Big bang moment

Steve loves transplanting season, and marvels how quickly a compact mass of seedlings expands to fill our farm.  Two wagonloads of tomato seedlings expand into 1.3 acres in the field.  Can we continue that expansion for the next 13 billion years?  No, probably not.

Tomato seedlings await transplanting.  The green wheel is for our mechanical transplanter.  It digs holes at a regular spacing.

The seedlings on the wagon filled this 1/2 acre field.

The seedlings go in quickly with our transplanter and crew …

… followed by more people to set the plants in place.  The tomato plants are leggy.  Our transplanting schedule was thrown off by rainy weather.  They will recover but it’s not the best start.

Tweak of the week – Something new and interesting this week.

We strive to make improvements every season.  Innovation keeps farming fresh and interesting for us.  New this year, we interspersed alyssum seedlings into our early lettuce and bok choy plantings.  We hope to control aphids, an insect which has been problematic on these spring vegetables the last few years.  Alyssum is an ‘insectary plant’, a host for beneficial insects that prey on crop pests.  New research shows that interspersing 1 or 2 alyssum per 50 lettuce seedlings is enough to control aphids as effectively as conventional pesticide sprays.  How cool!  Sure, the alyssum displaces some harvestable lettuce but is worth the trade-off for higher quality.  So far, our lettuce remains clean of aphids this year.

(top) Alyssum flowers with red bibb lettuce in background. (bottom) Alyssum interspersed among Romaine lettuce.

Veggie List and Veggie Notes (6/4/15, week #3, purple EOW)

This is a box of completely green vegetables.  I asked Pat Mulvey to focus on recipes for leafy greens this week.  They are big and abundant.  If there are more greens than you will use promptly, consider freezing your extras.  Steam, chop coarsely and freeze.  Add the frozen greens later to casseroles and soups.   You’ll be glad you have them.  We encourage you to wash your produce carefully again this week (especially asparagus, Romaine, escarole and spinach) because of the recent rains.

Asparagus, 1 lb
Escarole
Romaine lettuce
White salad turnips with greens, 1 bunch
Spinach, 1 bunch
Scallions, 1 bunch
Cilantro, 1 bunch

Next week’s box will probably contain asparagus, kale or collards, lettuce, spinach, kohlrabi, scallions, cilantro and (maybe) more.

Escarole (large head of wavy green leaves) – This member of the chicory family can be eaten raw or cooked.  Its slightly bitter flavor is a good addition to mixed salads.  It is excellent cooked alone or mixed with other greens.  It cooks quickly, but not as quickly as spinach.  Cover and refrigerate.
Romaine lettuce (tall head of lettuce with crisp leaves) – More sturdy and less fragile than our other spring lettuces.  Great for salads.
White salad turnips (white roots with tender greens) – The greens are particularly nice this week.  We just started harvesting from a new field so the roots are a bit smaller than last week.
Scallions (bundle of green onions) – These are useful raw or cooked.  Thinly-sliced raw scallions can be folded into biscuit dough or sprinkled on top of soups or salads.  Terrific garnish for pasta dishes in combination with cilantro.  Think pad thai.
Cilantro (bundle of aromatic leaves) – This herb is good in salsa, chutneys and salad dressings, or added to stir-fries.  Used in Mexican, Asian and Indian cooking.

RECIPE FROM BETH; Caesar Salad, made safely with cooked egg yolks.

I love Caesar salad but gave it up years ago.  Who wants to eat raw eggs?   Lo and behold, there are ways to prepare it safely.  Food scientist Harold McGee has developed a method that works.  Many Caesar salad recipes call for 10 Tbsp. oil, but you can reduce the oil to 6 Tbsp. (total canola + olive) and the dressing still works.

Harold McGee’s method to sterilize egg yolks
Use a clean fork at each step to avoid re-contaminating the cooked yolks.
2 large egg yolks
1 & 1/2 tsp. water
1 tsp. lemon juice
Mix the ingredients in a clear glass bowl and beat together with a fork.  Cover the bowl and microwave on high power until the mixture bubbles (about 45 seconds).  Uncover and stir with a clean fork.  Cover and microwave until it bubbles again (about 20 seconds) and let it bubble 5 to 10 seconds more.  Stir again with another clean fork.  Let cool.  The mixture will be custard-like.

Caesar Salad
2 large eggs yolks, cooked as described above and still in the clear glass bowl
2 – 3 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. Worchestershire sauce
1 clove garlic, grated
2 tsp. anchovy paste
5 Tbsp. olive oil (or as little as 3 Tbsp.)
5 Tbsp. canola oil (or as little as 3 Tbsp.)
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
black pepper
croutons
1 head Romaine lettuce, cut into 2-inch pieces, washed and carefully dried.
Note: Our Romaine vary in size.  Start with half your Romaine, and gradually toss together with the dressing to be sure you have the right amount of lettuce.

1.  Add the lemon juice, Worchestershire sauce, garlic and anchovy paste to the cooked egg yolks.  Stir together with a fork.  Let stand 5 – 10 minutes.
2.  Slowly drizzle the canola and olive oils into the mixture while beating with a fork to emulsify.  Stir in 1/2 cup Parmesan and black pepper to taste.
3.  Mix the dressing with the prepared Romaine and croutons in a large bowl and toss to coat.  Taste and add the remaining 1 Tbsp. lemon juice if needed.  Sprinkle remaining Parmesan over top.  Serve.

LOCAL THYME RECIPES

Comforting Classics

Classic Warm Spinach Salad or Warm Spinach and Shiitake Salad
Steamed Salad Turnip with Greens
Italian Escarole Wedding Soup and Vegetarian Italian Wedding Soup
Southwestern Caesar
Scallion and Cilantro Pancakes
Cilantro Chimichurri with Scallions

Outside the Box Recipes

Green Curry Simmered Veggies
Salad Turnip with Miso Ginger Vinaigrette
Escarole and Apple Salad
Teriyaki Asparagus Romaine Stir Fry
Fried Scallions
Salad with Lime Soy Cilantro Sauce

Kitchen Sink Recipe
This is a recipe that is very flexible — you can add just about any, or all of the veggies in your box. Grill some scallions, romaine and salad turnips and toss them on too!
Grilled Pizza with Wilted Spinach and Shaved Asparagus 

Quick and Easy Dinner Idea

Egg Salad Sandwich with Salad Turnips and Spinach

Our tough mudder

It was a muddy week for people and for vegetables.  Above, Jory and Madeleine harvest white salad turnips shortly after the rain stopped.

