Week #2. Weekly+BW/B. Fox kits.

We pack produce this week for these shares:

– Weekly shares
– BiWeekly/ B group

Fox kits

For the first time, we have a fox family living on the farm.  I guessed foxes as soon as I found the den.  The den itself is substantial but the abundant trails, skat, and rabbit legs really gave it away.  Lots of gnawed groundsquirrel legs too.  I was able to capture this snippet of video on our trail camera.  They have already moved out of the den but I continue watching for them. View below or on YouTube at youtu.be/zGs1DIS49ow 

Organic strawberry updates

Our berry field is progressing very nicely.  We expect to begin picking in mid-June.  Tipi members, watch our emails for u-pick announcements.

If you are not a Tipi member this year, please join our email list so we can alert you when it’s time to pick.  As usual, our u-picks are by reservation only.

Veggie List & Veggie Notes
Week #2, June 5, 2025

Asparagus, 1.25 lb
Shiitake mushrooms, 8 oz
Red leaf lettuce
Spinach, 1 bunch
Komatsuna mustard greens, 1 bunch
White salad turnips, 1 bunch
Salad radishes, 1 bunch
Green garlic, 1 bunch
Rhubarb, 1.2 lb

Next week’s box will probably contain strawberries (weather permitting), asparagus, lettuce, button mushrooms, salad turnips, spring greens, scallions and more.

NEW ITEMS THIS WEEK:

Shiitake mushrooms – These are from Hidden Valley Mushrooms, the same people who grow button mushrooms for us.  I love shiitakes cooked with spinach or other greens.  Shiitakes must be cooked.  A small subset of people can have a toxic reaction to raw or undercooked shiitakes.  Once cooked, they are harmless.  And tasty!  Lightly sauté in butter and add to any dish.  We use ours in frittatas, as well as sautéed and mixed into pasta salad or any dish.  Sautéed shiitakes and spinach are a great topping for pizza or rice bowls, e.g. bibimbap.
Storage, general: Refrigerate in a dry paper bag, but not in your crisper drawer with other vegetables, especially brassicas.  It’s OK to put a loose plastic bag over the paper bag but don’t close.  Mushrooms are perishable so use soon.

Komatsuna greens (bundle of dark green leafy heads. &nbs) – These tasty spring greens are similar to mustard greens, with great flavor, but are more mild than mustard greens. 
Preparation: Use in any recipe that calls for mustard greens or bok choy.  We suggest using just the leaves, as stems are fibrous.
Storage:  Cover and refrigerate.

White salad turnips – I know that returning members look forward to these sweet and delicious turnips, which taste nothing like the turnips that are harvested in fall.
– Storage: Cover and refrigerate.
– Uses: Both the turnip roots and tops are edible.  The roots are excellent raw; Slice and add to salads.  They can be cooked and are especially good when lightly sauteed in butter.  Stir as little as possible so they brown on at least one side.  The turnips greens are excellent cooked.  Treat them like mustard greens.
– Our favorite use:  Slice the roots very thinly and combine with a mixture of rice vinegar, mirin, soy sauce, sesame oil.  Eat immediately or marinate.

INFO REPEATED FROM LAST WEEK:

ASPARAGUS – This is my favorite spring treat!  
Prep: Wash your asparagus thoroughly to remove hidden grit.  Submerge in water with the tips pointing down, soak briefly, then swish vigorously and pull out of the water.  The draining action helps pull the grit out of the asparagus tips.  Repeat several times.
Storage: Asparagus is perishable, so eat it as soon as possible.  Store in a paper towel, cloth or paper bag, then wrap loosely in a plastic bag.  The paper bag protects the asparagus tips from direct contact with the plastic bag.  The plastic bag keeps the asparagus from wilting.
Preparation: We snap our asparagus at harvest, rather than cutting.  Therefore, there is no need to snap the stalks to remove fibrous ends.  For the same reason, it is not necessary to peel the asparagus stalks.  It’s OK to trim the cut end a bit.
Cooking:  If your asparagus stalks vary greatly in size, you will want to cook the thicker ones longer.  Put an empty steamer pot over water, and bring the water to a boil.  Add the asparagus.  Cover and steam over medium heat until just tender.  Use two forks or a spatula to turn the asparagus during cooking, rotating the bottom spears to the top.  Drain and serve.  Alternatively, you can lay spears flat in the bottom of a broad pan, with ½ inch of water.  Also excellent broiled or grilled.  Good dressed with vinaigrette, or with lime juice, salt and pepper.

RED LEAF LETTUCE – The lettuce tender so handle gently.  
Storage:  Refrigerate in a bag or other container.

SPINACH – This spinach is good for salads or for cooking.
Storage: Refrigerate in a bag or other container.

