It’s here!  Summer CSA Week One!  We’re loving the start of this season on the farm so far. We have a wonderful crew of apprentices; we are really enjoying growing solely for our CSA members; and despite some crazy extremes in weather over the past month, most of the crops are doing great so far. We feel pretty lucky.

As we enter this early summer season of greens, remember this: dehydration is the enemy of your CSA share!  And you know what is really, really good at dehydrating vegetables? Refrigerators. So if you want your greens (or really any veggies) to last, make sure to put them in a plastic bag before tossing them into your fridge. If you just put them in “naked” they’ll be an unappealing wilted piles of greens before you know it. If they’re just a little bit wilted, you can often plump them back up by soaking them in a sink of cool water for 30 minutes. But avoid that whole step by tossing any greens (including this week’s pea shoots and kale) into a plastic bag before putting them in the fridge. 

The pea shoots in this weeks share are a tender treat — enjoy them chopped into a salad, added at the last minute to a stir-fry, or just munch on them on the car on the way home!  And the shallots… they are the secret ingredient to almost any favorite dish I make. These are the precious final—and still rock-hard—shallots of the 2014 season. I kept them in the walk-in fridge for the last month to save for your first Summer CSA pick-up. Make the salad dressing in this week’s newsletter with the shallots, put it on your mesclun mix, and happiness is sort of guaranteed. Even our nine-year-old Eli will devour any salad that has this dressing on it.

Please be in touch with any questions or concerns. We’re so happy that the season is underway, and we hope that you are, too!

Reba and the HCF crew

Summer CSA Week 1 of 16:  Pea Shoots, Kale, Spinach or Arugula, Mesclun Mix or Baby Lettuce Mix, Shallots  

This week’s recipes: Our Favorite Balsamic Vinaigrette, Easy Peanut Kale

Cheese Share Notes – Summer Week One

Our formidable Saturday harvest crew this week was made up of this goofy, adorable group of human beings. L to R Sobha Ram (hiding behind the lacinato kale), Sayni, Julia, Bill, Red, Katie!