Heavy rains splash soil everywhere.  

How to wash gritty lettuce and spinach

There were heavy rains this week.  All the vegetables will need a little extra TLW (tender loving washing) this week.  Vegetables that grow as a ‘head’ need extra attention after rainy weather because soil splashes into the head.  Lettuce, bok choy, escarole, endive, turnip greens and spinach are all affected.  Here is a technique to remove soil or grit.  Run a sink or tub full of cold water.  Cut the head of lettuce across the base so the leaves all fall apart.  Cut it into smaller pieces if you wish.  Submerge the cut lettuce in the water and swish gently.  This week’s red bibb is VERY tender and fragile, so be gentle.  Pull from the water and let drain.  Repeat.  The draining action pulls the dirt off the leaves.  Repeat with a second tub of clean water if needed.  If you don’t plan to eat all the lettuce (or other green) immediately, dry it in a salad spinner and store in a dry container.

June 1 check reminder

Many of you paid us with checks post-dated to June 1.  Remember?  I will deposit your June 1 checks on Monday June 1.

Farm News; two exciting forecasts

The strawberries are blossoming heavily and the berry field looks great.  We expect to host strawberry u-picks for members during the last two weekends of June.  Watch our emails for the dates, times and other information about the u-picks.  Berry price will probably be the same as last year, $2.20/lb.  Notice the irrigation pipe?  We keep it in the field, just in case we need to irrigate to protect the blossoms and berries from frost.  Steve has irrigated three nights so far this spring.  We can’t take a risk with such a valuable (and treasured) crop.

The peas have just begun blossoming.  Best guess = there will be peas in the CSA boxes in three weeks.  We don’t know if sugar snap peas or snow peas will be ready first.  It’s a race.

Veggie List and Veggie Notes (5/28/15, week #2, green EOW)

We offer information the first week we pack a vegetable.  Read last week’s newsletter for storage and cooking information for asparagus, rhubarb, and green garlic.

Asparagus, 1.3 lb
Bok choy, 1
Rhubarb, 1.5 lb
Red bibb lettuce
Spinach, 1 bunch
White salad turnips, 1 bunch
Parsnips, 1.75 to 2 lb
Green garlic, 1 bunch

Next week’s box will probably contain asparagus, lettuce, white salad turnips, scallions, some kind of spring green, and more.  We might have spinach for you again next week.

Bok choy (large rosette with thick white stems and green leaves) – This Asian green is good for stir-frying or sautéing or in soup.  You can think of the stems and leaves as two separate vegetables.  The stems require longer cooking.  The leaves will cook almost as quickly as spinach.  Bok choy stores well, so feel free to pull off leaves as you need them, or use the whole head at once.  Refrigerate in a plastic bag.

White salad turnips (bunched white roots with green tops) – 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.  Slice the sweet roots 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.

Parsnips (long white roots) – We had a bumper crop of parsnips last fall, so we left some in the ground for spring harvest.  Parsnips are one of the few annual crops that we can overwinter in the field.  Those long, white roots are not carrots, they are parsnips.  The two vegetables are related.  Unlike carrots, parsnips are rarely eaten raw.  When cooked, parsnips are sweet and starchy.  Brown them so the sugars caramelize, to give the best flavor. Here are our favorite ways to prepare parsnips:
– Parsnip fries are delicious: cut like French fries, coat very lightly with oil, place on a cookie sheet and roast in a hot oven until cooked through and browned.
– Substitute grated parsnips in a potato pancake recipe.  They brown beautifully and are very tasty.
– We often pan-fry parsnips with onions and garlic.

THIS WEEK’S RECIPES

Comforting Classics

Rhubarb Cream Cheese Bars
Spinach and Almond Salad with Orange Honey Vinaigrette
Pureed Asparagus and Parsnip Soup
Bok Choy with Garlic
Steamed Parsnips with Maple Butter
Salad Turnip Pickle

Outside the Box Recipes

Star Anise Baked Rhubarb
Almost No Work Baked Spinach and Asparagus Risotto
Broth Infused Asparagus
Orecchiette with Spinach, Bok Choy and Ricotta
Parsnip Tart
Harissa Spiced Salad Turnip Salad

Kitchen Sink Recipe
This is a recipe that is very flexible — you can add just about many of the veggies from the box.

Simple Spring Vegetable Roast

Quick and Easy Dinner Recipe

Warm Spinach Salad with Smoked Trout and Salad Turnips

Let’s start!

Welcome to our CSA!  It’s time to eat fresh food again.  Our CSA deliveries begin this week for weekly members and for purple every-other-week (EOW) members.  Green EOW, your first delivery is next week, May 28/29 (Thursday/Friday sites).

Things you need to know.

♦  On Thursday, we deliver to Evansville, Fitchburg, Madison, McFarland, Middleton and Oregon.
♦  On Friday, we deliver to Brookfield, Janesville, Mequon, Milwaukee and Wauwatosa.
♦  We post this newsletter/blog each Wednesday night, with the list of veggies for the week, quantities, information about storage and preparation, news of the farm, and a recipe list.  We will send an email on Wednesday night to alert you once the newsletter is ready to read.
♦  Want earlier notice of what will be in the box?  Check our website sidebar around 7 p.m. on Wednesday night.  I’ll post the list under “Box Contents.”  I also provide a tentative list for the following week in the Veggie List section of this newsletter.  The list is not complete but the items listed are ones we feel confident about.
♦  EOW and weekly members, we assume you read all the newsletters, even on your “off” weeks.  This newsletter (and our emails to you) are our means to communicate with you.
♦  We have a new system for rescheduling vacation boxes. Please read the section below.
♦  The first few boxes of the season are always the lightest.  EOW members, do not worry that you have signed up for the wrong share.  Our deliveries get heavier and more abundant as the season progresses.

New system to reschedule vacation boxes.

