Pray for sun. Please. The crops around the farm continue to look healthy, but this recent stretch of cool, cloudy, rainy weather hasn’t been encouraging anything to grow. What we really need now is a good stretch of hot, sunny weather to really push everything along. Here’s a great example: last week we picked over 50 pounds of zucchini and summer squash from one 50 foot row. This week we only got 18 pounds, or 1/3 as much.

That said, a number of things are cruising along … if only on momentum: more and more heirloom tomatoes are ripening, our corn is ripening enough that the raccoons have begun to notice, and it looks like we may just have the best winter squash crop we’ve ever had.

I’ve done some informal polling of shareholders that I see and have come up with a few general comments which seem to sum up your experience with our CSA so far:

1. You’re all very happy with the quality and freshness of the produce.
2. You would like some more greens to eat as salads.
3. Some of you would prefer to receive larger quantities of perhaps fewer kinds of things.
4. At least one of you hates cilantro.

If your feelings aren’t expressed above, please let us know!

All shares contain:

• Zucchini, Summer Squash and/or Patti-pan Squash
• Cucumbers
• Green Onions
• Garlic
• “Braising Mix” (aka “stir fry” or mustard greens)
• Celery
• Chives

“Full” shares also contain:

• more onions, zucchinis, cucumbers and garlic
• Thyme
• BASIL!

Veggie Notes

Nothing really new this week.

Recipe Ideas

Technique: Stir Frying
Stir frying is a very simple technique that can turn very simple ingredients into a wonderful meal very quickly. For years, we tried to make stir frys that weren’t runny, bland disappointments. Finally, we made a couple of simple adjustments to our technique which results is pretty darn good stir frys every time:

1. Dry the ingredients as much as possible before cooking.
2. Cook ingredients separately and in small batches (a roomy single layer in the pan)
3. Cook over as high a heat as possible. (Remember to be careful when using nonstick pans over high heat; before we got a wok, we only used cast iron.)
4. When all ingredients are cooked and set aside, heat up your stir fry sauce in the pan before adding the ingredients back to the pan. The sauce can be as simple a soy sauce and maple syrup, or — like the one listed below — something a bit fancier.

Stir Fry Sauce
This recipe is adapted from one in a Betty Crocker cookbook. We tweaked it to make it a little more seasonal and local-friendly, but we also toned the sweetness quite a bit. (As in we reduced the total sweetener to under 25% what the original recipe called for and we still think this is kind of sweet!)

This makes a lot of sauce, something like 2 cups. We often save half of the sauce in the fridge for another night, or for dipping eggrolls or stuffed cabbage leaves. This can also be prepared ahead of time and mixed right into other already cooked ingredients.

2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp Maine maple syrup
2 tbsp soy sauce or tamari
1 1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1/2 cup cider vinegar

1/2 cup veggie or chicken stock, or just water
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tsp corn starch
hot pepper to taste
1 tbsp Hoisin Sauce or Black Bean Paste (optional)

Combine 1 tbsp of broth/water with corn starch, stir to eliminate clumps and set aside. Combine all other ingredients, bring to a boil and continue to boil until reduced by 1/3 to 1/2. Stir up the corn starch mixture and stir into the sauce. Boil/simmer until the sauce thickens, 1-2 minutes.

As always, we welcome your feedback. Please let us know if you have any questions, concerns or problems.

We hope you enjoy the share!