Week #8
July 30 and 31
1 bunch chard
1 bunch carrots
1 pound new potatoes
asian eggplant
cucumbers
sweet peppers
green beans
fresh garlic
tomatoes
The Black Kettle Farm EPIC garlic harvest of 2013 is going on right NOW! The crew is out there is this glorious sunshine, pulling, piling, and bunching. Then filing the farm truck, puttering out of the field to the barn, hoisting the huge harvest tubs up the rickety weird ladder into the loft and hanging the bundles with care. In the big open, high ceiling-ed loft that held round the round hay bales of farmer’s past, this season’s garlic will cure and dry out for a few weeks and will later be trimmed and cleaned and ready for the BKF community to enjoy through the fall.
Savor the wonderful flavor and give thanks for this amazing crop that takes almost an entire year to grow! Chew on that for a moment! In October 2012, we planted this very garlic exclusively from seed saved on the farm in nice, fluffy compost rich soil, clove, by clove, by clove. After a heavy mulching of straw, we tucked it in for the winter, wishing it well. After the major snow dumps of last winter, this hearty garlic popped right up in the spring, the first green anything in the field. Since then, we have eaten the gorgeous green garlic in the very early season of the CSA, the zesty scapes a few weeks ago, now the fresh garlic, and are only waiting on the bulk of the crop to cure and be ready for fall storage.
Is it me,or does garlic go with absolutely everything? Can’t start any kind of veggie sauté without it and pesto with tomatoes pretty much signifies summer. Garlic keeps the vampires at bay, boosts your immunity, and enhances the flavor of absolutely every thing. The smell of garlic alone can take you places, conjure up memories of travels or amazing feasts with fabulous friends.
A garlic harvest on a whacky little veggie farm like this one also stands as a milestone for the season. Clearing the garlic crop from the field removes a mainstay of the general landscape. We have been walking by the big ol’ chunk of field dedicated to the garlic since April, giving it a wave, pulling a bulb every now and then to check-in, but generally just allowing it to do it’s thing. Garlic harvest always means deep summer, big sunshine, and heavy lifting. It also lends itself to a tiny bit of nostalgia, knowing the fall is around the corner.
But, hey, no need to go there yet! August is all about being present, living in sunshine and abundance and absolutely going for it! Let’s all have a big, huge BKF group manifestation for long days of clear blue skies, for hungry, relentless bugs to find other places to hang out and chow down, and for yummy nutrients in the soil to do their best and share all their goodness with our crops.
Whilst you take your first bites of this week’s share, take a moment and visualize our plants reaching towards the sunshine and extending their roots toward the core of the earth........Then exhale a deep breathe of gratitude and dig on in!
This is a HUGE month on the farm and your energetic support and positive vibrations only take us higher......
Permission to Go For It!
Share the BKF summer love! Smooch your sweetie with some glorious farm fresh garlic breath and live it up! Hurray for August!
Ginger Garlic Green Beans
Gourmet | September 2009
by Gina Marie Miraglia Eriquez
1/2 pound green beans, trimmed
2 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon grated peeled ginger
2 teaspoons rice vinegar (not seasoned)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds, toasted
Cook beans in a 6-quart pot of boiling well-salted water, uncovered, until just tender, 6 to 7 minutes. Drain in a colander, then plunge into an ice bath to stop cooking. Drain beans and pat dry.
While beans cook, mince and mash garlic to a paste with a pinch of salt, then stir together with soy sauce, ginger, vinegar, and oils in a large bowl.
Add beans and toss. Serve sprinkled with sesame seeds.
Basic Basil Pesto
www.simplyrecipes.com
2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts
3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Combine the basil in with the pine nuts, pulse a few times in a food processor. (If you are using walnuts instead of pine nuts and they are not already chopped, pulse them a few times first, before adding the basil.) Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.
Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on. Stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
Curried Eggplant with Tomatoes and Basil
www.realsimple.com
kosher salt and black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound tomatoes
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 cup fresh basil
Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 4 to 6 minutes.
Stir in the tomatoes, eggplant, curry powder, 1 teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon black pepper. Cook, stirring, about 2 minutes.
Add 2 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, until eggplant is tender, 12 to 15 minutes.
Stir in the chickpeas and cook just until heated through, about 3 minutes.
Remove the vegetables from heat and stir in the basil. Serve the vegetables over rice with yogurt, if using.
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