Salad, anyone?

Our leafy crops are loving this wet weather! Last week's high temps had them a

Harvesting spinach in the field
photo: Meg Wilson

little stressed out, so we dedicated all irrigation resources to our salad and greens crops. It looks like it did the trick and we get another week of spinach and lettuce (and salad mix too!). The cooler weather will also be welcomed by our farm crew, including our newest member, Isaiah McCarthy. Isaiah did a 3 week internship here this spring as part of his senior project at the South Shore Charter School, and now he's on board full time. We're happy for the extra pair of hands and the sunny attitude!

This Saturday (June 20th) is the Fresh Bite 5k in Wampatuck, a fundraiser for the Weymouth Food Pantry (WFP). The WFP is our new food pantry partner this year and we'll be out supporting them on Saturday. If you'd like to get your exercise in for the weekend while helping a great cause, sign up and come run or walk with us! Email me if you're interested!

This year, thanks to your generous donations to the Food Access Fund at signup, WFP will join our old friends at Father Bill's/Mainspring, the Greater Boston Food Bank, and the Boston Area Gleaners in receiving produce donations from the farm. You've enabled us to try a new kind of relationship with a hunger relief organization like WFP--one that's

Salad mix ingredients
photos: Meg Wilson

molded more by the needs of the participating families at the food pantry. Instead of donating only our extra bits and pieces of crops or orphaned CSA shares, with this new project we'll also be supplying specific crops in specific quantities, as ordered weekly by WFP to meet their variable demand. We're all excited to try out this new model. I'll have more updates later in the season, so stay tuned!

In your share this week: more spinach and lettuce, mustard greens, kale, a

perfect kale leaf
photo: Meg Wilson

greenhouse cucumber, cilantro, garlic scapes or bunched green garlic, and salad mix. No PYO this week.. maybe next week!

Recipes of the Week

The New York Times' Garlic Scape Pesto recipe is hard to beat in terms of ease, time, and most importantly, taste! This is fabulous on buttered pasta, with maybe a shot of limoncello for dessert to assuage your garlic breath. You can halve the recipe for the single bunch of scapes we have this week, or take the green garlic option for your share and it'll work perfectly.

1 cup garlic scapes, sliced crosswise (about 10 to 12 scapes)
 ¼ cup raw sunflower seeds
 ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
 ¼ cup Parmesan cheese
 ½ cup basil leaves
 Juice of one lemon

Place the garlic scapes in a food processor and pulse for 30 seconds. Add the sunflower seeds and pulse for 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the olive oil and process on high for 15 seconds. Add the Parmesan cheese and pulse until the ingredients are combined. Add the basil and lemon juice, and process until reaching the desired consistency. Add salt to taste and serve immediately.

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Elise at simplyrecipes.com is one of my favorite food & cooking bloggers--she's always a never-fail option. Her recipe for sauteed mustard greens is very simple and delicious, but I think it's even better with 1/2 mustard greens and 1/2 spinach. The mustards cook slightly faster than the spinach, so put the mustards in one minute earlier than the spinach to give them a head start. Here's my amended version of her already excellent recipe.

1/2 cup thinly sliced onions
2 cloves garlic, minced and rested for 10 minutes
1 Tbsp olive oil,  or a 50/50 mix of olive oil and butter or ghee
1 pound mustard greens, washed and torn into large pieces
2 to 3 Tbsp chicken broth or vegetable broth (vegetarian option)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon dark sesame oil

In a large sauté pan, sauté onions in the olive oil and butter over medium heat until the onions begin to brown and caramelize, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook a minute more, until fragrant.
Add the mustard greens and broth and cook 1 minute. Add the spinach and continue cooking until both the mustard greens and spinach are just barely wilted. Drizzle with sesame oil, add salt and pepper to taste and toss. Serve immediately.


Thanks to our very talented photographer-in-residence, Meg Wilson, for the gorgeous photos this week!

Enjoy your share!

Our awesome harvest volunteer Lindsay helping us pull in the harvest last week.
photo: Meg Wilson