Week Seven: Journey into Summer

So as most of you know now, I wasn't in the Kitchen on Friday. I was on the train going to Philadelphia where I attended the wedding of my college friends, Sara and Andrew. While there I also spent the night with my dear friends Anna and Garrett who made me a delicious dinner out of their CSA share. Down in Delaware they're already getting sweet corn! Mmmm. And of course, the Kitchen ran well in my absence. I've heard good things about the food that Margaret, Michelle, Cynthia, Claire, and Nora made (one of my friends is encouraging me to refer to these lovely ladies as my minions--I'm not so sure!); I know they worked really hard. It's good to know I can leave the work in their capable hands!
After a seriously sweltering weekend, I'm sure we're all welcoming this slightly cooler weather. Yesterday at the farm was one of those perfect days: sunny, breezy, perfect temperature. There was a LOT to get done, as you'll see when you check out how much food we brought home. Missing work on Monday (on train returning from Philly) I missed out on the first round of garlic digging. It's amazing how much can change at the Farm after only a short absence. I'm sure I'll get to dig some garlic in the next week. I hear it's a lot easier than it was last year, when the hard ground made it heartbreaking (finger-breaking, pitch fork-breaking, and back-breaking) work. The goal is to get the garlic cloves out of the ground without breaking them off their stems or poking them with the pitch fork--it's harder than it sounds! Anyhow, I arrived at the Farm on Wednesday to find the barn full of drying garlic. We brought some home, but we won't be using it for a week or two until it's dry. In the mean time we're still finishing up the garlic scapes. Enjoy these pictures from the distribution area of the Farm--the barn where members (including myself and Cynthia) go to collect the shares. Speaking of which, this week's share is:
Beans - 1 1/4 lb
Choice of 1 box of early tomatoes or 1 cabbage
Parsley- 1 bunch
Swiss Chard - 1/2 lb
Basil - 5 tips
Carrots - 4
Garlic - 4 cloves
Beets - 4
Lettuce - 2 heads
Summer squash - 3
Potatoes - 1 box
Cucumbers - 3
Arugula - 1 bunch

This week's menu will be:
Summer Squash and Arugula with Fresh herbs pasta sauce from Greens, Glorious Greens p. 13
Tabouli from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks for a Crowd p. 104
Beans and Potato Curry from From Asparagus to Zucchini p. 49
Balsamic Beets and Beet Greens with Chard from Greens, Glorious Greens p. 23
and depending on how many beans end up in the curry we may do Oriental Green Beans from The Community Farm Cookbook p. 47
My Salad Days Salad with lettuce and cabbage
and everyone will get one fresh cucumber to enjoy.

Remember, we always welcome feedback here on the blog or in the emails!
See you Friday!
Mary

Week six: Art Fair Madness!

Well, that crazy art fair week has arrived and I hope everyone's reveling in it! This week at the farm has been quite hot. On Monday we spent the day weeding the summer fruit vegetables--peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants. For once we have a field that looks really neat and weed-free right next to the barn! Harvest morning on Wednesday went really well. We finished early, before the real heat of the day kicked in, despite the fact that Cynthia and I were extremely late after getting stuck behind a line-painting truck on Scio Church Road. As ever, I forgot to take my camera to the Farm, but I did get some great pictures of us cooking last week, so enjoy these shots of your food in the making. On the Kitchen front, it's going to be in interesting week because I'm going to be away on Friday--heading out of town to attend the wedding of two of my friends. However, after an excellent cooks' meeting last night I have complete confidence in Cynthia, Michelle, Margaret, Claire, and Nora. They've got a great menu lined up for you this week!
This week's share:
Cabbage - 1 head
Summer squash - 2
Greens - 1/2 lb
Parsley - 1 bunch
Cucumber - 1
Arugula - 1 bunch
Lettuce - 2 heads
Potatoes - 1 box
Carrots - 7
Beets - 4

The menu is:
Colcannon from Laurel's Kitchen, p. 197
What is Colcannon? I'm so glad you asked. It's an Irish dish with potatoes and greens. And there's this fabulous song about it!

