Week #3. Big berry week.

The crew picks your strawberries.  It’s a beautiful patch this year.

All your berries are ripe, even if one side is white and the other colored. This is normal for the ‘Cavendish’ variety.  Eat one that looks like this and you will understand that they are ripe.

Happy u-pickers this past weekend. I gotta say, I like our reservation system. It keeps our u-picks calm and manageable with a small staff.

Strawberry u-picks

We expect to host an organic strawberry u-pick in coming days. 
RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED.
U-pick price: $4.00/lb
Tipi CSA members, follow instructions in an email that I sent you this week.  Non-members, if we have enough capacity, we will offer reservations directly to our email list and (perhaps) on our berry page.  Join our email list for direct notification.

Veggie List & Veggie Notes
Week #3, June 12, 2025

– Weekly shares
– BiWeekly/ A group

Strawberries, 2 quarts
Asparagus, ~2/3 lb
Button mushrooms, 12 oz
Baby bok choy
Zucchini, 2 or 3 ct.
Spinach, 1 bunch
Romaine lettuce
White salad turnips, 1 bunch
Salad radishes, 1 bunch
Scallions, 1 bunch

Next week’s box will probably contain strawberries, zucchini &/or summer squash, leafy greens, scallions and more.

Strawberries – Eat soon.  Strawberries are perishable and these are delicious right now.  I encourage you to avoid washing these berries.  Rinse any berries that have soil on them, but the rest do not need washing.  It only shortens their storage life.
Storage: Refrigerate.

Button mushrooms – These organic mushrooms are from Hidden Valley Mushrooms from Wisconsin Dells.  We buy mushrooms from Mary and Ed every spring because they combine so perfectly with our spring vegetables, for salads, quiches, etc.  
Storage: Here are Mary’s suggestions for storing the mushrooms:
– Store separate from leafy greens, which hasten mushroom aging.  
– If storing for more than a few days, remove from the box and refrigerate in a paper bag with holes punched in the side.  Keep dry.  
– Don’t wash to clean, just wipe with a damp cloth.

Baby bok choy – We continue experimenting with adorable baby bok choy.  My favorite preparation is to slice lengthwise into quarters (or sixths or eighths depending on size).  Steam in a steamer basket until tender.  Dress with a simple vinaigrette of rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and hot pepper flakes.  There are lots of recipes online with steamed mushrooms and baby choy. 
Storage: Cover and refrigerate.

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.  Think pad thai. 

Notes and storage for these vegetables in previous newsletters.  Info will be under “Veggie List and Veggie Notes”.
Asparagus
Spinach
White salad turnips
Salad radishes
How to wash lettuce and other greens efficiently

RECIPES by DEB

Spring Vegetable Stir Fry

From Making Thyme for Health

This recipe calls for half a pound each of mushrooms and asparagus, and a cup of sliced radishes, all of which we have in the box, and the notes point out you should feel free to sub what you like. This means the zucchini, bok choy, and salad turnips would all be nice additions. Personally, I think salad turnips are very tasty in stir fry’s.
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Red Radish Crostini with Lemon Ricotta

From Vanilla Bean Cuisine

Here’s a fun appetizer to use up some of our supply of radishes – that could also be lunch with maybe some fruit or a salad. Pairing radishes with something creamy, like ricotta, is always a hit. Try spreading halved radishes with a little cream cheese and sprinkling with coarse salt and fresh ground pepper for another easy snack.
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Banh Mi Sandwich Recipe

From Love and Lemons

The pickled veggies that fill this Bahn Mi sandwich include Daikon, cucumber, and carrots, but you can sub red radishes for the Daikon (the recipe suggests this) and turnips for the cucumber. Add carrots if you have them, or simply use more radishes and turnips. You’ll probably have extra pickled veggies that are good on avocado toast or in tacos.
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Easy Brown Rice Risotto with Mushrooms

From Cookie and Kate

Here’s a way to make risotto without stirring! And the recipe is very forgiving. The first time I made it, I had a friend visiting who doesn’t eat onions or pepper, so I left both out, and didn’t miss them. Similarly, omitting the fresh oregano will not decrease the flavor of the dish. Thinly sliced scallions from this week’s box would be a nice garnish, along with some asparagus on the side. The short-grain brown rice that’s called for in the recipe is delicious, but if you don’t have it, long grain will work.
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Fresh Turnip & Greens Quiche with Almond Crust

From Dishing Up the Dirt

This quiche has a patted-in almond flour crust that’s gluten free, but you could sub your favorite rolled crust if you like. The recipe calls for turnip greens, but you could also use spinach from the box, and sub scallions for green garlic.
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Easy Asparagus Egg Bake with Mushroom and Swiss Cheese

From Honey and Birch

Combine the asparagus and mushrooms from this week’s box with eggs and cheese to make this brunch dish. A handful of spinach and/or some chopped zucchini would also be a nice addition.
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Roberta’s Romaine Salad with Candied Walnuts and Pecorino

From Serious Eats

Photo by Dave Potez

Roberta’s is a wood-fired pizza place in Brooklyn NY, know for its salads as well as its pizza. This recipe make A LOT of dressing and candied walnuts, more than is needed for one head of Romaine, but they’re good leftovers to have. As the recipe points out, you can serve the walnuts as part of a cheese board, and the dressing is good on any salad made with sturdy greens, like the spinach in this week’s box.

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.

Spring Share, Week #1, May 29

Deliveries begin this week (May 29) for these shares:

– Weekly Shares
– BiWeekly/ A group.

Deliveries next week (June 5) for:

– Weekly Shares
– BiWeekly/ B group.

If you don’t remember your share type, log in online and look at your scheduled dates under “Orders”.

Farm News

Transplanting melon seedlings into plastic mulch. The mulch suppresses weeds, conserves moisture, and improves melon quality. From left, Madelline, Aly, Ben and Maggie. Not in photo, Simone, Beth, Steve.

Our spring work progresses nicely.  We’ve had a lot of beautiful, blue-sky days.  It is pleasant working weather despite the swings in temperature.  Some of your asparagus is short, some is long, the result of weather swinging hot – cold – hot – cold.

Our farm is quite dry.  Many storms have missed us narrowly, raining a few miles away but missing us entirely.  We watch the clouds and rain pass by on the horizon.  It is a good thing we have irrigation. 

We were relieved when one April storm passed us.  Our town of Evansville was heavily hit by enormous hail.  There was so much damage to cars, houses and roofs.  Friends and neighbors are still arranging repairs and wrangling with their insurance companies.  We could only imagine what it would have done to our spring crops, solar array, greenhouses, etc.

A hail stone that fell in Evansville WI this April.  Photo credit Lisa Cromheecke James

From left, Steve, Ari, Beth, Sophie.