Each membership can reschedule up to two vacation boxes per season.  Please use our new online system.  It promises to be a big time-saver for us.  Please do not email us to reschedule boxes unless you have trouble with the online system.  Here are the basics:
♦  Follow this link to cancel or reschedule a box.  The language is a bit odd, but the system works smoothly if you follow our instructions.
♦  The final deadline to cancel or reschedule is 11:59 pm the Sunday night before your delivery.  After that, the system shuts down for the upcoming week.  In the past, we asked for one week’s advance notice.  The new system allows you to reschedule as late as the Sunday before your delivery.  We think that will be helpful.  However, we will not be able to accommodate late requests after Sunday night.  Please don’t ask.
♦  For easy access, we will include the rescheduling link in the signature of our Wednesday night email each week.
♦  Weekly members, you will receive two boxes on the week that you schedule your replacement box.  EOW members, you probably want to plan your replacement box for a week when you are not already scheduled to get a box.  In that case, you will get one box on the week of your replacement box.

Farm News

At this time of year, we spend most of our time planting and weeding.  It was great to begin harvesting too.  Our crew gathered in one field today to harvest spinach (at left) and arugula (at right).  In between are cilantro, radishes, and salad turnips for upcoming boxes.  The white row cover on the right protects our earliest planting of white salad turnips.  We will harvest those for you next week.

Veggie List and Veggie Notes (May 21/22, week #1, purple EOW)

How’s that for a pretty first box?  Clockwise from top right, arugula, potatoes, radishes, rhubarb, asparagus, red leaf lettuce and spinach.  Green garlic in the center.

Read this section each week for specific information about the produce.  For example, see our notes below about how to store your potatoes.

Asparagus, 1.5 lb
Rhubarb, 2 lb
Red leaf lettuce
Spinach, 1 big bunch, about 1.25 lb.
Arugula, 1 tender bunch
Radishes, 1 bunch
Goldrush potatoes, 3.5 lb
Green garlic, 1 bunch

Next week’s box will probably contain asparagus, rhubarb, lettuce, spinach, bok choy, white salad turnips, parsnips, and green garlic.  Watch next week’s newsletter for the final list.

Asparagus – Enjoy this spring treat!  Your asparagus will be green or purple.  The purple variety turns dark green when cooked.  Its flavor is almost identical to normal green asparagus.  Wash your asparagus thoroughly to remove hidden grit.  Submerge in water, soak briefly, then swish vigorously and pull out of the water with the tips pointing down.  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 it in the paper bag we packed it in, and 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 end a bit.
Cooking:  If your asparagus stalks vary greatly in size, you will want to cook the thicker ones longer.  Put the asparagus in a steamer pot over water.  Alternatively, you can lay spears flat in the bottom of a broad pan, with ½ inch of water.  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.  Also excellent broiled or grilled.  Good dressed with vinaigrette, or simply with lime juice, salt and pepper.

Rhubarb – Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  FYI, 2 lb of rhubarb yields 6 – 6.5 cups when chopped.
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.

Spinach and lettuce – Wash your greens to remove grit splashed into the heads by rain.  Cut to the size you like, submerge in water, swish gently, then pull from the water and drain in a colander.  Some weeks, you will need to repeat in fresh water.
Storage hint – To extend the storage life of your tender greens, wash them, dry in a salad spinner, then store in a dry container or bag.  Lettuce and spinach last much longer when handled this way.

Arugula – (small bunch of green leaves with pungent scent) – Arugula is good mixed with lettuce or spinach in salads, or added to cooked dishes such as lasagne or quiche.  I love it on sandwiches.  This arugula is thin-leaved and tender and will not store for long.  Eat soon.  Cover and refrigerate.  There is some minor wind damage at the tips.  If you’ve been outside this past week, then you know how that happened.

Goldrush russet potatoes –  Please refrigerate these potatoes.  They are in great shape now but will sprout within days if stored at room temperature.  They’ve been stored all winter and want to grow.  Store in a paper bag to protect from light, even in the fridge.  We grow everything we send in our CSA boxes except potatoes, garlic and mushrooms, which we buy from organic growers that we trust.  We purchased these potatoes from Jesse Perkins at Vermont Valley Farm.  Jesse says the potatoes have a higher sugar content because of starch to sugar conversion during cold storage.  The potatoes taste a bit sweet, and will blacken slightly when fried.  It’s a harmless color change due to the sugar conversion.

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 would divide and form the usual cluster of cloves in a garlic bulb.  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.  Avoid the dark green stems and leaves, as these are fibrous.

Comforting Classic Recipes, from chef Pat Mulvey at Local Thyme

Grilled Asparagus with Lemon Garlic Butter

Spinach and Radish Green Frittata

Rhubarb Yogurt Cake

Roasted Green Garlic

Arugula Salad with Blue Cheese and Nuts

Grill Roasted Potato

Outside the Box Recipes

Asparagus Cashew Salad in Lettuce Cups

Spinach Salad with Sprouts

Rhubarb Chutney

Green Garlic Greens Pesto

Meatballs Packed with Arugula Pesto OR Lentil “meat” balls with Arugula Pesto

Brandade

Kitchen Sink Recipe

Pat’s weekly ‘kitchen sink recipe’ will be very flexible — you can add almost any of the veggies in your box. If this week’s soup gets “too crowded” for all the veggies you want to pack in, add more stock/seasonings.

Longevity Kitchen Soup with Shrimp or Tofu, Spinach, Radish and Shiitake

Quick and Easy Dinner Recipes

Spinach and Asparagus Pasta Salad with Feta

Spring update

We gambled and planted our first seeds outside on March 15, before the big snow. Steve didn’t mention this to our farmer friends right away.  Planting that early is risky.  What if it was a flop?  Tucked under white floating row cover, the spinach, radishes, salad turnips and greens are doing great.  If there’s a chance to get in the fields early, we’ll take it.  Steve crawls under the row cover every few days to check on the seedlings.

It’s time to register for your CSA share, if you haven’t already.  Returning Tipi members, go here to re-enroll.  New members can register here.

Today was a remarkably productive day.  We’re flying through our spring tasks.  Let’s share some photos.

All the seedlings are so strong right now.  The onions are beautiful as they wave in the wind.  We will start transplanting these into the field tomorrow.  This photo represents spring hope for us; the promise of the young seedlings and the bright green cover crops in the field behind the shed.