Asian Cabbage Slaw from Farmer John's Cookbook p. 259
Split Pea and Zucchini soup from The Best-Ever Vegetarian Cookbook p. 30
Beet, Carrot, and Cucumber Salad with Lime Vinaigrette from The Boxing Clever Cookbook p. 133
Very Artistic Salad with lettuce and arugula

a note about CFK stock: you might notice on some of your labels that we use "homemade stock". Well, it's true! We make our own vegetable stock by boiling vegetable scraps (onion peel, parsley stems, apple cores, carrot ends, whatever we have to hand) in water for a while. No added salt but plenty of flavor. Hope you enjoy!

See you next week!
peace,
Mary

Week Five: Ramblin' in the new-mown hay

I bet this won't come as a surprise to anyone, but I forgot my camera this week. I'm planning to take it to the Kitchen on Friday, though, and get pics of the food in progress. Last week the slicing of the beets was simply visually beautiful, so I want to share it with you.
It's been a great week at the Farm. Over the weekend we made hay (the title of this post refers to the folk song "Country Boy" which has verses about the seasons). On Sunday a huge team of volunteers came to the Farm to bring the hay into the barn: hard work physically, not to mention hot and dusty! I find it rewarding, though, to do a big job like that in a group. There's definitely a sense of community involved and it was lovely to be joined not only by farm regulars and apprentices but by two CFK members, Craig and Renee. After unloading 10 wagons containing something like 950 bales of hay in 5 hours, the hay crew wound up the evening relaxing and chatting in the new picnic space. It was a perfect day in so many ways: good weather (not too hot), good company (and plenty of it--no one had to overwork with a crew of nearly 25), and good work. Join us next year!
The Farm and the Kitchen have been featured in the media this week, excitingly! Check out my interview with A2ethics.org by clicking here. In this podcast (which is more than an hour long, I'm afraid) we have a great discussion about the organic/local food movement, the Community Farm, the CFK, and ethical issues surrounding these topics. It was an interesting conversation and makes for good listening. Feel free to join the site and make comments and join the conversation yourself!
Also, the Farm's Weed and Sing program was featured on WUOM. Read and listen here. This article is only like 2 minutes long and is well-worth the listen, I think, for the sake of the voices of Anne, Karen, and a volunteer, and the singing in the background.
And now, this week's share:
Fava beans - 1 lb
Zucchini (!) - 1 small
Basil (summer is here!) - 6 tips
Cabbage - 1
Green onions - 5
Greens - 1 lb
Carrots - 6
Beets - 4
Lettuce - 3
Parsley - 1 bunch
Cilantro - 1 bunch

and the menu...
Roasted beets and carrots with rosemary (recipe I learned at Pendle Hill)
Green Goddess Dressing from Laurel's Kitchen p. 132 (herbed vinaigrette for vegans)
Sweet and Sour Cabbage with Beet Greens, Zucchini, Raisins and Apples from Greens, Glorious Greens p. 69
Fava Bean Pasta Sauce from http://www.seasonalchef.com/recipe0506b.htm#Pasta%20with%20Fresh%20Fava%20Bean%20Sauce
Dressed Grain from The Community Farm of Ann Arbor Cookbook p. 37
"Ramblin' in the new-mown hay" Salad with lettuce and green onions and maybe some herbs.

A note about salad names, ever since last year I've been giving the salads creative names. Julia and I decided it would be more interesting than just calling it "Salad with lettuce and green onions" week after week. Instead we use lines from poems, comments on current life, etc. It's a bit like how the character in the movie Waitress gives all her pies interesting names (though a little less personal--usually it's just about a poem or song I like). :-) Thought I'd clarify that.

See you all on Friday!
Mary

Week Four: Vegetable Jewels

It's been a good week out at the farm. We've gotten a lot of weeding done in the peppers, leeks, parsley, and sweet potatoes. It's been good weeding weather--not too hot, the ground fairly soft and the weeds easy to pull. Even the leek weeding, usually my bane trying to find the tiny leeks amidst the large weeds, wasn't that bad since the leeks are actually pretty big already. Anne and Paul are hoping to cut the hay sometime in the next few days and we'll bring it in on Saturday or Sunday (volunteers are welcome!). This week's harvest seems especially beautiful to me, so I'm happy to have remembered my camera so I can share that beauty with all of you.

