This week's vegetables: spinach, lettuce mix, lettuce, scallions, pearl onions, beets with tops, snap peas, broccoli (full shares), zucchini, summer squash (half shares), cucumber, kohlrabi (full shares), green beans (half shares)
Next week: lettuce, zucchini/summer squash, scallions, pearl onions, cilantro, green beans, cucumbers
Soon: carrots, parsley, more beets
Vegetable tidbits: Today's spinach might be the last till mid/late September. (It fares poorly in hot weather, so we stop seeding it in late June and July.) Today's box also contains the last of this year's peas. The tops of the small, white onions can also be eaten; it is virtually identical to the scallions also in your box. Spring broccoli is winding down as well; you'll see a lot broccoli in September, October, and (probably) November. Like spinach, broccoli likes cooler weather. There are just a few beets so far that are ready; more coming soon. If you don't like beets, toss them into the Exchange Box, found at your pick-up site. (See below about the Exchange Box.) There weren't enough strawberries left on Monday to give everyone a final pint, though if you are in the area of our farm, and want to pick a few extra quarts, you could do that, the sooner the better. The berries are always smaller at the end of the season, but they still taste good!
Recipe: Spinach Soup from Tiana Krenz
Serves 6
Fry in bottom of soup pot:
8 slices bacon
Remove slices to paper towels, and set aside.
Add to bacon fat:
2 large leeks, 1 medium white or yellow onion, or 6-12 scallions (depending on size), chopped
8 medium potatoes--don't peel, just wash and dice
1 tsp. salt
3 cups boiling water
Cover and simmer 15 minutes.
Melt in seperate saucepan:
2 tbsp butter
Wisk in:
3 tbsp flour
1 tsp. vegetable or chicken broth powder/bullion
When combined well and bubbly, add:
3 cups whole milk
(if you prefer to use skim milk, wisk 1 c. dry milk solids into the milk before combining with other ingredients to ensure proper thickness. For 2%, use 1/2 c, dry milk solids. This recipe can also be done by combining 3 c. water with 1 and 1/2 c. dry milk solids, but whole milk lends the best flavor.)
Cook and stir until thick. Add to cooked vegetables in soup pot, and reduce heat to low (overheating will break the soup).
Add:
1 1/2 cup finely shredded spinach
crumbled bacon
dash ground nutmeg
fresh ground black pepper, to taste
Cook and stir over low heat until soup is desired consistancy.
If you have chives overgrowing your garden or sidewalk cracks, as we do, you might want to try snipping a few of these and sprinkling them on just before serving. Serve this soup with a loaf of your favorite whole-grain bread.
Reminder: We can reuse the plastic clamshell containers that we put, for example, the peas in. (Later we will use them for the cherry tomatoes.) So bring them back to your pick-up site, along with the boxes and egg cartons. We'd rather you not bring back a host of other clamshell containers, though, (unless you have several hundred of the same size), since it's too cumbersome for us to have dozens of different sizes of them.
Speaking of clamshell containers, we might perhaps eventually switch from plastic bags (usually zip-loc) to bigger clamshells for the spinach and salad mix. At least we could reuse the clamshells. With plastic bags, it doesn't seem possible. We did find one source of plastic bags that are made mostly out of recycled plastic, so at least when we have larger quantities of spinach, or a couple of heads of lettuce that could use a bag, we have a slightly better bag for those situations.
Exchange Box: For newcomers to Springdale Farm, for most of the season, we place one or several Exchange Boxes close by your boxes at each of the pick-up sites. You can place into the Exchange Box anything that you wouldn't want in your box, and alternatively, you make take out an item or two from the Exchange Box if it meets your needs and wishes. (You need not make a donation in order to take something out of the Exchange Box, though we ask you to limit yourself to one or two items so others can also enjoy something extra.) Often the Exchange Boxes will be full or half-full when they leave the farm, though not always. (Today, for example, we threw the last of some garlic scapes in there, extra broccoli, and pearl onions as well.) The Exchange Boxes can be recognized because they will usually be a different style of box than the normal full and half shares boxes, and will be labeled as well.
Boycott Kelloggs: The Organic Consumers Association sent a letter to the Kellogg company to ask them to pledge to use sugar processed from sugar beets that were not grown with Monsanto's genetically-modified roundup ready seed. In a response, Kelloggs said that the American consumer does not care whether their food comes from genetically engineered seed. While that certainly might be true for a majority of Americans, for those of us who see the introduction of GM foods as a blight on our environment and food system, we can certainly contact Kelloggs, as well as refrain from purchasing their products. As there will be no labeling of which products will contain the GM sugar, it will be impossible to determine which products contain it (just as it currently is with the majority of products that contain GM soy or corn. (90% of soybeans grown in the US are GM, and 65% of the corn is GM, so that 65% of products on grocery shelves contain unlabeled GM ingredients.) Give Kelloggs a call (800-962-1413); further information can be found at http://organicconsumers.org/kelloggs.cfm.
Other news: No More Pesticide Reports: the USDA plans to stop publishing its annual pesticide use report, despite opposition from scientists, farm organizations, and environmental groups. "What we'll end up doing is understanding pesticide use through getting accident reports," said Steve Scholl-Buchwald of the Pesticide Action Network. "And that's a lousy way to protect public health." Over in Germany, on the other hand, 8 pesticides have been banned following a link to massive bee deaths following the application of Bayer pesticides. In Japan, a 34 year-old farmer was taken to a hospital after he drank chloropicrin, a pesticide, in a suicide attempt. After doctors pumped his stomach, the man vomited, releasing toxic fumes into the air before he died. Treatment for chemical poisoning had to be administered to 23 patients and 31 hospital workers before the air was finally cleared.
Have a great week, and thanks for buying pesticide-free food!
The Seelys
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