SALAD RADISHES – These are great in salads or thinly sliced on sandwiches. 
Storage: Cover and refrigerate.

GREEN GARLIC (looks like scallions, tastes like garlic) – Last fall, we planted garlic cloves that grew into the stalks we harvested this week.  If left to grow until mid-summer, the slim white bulb on this week’s garlic will divide and form the usual cluster of cloves in a garlic bulb.
Preparation: Green garlic is more pungent than scallions, so slice thinly and use sparingly when raw.  It mellows when cooked.  Chop and add to any cooked dish that would benefit from garlic.  Use the white bulbs and pale green stems.  Don’t use the dark green stems and leaves, as these are fibrous.

RHUBARB – Storage: Refrigerate in a plastic bag.
Stewed rhubarb: This is the simplest way to prepare rhubarb. Chop rhubarb into one inch chunks. Stir over medium heat with a small amount of water in the bottom of the pan. The rhubarb will release moisture as it cooks. Stew until it softens and falls apart. Sweeten to taste with honey or sugar. Eat warm on its own, over vanilla ice cream, on pancakes, etc.
Storage:  Refrigerate.
Preserve: Rhubarb is extremely easy to freeze. Wash, chop and pop it in a freezer bag. That’s it; no need for blanching. When baking muffins or cakes, add the frozen rhubarb directly to the batter.

RECIPES by DEB

Asparagus Mushroom Stir Fry

From Jo Eats

This recipe includes a lengthy discussion of stir fry dinners as well concise instructions for how to make the stir fry, plus it’s perfect for the asparagus and shiitakes in this week’s box. There’re also some really nice photos! If you don’t have a hunk of fresh ginger on hand you could sub about a teaspoon of powdered ginger, or if you happen to have crystallized ginger lurking with your baking ingredients, try chopping that up for your stir fry – the added sweetness enhances the dish.
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Mustard Greens Breakfast Salad With Maple Glazed Turnips & Bacon

From Dishing Up the Dirt

This recipe from Dishing up the Dirt calls for raw mustard greens and maple-glazed salad turnips. The komatsuna in our box is a mustard green, but will probably taste best cooked.  Beth suggests using just the komatsuna leaves this week, not the stems. You can decide for yourself if the leaves are tender enough to be eaten raw, or if they need need a little cooking along with the turnips. And despite the “breakfast” word in the recipe title, this dish would be good for lunch or dinner, too!
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rhubarb jam (small batch)

From the farmers daughter

I’ve always frozen lots of chopped rhubarb in-season and also made puree and frozen that, but I think this quick jam might be my new favorite way to preserve spring rhubarb for future use. It has a bit more sugar than rhubarb puree, and can be frozen. I immersion-blendered my batch to smooth it, and thought it might be too thin, but it thickened up nicely when chilled. The jam is delicious on toast or biscuits, and you can also use it to fill jam-bellied scones, the following recipe.
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Jam-bellied Scones

By Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen, for King Arthur Baking

The combination of unbleached flour with bran added back makes a fluffy but wheaty scone, but if you don’t have wheat bran you can use all whole wheat flour, or a 50/50 mix of whole wheat and unbleached flours.
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Spring Vegetable Gnocchi

From Ahead of Thyme

Add packaged gnocchi, pesto, and frozen peas, to the asparagus in this week’s box to make this spring pasta dish in a flash. You could also make a green garlic and spinach pesto and use that in the gnocchi.
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Any Greens Pesto

From Smart In The Kitchen Recipes

Use the proportions in this recipe along with the green garlic and any of the cooking greens from this week and last week’s boxes to make this pesto (arugula, spinach, Komatsuna leaves, turnip or radish greens).

Arugula (or spinach), Apple & Chickpea Salad Wraps

From The Kitchn

Photo by Emma Christensen
This recipe is from a set of 10 recipes at the Kitchn website decided to use up an abundance of spring greens. Spinach works well in these wraps, or you can also use arugula if you have some left from from last week’s box. The recipe provides instructions for dressing the greens and apple with a balsamic vinaigrette, but a creamy dressing made with green garlic, such as this one from Willy Street Co-op, would complement the other ingredients.
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Vegetarian Chef’s Salad

From Cozy Peach Kitchen

Here’s kid-friendly chef’s salad that replaces the traditional sliced turkey and ham with vegetarian chicken nuggets. You should feel free to sub chicken nuggets made from chicken, as well swapping ingredients we do not have, like romaine, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber, with vegetables we did get in this week’s box, like red leaf lettuce, steamed asparagus, lightly sauteed shiitakes, radishes, and salad turnips. There’s a recipe for vegan ranch dressing provided, or use creamy green garlic dressing.