June 22nd, 2022
What’s in your share?
Broccolini* or Snow Peas
Fennel*
Baby Carrots
Radishes
Kohlrabi*
Garlic Scapes*
*Fennel - is a bulb that is sweet and has a licorice-y taste. Make sure to slice it thin - it can be fibrous, like celery. We usually don’t eat the core and cut around it. The fronds are tasty and can be used like dill or to garnish a cocktail. Fennel is excellent cut thin, tossed in oil, and roasted until crispy.
How to cut a kohlrabi. The skin is thick and using a knife will make it go faster. Be careful not to cut yourself - the stem at the bottom is woody and hard to cut.
*Kohlrabi - has a similar flavor to broccoli and has the texture of a potato or an apple. Unlike a potato, kohlrabi can be eaten raw. Remove the leaves (you can eat these too, best sautéed or cooked in a soup). Most people peel their kohlrabis. Skip the veggie peeler and use a knife - it’ll go way faster. If eating raw; shred, cut into matchsticks, or slice into thin rounds. You can also treated it like a potato and cut it into bigger chunks and roast or boil it. Our favorite way to eat it is raw and thinly sliced, using it instead of a cracker with cheese and instead of a chip with guacamole. We also love just eating slices with salt and pepper.
*Broccolini - had smaller heads and longer, more tender stems than broccoli. The stems (or shoots) have a texture similar to asparagus, and we harvest them to be eaten along with the heads. Broccolini is excellent roasted, keeping the smaller shoots whole, and halving or quartering the bigger heads. Broccolini, radishes, and fennel make an awesome roasted trio over some garlicy pasta.
*Garlic Scapes - are produced only from hardneck garlic varieties. Once the garlic bulb is almost ready to harvest, it puts up a stalk, which, if left to its own accord, will produce a head with dozens of tiny garlic seeds. We cut the scape off before it flowers, so that the plant can put its energy into making nice, big bulbs instead of putting the energy into making seed. Garlic scapes are a delicacy - there is only one per plant, per season. They can be used as garlic in any recipe, munched on raw if you like having garlic breath, or made into pesto. They take way less effort to use than bulb garlic and have a fresher and softer taste. We love chopping them and making a quick pickle for use during the summer.
Garlic Scape Quick Pickle (fills a pint jar)
Broccoli is heading up and will start showing up in your shares.
Scapes (chopped into 1/4 inch rounds)
1 T salt
1/2 c water
1/2 c white vinegar
Black pepper or chili flakes, or any other spice you want for taste
Chop the scapes and put them in the jar with the salt and spices. Meanwhile, boil the water and vinegar, taking off heat once boiled. Pour over scapes and put the lid on. Let sit for at least 8 hours before tasting. Keep in the fridge. You can add more scapes to the brine if you get more next week!
Fermented Garlic Scapes (fills a pint jar)
This method takes about a week, but the flavor is more complex than a vinegar pickle, plus it has those added microbes! A quick pickle will keep your scapes crunchier, while the ferment will soften the texture a bit, but it should still maintain some crunch.
Scapes (chopping into 1/4 inch rounds)
2 T salt
Black pepper or chili flakes, or any other spice you want for taste
Water
Chop the scapes and put them in the jar with the salt and spices. Cover completely with water, but don’t fill it to the top. Cover with a lid and put the jar on a plate. The fermentation process will start taking place about 24 hours after you make the brine. Check daily - you’ll start to see bubbles forming inside the jar and the lid will begin to fit tighter because the pressure is building inside the jar. To release this pressure, make sure to “burp” the lid everyday by opening the jar and closing it again. If you fill it too full, the water may over flow, hence the plate. Taste a scape after a week and decide if you want to let it keep fermenting. Refrigerate the jar once you’ve decided it tastes good. PRO-TIP: this same recipe can be used to ferment kohlrabi!
We love growing potatoes and the potatoes seem to love growing here! They are a bit labor intensive because they require meticulous weeding and are harvested by hand with the aid of digging forks, but are totally worth it because our member love potatoes and they feed us all winter. Potatoes also require additional soil or compost to be added two or three times during the season. This method, called “hilling”, is practiced so that the potatoes root upward as well as downward, and also to cover up any potatoes that are sticking out of the soil to prevent them from turning green.