June 5, 2013             Common Thread CSA
Swiss chard spicy greens rainbow
Dear Common Thread CSA Members,

The harvests for the first week are going well!  You can find out what the vegetables for the week are by going to our "What's In" page on our website and checking out the PYO page on our website.  We just have chives for pick your own right now, but within a few weeks, the peas and other herbs should start coming in, then in a few more weeks, flowers, beans and more.  

June is the month for the quick growing greens and roots!  It's a great time for salads and sauteed greens.  A lot of the greens that we have can be used interchangeably in recipes that call for cooked greens, such as casseroles, soups, quiches, and frittatas.

Bok Choi is a very mild and versatile green.  It can be eaten raw in salad or cooked.  This is one of our favorite recipes:

Beef and Bok Choi (and Broccoli if available)
Uniformly slice a mix of carrots, broccoli and bok choi (separating the leaves from the stems).
In a large heavy pan, saute some garlic and ginger in olive oil.
Add stew beef (which is easy to find locally raised and grass fed) sliced thin and brown, then remove from the pan.
Add a little more oil (toasted sesame oil is nice at this point), and saute vegetables starting with the carrots, adding the broccoli and bok choi stems aiming to have all the vegetables cooked al dente at the same time.
When the vegetables are cooked, add the beef back.
Add soy sauce, honey, and apple cider vinegar to taste and simmer for a few minutes
Add 2 Tbs of corn starch dissolved in a half cup of water, and the bok choi leaves.
Put the lid on and turn down the heat until the leaves are cooked and the corn starch has thickened the base.
Serve over rice

Escarole is a mildly bitter cooking green used traditionally in Italian cooking.  It looks somewhat like lettuce but has tougher leaves and a spikier look.  We often saute it with garlic and olive oil. Cooking it with white beans is another popular way to prepare it, such as Escarole with White Beans 

We'll be sending out some volunteer times over the general list soon for those of you who'd like to join in the farm work sometime.  

Also, we welcome your recipes to pass on to the rest of the CSA.

Enjoy your veggies this week,
Wendy and Asher









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