• Eggplant
• Thyme
• Shishito peppers
• Thai Basil with flowers (separate box)
• Beet Greens
• Chervil Chef Box
• Squash/Zucchini
• Multi-Color Anaheim Hatch Peppers
• Red bell pepper
• Baby Mix
• Watercres

Eggplant, seen at right. So many exotic delicacies in the farm share this week; we hope you find new joy in the kitchen this week. Mix baby greens make a great salad or addition to sandwiches. Watercress is a wonderful healthy peppery green for salads and again a favotite on sandwiches. The Thai basil flowers are sweet and have a great anise flavor which is wonderful on desserts. The thai basil itself is terrific in curries or just as a bright floral alternative to Italian Basil. The red bell peppers are sweet and juicy – a pleasure to roast and stuff or just eat fresh. The Anaheims add a bit of spicey heat but not too much. The Shishito are rarely anything but mild but make a great pan fried snack with salt – just  braze them on a hot skillet with olive oil and sprinkle a bit of coarse sea salt. Blistered Peppers: Heat a little olive oil in a wide sauté pan until it is good and hot but not smoking. Add the shishito , tossing and turning them frequently until they blister. They shouldn’t char except in places. Those green thai eggplants go great with the Thai Basil chopped into the curry or just roasted.  To your health and pleasure, always! Have a great week everybody

• Hatch type peppers
• Bell peppers
• Eggplant
• Sweet Potato
• Fresh Ginger
• Butternut Squash
• Cucumber
• Patty Pan Squash
• Watercress
• Baby Salad Mix
• Chervil

Well, it looks like we might have the killing frost tonight (Friday night) so do consider storing your eggplant as a dried pasta replacement or maybe baba ganoush frozen for a later date.

A different herb for you to try this week: Chervil. “Chervil is used, particularly in France, to season poultry, seafood, vegetables soups, and sauces. More delicate than parsley, it has a faint taste of licorice or aniseed. Chervil is one of the four traditional French fines herbes, along with tarragon, chives, and parsley, which are essential to French cooking. Unlike the more pungent, robust herbs, thyme, rosemary, etc., which can take prolonged cooking, the fines herbes are added at the last minute, to salads, omelettes, and soups.” (partial quote from Wikipedia page)

Watercress is one of the world’s healthiest foods…from the way we grow the watercress to the way we cut and chill it, great care is given to create the most potentiality for taste and nutrition. Known for being a peppery, dark, leafy green that grows with a wet foot along creeks and ditches, we bring it up off the ground and grow it on benches…it cascades over the sides, looking for more footing.  This herb brought a happy smile to my face whilst i was hiking high in Western New Mexico…the excruciating altitude change had brought on a massive headache and i sought comfort in shaded wet rocks along a creek run. There, nestled calmly and absolutely was the watercress. What a relief to see such a welcome plant from home! I checked up stream and around about, found the land to be in use for cattle, probably a land management deal, and set about getting a clean cut. That cut was just magnificent. With time, water, watercress and rest, i was able to move onward. To your health and pleasure, always, love, leslie.  

2016 CSA    Summer September 24

• Bell Peppers
• Eggplant Mix
• Okra
• Tatsoi 10×10
• Yukon Gold Potatoes
• Fresh dug Baby Ginger
• Tomatoes (pick from set)
• Gourmet Cucumber
• Farm Fresh Eggs
• Baby Arugula 8×8
• “Hatch” peppers

There are several eggplant varieties for you this week to try. Let us know which one you like best because your vote counts! There are many ways to enjoy eggplant and to save some for after frost, consider making baba ghanoush and popping it into the freezer to savor later. Baba ghanoush is easy to make, as it is essentially cooked eggplant pureed into a dip. A basic core recipe for it is 1 eggplant, 1 lemon, garlic, tahini, and salt. There is a nice recipe at http://minimalistbaker.com/simple-baba-ganoush/.

We have a LOT of fresh eggs right now so we included a dozen in your CSA share this week. If you already get eggs as part of your share, your case will include 2 dozen. We also included a couple of Hatch peppers this week for a spike of flavor classic to the southwest. All of our pepper seed comes certified from the Chile Pepper Institute and none of their seeds are genetically modified. Our farm has taken the Safe Seed Pledge so you can rest assured that none of our products contain gmo material. Although no longer certified, we maintain the original organic growing methods that Mike helped to spearhead decades ago. The tomato house was the very first certified organic greenhouse in the state of Virginia.