Ari graduated from Macalester College this spring.  He is our youngest child, so this is a big milestone.  He has a research position in mathematics lined for the summer, and is looking for a math-related job for fall in the Twin Cities.  Most of you know Ari from the strawberry u-picks.  He’s the tall guy showing you how and where to pick.  We are very, very proud of this kid.

Strawberry forecast

The berry field looks great so far.  There was only one frost during blossoming and we irrigated to protect the fragile flowers.  There are many tiny berries on the plants.  Keep your fingers crossed that they mature without trouble.  They are delicate!  We expect to begin picking berries in mid-June.

Let’s review the essentials of how our strawberry u-picks work.
– U-picks are by reservation only. 
– I offer reservations first to our 2025 CSA members.  Watch for emails from us with all the details, plus a link to place a reservation.
– If there are unclaimed reservation slots, I will offer them to our u-pick email list.  After that, I’ll post publicly on Facebook.  Honestly, it’s unlikely that we’ll get that far.  Our organic berries are in high demand. 

How to wash greens efficiently and to maximize storage life

Washing and drying your lettuce, spinach, and other greens prolongs their storage life.  And they will be ready to use on busy weeknights!  Here’s our approach.  It works.

There will be grit in your produce this week, a side effect of recent rain and irrigation.
Thoughts:
– Cut your lettuce one and a half inches above the base and you’ll leave a lot of dirt behind.
– Expect to spend extra time cleaning this week’s greens.  Let’s talk about how to do that efficiently.

Cut your lettuce heads at one and a half inches above the base and you’ll leave a lot of dirt behind.

1.  Fill your sink or a basin halfway with cold tap water.  If you have two sinks, fill one sink partway with cold water.
2.  Chop your lettuce, spinach, escarole or other green to the size you wish.
3.  Dump it into the water and swish around gently but thoroughly.
4.  Working in two batches (for average lettuce head) or more batches (big spinach bunches, Romaine), pull handfuls out of the water and drain in the basket of a salad spinner.
5.  After all the greens have been rinsed one time, dump the water.  Rinse the sink/basin and refill with cold tap water.
6.  Repeat the process.
7.  Spin your greens dry and store in a dry container.  They store much longer when spun dry.

This works because …
– pre-chopping the greens frees soil trapped in the head.
– the large amount of water washes and dilutes away the grit.
– By pulling the greens out of the water, you take advantage of the draining action to pull the grit with it.
– Drying (spinning) the greens before storage reduces spoilage.

Veggie List & Veggie Notes

Asparagus, 1 lb
Carrots, ~2.5 lb
Green leaf lettuce
Spinach, 1 bunch
Bok choy, 1 head
Arugula, 1 bunch
Salad radishes, 1 bunch
Green garlic, 1 bunch
Rhubarb, 1.5 lb

Next week’s box will probably contain asparagus, lettuce, spinach, leafy greens, radishes, green garlic and more.

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.

CARROTS – These colorful carrots are from our excellent crop harvested in fall, then stored over the winter.  You’ll get any two (or three!) of these colors: orange, purple, red, or yellow.  Don’t be surprised to see small roots.  They will rub off when you wash and/or peel your carrots.
Storage:  Keep refrigerated!  They want to grow! 

GREEN LEAF LETTUCE – The lettuce very 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.

BOK CHOY (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.
Storage: Refrigerate in a plastic bag or other container.

ARUGULA – (bunch of green leaves with pungent scent) – This is a spring treat!  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.  
Storage:  Refrigerate. 

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 from DEB

Rhubarb and Brown Sugar Skillet Pork Chops

From The Kitchn

This rhubarb sauce would also be delicious on boneless chicken breasts, that you could sauté using the same procedure as the pork chops. For a pinker sauce, you could omit the soy sauce – taste for salt – and sub white sugar or honey for the brown sugar.
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Peppery Greens Salad with Avocado, Chicken, and Tortilla Croutons

By Justin Chapple for Food and Wine

Here’s a main course salad recipe that you can make with a combination of the arugula, spinach, and lettuce from this week’s box, about 8 1/2 cups of greens all together. The recipe suggests toasting flour tortillas that have been brushed with oil directly on the rack in your oven. If you don’t want to risk a smoky mess, put the tortillas on a cooling rack placed on a cookie sheet to protect your oven! Broken, purchased, corn or pita chips would also work to add crunch to your salad.
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Rhubarb-Walnut Quick Bread Recipe

From King Arthur Baking

In this recipe the rhubarb is cooked briefly before being mixed into the bread batter, which improves the texture of the finished bread. Unless you have 3-4 very skinny stalks to decorate the top, I recommend splitting the stalks lengthwise.
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Bok Choy and Radishes

From Taste of Home

I think we often forget that cooked radishes are tasty, and this simple, spring-y stirfry combining radishes and Bok Choy reminds us. The recipe calls for lemon-pepper seasoning, but if that’s not on your spice rack, regular black pepper alone or with some grated lemon zest or a squish of lemon juice will work just as well.
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Carrot Tart

By Erin Merhar for The Pioneer Woman

Photo by Will Dickey
Roast the carrots from this week’s box and turn them into this elegant but easy tart with a purchased puff pastry crust. The recipe suggests using a soft garlic and herb cheese, such as Boursin, along with some grated Monterey Jack, but you could sub in other soft or grated cheeses depending on what you have on hand.
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Spring Pasta with Peas and Asparagus

From Cookie and Kate

This recipe calls for a cup of fresh herbs, such as parsley and mint. Tossing in a combination of washed and roughly torn or chopped spinach and/or arugula leaves and sliced green garlic will add flavor in place of the herbs. I suggest adding the greens and garlic at the same time as the asparagus and peas.
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Spicy Pork Bowls with Bok Choy & Broccoli

From Dishing Up the Dirt

Dishing Up the Dirt created this recipe for the transition season from summer to fall, but it works just as well in the transition from spring to summer! You can purchase broccoli to add to your bowls or use asparagus and arugula or spinach. Garnish with fresh radishes, and use sliced green garlic in the marinade. If you don’t eat pork, sub ground turkey or chicken, or crumbled tofu for vegetarians.
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Pop-Up CSA box, Friday October 4

Thank you all for signing up for this one-time delivery. Our produce is abundant right now and we are pleased to share with all of you!  The farm is beautiful this fall.  We are irrigating, because we must, but the dry, sunny weather is healthy for our crops.

Veggie List & Veggie Notes
October 4, 2024

Autumn Frost winter squash
Carrots, 2lb
Bok choy
Leeks, 1 or 2
Bell peppers, a mix of colors and #1 & #2 grades
Oranos snack peppers, 1.75 lb
Jalapeno chile (in the bag of Oranos), 1
Daikon radish, ~2 lb total
Basil, 1 small bunch

‘Autumn Frost’ squash – Store cool and dry.  60 F is ideal.
This beautiful frosted squash has both pumpkin and butternut squash breeding.  They cook and taste like an unusually good butternut, with rich, smooth texture.  This is a fairly new variety.  The breeders really knocked it out of the park with this one.  The skin is edible.  

