June 2017 – Varying Veggies

We picked up our second box this afternoon! It is so exciting to have such wonderful, fresh, locally grown produce. I also love knowing the farmers who grow our food. We can even go out on Fridays to the farm’s U-Pick area and pick more! They welcome us so warmly and make us feel right at home. The first year we noticed that they have sumac trees on their property. Having wanted to make sumac lemonade for a while, we asked if we could also pick the horns from the sumac trees. They said it would be fine and we made lemonade that weekend.

This week’s box contains a lot of delicious produce:

Broccoli
Broccoli Raab
Green leaf lettuce

Red leaf lettuce
Scallions
Spinach

Another leafy green that I need to identify
Garlic Scapes
Cauliflower
Radishes

I gave the lettuces and radishes to one of my kids to prep a salad for tonight’s dinner. He loves chopping veggies, tearing lettuce leaves, and using the salad spinner. I love having activities in the kitchen that the kids like to do to help with meal preparation. Win-win. If you can get your kids to help you in the kitchen, it is completely worth the time and effort to teach them. It’s quality time side-by-side with your kids, it teaches them a vital life skill (that many kids are not learning today), and it builds their confidence. They are also more likely to eat foods that they prepare.

We already have several ideas for this week’s box:

Salad (thanks to my assistant, we now have a salad bar in the fridge)

Cream of Broccoli Soup (with cauliflower puree as the base)

Sauteed greens with chopped garlic scapes and scallions

Spinach Pesto with garlic scapes

I’ll start posting recipes soon. My husband graciously handled the Borscht and Red Flannel Hash (one of his specialties) and I just got his notes this week. I love it when he comes home from work and has the time to prepare something awesome! I love cooking and the meals that I prepare, but we eat my cooking most of the time. It’s such a treat when he cooks. He’s a wonderful cook and he’s great at taking detailed notes for sharing recipes. That’s my weak point – I cook more like my grandma, throwing in a little of this and a little of that. It makes posting recipes challenging. I vow to get better though.

More soon,

–Kathy

Welcome to Varying Veggies! I had hoped to get more of the site done before posting, but summer is upon us and the veggies are not waiting. Therefore, I will work on the site as we go through the season.

After a very wet Spring, we have finally entered Summer here in Central New York. Our family received our first crop share (box #1) last Tuesday and we’re looking forward to box #2 in 2 days, so we’re going to overlap here a bit. You will see that we will do this as some of our veggies (radishes, beets, etc) last longer than others (dark leafy greens). Of course, this means we were inspired by our beets first last week. Oh well.

Here is last week’s box contents:

Arugula
Kale
Pea tendrils
Radishes
Beets
Mix of Herbs–choice of thyme, oregano, sage, chives, garlic chives, marjoram, mint, or lemon balm (we chose marjoram and thyme)
Potted Herbs–choice of oregano, sage, lemon balm, or basil (we chose basil)
Chard
Spinach
Kohlrabi

So far we’ve made Borscht with some of the beets and rainbow chard and Red Flannel Hash with the rest of the beets. I’ll be posting those recipes soon. We’re planning to use the rest of the rainbow chard and kale for either soup or pad thai (two of our go-to uses for these). The spinach will be made into a spinach and strawberry salad. I’m still pondering the pea tendrils, baby greens, and green onions. I’ll let you know.

Do you see the cute little basil plant in the back? A live plant is a first this year. It will go into our garden for future pesto, marinara sauce, and a caprese salad I look forward posting about later.

More to come…

Kathy