Harvest morning was pleasantly cool and we had lots of good workers out to bring in the harvest. We've picked just about the last of the garlic scapes--harvesting a count of 1257 scapes in one morning. The hardest part of that was keeping the count :-). We spent a long time in the parsley, first weeding and then picking 80 bunches. I was excited to get a good harvest of carrots. I didn't help harvest them but I did get some pictures of Angela washing them.

Here's the harvest share:
Beets - 4
Carrots - 4
Kale and Collards - 1/2 lb
Garlic flowers - 15
Lettuce and endive - 3 heads
Green onions - 3
Parsley - 1 bunch

This week's menu:
Buttermilk Borscht (completely different from the previous borscht!) from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks for a Crowd p. 24
(for the vegans: Vegan Borscht from http://swellvegan.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/jewel-toned-yummies/)
Greens in Peanut Sauce from Simply in Season p. 195
Parsley Lemon dressing from Laurel's Kitchen p. 130
White bean and garlic scapes dip from The New York Times
Justice for All salad with lettuce, endive, and grated carrots

Enjoy! See you Friday!
Mary

Week three: the rain forest

Forgot my camera again this week, sad to tell. To cheer you up, however, I've added a book widget to the blog so you can look at the cook books I use and my other favorite food-related books. If you click the covers it will link you to Amazon, but I'd encourage you to also look for these books at local bookstores. I know you can get Simply in Season from Ten Thousand Villages, for example.
It's been a good week out at the farm. On Monday my dear friend Craig and his partner Megan came out to visit the farm and wound up getting roped in to help with weeding the winter squash. It was a pleasure to work in the field with them and many other guests and visitors who joined us through the day. This will probably be the last time we weed the winter squash--soon they'll overrun the field and shade out the weeds for the rest of the summer. Wednesday was a good harvest morning, though cool. We only got rained on a little bit, which was nice. The farm needs the rain and it's interesting to note that it's not always raining at the farm when it's raining in Ann Arbor. This week the farmers will probably cut hay and a few days later we'll be looking for help bringing it in--incredibly hard work--hot, sweaty, dusty, heavy--but worth it! I'll try to remember my camera that day too!
Here's this week's harvest share:
Peas - 1 lb
Beets - 3
Green onions - 7
Greens (Kale, Collards, and Chard) - 3/4 lb
Cilantro - 1 little bunch
Parsley - 1 little bunch
Lettuce - 3 heads
Garlic flowers - 15 (check out the linked NYT article!)

and the menu:
Shredded beets and greens with sliced oranges from Greens Glorious Greens p. 26. The cookbook authors point out that "According to medical sources, if you include a source of vitamin C (oranges) with your iron-rich food (beet greens) you will increase the amount of iron your body can absorb." So, be ready to feel strong and healthy!

Kale and Chard and Chickpea Balti (follow the link to find out more about what a Balti is) from The Boxing Clever Cookbook p. 47

Scallion and Ginger Fried Rice from Farmer John's Cookbook p. 126

Broad bean Guacamole from The Boxing Clever Cookbook p. 102 -- we didn't have enough favas last week to make this, but Cynthia heroically picked some for us on Wednesday and we should have enough for at least a sample all round. Ok?

Michigan Rainforest salad -- lettuce with sugar snap peas

Sugar snap peas (even more sweet and delicious than last week)

Hope you're all enjoying everything!
See you Friday.
Mary

Week Two: Here, have some green stuff!