Don’t forget that this is the last week of this season’s CSA program and now is the time to sign up for next season. Fill out the back and return to us or go online to sign up today. Delicata coming soon!               To your health & pleasure, always, love, leslie.

• First Harvest Baby Ginger
• Bell Peppers
• Eggplant
• Okra
• Yellow Squash
• Gold Bar Zucchini
• Tomatoes
• Gourmet Cucumber
• Patty Pan Squash
• Sorrel bunch
• Beet tops bunch
• Dill
• Baby Salad Mix

Woot! It’s the first harvest of the season for our baby ginger! You will find that this ginger is unlike any kind you have bought at a store. It is very aromatic, tender, almost buttery, without the stringyness or toughness that is found in commercial ginger. Keep your ginger wrapped in the refrigerator until ready to use. Yes, we leave the stalks and the leaves on because the whole plant can be utilized in the kitchen. One chef that uses it skewers it into his roast so that as it is cut, little round medalions are embedded throughout. The leaves can be laid out in aluminum foil, glass baking dish or the like and used as a wrap to infuse your meat or veggies. Ginger is a phenomenal digestive aid, anti-microbial, and great tonic for the body. Try cutting some, including rounds of the inner stalk, into stir-fry for a punch of flavor and to enhance wellbeing. We like to brew it into tea and we also grind it with honey, making it easy to add a dollop to hot water for that cup. To your health and your pleasure!

Ginger Harvest

2016 Ginger Harvest

• Baby Salad Mix clamshell
• Chard
• Kale
• Pepper Medley
• Eggplant
• Mint
• Basil
• Thai Basil
• Yellow Squash
• Gold Bar Zucchini
• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Gourmet Cucumber

Spring Roll

Salad Mix Clamshell

Baby Salad Mix

Mint Tea

The photos above are inspiration for preparing spring rolls; image at top right is courtesy of lavatnus.blogspot.com.  Since we are having such hot weather, a cool meal of spring rolls would be nice. Planks cut of your squash, zucchini and cucumbers can be used raw with baby salad mix, garnished with mint and thai basil. Strips of cooked eggplant can also be used. Some spring rolls that you may find at a restaurant are typically shrimp or chicken, rolled up with greens and served with a plum sauce, sometimes a peanut sauce. There are enough ingredients in the CSA share this week to make vegetarian spring rolls, but they also lend themselves nicely to wrapping up leftovers with fresh greens. Pick up some rice paper wraps at your local Asian market and try this simple yet delicious treat at home. And what an easy way to have a meal from raw ingredients! For the wrapper, i heat up water in a large frying pan just until warm; then gently dunk the rice paper sheet until submerged and place it on a moistened plate. If it is too stiff to roll, it wasn’t left in the water long enough. If it becomes too delicate, tears or becomes gooey, then it was left in the water too long. Usually just a few seconds under water is all that is necessary. Place prepped ingredients  near the bottom and fold as you would a burrito, folding in the sides and rolling up until the ingredients are sealed inside. These can be stored for a while refrigerated but are best enjoyed fresh.  Use some of your mint for tea and get a bit of relief from the heat with a cooling yet nutritious meal. (The metal lunch box came from C’ville Oriental.) To your health and pleasure…  Enjoy!

• Field Arugula
• Mixed Field Greens
• Chard
• Squash Blossoms
• Onion bunch
• Garlic
• Peppers
• Eggplant
• Thai Basil
• Yellow Squash
• Gold Zucchini
• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Gourmet Cucumber

2016 CSA Summer July 23rd: A friend of mine turned me on to a new quick way to make fresh tomato sauce: use a food grater! I had not heard of this and an online search returned many results; the inspiration for the following recipe for a grain-free spaghetti dinner comes from a combination of input from Little Things and Food & Wine. For the sauce, cut the tomatoes horizontally in half and grate them into a bowl, thus removing the skin from the equation. Some recipes suggest using this raw, and certainly you can, but we liked it better by sautéing the garlic and onion first and then adding the freshly grated tomato for a few minutes at the end to marry the flavors. For the grain-free spaghetti, substitute zucchini that has been made into strips with a peeler. This is consumed raw. (There is a video of this technique at Little Things.) Three augmentations that can enhance this basic outline: use your arugula torn over top the zucchini, under the hot sauce to just wilt it into the dish; tear the squash blossoms into strips over the top; grill, roast or sauté the eggplant to add a new dimension to the dish.