We transplanted our first lettuce on April 1.  No fooling.  It’s growing well under heat-gathering row cover.  Lettuce #2 went into the ground today.  Simone drives the tractor while Joel, Dan and Jon ride the transplanter and Kerry checks the seedling depth.

We love our mechanical transplanter – it saves so much effort versus transplanting by hand.

Nice sturdy seedlings.

The green garlic survived the winter without trouble.

Jon and Joel pull mulch off the strawberry plants so they can start to grow.

Irrepressible rhubarb!

Simone waters lettuce seedlings in flats.  The light is gorgeous at the end of the day.

Planting day

Our 2015 farming season began yesterday.  We seeded our first flats of onions and lettuce, and should be working in the fields in just five or six weeks.  That feels crazy, doesn’t it?  It’s tight quarters inside the barn.  We tuck the seeding work amongst our root-washing machinery.  We have enough stored carrots and celeriac for one more month of sales.  By then, we’ll be fully engaged with the new season and ready to be done with carrots for a while.

Time to sign up for CSA

Start looking forward to another vibrant season of local produce.
Returning Tipi CSA members, you can re-enroll here: tipiproduce.csasignup.com/members/returning
New CSA members can enroll here: tipiproduce.csasignup.com/members/types

Refer a friend.  Tipi members, refer a friend to our CSA, and we’ll give you a $20 discount on your share.  Just ask your friend to mention your name when they register for their CSA share.  One discount per new membership.

New CSA site in Fitchburg

We’ve added a new CSA pick-up site in Fitchburg, at 3050 Cahill Main.  Pickup hours are Thursdays, 1 – 7 pm.  Longterm Tipi members Laura Rozumalski and Tyler Kapta have offered to host a site at their new Chimmies sandwich shop.  They are excited to run their own business.  The location is close to Fish Hatchery Road.  If you have already signed up at another site but want to move to the new site, just let us know.

Here are the other new sites we’ve added in the past year:
Madison/N. Marquette Street, Thurs 4:00 – 7:00 pm, at 102 North Marquette Street, Madison
McFarland, Thurs 4:30 – 7:00 pm, at 5216 Rustling Oaks Lane, McFarland.
Mequon, Friday 1:00 – 8:45 pm, 7590 W. Mequon Road, Mequon, at Outpost Natural Foods

Fresh, farm-raised electricity!

After a year of deliberations, we have a new photovoltaic solar array generating electricity on our farm.  The system has been up and running for one week.  The guys from H&H Solar faced intense cold weather while constructing the array but they got the job done.  It took about a month to complete, including all the wiring.  In winter, the array will produce all the electricity we need.  In summer, it will produce about half the electricity the farm consumes.  Our usage goes up in summer when the coolers and irrigation well are running.  We estimate that the array will save burning 30,000 lb of coal each year.  This is a big step toward reducing our carbon footprint.

Improvements at Local Thyme

Pat Mulvey of Local Thyme will provide tasty recipes for us again this year.  We read your surveys last fall and have made two substantial changes in response.
♦ First, you commented that logging into the Local Thyme website was burdensome.  This year, we will link directly to the weekly recipes from my Wednesday night email.  We will still have Local Thyme memberships to navigate her recipe database, but we will be able to access the weekly recipes without logging in.  That should make things easier.
♦ Pat has redesigned her service this year to provide more recipes to suit a wider range of cooking styles.  Many members loved Pat’s recipes.  However, for members who did not use the recipes, feelings were split between “I prefer very simple meals” to “Give me recipes for unusual ethnic dishes.”  We are a diverse crowd!  Each week, we will give Pat a list of four to six vegetables from the CSA box.  She will craft an easy ‘comfort food’ recipe and a ‘challenging’ recipe for each vegetable, backed with vegetarian and gluten-free options, plus easy recipes for quick weeknight meals.

We are support the direction Pat is taking her small business.  It is a change from the menus she’s prepared for us in the past, but we think everyone will appreciate her efforts to serve a wider range of home cooks.  To wrap up, let me quote a few members who enjoyed the Local Thyme menus.

“Local Thyme was a big deciding factor for us to go with this CSA. We’ve been CSA members in another city in the past; we knew what to do with a lot of the produce, but sometimes you run out of ideas. We didn’t use Local Thyme every week, but we used it enough to either use the recipes or be inspired to try something new. It was a fantastic resource.”
“This service definitely helped our family utilize everything in our box. Since you began offering this as a perk of the membership, we have been able to have far more home-cooked meals and far less waste. We love it!”

Our goal is to make our CSA boxes easy to eat.  The Local Thyme recipes can help.

Storage share (Nov. 20/21, 2014)

Things you need to know about your winter share

* Your delivery will consist of two different boxes, labeled “A” and “B”.  Take one “A” box and one “B” box.  The boxes contain different vegetables.
* Please pick up your boxes on the day of delivery, during the normal hours for your site. Don’t count on picking up late or the next day. It will be very cold during the deliveries and the produce will freeze overnight at the unheated sites.
* Outpost members, please get your boxes on Friday.  Do not ask the Outpost staff to hold your boxes until Saturday; this is their busiest weekend of the year.
* Members at outdoor sites, please carefully put the blankets back on the boxes.  That keeps everyone’s produce in good shape.

Veggie List and Storage Info (Storage share, 11/20 and 11/21/14)

We hope you enjoy this shipment of veggies!  Strategize to use them well, as some will last longer than others.
* These vegetables are the most perishable: fennel, kale.
* These are the next-most perishable: Brussels sprouts, cabbage, leeks and onions.  Keep an eye on your butternut, potatoes and sweet potatoes.  The last two are susceptible to drying out.
* These will last the longest: Beauty Heart radish, beets, carrots, celeriac, garlic, parsnips and rutabaga.