Hello all!
Here we are at week two. I hope everyone enjoyed the first week's harvest. This morning in the fields was much cooler than last week, but it made for a refreshing change, actually. There was much less urgency about getting everything in out of the sun. We had a lovely time picking spring onions, dill, cilantro, and all the other things in this week's harvest. The sugar snap peas are especially fun to pick, though you have to resist the temptation to eat them all up, they're so good! After harvest we had time to take a crew of workers into the Swiss chard weeding project--so much more pleasant this week than it was last week when we were basically cooking in the sun.
The title of this blog posting comes from about this time last year when I was ably assisted in the kitchen by my dear friend Julia. We worked very hard and every week there was some phrase that came up during cooking that struck us as utterly hilarious. One week early on we finished the cooking and had a look at what we'd made for the members and Julia said, "We've just made a whole lot of little tubs of green paste. We should tell everyone 'Here, have some green stuff!'". I think we've come around to that time again with this week's menu!

This week's share:
Sugar Snap peas - 1 lb
Beets - 3
Kale/Collards - 1/2 lb
Dill - 1 bunch
Cilantro - 1 bunch
Fava beans - 7 (Known in Britain as Broad beans, Favas are the only variety of beans native to the Old World and therefore the only kind of beans Europeans had pre-contact with the Americas! Hooray for a Liberal Arts education.)
Lettuce - 4 small heads Paul tells me this lettuce is a very old heirloom variety, but I don't remember the name.
Green onions - 10
Garlic flowers (scapes) - 13 - Garlic flowers are very cool looking and make great jewelry (see photos!). We pick the flowers so the plant will send its energy into making the bulb that we'll harvest later. In the mean time, ground garlic flowers are used just like garlic in recipes. Yum.


This week's menu:
Dill Pesto from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks for a Crowd p. 26o
Broad Bean Guacamole from The Boxing Clever Cookbook p. 102 (This British cookbook's title refers to "box scheme", another name for a CSA-type program)
Quick and Delicious Borscht from Greens Glorious Greens p. 25
Dill-flavored Kale from Greens Glorious Greens p. 24
Cilantro-lime vinaigrette from From Asperagus to Zucchini p. 63
Longest Day Salad with lettuce and green onions

Fresh lettuce

Fresh sugar snap peas

Week One: What Bounty!!

Well, despite my good intentions I didn't remember to take my camera out to the farm this morning. Which is a shame as there were many beautiful and entertaining moments harvesting with CFK workers Nora and Cynthia and Farm apprentices Rebecca, Kristin, Nancy, and Angela, as well as farmers Anne and Paul and many member volunteers. Highlights include picking and counting 80 bunches each of dill and cilantro (it's always a trick to hit the count exactly on when you've got 6 people picking at once and trying to have conversations rather than count all the time, but we did it!) and picking strawberries while managing not to stand on any plants or berries (it's a bit like the game Twister--the strawberry version!). It was also great to see all the new members out at the farm just finding their way as well as seeing old friends, like Mark who was a CFK member last year and who has graduated to cooking his share for himself! Finally, after a relaxing lunch in the shade, we loaded up all 14 CFK shares (it was a squeeze in the Prius with three people... it's a real shame I didn't have my camera) and came back to Ann Arbor.

Here's what the share was this week for a whole share:
Strawberries - 3 pts (!)
Sage plants for your garden - 2
Kale /Collards - 1/4 lb
Beets - 3
Spinach - 2 lb
Green Onions - 10
Lettuce - 4 heads
Dill - 1 bunch
Cilantro - 1 bunch

This week's kick-off CFK Menu will be:

Grated Raw Beets with fresh dill and mustard vinaigrette from Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables p. 59 -- this is a great marinated beet topping for lettuce salad.

Katharina's Green Sauce for pasta -- house recipe (a perennial favorite I learned from my dear friend Katharina while I was working in Wales in the winter of 2007. Simple yet delicious.)

Veggie Burrito Bake from Simply in Season p. 64 -- featuring tortillas from the Ann Arbor Tortilla Factory along with kale/collards, beet greens, and spinach!

Cilantro Hummus -- variation on the Pendle Hill hummus recipe

Sprightly Salad with lettuce and green onions

Washed lettuce for your salad pleasure

Fresh Strawberries

Looking forward to seeing y'all on Friday!
peace,
Mary