June 27th, 2008

This week's vegetables: spinach, lettuce, scallions, strawberries, sugar snap peas, maple syrup, zucchini, broccoli (half shares)

Next week/soon: peas, strawberries, broccoli, scallions, zucchini, lettuce, spinach?, beets, parsley, pearl onions, lettuce mix, scapes

Vegetable tidbits: You don't need to 'shell' the peas; the whole pod can be eaten!

Recipe: "Slair" from subscriber Melanie De Vriend.

"This is an old Dutch family recipe. It's a vague recipe, no one has really written it down, but it's nice to use up a lot of lettuce."

bacon - fried crisp, save grease
leaf lettuce - preferrably fresh from garden
1 small onion, minced, optional (could also use scallions or chives)
a medium sized pot of freshly mashed potatoes
hard boiled eggs, chopped (also optional)
4 T vinegar
8 T water


Clean lettuce, tear into pieces, and place in large bowl, along with minced onion if desired.
Pour a little bacon grease over the lettuce to wilt the leaves. Add crumbled bacon, mashed potatoes,
and eggs. Heat water and vinegar on the stove until warm, and add slowly to the potato mixture.
Should have a wet or "sloppy" texture. Good plain or with meatballs.


Pasta with Sugar Snap Peas, Asparagus, and Parmesan cheese from cooks.com

1 lb. asparagus, trimmed, cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 lb. bow-tie pasta
1/2 lb. sugar snap peas or snow peas, trimmed
3 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese (about 1 1/2 oz.)
Additional freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Add asparagus to large pot of boiling salted water. Cook until just crisp-tender. Drain. Cook pasta in separate pot of water, boiling until just tender but still firm to the bite. Add peas and boil two minutes. Drain well. Return pasta, peas and asparagus to pot. Add oil and toss to coat. Add 1/2 cup cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately, adding cheese.


Spicy Sugar Snap peas with Mustard

1 lb. fresh sugar snap peas
1 tbsp. whole mustard seeds
4 tbsp. vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 hot dried red chili
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. When hot, add the mustard seeds. As soon as the mustard seeds begin to pop, add the garlic, then add the red chili and stir for a few seconds.
Put in the sugar snap peas and season to taste. Let cook for a few minutes until they have absorbed the flavor of the spices.


Weather update: We've had some beautiful days, eh? Some crops look great, and others are still a little yellow from being submerged for a week or so. Long-term damage is hard to ascertain -- sometimes crops green up right away, while others only display the symptoms of stress closer to harvest time. At least our planting schedule is getting back on track, and the fields are gradually filling up. Even our final planting of spring spinach shows some life of producing something harvestable. The first green beans and beets, on the other hand, look pretty pathetic, but since we sow them four or five times during the year, the overall yield shouldn't be affected much. Having missed four or five lettuce mix plantings due to the rains, we planted a huge amount last night, so that in a month there should be (almost literally) tons of lettuce mix to share. If only we could get it to ripen very gradually, then we'd be in good shape!

Other food news: We recommend visiting occasionally, or getting on the e-mail list of, the Organic Consumers Association. They are a fantastic resource of issues and articles about food, health, and sustainability. Their website is www.organicconsumers.org. Also helpful in the same vein is the Weston Price Foundation, dedicated to promoting the nutritional research begun by a dentist (named Weston Price), who during the 1930's visited numerous cultures who had not (yet) succumbed to the western diet of refined foods, white flour, white sugar, etc. and which also did not suffer from the debilitating conditions (including many dental problems!) that plague us in the affluent west. An excellent website, (www.westonaprice.org) and cookbook (Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions), can correct many misconceptions currently promoted via the mainstream media. They also send out action alerts at times when folks can collectively pressure legislators or bureaucrats to stand up for health-promoting policies or legislation. Another huge issue right now in various parts of the country is the ability of consumers to buy milk directly from farms. Check out the Campaign for Real Milk at the westonaprice site for the background on the battles occuring in many states, most notably right now in California. We hope to distribute a DVD fairly soon of a collection of other noteworthy stories concerning our food system; we'll let you know soon.

The Seelys