Box “A”

Beauty Heart winter radish, 1.5 lb
Beets, 3 lb
Brussels sprouts, 1.1 lb
Carrots, 6 lb mixed colors
(orange 4 lb, yellow 1 lb, purple 1 lb)
Celeriac
Fennel, 1
Kale, 1 bunch
Leeks, 3 lb
Parsnips, 3 lb
Rutabaga, 1.5 lb
Savoy cabbage

Box “B”

Butternut squashes, 12 – 13 lb
Sweet potatoes, 7 lb
Russet potatoes (or mixed russets & reds), 5 lb
Yellow potatoes, 5  lb
Onions, 5 lb
Garlic, 4

Beauty Heart radishes (round, white with pale green shoulders and bright pink interior) – Refrigerate.  The interior color is lovely.  Slice thinly and add to salads, cook lightly in mixed vegetable medleys or cut into matchsticks and add to pasta salads.  We enjoy grated carrot and Beauty Heart salads all winter.
Beets – Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  Beets will store for two months or longer.
Brussels sprouts – Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  Eat soon.
Cabbage – Refrigerate.  Cut off chunks as needed.
Carrots, orange.  Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  Will keep for several weeks.
Carrots, yellow and purple.  These varieties are pretty AND they taste good. The purple carrots will turn your tongue green. That will get the kids interested.
Celeriac – Will store for months in your fridge.  Cut off chunks as needed.
Garlic.  Can be stored at room temperature.
Leeks.  Refrigerate and eat within three weeks.  Leeks are not a long-storage crop.  You may need to strip off one or two outer leaves to freshen the leeks before you cook them.
Onions: Store in a cool, dark spot or refrigerate.  Protect from light.  Exposure to light stimulates sprouting.  Refrigerate if you expect to hold for more than one month.
Parsnips (These look like rough white carrots.) – Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  Parsnips will store for two months but will darken in color.
Potatoes:  Can be stored at room temperature or in a cool spot, but must be kept in the dark so they do not turn green.  They will store longer if kept cool.  Around 40 – 50 F is ideal. I find these potatoes from Chad Malek are unusually thin-skinned.  This is great for cooking, but means they lose moisture quickly.  Keep them in the paper bag, then cover the bag with a cloth or a loose plastic bag to their moisture loss.
Rutabaga (round root, cream-colored with purple shoulders) – Cover and refrigerate.  Will store for several months.
Sweet potatoes – These are the Covington variety, and have developed excellent flavor and sweetness.  Store at room temperature, no lower than 55 F.  Keep them on your kitchen counter where it’s easy to keep an eye on them.  Cook promptly if they start to soften.  The roots come in a wide ranges of sizes and all are good.
Winter squash –  You will receive three to six squash, depending on size.  They are a mix of varieties: Metro, Waltham, JWS.  Store winter squash in a cool, dry place.  50 F is ideal.  Do not put in a plastic bag.  Inspect your squash frequently and cook promptly if you see any soft spots developing.  You can cook, mash and freeze the squash for future use.  I find that you can refrigerate cut raw squash for up to one week.  This runs counter to the accepted way to store squash, but is useful if you want to cook just half a squash at one time.  Try microwaving your squash for one to two minutes before cutting or peeling.  This softens the squash and makes large butternuts easier to handle.

What are you cooking for Thanksgiving?

We are creatures of habit when it comes to Thanksgiving.  Here are our plans so far: brined roast heritage turkey from Matt Smith at Blue Valley Gardens (Beth), Brussels sprouts with garlic-mustard vinaigrette (Steve), roasted sweet potatoes with garlicky yogurt dip (see below, Sophie), glazed butternut squash (Beth), crunchy carrot-Beauty Heart salad with sesame-seed dressing (Steve), homemade applesauce (Ari), cranberry sauce (friends), and apple pie (Sophie).  I’d like to add a raw kale salad, if I can get our neighbor to give us her recipe.  We love celebrating Thanksgiving and the end of harvest season!

Menu Ideas

There are so many great Thanksgiving recipes and menus online right now.  Many include veggies that you will receive in this delivery.  Here is a list of the recipe sites I rely on.  Each site has lots of recipes which feature vegetables.  Search any of these sites if you are stumped about what to do with your storage veggies.
* I enjoy the Food52.com site.  They have posted an entire section on Thanksgiving, including  13 dishes for feeding vegetarians on Thanksgiving.  I look forward to trying their recipe for Variegated Spiced Latkes, which combines potatoes, parsnips and sweet potatoes.
* The New York Times as a brand-new iPad app called Cooking.  It is good!  They post appealing recipes and recipe collections every day.  For example, we recently made Spicy Pan-Fried Noodles with the last of our scallions and peppers and it was excellent.  In my opinion, Melissa Clark is the best NYT food writer.  She’s practical and her dishes are always flavorful.  Mark Bittman and Martha Rose Shulman are other favorites.  The app and recipes appear to be free to the public, but I think you need to be a NYT subscriber to save recipes.
* Smitten Kitchen has posted new Pinterest boards for both Thanksgiving, Savory and Thanksgiving, Sweet.
* The Kitchn.  I found this site after wandering over from their Apartment therapy home-design site.  Good recipes.
* 101cookbooks.  Always has good vegetarian recipes.  The author has not posted this year’s collection of Thanksgiving recipes yet but I keep checking!
* Finally, remember that we have access to the entire catalog of Local Thyme recipes all winter.  Check them out for Thanksgiving ideas.

Garlicky Yogurt Dip

This dip is great with everything.  We enjoy it with roasted sweet potatoes or winter squash, raw carrot sticks, or lamb meatballs.  When short on time, I make the basic dip, but it is especially nice with any fresh herb.  I’ve prepared this with several olive oils but like it best with Spectrum organic extra virgin olive oil because it is fragrant and not bitter.

Basic ingredients:
1 medium clove garlic
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp paprika

Optional additions:
Lemon juice
Any finely-minced herb: parsley, cilantro, mint.  Start with 1 tsp.
Finely minced chives OR 1 small scallion, finely minced

1.  Grate the garlic clove into a bowl or a wide-mouthed pint jar.  Add the olive oil.  Stir and let sit for 5 minutes for the garlic to diffuse into the oil.
2.  Mix in the yogurt, 1/4 cup at a time.  Stir vigorously.  Taste after you’ve added 1/2 cup, so you can recognize how well the yogurt and olive oil taste together.
3.  Add the salt, paprika and any optional additions and stir well.
4.  Evaluate the flavor.  Add more olive oil and/or salt if the flavor is not ‘umami’ enough.

