CSA Week 11: Take Our Midseason Survey!
Housekeeping
Please take our anonymous midseason survey. Tell us what we're doing right! Tell us what we're doing wrong! We want to hear from you. Also in the survey — we will be gauging interest in a potential CSA members appreciation event at the farm.
Thank you everyone for your patience last week as we got married!
This Week's Share:
-Shiso
-Spinach
-Eggplant
-Shishito peppers
-Slicing tomatoes
-Sun gold cherry tomatoes
-French breakfast radishes
-Baby bok choy
-Head lettuce
-Sooyow nishiki cucumber
Too Bountiful
We had a glorious wedding week at Tian Tian Farm. It was so moving to have all of our friends and family come out to this place that we've poured our hearts and souls into.
Our market friends Brothers and Co. catered the night, using many Tian Tian vegetables. Here's what the menu looked like:
Anything look familiar?
Anyway, it turns out that when you don't harvest on your farm for a week, everything grows a lot. Some veggies get huge, like our sooyow cucumbers, which we typically smash, though last week we just lightly tapped off the spikes with the flat edge of a knife and sliced them up to eat raw in lettuce wraps.
Unfortunately, our French breakfast radishes also got huge. These are typically harvested at 3-5 inches, when they're the perfect size for the classic butter and salt preparation. These huge radishes, which pack a lot of spice, would be better as part of a braise or soup to mellow out the kick. Our shiso is out of control, and we can't sell everything we've grown, so this week you're getting straight-up shiso stems! I like to put shiso on fried eggplant that's been quickly simmered in some kind of miso-soy concoction.
Speaking of eggplants, we're at peak nightshades! Most prominently, we are absolutely swimming in tomatoes. This week you're getting a pint of sun golds, the absolute best cherry tomato out there. A few weeks back, I pan-roasted a few and threw them on a steak. It was glorious:
You're also getting two different kinds of slicing tomatoes. You've already tried the Moskvich, and I hope you liked it, cause there's another one in your box. You might not have had a Momotaro tomato yet, however, and I think you will be very happy with it. It's one of the sweetest slicing tomatoes I've ever tasted and it stores longer than most tomatoes!
We are also swimming in shishito peppers, which are really kind of a farmers market staple. Speaking of shishitos, Elizabeth has your recipe this week.
Recipe - Blistered Shishito Peppers
"Just toss in a hot pan with oil until they blister -- it shouldn't even take a minute -- then remove from the heat and sprinkle with flakes of salt."
'Til Next Week,
Steven