Carrots – The first harvest of fall carrots!
Storage: Refrigerate.

Bok choy (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.
Storage: Refrigerate in a plastic bag or other container.

Leeks (look like big scallions) – These alliums have a milder flavor than onions. Nonetheless, they can be used in recipes that call for onions. To wash, split the leek lengthwise, from the green tops about halfway to the base, leaving the base intact. Rinse well under running water, separating the layers to flush. If necessary, split the leek further if soil has penetrated more than halfway down the leek. Shake dry. Leeks are generally eaten cooked. They can be sauteed, steamed or roasted. Intact leeks will store 2 to 3 weeks if covered loosely and refrigerated. The outer leaves will yellow. Just peel them off and discard. The inner leek layers will be fine.

Bell peppers – We are sending a mix of #1 and #2 grade bell peppers.  All are ripe and delicious.  Examine your peppers.  Use any with flaws first.  
Storage:  Refrigerate.

Korean radishes – These are a favorite vegetable among our farm crew.  Crunchy Korean radishes are sweeter and milder than Japanese daikon radishes and come in a more manageable size.  They contain lots of water, which makes them easy to pickle or ferment.  You’ll receive at least two of the colors we grow: white, red and purple.  
Storage: Refrigerate.

Basil – This batch is very fragrant.  We harvested on a windy day.  If your basil looks wilted, submerge in room temperature water for five minutes.
Storage:  Trim the stem ends.  Store at room temperature in a jar of clean water, like a flower bouquet.  Chop finely, mix with olive oil and freeze for winter.

Your jalapeño chile will be in the bag of sweet Oranos peppers. Oranos are orange or orange & green. The jalapeño will be green, red, or green & red.

RECIPE IDEAS from BETH

Let’s brainstorm Oranos snack peppers

We love these flavor bombs and are sending a generous bag.  Here are some ideas.

The perfect lunchbox snack
You could eat every one as a snacks – they are perfect in a lunchbox.  Pack them whole or de-seed, cut in half and smear with a dollop of goat cheese.

Pickled peppers
You can pickle any type of pepper but Oranos are especially beautiful.  Here’s my method.  

Snack peppers, about 3 or 4 peppers per pint
Garlic, 1 crushed clove

Brine (enough for one packed quart jar):
Water, 2 cups
White vinegar, 3 Tbsp
Salt, 1.5 Tbsp

1.  Mix the brine ingredients and stir at room temperature to dissolve.
2.  Clean a pint or quart jar.
3.  Slice your peppers in strips.  Pack into the clean jar.  Break the crushed garlic clove into a few pieces and tuck into the jar.
4.  Pour brine to the top.  Seal with a lid.  Slowly rotate to let bubbles escape to the top.
5.  Refrigerate for one day before eating.  
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Appetizers / Charcuterie plate
Google ‘appetizer snack peppers’ for a wealth of options.  Sliced Oranos are great for dipping in hummus or cheese dip.  Add some sliced carrots, red peppers, and daikon to the plate for crunch and beauty.

Korean radish

You will receive at least two of the daikon colors we grew this year; white, red and purple.

This is a favorite vegetable among our farm crew.  These crunchy Korean radishes are sweeter and milder than Japanese daikon radishes and come in a more manageable size.  They contain lots of water, which makes them easy to pickle or ferment.

Here are some of my favorite uses. 

Clockwise from top; Vietnamese Pickled Carrots & Daikon Radish Recipe (Đồ Chua, photo credit Hungry Huy); the Maangchi.com website has so many recipes for Korean daikon including Radish Kimchi (photo credit Maangchi).

Vietnamese Pickled Carrots & Daikon Radish Recipe (Đồ Chua)

From Hungy Huy.
This is my go-to recipe for mixed daikon-carrot salad.  The recipe calls for a light fermentation but it’s good after an hour in the fridge.  This pickled carrot-daikon salad is used to top bahn mi sandwiches and in other Vietnamese dishes.  Huy offers a nice discussion of how this pickle evolved as his family emigrated to the US.  He lists these other recipes that the pickles can be used with: 

Vietnamese sandwiches (bánh mì), savory crepes (bánh xèo), grilled pork and noodles (bún thịt nướng), egg rolls (chả gìo), and the list goes on. Larger cuts are usually found next to cuts of meat, while finer shreds are put in nước chấm (dipping sauce).

Maangchi rules for radish ideas!

Head to Maangchi for dozens of radish recipes.  She has the best website for Korean recipes.  Her Radish Kimchi recipe is close to foolproof and easy to scale. 

The Oriental Food Mart on Park Street in Madison is a Korean grocery that stocks Korean hot pepper flakes called for in many of her recipes.  Ask the owner for help picking out your pepper flakes – he is super helpful.  I keep a bag of medium heat in our freezer and use them in everything for flavor without excessive heat.

Week #4. Final box of June Share.

This delivery wraps up our June Share.

We hope you enjoyed our experimental 4-week June Share.  We think it went quite well.  I like that we were able to include most everyone’s spring favorites.  At this point, let’s assume we will do this again next year.  Watch for emails over the winter.

What’s next?

Our next farm offering will be organic plum (Roma) tomatoes, for sauce, freezing or canning.  The tomatoes are often ready around the Labor Day weekend.
– We plan to host on-farm u-picks so you can come harvest ripe plum tomatoes.
– We might offer pre-picked plum tomatoes for sale as well.
I’ll send emails to all of June Share members plus everyone on our email list.  

I might offer a pop-up sale in fall, something similar to a CSA box or a smaller version of our Storage Share from other years.  Just watch for emails from me.  

Willy Street Coop and Outpost Natural Foods and Basics Coop will stock our produce through the summer, fall and winter.  Next week, we begin planting carrots for those 5 lb bags to deliver all winter!  Now we just need a dry spell to get the carrot seeds in the ground.

Strawberry Wrap-Up

The welcome team was ready!

There were a lot of berries ready to pick!

Our berry season came to a dramatic end during the u-pick on Saturday.  People came at 9:00am, hustled and hurried home with lots of berries.  The picking was good until the downpour.  But you all are tough and everyone was in a good mood once the rain stopped again.  However, the heavy rain on Saturday … and Saturday night … and Monday night have damaged the berries.  Our berry season is finished.  We hoped to pick for this week’s delivery but the berries are gone.  Instead, we put that picking time into sugar snap peas and have an astonishing 1.75 lb for each box!  I do not think we’ve ever delivered that many peas at once.