Good bye! Stay warm!

This is the final week of our regular CSA season.
Weekly and purple EOW members, go get your last box!

We would like to thank each of you for joining our farm this year.  We appreciate your support and encouragement.  We hope you enjoyed the produce and the experience.  From our perspective, it was an excellent growing season.  Most crops thrived in the mild weather.  The broccoli, cauliflower and Romanesco were more productive than we have ever seen.  Tell us in the annual survey if you wanted that much broccoli, cauliflower and Romanesco. Really, we’d love to know.

This was our finest work crew ever. Longterm employees took new responsibilities, freeing Steve to concentrate on his own work. Several longterm Tipi people are moving on to new adventures in agriculture. We will miss Michael who is moving back to Missouri to start his own farm after working for us for three years.  It’s hard to imagine life without Clint, who is leaving after six seasons to learn more about seed production. We already miss David and Bri who are working in the organic certification industry in California. David worked for us for seven years, starting as a high school student.  A few years with us, and he chose the agronomy program at UW/Madison for his college degree.  It’s sad when people leave after working for us for many years, but we are thrilled when they stay in agriculture.  We are seeding the world with new farmers, and that is a wonderful, satisfying thing.  Have a great winter.  Beth and Steve

Final Details.

– Please make sure that everyone who participates in your CSA share knows the CSA has finished.
– Please return all empty CSA boxes this week. It’s best to unpack your box this week, and leave it behind.  It’s OK to leave empty boxes at your site during the next two weeks.  Just prop them up outside the garage if the door is closed.
– Our Local Thyme subscription is good for an entire year, so you have access to their website and recipes until spring. Use it this winter.  Contact me if you still want to register for their website.  It’s not too late.
– Storage share members, please read our 11/5/14 email about your upcoming delivery.
– Look for our produce through the winter at Willy Street Coop, Outpost Natural Foods, Basics Coop (Janesville), Health Hut (Brookfield), and at Whole Foods (Madison store).  We have a big supply of carrots, cabbage, leeks, onions, beets, celeriac, parsnips, turnips, rutabagas and winter radishes to wash and sell through the winter.

2014 survey and 2015 CSA registration.

– Watch for an email from us in the next few days, once we have our survey ready.  We are eager to hear your thoughts on this season.
– We plan to open 2015 CSA registrations within a week.  There will be an opportunity to register early at discounted rate.

Farm news: Winter descends.

We do not appreciate the sudden cold weather. We hoped for a few more weeks to wrap up our harvests and clean up the farm before winter. Oh well, the weather is not in our control. Next spring will be busy because our fall field work is unfinished. We hurried to bring in our final crops this week. Last carrots came in from the fields on Saturday, last greens on Monday, last Brussels sprouts on Tuesday, last leeks came in today.  Our crew hustled this week.

Simone and Steve harvest the final row of carrots.  That was a relief.  It was still warm on Saturday.

Leek harvest today was cold and rushed.  Our crew usually trims the leek tops and roots at harvest.  Not today; they just pulled them in as quickly as possible.  Anything still in the field could be ruined by tomorrow morning.  From left, Andy, Simone, Jon, Michael (on tractor in center), Steve (on tractor in background), Joel, Jory and Billy gather leeks.  Steve is undercutting the leeks to pop them out of the ground.

We did our leek and Brussels sprouts prep inside this week.  It’s almost impossible to work on these vegetables outdoors at temperatures below freezing. From left, Tristan, Jory, Bee, Simone and Michael pluck Brussels sprouts from stalks.  In the back, Bonnie and Kerry weigh potatoes behind stacks of sweet potatoes and squash washed and ready for this week.  Everyone looks serious but that’s only because I had my camera out.  Group jobs like this are social and fun.

Your leeks this week need light washing.  Our outdoor water systems are shut down, and it was too crowded indoors to spray water about.

Remember the used semi that we bought for extra storage?  We filled the trailer plus all our normal coolers.  Steve is satisfied.  Please buy our carrots this winter; we can’t eat that much carrot soup.

Veggie list and veggie notes (Nov. 13/14, week #26, purple EOW)

Sweet potatoes, about 2 lb
Red potatoes, 3.5 lb
Brussels sprouts, 0.85 lb
Butternut squash, 1
Leeks, 1.5 to 2 lb
Beets, 2 lb
Parsnips, 1.5 lb
Lacinato kale, 1 modest bunch
A small pepper or two

We will have the next box ready for you … next spring!

Peppers –  These are mostly small Orano peppers.  Eat soon; they will not store for long.
Lacinato kale – Bunches are modest size.  This kale is not perfect, as expected by this time of year.
Brussels sprouts –  The sprouts are nice this year, but it has not been a very productive year for Brussels sprouts.
Leeks – As I mentioned above, you will need to wash your leeks.

Final green EOW week (Nov. 6/7)

Green every-other-week (EOW) members, this is your final delivery (November 6/7)
Weekly members and purple EOW members, your final delivery will be next week (Nov 13/14).

Wrap-up for green EOW members

Thank you for being members of our farm this year!  We could not continue to farm without dedicated customers like each of you.  This has been an unusually good growing season.  We hope you have enjoyed eating your produce as much as we have enjoyed producing it.
A few details:
– Please read next week’s email for our annual survey.  Tell us your thoughts on this season.  We will incorporate your ideas into our plans for next year.
– Please return all your empty CSA boxes.  It is best to unpack your final box, and leave the empty box behind.  It will save you a trip to your site to return the box.  Please hunt through your house, garage, and car, and return any remaining empty boxes this week or next week.
– We expect to open 2015 registration soon for current Tipi members.  Watch for emails from us.

Photos of our farm for the Wisconsin Department of Ag

Tipi CSA member Jody Steele photographed our farm as part of a contract with the WI Dept of Agriculture (DATCP).  The goal is to gather photos representative of all types of farming that occur in Wisconsin.  Apparently they have an overabundance of cow and tractor photos.  DATCP chose two of Jody’s Tipi photos to incorporate into their portfolio.  Jody visited during celeriac harvest, which is very timely because we will pack celeriac for everyone this week.  Jody, thank you for sharing these photos with us.