2016CSA_Summer_Jul_23 Food and Wine Tomato grated

For a chilled infused salad, cut onion, cucumber and tomato into a bowl, dress with vinegar and steep in the refrigerator until cold. This can be used on top of your greens or can stand alone as a side.

To your health and your pleasure! Enjoy

• Field Arugula
• Mixed Field Greens
• Chard
• Beet Greens
• Squash Blossoms
• Onion bunch
• Garlic
• Peppers
• Eggplant
• Thai Basil
• Yellow Squash
• Gold Zucchini
• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Gourmet Cucumber

CSA members receive 10% discount for market purchases! This is in addition to the extreme discount received for being a participating CSA member. At our price, a single share costs about $25 a week; the retail price for items in your share this week would be $58.73. What a bargain!

Eggplant yogurt

New this week in the share are peppers, eggplant, yellow squash, chard, beet greens and gourmet cucumber. From casseroles to the grill, from lasagna to ratatouille, squash and eggplant are versatile. For an interesting twist, consider this eggplant dish that utilizes tomatoes from a Middle Eastern restaurant: Borani Badenjan, fried eggplant steamed with seasoned tomato sauce, served with homemade garlic yogurt and mint. Or try this: Mike takes the eggplant, tomatoes, etc, and simmers it in a crock pot.  The resultant rich batch is then great for a minestrone or served over pasta.  Very nice with a shaving of parmesan!

Thai Basil Flowers

The second planting of cucumbers is doing well and we are so grateful to share with you what we consider one of the best tasting, highest quality cucumbers to be found locally.

Let us know what you think! To your health and your pleasure! Enjoy

field mix
chard
arugula
pepper medley
lemonverbena
lemongrass
rose geranium
poultry herbs
thai basil
butternut squash
gold variety zucchini
squash blossoms
baby ginger
the best green beans

Make a wonderful cold weather tea with baby ginger grated and lemonverbena leaf steeped in almost boiling water sweetened with honey.
Butternut squash again this week! In the same family as pumpkin, is often times used in recipes in its place. So if you have recipes you like that call for pumpkin, try this as a substitute. My favorite “pumpkin pie” is made with butternut instead. Butternut squash lends itself delicious for both sweet and savory dishes. Used as an ingredient in homemade pasta, for stuffing, or cubed to be roasted, in soups, muffins and breads. If a savory soup or roast is on your mind, consider using your Poultry herbs chopped finely in your dish. It is easy to cut in half, scoop out the seeds and roast in a bit of water for half an hour… then you can flip it over and dress with pumpkin spices, some fresh grated baby ginger, butter and brown sugar for a decadent treat. Or stuff with savory greens, herbs, cheese or rice blend and bake the halves for about ½ an hour at 400f. For a delicious pie, use 1 ½ cups of cooked/pureed squash, 1 cup of sugar/light brown sugar, 3 eggs, ¾ cup evaporated milk or half and half, dash each of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger (insert some fresh grated baby ginger), salt, 2 tbs flour, 1 tbs of melted butter, 1 tsp vanilla combined and poured into a 9” pie crust, and if you like, garnish with pecans (i also like to add crushed pecans into the crust). Bake @350 for 45-50 minutes (or until the top of the pie is set) and allow to cool before cutting. Yum! Just a quick note on the baby ginger, since you are getting some every week: We wanted to suggest that if it is more than you can use fresh, store it in the freezer and just grate it into your teacup or recipe frozen, it will taste just like it is fresh!

2015CSA_Fall_Oct_17

Fresh harvest Daily September 2014

Yes we have Ghosts!

Beginning of October, fear of frost approaching – but the field is full of peppers eggplant heirloom tomatoes and even ghosts! Not the halloween types – but hotter than hot ghost peppers in their own protective high tunnel. We do have beautiful pumpkins and just beginning to dig the baby ginger…

Yellow Plum Tomatoes

Peppers and Eggplant

Squash Blossom