Thank you all so much for joining our June Share this year.  We are honored by the trust you have in us.  Please enjoy this last delivery.
Beth & Steve

Veggie List & Veggie Notes
Week #4, June 27, 2024

– Weekly shares
– BiWeekly/ B group

Sugar snap peas, ~1.75 lb
Napa cabbage
Zucchini &/or summer squash, ~3 lb
Cucumbers, ~3
Silver Slicer cucumber, 1 or 2
Kohlrabi, 1 or 2
Scallions, 1 bunch
Basil, 1 sprig
Rhubarb, 1.25 lb

Sugar snap peas.  These peas should be eaten pod and all.  They are delicious raw, or very lightly cooked or stir-fried.
Preparation: They will need a quick rinse to remove faded gray blossoms.  Here’s how to remove the strings on each pod.  Snap off the stem end and pull the string down the concave side of the pod (the inward-curing side).  Throw away the string and eat the pod.  The thicker pea pods will usually have a string along both edges.  Remove them when you snap off the stem.
Storage: Refrigerate.

Napa cabbage (large, pale green cabbage with crinkled leaves) – Napa cabbage is an interesting vegetable, useful for both fresh, raw salads and for cooking.  Its most famous use is fermented kimchi.  I like to prepare a fresh, unfermented kimchi.  Same seasonings, but it’s ready to eat right away.  You will be amazed at how much shredded napa cabbage shrinks when prepared this way.  See here for an example, but cut the salt in half (or even further): Grilled Flank Steak with Kimchi-style Coleslaw.
Storage:  Napa stores very well.  When refrigerated, it will keep for several weeks.  Peel off the outer layer and it will be ready to use.  Here are a few preparation ideas from the ‘Asparagus to Zucchini’ cookbook.
– Chop raw napa into green salads.
– Substitute napa in traditional coleslaw.
– Chinese cabbage cooks quickly.  Steam 3-5 minutes, or until leaves are wilted down but remain slightly crisp.
– Substitute napa cabbage for common cabbage in recipes, but reduce the cooking time by 2 minutes.
– Napa cabbage is the main ingredient in egg rolls.  Try making an egg roll mixture to eat as a cooked side dish instead of preparing time-consuming egg rolls.

Zucchini & summer squash –  Zucchini and summer squash need refrigeration but do not do well at very cold temperatures, as they will soften and form pits in their surface. Refrigerate these squash but in the warmest part of your fridge.  

Cucumbers – We have been waiting for these!  You’ll receive green slicing cukes or a white variety called Silver Slicer.  These smaller cucumbers are thin-skinned, like pickling cucumbers, with delicious flavor.  No need to peel the Sliver Slicers.  For that matter, there’s no need to peel the green cucumbers either, unless you receive an unusually large one. 
Storage: Store at room temperature for a few days or refrigerate in the warmest part of your fridge.  Cucumbers get chilling injury if stored too cold.

Kohlrabi (pale green, round vegetable with thick skin and attached leaves) – Crunchy and sweet, kohlrabi is a great addition to salads.
Storage: Kohlrabi bulbs will store for a month in the refrigerator. Remove the leaves if you plan to store for more than a few days.
Uses: Kohlrabi are good peeled and eaten out of hand, or added to sandwiches, or added to salads. It makes a nice salad on it’s own. You can grate it, slice it, or cut it into matchsticks. It’s also good cooked.

Basil – The basil is very tender so we washed them very gently.  Expect to wash again to remove grit.  For this harvest, we cut entire plants.  It is lovely stuff.

Green slicing cucumbers and a Silver Slicer cucumber.

This week’s tender basil.

RECIPES by DEB

Photo credit Christopher Testani

Spicy Skillet Ground Turkey and Snap Peas

From the New York Times
Combine the sugar snaps and scallions in this week’s box with ground turkey to make this spicy stirfry, and you can add more fresh basil if you don’t have mint – or simply omit the mint.
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Photo credit Sidewalk Shoes

Pasta Primavera with Shrimp and Sugar Snap Peas

From Sidewalk Shoes
In addition to sugar snap peas, scallions, and the basil that you will find in this week’s box, this recipe also calls for fresh parsley and arugula. But Primavera recipes are forgiving in terms of what veggies you use, so you can sub in what you have and certainly amping up the amount of sugar snaps will work just fine. The images in the post show snow peas rather than sugar snaps, but they’re pretty interchangeable too! And 3 cups of dry penne (or other pasta) is about 12 oz. or 3/4 of a pound.
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Photo credit Leah Maroney

Pickled Kohlrabi

From The Spruce Eats
These kohlrabi pickles will keep in the back of the fridge for a long time and can be served as a condiment with hamburgers or brats, or any other sandwiches. The recipe also suggests chopping them up for coleslaw and adding some of the brine to the dressing, or serving them as a garnish in your martini!
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Photo credit Kellie Hatcher

Crunchy Napa Slaw

From Mountain Mama Cooks
This crunchy slaw will put a good dent in the Napa cabbage in this week’s box, and also calls for sugar snaps and scallions. You can sub in the basil for cilantro and julienned or grated kohlrabi could stand in for carrots.
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Photo credit Molly Yeh

Magic Sesame Sauce

From Molly Yeh, My Name Is Yeh (“yay”)
This week’s box contents, and the weather, suggest cold spicy noodle salads. If you’re like me, you’ve tried a ton of cold peanut and/or sesame noodle recipes – and there are plenty of them out there online! – but this simple sauce from food blogger and TV cooking show personality Molly Yeh is really simple and dependable. You can make it with either tahini or peanut butter and it’s enough sauce for 8 ounces of noodles. It can also easily be doubled, and can be topped with torn fresh basil, scallions, zoodle-ized zucchini, or thinly sliced cucumbers, as just a few possibilities.
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Photo credit Justine Doiron

Zucchini Muffins with Cinnamon Chocolate

From Justine Snacks
Zucchini season has come early this year, and this muffin recipe deserves a try. It has just enough chocolate and it’s not too sweet, and the muffins keep well and seem to actually taste better after a few days. The recipe is written for 6 jumbo muffins, and does provide measurements for making regular size. I made regular size muffins and got 13, and didn’t have any of the cinnamon chocolate left for the topping, so if topping is important to you, made some extra!
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A couple of go-to recipes for 3+ pounds of zucchini

Photo credit James Ransom Food52

Best Zucchini Butter Recipe – How to Make Jennie Cook’s Zucchini Butter

From Food52
There are quite a few versions of zucchini butter out there and it is sometimes attributed to Julia Child. Wherever the recipe came from it’s a versatile way to preserve zucchini. I don’t even drain and squeeze the grated zucchini, because the extra juice will reduce in cooking and make the butter more flavorful. Zucchini butter can be made dairy free, and is great in eggs, on toast, and can be frozen. Many people’s favorite way to use it is in smitten kitchen’s zucchini butter spaghetti.
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Photo credit RecipeTin Eats

Zucchini Tian

From RecipeTin Eats
Here’s a nicely laid out version of a classic Julia Child recipe, Tian de Courgettes au Riz (Zucchini Tian). This is another recipe with many versions online, for example smitten kitchen or DebsLunch, but I find this one from RecipeTin Eats easy to follow.