Michael trims celeriac.  I warned Jody that celeriac harvest would look as though we are harvesting lumps of mud.

Fortunately, they clean up to look like an ancient roots.  The celeriac/celery fragrance is intense and wonderful during harvest.

Our storage crop harvests are group activities. From left in the distance, Michael, Joel, Clint, Bonnie, Billy, Karen and Simone harvest celeriac.  We undercut the roots with a tractor and digger, but there’s much work by hand to trim the tops and extra roots.

From left, Joel, Tristan and Billy harvest celeriac.

This is one of the photos that the Dept of Ag chose. Tristan loads harvested celeriac into wooden bins. We will wash and sell the roots through the winter. Celeriac stores extremely well.

DATCP chose this photo too.  This shows storage bins stacked on the right, plus our Deutz tractor and field disk.  Steve was disking fields the day Jody visited, turning the finished crops into the soil, and preparing the fields to seed to cover crops.

Moon over the pack shed.  Our workdays end after dark now.  It won’t be long before our outdoor work is done.  We are racing to tuck away the remaining carrots and cabbage before temperatures fall dramatically next week.  Wish us luck.

Veggie list and veggie notes (Nov. 6/7, week #25, final green EOW box)

Brussels sprouts, on the stalk
Butternut squash
Celeriac, 1 or 2
Kale, 1 bunch
Frying peppers, about 4
Carrots, 2 lb
Onions, 2
Garlic
Broccoli OR cauliflower OR purple cauliflower, 1 small head

Next week’s box will probably contain red potatoes, sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, leeks, beets, parnsips, a pepper, and (hopefully) some kind of leafy green.

Brussels sprouts – We are sending the sprouts on the stalk.  Pluck from the stalk soon to keep the sprouts from wilting.  Saves space in your fridge too!
If you are a new CSA member, please approach Brussels sprouts with an open mind.  Many of us grew up eating awful, overcooked Brussels sprouts.  These Brussels sprouts are completely different.
Here is our method to cook Brussels sprouts: Wash the sprouts and trim the cut ends. Cut an X in the stem end of large sprouts.  Cut a single slit in small or medium sprouts.  This does two things. It helps the Brussels sprouts cook evenly, plus it allows them to soak up any marinade or dressing.  Place sprouts in a pot with one inch of water in the bottom and steam until tender, 7 to 10 minutes.  If the sprouts are uneven in size, then set aside the smallest ones and add to the pot after the larger ones have cooked for a few minutes.  Don’t overcook them!  You can also oven-roast Brussels sprouts.  Here are a few dressing ideas for cooked sprouts:
– Sherry vinegar/olive oil/Dijon mustard/garlic/white wine/salt and pepper.  This is our favorite, especially when you combine the Brussels sprouts with slivered peppers and thinly sliced onions.  Delicious warm, cold, or at room temperature.
– Balsamic vinegar/olive oil/garlic/salt and pepper
– Lemon juice and zest/melted brown butter/poppy seeds/white wine/garlic/salt
Butternut winter squash – These are the Waltham variety.  It can be difficult (and hazardous) to cut these large squash.  To soften your squash before cutting, microwave it for 1 to 2 minutes.  This makes any squash easier to cut or peel.
Celeriac (knobby, round, bizarre-looking vegetable which smells like celery) – Flavorful celeriac is good raw or cooked. It is excellent in mixed roasted veggies or in soup. It’s especially good in cream soups, alone or mixed with potatoes. Grated raw celeriac is a great starting point for winter salads. Celeriac will store in your refrigerator for months. Cut off chunks as you need them. Peel before using.
Frying peppers – We harvested these last Friday, so use them quickly.

Something new, even now

We have something new to share, even this late in the season.  We tried growing ginger in our smallest greenhouse.  As a tropical crop, it needs the extra heat and shelter.  Baby ginger is suddenly popular in the continental USA after a marketing campaign by Puna Organics, a Hawaiian farm that sells organically raised stock plants.  That’s who we bought our cuttings from this year.  The owner is quite colorful.  Check out the Puna Organics website if you’re interested in guys with too many tattoos or women wearing coconut bikinis.  We started the plants in March and they were finally ready to harvest this week.  It was an experiment, so there’s just a bit to share with everyone this week.  We’ll plant more next year so we can harvest enough for more than one delivery.  It was a fun experiment!

Ginger plants.  This is our smallest greenhouse, one that we generally use for just six weeks in spring to acclimate plants to cool temperatures before they go outside.  This house is a good choice for ginger because the sides roll up for ventilation during hot weather.  Ginger is tropical but still doesn’t like temperatures over 90 oF.

Clint harvests ginger.

Isn’t it lovely?  This ‘baby ginger’ has not yet developed the tan skin you see on ginger in the grocery store.  That takes a longer growing season than we can achieve in Wisconsin.  This is yellow ginger, more pungent than other ginger varieties.


We cut it into small knobs so everyone could get a bit this week.  It’s not much but we hope you enjoy it.

CSA countdown

November 6/7 (next week!) = final delivery for green EOW members.
November 13/14 = final delivery for weekly members and for purple EOW members.

Farm news

Carrot harvest continues.  This looks like last week’s photo but now there are fewer rows of carrots.

This week, we will strip the remaining peppers from the final pepper planting, the field Steve repeatedly saved from frost.  Simone and Steve talk over the frying pepper varieties that we tested this year.  The consensus: “Sweet Delilah” is a keeper, “Stocky Red” is a dud.  Our longtime favorite “Carmen” is still the best.

Jon, Jory and Boi wash the Sweet Dumpling squash you will receive this week.

Veggie list and veggie notes

Red cabbage
Sugar Dumpling squash, 2
(OR 1 Sugar Dumpling + 1 small butternut)
Broccoli, 1 or 2 heads
(A few members will get purple cauliflower instead)
Carrots, 2 lb
Frying peppers, about 4
Onions, 2
Garlic, 1
Baby ginger, 1 knob

Next week’s box will probably contain Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, celeriac, carrots, kale, scallions, and more.

