09' CSA Basket Journal #3; Volume 2

Arugula’s Star Farm

CSA Basket Journal #3 ,  May 27th

What Genus Specie Varieties your basket contains:

1.) Baby Purple Top White Globe Turnip Greens with edible dainty Root

2.)Rudolf, French Breakfast, and Pink Beauty Radish Mix

3.)Sweet Ann Sugar Snap Peas

4.)Golden and Orange Fantasia Young Swiss Chard Bunches

5.) Chioggia and Golden Touchtone Baby Beets and Greens Bunches  

     (roots, stems, and greens. All edible)

6.) Triticale Grain and Vetch Arrangement                       

         (decorative/non-edible)

What a great representation of the Chenopodiaceae family you will find in this weeks basket.  Both Swiss Chard and Beets belong to this family.  Spinach does as well, which you have had the pleasure of having for the past two weeks.  As you could imagine, with the greens and the pigments in the stalks, all of these vegetables in this family are really great for you.

My new excitement lately has been a gifted book exchange from one of our interns, Roben Mounger, otherwise known as Ms. Cook.  Over her years of life she has developed quite a collection of cook/food books and she volunteered to bring me a couple new books every other week that I can look through in my few moments of spare time.  As I generally put all of our meals together by feel and by what is in season, I generally do not follow recipes specifically, but I do enjoy getting inspirations from looking through a new cookbook.  I really enjoy European Food Culture or American writers that really practice and understand their region of seasonally available organic vegetables and fruits. 

The past few books that Roben has brought me have all been vegetarian based books, funny enough, even though for the first two listed below you would really not even notice as they mainly just do not use meat.  After looking through Deborah Madison’s book, Savory, Annie Sommerville’s book, Fields of Greens, and Jae Steele’s book, Get it Ripe, I saw a lot of similarities in between their recipes and the way I put dishes together.

I am bringing all of this about because even if you are not a vegetarian, as Matthew and I are not either, I think you would be inspired or at lease would benefit from getting a new cookbook that focuses on in-season vegetables and fruits.  The Get it Ripe book by Jea Steel, is a very hardcore vegetarian book, but that is not a bother at all, as I found it to be a wonderful book for those of you who might want to start learning about vegetables, grains, and fruits from square one.  She also charts out all the nutrients of any available vegetable, fruit, grain, nut, or oil. 

One of my favorite recipes I put together just the other night was what I might call a Root and Stem Crunchy Beet and Apple Slaw, which was quick and easy and very good.  I spoke of it some today to everyone and I will be adding a written recipe for it in the Arugula’s Star Recipe Bank.

Enjoy your baskets and we will be seeing you next week.

Oh and please can everyone try to remember bringing your baskets back to the pick-up/drop off next week.

Allison and Matthew