Week #3. Farm News.

We have two boxes of strawberries for everyone this week.

Farm news

Wow, that was a burst of heat and wind this week.  Most of our crops love the heat.  It’s striking how much the zucchini plants grew.  We were surprised to have zucchini in your June 13 boxes, just as we were surprised to have strawberries for you on June 6.  It was an early spring but now crops are settling into their usual schedules.

There was a three-week rainy spell in May and June, totalling 7.5 inches here at our farm.  That is as much rain as we got last year in all of April, May, June, July, August and September combined.  What a striking difference.  Seven and half inches is a lot for three weeks.  Less than 7.5 inches in six months is extraordinary.  So we are not complaining about rain this year.

Strawberries dominate our life right now.  The four u-picks we hosted have been fun but time-consuming.  We spend a lot of time in the fields judging which varieties are ready to pick, then strategizing harvests and u-picks.

We are thrilled to have two pounds for you this week.  The crew groaned when they learned that we needed 94 pails of berries but then I showed them the field section ready for harvest.  It was great picking.

Final berry u-pick?
Saturday June 22. Reservations required.

This is probably our last berry u-pick of the season.  I will post the reservation link here in this blog and here once I am ready to open reservations to the public.  Tipi CSA members, I sent you the June 22 link via email, earlier today.

Thanks,
Beth

Farm photos

It takes a team to pick your berries. From left at top, Ari, Maggie, Aly, Ben, Ava and Madelline.  Not in photo, Simone and me.

How’s that for a pretty field?  Three beds of zucchini and Zephyr summer squash, plus two beds cucumbers at left.  These will be harvested for next week’s CSA box, then for Willy Street Coop and Outpost Natural Foods Coops.

Zucchini love the heat.

Veggie List & Veggie Notes
Week #3, June 20, 2024

– Weekly shares
– BiWeekly/ A group

Strawberries, 2 lb
Lacinato kale
Zucchini &/or summer squash, ~3lb
Fennel, 1 bulb with fronds
Red bibb lettuce
White salad turnips (just roots, no tops)
Scallions
Garlic scapes, a handful

Next week’s box will probably contain snap peas, napa cabbage, zucchini, scallions, basil and more.

Strawberries – The berries are coming on strong!  As usual, they are perishable so refrigerate and enjoy soon.  

Lacinato kale (bundle of grey-green textured leaves) – This is our most beautiful cooking green and a super food!  Use like any kale.  
Storage:  Cover and refrigerate.

Zucchini & summer squash – The plants love heat and have really taken off. 
Storage: Zucchini and summer squash need refrigeration but do not do well at very cold temperatures, as they will soften and form pits in their surface. Refrigerate these squash but in the warmest part of your fridge.  

Fennel (bulbs and lacy fronds) – Fennel is a ‘swing vegetable’; it can be used raw or cooked.  Clean well and slice as thinly as possible for use in raw salads.  It is good simply prepared with olive oil, lime or lemon juice, salt and shaved parmesan cheese.  Cooking softens and sweetens fennel, and mellows its anise flavor.  Both the bulb and leaves are edible.  Here are ideas from Alice Waters of Chez Panisse about how to use fennel:  ‘It’s strong anise characteristic seems to suit fish particularly well.  … We use fennel all the time.  We add the feathery leaves to marinades for fish and to numerous salads, sauces and soups and we use them as a garnish, too. … The bulbs are sliced and served raw in salads in various combinations with other vegetables, parboiled for pastas; caramelized and served as a side dish; braised whole; or cooked in vegetable broths & fish stocks.”

White salad turnips – We are sending just the white roots this time.  The tops had too much insect damage so we cut them off.

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.  Think pad thai. 

Garlic scapes (curly green things) – Garlic scapes grow at the top of garlic plants.  We snap off the young scapes to direct the plants’ energy into forming garlic bulbs underground.  Use scapes as a substitute for garlic cloves.  They can be minced, mixed with olive oil, and added to stir fries or simple pasta dishes.  The scapes can be sautéed, but will not brown like garlic cloves.  Expect them to retain their crunch even when cooked, and to be milder than garlic cloves, closer in pungency to the green garlic we’ve sent.

Lacinato kale

Garlic scapes

RECIPES by DEB

Photo credit: Sally’s Baking Addiction.

Zucchini Casserole

From Sally’s Baking Addiction
I’ve tended to turn to the Sally’s Baking Addiction website for sweet baked good, but here’s a savory, substantial recipe for zucchini, and of course once you’re at the site, you can follow links to sweet zucchini muffins and bread, etc. You can use either fresh or dried herbs in the casserole.
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Photo credit: Lucy Schaeffer; Food Styling Debbie Wee

Strawberry Icebox Cake Recipe

From The Kitchn
Here’s a fun no-bake dessert for these hot days. The recipe calls for 2 pounds of strawberries, but if you’d like to reserve some of this week’s strawberry haul for plain eating, I tested it as a half-batch in an 8×8 pan. You’ll only need one pound of strawberries and 1 3/4 cups heavy cream. I left off the chocolate, too.
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Here are two options for fennel salads: the first is mainly fennel, the 2nd includes zucchini and greens.

Photo credit: Recipe Tin Eats

Fennel Salad

From RecipeTin Eats
This shaved fennel salad is, as the author says, quick and easy to make if you have a mandolin. If you don’t, a sharp knife will do it, or the slicing blade of a food processor. There are only 5 ingredients in this salad, fennel, lemon, olive oil, onion, and Parmesan. If you’d like a salad with less focus on the fennel, see the next recipe.
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Photo by Heidi Swanson

Shaved Fennel Salad

From 101 Cookbooks
This fennel salad is from a cookbook titled Super Natural Everyday and made available online at 101 Cookbooks by the author, Heidi Swanson, and it was also in a late June newsletter from last year. It features fennel and zucchini, two of the vegetables we have in this week’s boxes, and is served over arugula, but you can certainly sub the Red Bibb lettuce instead.
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Photo by Susanality

Zucchini Baba Ganoush

By Susan Spungen, From Susanality
This recipe uses zucchini in place of eggplant to make Baba Ganoush, an idea that’s new to me, but looks like a great way to use up an abundance of zucchini. The recipe provides suggestions for charring the zucchini using a gas grill, your oven’s broiler, or charcoal, especially if you’re grilling something else.
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Photo credit: Minimalist Baker

Thai Kale Salad

From Minimalist Baker
Lacinto kale is great in salads since it’s usually more tender than other varieties, and this recipe gives it a nice twist with a Thai style peanut dressing. The salad is topped with raw tofu that’s been tossed in sesame seeds, and provides instructions for roasting the tofu if you prefer your tofu cooked. Thinly sliced salad turnips would be a good substitution for the carrots and radishes in the salad. And if you’d rather prepare the kale as a Caesar salad, the tahini Caesar salad dressing in last week’s newsletter would work great on kale.
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Photo credit: The New New England

Roasted Radish Tacos with Spicy Lime Sauce

From The New New England
OK, you might be wondering why a recipe for radish tacos is included this week, and it’s because the basic principle of the recipe is to roast early summer vegetables and use them for taco filling, and there are a couple of ways to sub in the veggies we have in this week’s box. One method would be to roast chunked salad turnips in place of the radishes (they’re similar in water content) and proceed with the recipe. Another method would be to roast zucchini cubes in place of the radishes and shred salad turnips to top your tacos in place of the cabbage called for in the recipe. The recipe also strongly recommends a brand of corn tortillas that I have never tried – they do seem to be widely available if you’d like to give them a try.