Broccoli OR purple cauliflower – Only a few sites will receive purple cauliflower this week.  Treat it like normal white cauliflower.
Baby ginger – Perishable.  Use soon.  Cover and refrigerate.
Sugar Dumpling squash – This is currently my favorite squash.  We tested many winter squash varieties over the past few years.  ‘Sugar Dumpling is one of the best.  It looks like a Sweet Dumpling squash but is more substantial.  Sweet, starchy, flavorful.  We hope you enjoy them.  Store at room temperature.

Winter squash hint:  Sugar Dumpling and butternut can be difficult and dangerous to cut.  Try microwaving your squash for 30 seconds to 2 minutes before cutting.  It softens the squash and makes it easier to cut or peel.

Sugar Dumpling squash; pretty and tasty.

Last chance to get a 2014 receipt.

Go to this link to send yourself a receipt for your 2014 CSA shares.  I plan to dissemble this feature next week, so please send yourself a receipt now if you need one.

Host a new Tipi CSA site in 2015?

We are still looking for someone to host a new Tipi CSA site in the Madison area.  If we find the right places, we might add two new sites.  We are open to working in a member’s garage or in a workplace.  Workplace sites are especially interesting because of the convenience they offer to members.  Read more here, and contact us if you are interested.

Farm news and photos

Would you believe me if I claimed this photo was taken in spring?  Ha!  The trees show the true season.  Our cover crops are so lush right now.

Steve has irrigated our pepper fields through all the frosts, including last night.  Heat released as water crystallizes into ice keeps the plants at a steady 32 oF.  Sounds crazy, but it works.  That’s how we’ve had peppers for you during the last few weeks.  Now we are down to one remaining pepper field.  It is so difficult to let go.

By this morning, the plants were coated with a thick layer of ice.  See the yellow bell pepper under the leaves?  It was perfectly fine once the ice melted.

The ice can be gothic.  How ironic – our last summer field was the only one covered in ice.

Carrot harvest is a team effort.  From right, Steve steers the carrot harvester, Billy tends the harvested carrots, Tristan keeps the carrot tops flowing out of the harvester, and Joel picks up missed carrots.  In the background, Larry and Michael haul bins of carrots back to the cooler.  Simone is driving the tractor pulling the harvester, just out of the picture.

Our storage harvests are underway.  The warm, dry weather is a gift.  We are steadily stashing away celeriac, carrots, parsnips and turnips.  We’ll start on cabbage and beets soon.  These are important harvests for us.  Steve is nervous as he goes over the preparations.  “What if the harvester breaks?  What if the cooler fails once it’s full?”  This is very telling – Steve is not a nervous guy.  We have so much riding on these storage crops, which we count on selling all winter.  The big concern is that the weather will turn wet and we won’t be able to harvest the roots before the ground freezes.  It’s been many years since we left carrots in the ground.  That’s a virtue of our sandy soils.  Beth

Veggie list and veggie notes

Don’t be frightened by the yukina.  They look big but shrink substantially when cooked.  Above, Clint holds a freshly harvested head of yukina.

Sweet potatoes, about 2 lb
Yukina greens, 1 large
Leeks, 1.5 – 2 lb
Russet potatoes, about 3.5 lb
Parsnips, 1.5 lb
Romanesco broccoli, 1 or 2 heads
Bell peppers, about 2
Onion, 1

Next week’s box will probably contain red cabbage, winter squash, broccoli, carrots, frying peppers, onions, garlic and more.

‘Beauregard’ sweet potatoes – Here are a few things we’ve learned about sweet potatoes:
– Store your sweet potatoes at room temperature.  They suffer chilling injury below 50 F.
– The sweet potatoes we grow require slightly longer cooking than ones from the supermarket, perhaps because they contain higher moisture so soon after harvest.  Cook thoroughly for best flavor and texture.
– Sweet potatoes are good at any size. We have cooked everything from tiny to jumbo and consistently find that all sizes taste good.
– We have a new favorite way to roast sweet potatoes.  We used to prepare sweet potato fries.  Now we just quarter the potatoes, rub with olive oil, dust with salt and place cut-side-down on a cookie sheet.  Roast in a 450 F oven without turning until soft.  The flavors will caramelize (like sweet potato fries) but preparation is simpler and the cooking time less exacting.  Slender sweet potato fries go from undercooked to overcooked in the blink of an eye.
Parsnips (tapered, cream colored roots) – Those long, white roots are not carrots, they are parsnips. The two vegetables are related.  When cooked, parsnips are sweet and starchy.  For the best flavor, brown them to caramelize the sugars.  Here are a few ideas for parsnip preparation:
– Caramelize the parsnips by roasting them in a vegetable medley.
– Parsnip fries are delicious: cut like French fries, coat very lightly with oil, place on a cookie sheet and roast in a hot oven until brown and cooked through.
– Try substituting grated parsnips in a potato pancake recipe. They brown beautifully and are very tasty.
– Steve loves pan-fried parsnips with onions and garlic.
Yukina (large heads of dark green leaves) – This is my favorite fall green.  It is nutritious, delicious, a great combination of mustard-like leaves with crunchy stems.  Personally, I think it’s a better ratio of leaves to stems than bok choy.  These yukina look big, but the average weight is just 1.5 lb, which tells you they will shrink once cooked.   We usually steam and drain chopped yukina, then dress it with a cooked mixture of fried garlic simmered with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, a little sugar and a lot of paprika or hot pepper flakes.
See below for an interesting way to prepare yukina in the oven.

Spicy Roasted Yukina (or bok choy)

This is an interesting way to tackle any voluminous tender green like yukina or bok choy.  We made a batch and enjoyed it first as a hot dish, then as a cold salad.

1 large head yukina or bok choy

2 Tbsp. olive oil
1.5 Tbsp. sesame oil
4 Tbsp. soy sauce or tamari
1.5 Tbsp. rice vinegar
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. red pepper flakes (less if you don’t like spicy food)
2 Tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

1.  Preheat oven to 400 oF.
2. Cut the yukina in half lengthwise.  Cut stems and leaves into ribbons.  Wash well and drain.  Shake well to remove excess water.
3.  Stir together all the remaining ingredients.
4.  Spread the yukina on one (or two) large cookie sheets.  Pour the marinate over the yukina and toss with your hands.
5.  Roast until wilted and tender-crisp, about 10 – 12 minutes.
6.  Toss again.  Adjust marinade to taste.  Serve.