Category: Uncategorized

Great eats this week from City Commons.  I hope you’re not sick of tomatoes yet because we have another dose of cherries and large slicing tomatoes.  Also included in this week’s box:

Green beans

Lemon grass

Swiss Chard

Collards

Asian pears, or early apples

Eggplant or Summer squash

Potatoes

Cherry tomatoes

Heirloom tomatoes

The other day, I was heating a large pot of water to boil corn on the cob.  While it boiled, I remembered how delicious blanched vegetables can be.  So I cut a bunch of of Swiss chard and a small head of cabbage into ribbons threw them into the boiling water, waited until the water came back to a boil and removed them from the water into a bowl of cold water (purists use ice water).  (Almost any vegetable can be flash cooked in this way.  I love green beans and broccoli blanched too.) Then I tossed the chard and cabbage with a clove of minced garlic, olive oil, toasted sesame oil, soy sauce and red pepper flakes.  This was very yummy with rice, tofu and a runny egg.  Try the same exact recipe with your green beans this week.  Or mix the beans and chard.  The resulting vegetables are firm yet deliciously chewy and bright green!

Cool weather has been great for keeping veggies looking good in this last half of summer.  This week we present you with a beautiful array of classic vegetables to entice your eyes and mouths.

This week:

Cherry Tomatoes

Basil (Genovese, lemon or holy)

Summer Squash (Patty pan, yellow crookneck or zucchini)

Collard Greens

Swiss Chard

Various Slicing Tomatoes (Mostly heirloom)

Cabbage

Green Beans

I have two quick and easy recipes to share with you.  First, cabbage.  If you are anything like me, the cabbage is building up a little bit in the fridge.  Use several small heads or one large one in this recipe.  Cut cabbage into ribbons and place in a glass or ceramic baking pan.  Add chopped garlic (or onions), salt and pepper, a quarter cup each olive oil and water.  Cover with foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for an hour or until tender.  I love this recipe because you can start it early and do something entirely different for an hour or more while dinner cooks.  Serve with almond or green pea rice.

Ok, next the squash.  Heat olive oil in pan.  Be generous, it’s good for you.  Slice squash and leave to brown on the first side.  Add chopped garlic and flip squash.  Salt and pepper or soy sauce to taste.  Let get nice and toasty and eat with toast.  Or rice or noodles…

Mid-summer brings you some classic veggies as well as pears!  We hope you enjoy the contents of this week’s box.

Tuesday:

Beets or carrots

Saturday:

Carrots

Both days:

Cucumbers or onions

Cabbage or collard greens

Tarragon

Basil

Tomatoes

Swiss Chard

Pears

Try making refrigerator pickles with your cucumbers.  Slice in rounds.  Mix half water, half vinegar, sugar, salt, dill or tarragon or basil, a couple garlic cloves, hot pepper if you like, heat mixture until it boils and sugar and salt are incorporated.  Pour over cucumber slices in mason jar, close lid and put into the fridge until you want to eat them!

Simple and delicious.

Swiss Chard Pie Another week packs yet more delicious items in your box.

Tomatoes

Green Beans

Hakuri Turnips

Swiss Chard

Thyme

Beets

Garlic

Cucumbers or Zucchini

Kohlrabi

Swiss Chard again! If you have any left over from last week, combine the quantity to make Swiss Chard Pie.  I made it last week and it was amazing!! I wished I could make it for dinner every night for a week.  Try roasting the beets and kohlrabi together in the oven.  Peal and dice both, toss in olive oil, sea salt, pepper and thyme leaves.  Put on baking sheet, roast 30-40 minutes on 400 degrees.  Enjoy!

This week we see the start of our tomato crop.  Hoop houses at Buffalo St. Farm and Food Field have allowed for ripening ahead of the field grown ones.  That’s something to be excited about.  Flower shares also started this week, pretty!

In the boxes:

Swiss chard

Kale

Tomatoes or Cucumbers

Savory

Basil

Green beans

Beets

My husband bought a grill for himself for father’s day, which I took as a hint that I wasn’t buying enough meat.  So I began buying more and eating more,  but it’s been almost a month since that fateful day and I just can’t eat (or think about) another piece of meat.  With the contents of this box, I am making vegetable soup.  Make stock ahead of time and freeze it for a quick supper.  Begin with onions and carrots, garlic if you like.  Sweat these, I like a little color too.  Add the beets, beans, squash, potatoes, diced tomatoes, salt and pepper and savory.  Add stock, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.  Add chard and basil once other vegetables are cooked through and the soup is 5-10 minutes away from service.  Enjoy!

One of our members said she made a mushroom risotto and made use of her savory that way.  That sounded fantastic to me.  Make use of your frozen stock in this recipe too.

This week we have more conventional produce to offer.  Most items are probably self-explanatory except perhaps the cherries.  The cherries in the box are sour cherries.  While some people think they are yummy out of the box, general consensus seems to point towards cooking them.  The most common use of these cherries is in pies and jellies.  Since you have only a pint, you might find it hard to make a pie.  Try pitting them and adding some water and sugar to make a cherry syrup to pour over vanilla ice cream or pancakes with homemade whipped cream.  I have also used them in braised pork shoulder.  Brown meat, add beer, wine or water to reach halfway up meat in a dutch oven, add onions and salt and pepper and pitted sour cherries, put in 350 oven for 3 hours or so depending on size of meat chunk.  Yummy.  You could do an abbreviated version of this recipe with chops, stove top…add fresh herbs at the end.  Serve with a simple salad.

In this week’s box:

Beets

Chard

Kale

Sour Cherries

Lettuce heads

Lettuce mix

Herb Bouquets (tarragon, sage, dill, lavender)

Basil

Enjoy!!

My garden is a pretty amazing place.  It is set six blocks away from my house and tucked down a side street that dead-ends into the open lot that was once a school.  There are many wild things there, rabbits, pheasants, deer, chickweed, wild peas, dogs, my daughters.  Sometimes it is hard to make order from irregular forms that abound, a burned house across the street with scattered, half-erected beams, the grasses growing for miles, sometimes an errant rose bush or daffodils.  On Saturday, I planted scarlet salvia, a perennial that attracts hummingbirds.  My kids like it there because we picnic under the walnut tree and have a swing with a 50-foot trajectory.  Luckily, the beets that are in the box this Tuesday are not mine, the rabbits have been repeatedly eating all of their leaves and they are as small as pennies, despite having put them in the ground in April.  The savory is from Singing Tree Garden, where it grows well, almost wild, taking over half a bed with its pokey dark green leaves.  Each one of our gardens grows certain plants well, according to the preferences of the farmer, the soil and the weather.  Enjoy each of the fruits our gardens offer.

This week:

Mulberries–Fields of Plenty, Occupy Yourself, Food Field

Swiss Chard (Friday Only)–Fields of Plenty

Salad Mix–Food Field

Broccoli Greens or Kale or Radicchio (Tuesday only)–Food Field

Cherries–Food Field

Lettuce Heads–Iroquois

Tarragon–Occupy Yourself

Savory–Singing Tree

Hot Sauce–Food Field

Radishes – Fisheye Farms