Week #2. Weekly + BW/B. Berry U-Picks.

U-Picks by reservation

The berries are doing great!  We will host several berry u-picks in the next few days.  Reservations are required.  Tipi members, check my email for links to reserve a picking time.  Everyone else, join our email list so we can send you the reservation links.

Grit, grit, grit

This week’s produce has seen a lot of rain over the last month.  The Romaine and asparagus need washing to get rid of grit.  See last week’s notes about how to wash your greens efficiently.  

Cut your lettuce heads at one and a half inches above the base, then discard the base.  In one stroke, you’ll eliminate a lot of dirt behind.

Veggie List & Veggie Notes
Week #2, June 13, 2024

– Weekly shares
– BiWeekly/ B group

Strawberries, 1 lb
Asparagus, 1.25 lb
Button mushrooms, 12 oz
Zucchini or yellow squash, 2 or 3 ct
Romaine lettuce
Spinach, 1 bunch
Mixed red & green kale, 1 bunch
White salad turnips, 1 bunch
Green garlic, 1 bunch

Next week’s box will probably contain strawberries, lettuce, white salad turnips, zucchini, cooking greens, scallions and more.

Strawberries – The berries are doing great this week, soaking up the sunshine.
Storage:  Refrigerate and eat soon.

Asparagus – This is the final harvest.  Enjoy!

Button mushrooms – These organic mushrooms are from Hidden Valley Mushrooms from Wisconsin Dells.  We bring in mushrooms from Mary and Ed every spring because they combine so perfectly with our spring vegetables, for salads, quiches, etc.  
Storage: Here are Mary’s suggestions for storing the mushrooms:
– Store separate from leafy greens, which hasten mushroom aging.  
– If storing for more than a few days, remove from the box and refrigerate in a paper bag with holes punched in the side.  Keep dry.  
– Don’t wash to clean, just wipe with a damp cloth.

Spinach – This batch will be best cooked.

Kale – We’re sending mixed bunches of red and green leaves this time, just because they are pretty.
Storage: Cover and refrigerate.

White salad turnips (see photo) – 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.

Zucchini  – We have the first harvest already.  This is early!  
Storage: Cover and refrigerate.

RECIPES by DEB

Crunchy Celery, Radish and Turnip Salad-Slaw in Blue Cheese Sauce

From Food52
If you have radishes left from last week you could add them to this salad, or simply omit – and if you do that, you might have extra blue cheese sauce, which could be a good thing, because it would be tasty on other salads!
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Tahini Caesar Salad with Olive Oil Breadcrumbs

From Familystyle Food
I love crunchy home made croutons in a salad, but recently I’ve been finding that toasty breadcrumbs are also a great way to top a salad, especially one with a creamy dressing like this. The recipe’s method of essentially making croutons first and then crumbling them to make the breadcrumbs sounds messy to me. Alternatively, you could make the crumbs first in a food processor – or purchase – and then brown the crumbs in the olive oil in a skillet. And throw a little garlic or green garlic in as the crumbs toast!
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Bucatini with Sausage & Kale

From Taste of Home
This recipe is a version of a common combination for pasta: some kind of greens, sausage, and cheese. Some recipes also include heavy cream, unlike this one, making this version healthier! But if you are in a mood to indulge, you could add 1/4 to 1/2 cups cream when the sausage is browned. Bucatini is like fat, hollow spaghetti, so a different long noodle like spaghetti or linguini or fettuccine would work here, or you could also use a short pasta like penne.
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Mushroom Melt Grilled Cheese

From Frugal Nutrition
Here’s a quick and easy way to eat up the mushrooms and spinach from this week’s box, without turning on your oven. The recipe supplies a handy multiplier to help you figure amounts for up to six sandwiches.
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Leafy Greens Pesto

From The Fountain Avenue Kitchen
As most CSA members most likely already know, you can make pesto with lots of other types of greens and herbs, not just basil. I’m pretty sure there’ve been recipes for kale and even broccoli pesto in prior newsletters. The nice thing about this recipe is that it provides proportions for using just about any type of greens, and there’s also a dairy-free variation.
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Photo by Robby Lozano

Easy Upside Down Sheet-Pan Asparagus Tart

From Serious Eats
If you’re on Instagram, you’ve probably seen Dominic Franks’ upside down puff pastry recipes, as well as others. The topping/filling ingredients are laid on a pan, then covered with a sheet of puff pastry. This helps the toppings cook, for example in this recipe where there’s no need to precook the asparagus, and also helps the puff pastry rise and brown, then the dish is flipped for serving.

Week #1. The June Share begins.

Hello everyone!

We are back, with an action-packed box.  There are unexpected strawberries in this box, the result of a mild winter and early spring.  These members receive a box on June 6 (unless they rescheduled):
– Weekly Shares
– BiWeekly/ A group.

If you don’t remember your share type, log in online and look at your scheduled dates under Orders.

Strawberry u-picks.

Keep your fingers crossed – it looks like a good strawberry year.  We doubled our berry field and expect to have lots of u-pick opportunities.  Reservations required, as usual.  I will offer reservation links to these groups, in this order below.  There will probably be just a few hours separating the groups, so watch your emails.
1. 2024 Tipi CSA members – You folks get the first chance to reserve a picking time.  Watch for emails with instructions to place a reservation.
2. 2022 and 2023 Tipi CSA members and our u-pick email list – This is the second group to receive offers to reserve a picking time.  Watch for emails from me.
3. When there are still open reservation slots, I’ll offer them on our U-Pick berry page and on Facebook.

Spinach (left) and komatsuna greens (right).  Both are bundled with a rubber band but you can tell them apart by the stems.  The komatsuna stems are thicker and resemble bok choy stems, which they are related to.  

There will be grit in your produce this week, a side effect of recent rain. We appreciate the rain, but those were intense downpours! 

Thoughts:
– Cut your lettuce one and a half inches above the base and you’ll leave a lot of dirt behind.
– Expect to spend extra time cleaning this week’s greens.  Let’s talk about how to do that efficiently.

Cut your lettuce heads at one and a half inches above the base and you’ll leave a lot of dirt behind.

How to wash greens efficiently and to maximize storage life

Washing and drying your lettuce, spinach, and other greens prolongs their storage life.  And they will be ready to use on busy weeknights!  Here’s our approach.  It works.
1.  Fill your sink or a basin halfway with cold tap water.  If you have two sinks, fill one sink partway with cold water.
2.  Chop your lettuce, spinach, escarole or other green to the size you wish.
3.  Dump it into the water and swish around gently but thoroughly.
4.  Working in two batches (for average lettuce head) or more batches (big spinach bunches, Romaine), pull handfuls out of the water and drain in the basket of a salad spinner.
5.  After all the greens have been rinsed one time, dump the water.  Rinse the sink/basin and refill with cold tap water.
6.  Repeat the process.
7.  Spin your greens dry and store in a dry container.  They store much longer when spun dry.

This works because …
– pre-chopping the greens frees soil trapped in the head.
– the large amount of water washes and dilutes away the grit.
– By pulling the greens out of the water, you take advantage of the draining action to pull the grit with it.
– Drying (spinning) the greens before storage reduces spoilage.

Veggie List & Veggie Notes
Week #1, June 6, 2024

– Weekly shares
– BiWeekly/ A group

Strawberries, 1 pint
Asparagus, 1 lb
Shiitake mushrooms, 8 oz
Red leaf lettuce
Spinach, 1 bunch
Komatsuna greens, 1 bunch
Salad radishes, 1 bunch
Cilantro, 1 bunch
Green garlic, 1 bunch
Rhubarb, ~1.5 lb

Next week’s box will probably contain strawberries, mushrooms, spinach, lettuce, green garlic, tender cooking greens and more.

Strawberries – Eat soon. This week’s berries look a little rough but are tasty.  They survived many recent storms. We are lucky to get those storms out of the way early in the berry season. We have good weather ahead and the younger berries will be in good shape for the u-picks.
Storage: Refrigerate.

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.

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.

Lettuce – The lettuce very tender so handle gently.  
Storage:  Refrigerate in a bag or other container.

Spinach – This spinach is OK for salads but probably better cooked.
Storage: Refrigerate in a bag or other container.

Komatsuna greens (bundle of dark green leafy heads.  See photo) – This is our favorite spring cooking green.  They are similar to mustard greens but with great flavor and are more mild than mustard greens.  We’ve enjoyed learning to grow them over the past few seasons.  
Preparation: Use in any recipe that calls for mustard greens or bok choy.  Use both leaves and stems.
Storage:  Cover and refrigerate.

Salad radishes – These are so good right now; tender, crisp and not too spicy.  They are great in salads or thinly sliced on sandwiches.  A few years ago, I was served open-faced radish and butter sandwiches on toast and was impressed with how tasty they were.  Use good quality butter.
Storage: Cover and refrigerate.

Cilantro (small bunch, fragrant leaves) – Used in both Mexican and some Asian cuisines.  Good to season stir-fries, salad dressing, salsa, etc.
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.  Avoid the dark green stems and leaves, as these are fibrous.

Rhubarb – Storage: Refrigerate in a plastic bag. FYI, 1.75 lb of rhubarb yields 5 – 5.5 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.
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

Spanakopita Spirals with Flaky Phyllo Dough

From Well Seasoned Studio
Rolling the phyllo and filling into cigars and then spiraling them is a fun alternative to the more traditional layered spinach cheese pie. You can bake the rolls in a heat-proof skillet as shown here, or I recommend a 9 x 13 metal pan, lined with parchment. If there’s not quite enough spinach in the box, sub in a few leaves of the Komatsuna. And a little green garlic to season in place of the fresh oregano would also be nice.
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Radish Salsa

From The Live-In Kitchen
Here’s a quick, fresh salsa using the radishes and cilantro in this week’s box. You can sub some green garlic for the clove of garlic called for, and if you don’t have a fresh jalapeño, try using jarred pickled jalapeños or canned chipotle chile to add some heat to your salsa.

The following two rhubarb recipes, one savory and one sweet, each only use a small amount of rhubarb – so you can easily make both with what’s in the box!
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Rhubarb Dressing (part of Rhubarb Salad with Little Gems, Hazelnuts & Parmesan recipe)

From Justine Snacks
The rhubarb dressing pictured is one component of Justine Doiron’s salad, but possibly the most versatile. Doiron’s full salad recipe calls for hazelnuts, Parmesan cheese, little gem lettuce, and strawberries. I used the blender method to make the dressing and poured it over a salad of leaf lettuce, Parmesan, and a few almonds, and I’m sure it was just as tasty.
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Swirled Rhubarb Bars Recipe

From King Arthur Baking
These bars are like a butterscotch brownie with tart rhubarb jam swirled in – that is, delicious. The recipe says to melt the butter in the same pot you made the rhubarb jam in, but I don’t think doing this imparts an additional essence of rhubarb into the bars, and you still end up with the same number of pots to wash!
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Asparagus with Sauce Gribiche

From Girl on the Range
Sauce gribiche is a traditional French sauce that compliments asparagus and just about any other green vegetable. The recipe provides instructions for grilling the asparagus but you could also roast it in the oven or even steam it before adding the sauce.
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Chicken Shiitake Mushrooms Stir Fry

From Oh Snap! Let’s Eat!
This quick chicken and mushroom stir fry can be made with boneless chicken breast or thighs, or you could omit the meat and use tofu.
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Indian Spiced Chickpeas and Greens

From The Curious Chickpea
This vegan curry can be made with any greens including the Komatsuna in the box, and you could add some of the spinach as well. The recipe allows you to adjust the heat level to your taste, too.

Storage Share, 2023

Even the strawberry plants are showing fall colors.

We are using the mild weather to bring in fall bumper crops.  Here, Ken picks up stray parsnips.  The harvester picks up most roots but some are skipped.  The parsnips go into cold storage.  We’ll wash and ship to food coops through the winter, plus carrots, cabbage, radishes, celeriac, turnips, etc etc.

Storage Share this week

Your produce is in one box labelled “A” and one box labelled “B”.  Bring lots of bags and containers.

Things you need to know about your winter share

* Your delivery will consist of two different boxes, labeled “A” and “B”.  Take produce from one “A” box and one “B” box.  The boxes contain different vegetables.  The stacks may be covered with blankets.  Look around.
* Please pick up your boxes on the day of delivery, during the normal hours for your site.
* Bring extra bags or containers this time.  Leave the Tipi boxes at your site, take the produce home in your own bags/containers.
* If you send someone to pick up your produce, make sure they know what to do.

Strategy

We hope you enjoy this shipment of veggies.  Strategize to use them well, as some will last longer than others. 
* These are the most perishable vegetables:  Fennel, Romanesco.
* These are the next-most perishable: Brussels sprouts, leeks.
* Onions are next in line.  We sent you our best long-storing onions but you should still store them cool if possible (but don’t let freeze).  If you don’t have room in your fridge, find a cool spot in your house.
*Keep an eye on your butternut, potatoes and sweet potatoes.  These last well but the last two are susceptible to drying out.  Expect the largest butternuts to last the longest.
* These will last the longest: beets, cabbage, carrots, celeriac, daikon, garlic, parsnips and shallots.

