Here's just some of the stuff you'll find in this week's share...
First off, we'll have more squash and eggplant. This picture is actually of last week's pickings, but I forgot to post it then, and didn't get a picture of this week's, but it looks like a small sampling of what I've picked this week for these veggies.
Tonite I gathered a bunch of herbs for you guys. You'll all get a container of basil, and each container has one very different, darker, tougher leaf in it - that's a bay leaf off of my two bay "trees" (they're very short still). Use the bay leaf in any long simmering dishes you might be cooking this week. If you don't want to use it right away, you could bag/freeze the leaf, or try drying it.
You'll also have a bundle of other herbs, which includes rosemary, sage, parsley, and mint, plus lemon grass and lemon verbena. Have you tried using those last two in tea yet? MMM! Different, but oh so good.
Here's some other stuff I dug up or picked tonite...
Those tall guys on the left are leeks. VERY tall. I've got three different varieties going this year, some of which I started from seed, others I got by mail order. Some are very thin compared to others - and I can't say that's specific to the variety, or just the happiness of the individual plant. I wish they were all more like the thick ones, but I will say I did a great job of planting them deep this year - that means they all have more of the white/blanched part, which is the tender part you use in recipes. You can also use some of the light green, but I always compost the darker, coarse green tops.
To prepare a leek, cut off the roots and the dark green part, peel off or wash the outermost dirty layer (some of yours already got peeled off), and then slice down the middle. If you're using storebought you would at this point see if there's any sand/grit in the layers of the leek and just hold the half leeks under running water to wash it out. I've found no sand/grit in any of the homegrown ones the last two years...
Beans! Yay beans!! Who doesn't love beans!? Mary said she picked a bunch of beans again - she has considerably more space to grow them. Me, I go for variety - instead of all green beans, I includes some yellow wax beans, some purple beans, and some Dragon Tongue beans (the yellow with purple stripes). Unfortunately there's really VERY few of the non-green beans for me this year, due to competition with weeds, rabbits, etc. Still, I'll throw 'em into Mary's mix so you should all get a few - just cook 'em along with the green beans. The purple beans will, unfortunately turn green when cooked. And the Dragon tongue beans? So yummy chopped up raw and tossed into a salad when they're still small and tender. Maybe I'll have more in future weeks...
And onions - I dug up a lot of onions from the squash bed tonite. The plants have lost their green tops, so I should probably dig 'em all up, cure them, and see if I can get them to store without going bad. As you can see here, I gathered a mix of sizes and colors - red, white and yellow, big and small. Oh, and they're gonna be just as dirty as you see them here - so between that and the leeks, we'll have to make sure you have extra grocery bags for carrying your produce without getting your reusable bags all dirty.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment