be the veggies available at the various stations.  If you have a half share, you'll choose one item at each station, and if you have a full share, you'll choose two items at each station.

If you have home/workplace delivery (again, this just applies to the Midland and Lansing area people this week!), here are your choices for your prepacked shares.  Just let me know which option you prefer, and we'll bring it to you!  Or if you don't have a preference, we can just pick out your choices for you.

A Share:

Radishes
Spring mix
Green onions
Kale
Strawberries
Spinach
Cilantro

B Share:

Bok choy

Large-leaf salad mix

Green onions

Kale

Strawberries

Head lettuce

Micro basil

Recipes

Especially if you're new to the CSA, there were probably a few things you saw on the list and thought, "What in the world do I do with that?"  I usually get a lot of questions about the bok choy and frisee at the drop-offs, and our micro basil is new this year for the CSA, so I wanted to give you lots of ideas on how to use these awesome veggies to their best advantage!  Enjoy!

Stir-Fried Bok Choy with Ginger and Garlic:  Bok Choy is great in stir-fries of any type, but this one with ginger and garlic is especially tasty, and who doesn't love a recipe you can make in 10 minutes?  You can prepare it just the way it is in the recipe, or you can serve it over rice.

Frisee Salad with Lardons and Poached Eggs:  Frisee, which is also called French curly endive, is a great addition to salads.  It's kind of like a thin lettuce, but with a slightly more bitter taste.  You can add it in with regular salad greens for a salad with a little more depth, or you can make a salad featuring frisee as the main green, like this recipe.  For the bacon, let me recommend the thick-cut Walsh bacon that they have at LaLonde's Market if you're in Midland; that would be perfect for this recipe!  Also, you can substitute the green onions in your share for the shallots in the recipe, and it would be just as good. :-)

Micro basil is one of those things that you see in restaurants that serve interesting and/or innovative dishes, but you almost never see them in chain restaurants or on people's kitchen tables.  So it's pretty unfamiliar to a lot of people, but we use it a lot at home to fancy up basically anything.  You can sprinkle it on top of pork chops, or salads, or omelets, or stir-fries.  Basically anything where you want a subtle basil flavor, and you want it to look gorgeous!  So go crazy!  Put some of this lovely stuff on your omelet for breakfast, and it will automatically feel fancy.  I can't think of a better way to start the day!