Veggie List
Storage Share, Nov. 16/17, 2023 (Th/Fri sites)

Box “A”
Everything in this box can be stored cool or at room temperature.  See notes below for more detail.

Garlic, 3 – 4 bulbs, some bulbs might be split in half
Shallots, 1 or 2
(Garlic and shallots are in same bag.)
‘Autumn Frost’ winter squash
Butternut squash, several
(Combined, squash are ~10 lb total)
Sweet potatoes, ~10 lb
Onions, red & yellow, 5 lb total
Russet potatoes, 5 lb
Yellow potatoes, 5 lb

Box “B”
Refrigerate everything in this box.

Beets, 3 lb, mixed red and golden
Brussels sprouts, 1.5 lb
Cabbage, 1 head
Carrots, 6 lb mixed orange, red, yellow & purple
Celeriac, 1
Daikon radishes, white & purple & red
Fennel, 1 bulb
Leeks, ~2 lb
Parsnips, 2 lb
Romanesco cauliflower, 1 head

Beets – Your bag will have mostly red beets, with a few golden beets mixed in.  Refrigerate in a bag or container.  Beets will store for two months or longer.  

Brussels sprouts – Eat within 2 to 3 weeks.

Cabbage – Refrigerate.  You can cut off sections as needed. 

Carrots –  Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  Will keep for weeks.

Celeriac – Will store for months in your fridge.  Cut off chunks as needed.  Peel before using.  I find it easiest to cut the celeriac into flat slices, then peel.

Daikon radishes (white, purple, red) – Cover and refrigerate.  They are susceptible to drying out in your fridge so put them in a container or bag.  If the skins look dry, a quick peel freshens them up.

Fennel – Cover and refrigerate. 

Leeks.  Refrigerate. In general, 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.

Garlic –  Store at room temperature.  We’re sending a mix of large and small bulbs, German Extra Hardy (white wrapper leaves, large cloves) and Korean Red (purple wrapper leaves, smaller cloves).  Some bulbs might be in halves, leftover from when we cracked nice bulbs for planting. 

Onions:  Refrigerate or store in a cool, dark spot and protect from light.  Exposure to light stimulates sprouting.  

Parsnips (These look like large white carrots.) – Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  Parsnips will store for several months but will darken in color.  That is a harmless change.

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.  A cloth or loose plastic bag draped over the paper bag will slow moisture loss, but do not close the plastic bag.  Potatoes store longer if kept cool.  Around 40 – 50 F is ideal.  These organic potatoes were grown by the Igl family near Antigo.
Russets – We got the big ‘baking’ grade so you have nice bakers for Thanksgiving.  Excellent for baked or mashed potatoes.
Yellows – These are good all-purpose potatoes.

Romanesco cauliflower – Refrigerate.  These should store for two weeks.  

Shallot (look like a small red onion) – Good for salad dressing or to caramelize.

Sweet potatoes – We’re sending a mix of two indistinguishable varieties, Beauregard and Orleans.  Both have excellent flavor and sweetness.  Store at room temperature, no lower than 55 F, but 60+ F is better.  Keep them on your kitchen counter where it’s easy to keep an eye on them.  I like to keep ours in a paper bag so they don’t dehydrate.  Cook promptly if they start to soften.  The roots come in a wide ranges of sizes and all are good.

WINTER SQUASH – Store all winter squash cool and dry.  60 F is ideal.  Do not put in a plastic bag.  Check your squash regularly and eat promptly if flaws develop.
Autumn Frost (frosted pumpkin) – This beautiful frosted squash has both pumpkin and butternut squash breeding.  It cooks and tastes like an unusually good butternut, with rich, smooth texture.  The skin is edible.
Butternut winter squash (tan, oblong) – All are our favorite ‘Metro’ variety.  If your butternuts show signs of drying or wrinkling, use them promptly.  They will still taste great, but it’s a sign that they are nearing the end of their storage life.  Remember, 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.  Some of them are big!
Safety tip:  Microwave your squash for one to two minutes before cutting or peeling.  This softens the squash and makes a squash easier and safer to cut.

Thanksgiving Menus

Right now, websites are loaded with great recipes suited to your Storage Share vegetables.  Peruse and bookmark soon.  The Thanksgiving collections are taken down quickly after the holiday but individual recipes are not. This is a good chance to gather recipes to try this winter.  

Smitten Kitchen
You could begin and end your Thanksgiving planning with Deb Perelman.  She’s an amazing cook who publishes workable recipes.  She has an extensive list of Thanksgiving dishes collected over the years.  I really trust her recipes.

Food52.com
Check out their Automatic Holiday Menu Maker.  They have collected soooo many vegetable and salad recipes, especially under the Soups & Salads and the Vegetables sections but also Hors D’Oeuvres and Main Attractions.  I am relieved to see that they stripped out the ads this year.  This section was overrun last year and disappointing.

Love & Lemons 
They have a beautiful collection of “50 Thanksgiving Side Dishes”.

Squash & Sweets Share

Golden asparagus ferns at dusk.

Squash & Sweets Share

– November 2 / 3, 2023 (Thurs/Friday sites)
– These pre-ordered boxes will be available during the usual hours for each CSA sites.
– If you chose a new site for this week, please make sure you have updated site info from me.  If you don’t have that info, just ask me.

Veggie List & Veggie Notes

Sweet potatoes, about 10 lbs
Winter squash, about 16 lbs.
The sweet potatoes are washed but the winter squash is only brushed and has some soil.  Thanks for washing your squash this year!

Sweet potatoes (about 10 lb) – These are either Beauregard or Orleans variety, which are virtually indistinguishable.  
Storage:  Store covered at room temperature.  60 F is ideal.  I store mine in a paper bag or cardboard box to slow moisture loss a bit.  Sunlight does not harm them.

Winter squash (about 16 lb total) – We packed two Autumn Frost and the balance is butternuts.
Storage: All should be stored uncovered at room temperature.  60 F is ideal.  Your kitchen counter or shelves are perfect.  Keep an eye on the squash.  If you see a flaw developing, cook that squash first.
Safety tip:  Microwave your squash for one to two minutes before cutting or peeling.  This softens the squash and makes it easier and safer to cut.

‘Autumn Frost’ squash – This beautiful frosted squash has both pumpkin and butternut squash breeding.  They cook and taste like an unusually good butternut, with rich, smooth texture.  This is a fairly new variety.  The breeders really knocked it out of the park with this one.  The skin is edible.  
Butternut squash – The workhorse of squash!  We are sending the flavorful ‘Metro’ variety, good for roasting or soups or casseroles or baked goods.