Share contents: 3 pounds sauce tomatoes, 1 celery, 1 bunch parsley, 1 bunch purple basil, 2 garlic bulbs, 1 pound yellow onions, 1 pound sweet “Jimmy Nardello” frying peppers, 1 pint cherry tomatoes, 1 pound okra.

The pasta sauce that we most love is made by dicing into as small as possible chunks equal parts celery, yellow onion, and carrot and letting all this stew together in a generous amount of olive oil in a covered pot for 30 minutes to an hour. In the meantime I peel the tomatoes and chop crudely. I add the tomatoes, chopped parsley, and several basil leaves to the pot when the celery onion carrot mixture is well caramelized. I also add salt and black pepper to taste as well as some crushed red hot pepper. I let all this cook on medium-low heat so it is bubbling a little but not boiling.

The peppers in your box this week are sweet though I know they look hot. We have encountered one plant that has more spice so out of an abundance of caution, de-seed them if you don’t like hot peppers. Our favorite way to eat these is cut into slices and slowly sauteed with yellow onions and salt. It’s great with eggs, on bread, as a little side, over pasta.

share contents: 1&1/2 pounds of Tanya’s pink beans, 1 pound cucumbers, 1 pint cherry tomatoes, 1 head garlic, 1 mix bunch of basil, 2 pounds Desiree potatoes, 1 bunch leeks, 2 small bulbs fennel.

Tanya’s pink beans are an awesome and unusual variety from Uprising Seed Co.. They are mostly stringless and have a great flavor. We love to blanch them and make bean, fresh fennel and cherry tomato salad with lots of fresh herbs and a vinaigrette dressing.

The basil bunch has a mix of Italian green and purple basils and Thai basil (has a reddish-purple tint on some leaves and stalks).

I’m thinking maybe cold potato leek soup is in order this week; maybe you will too…

We are blindingly busy at the farm which is to be expected in July. All the onions are out of the field and stacked in the barn awaiting space in our walk-in coolers. We are beginning the storage potato harvest today. It will be a relief to have them all put away to a walk-in cooler by end of next week. We have begun to plant fall crops. The tomatoes, peppers and eggplant are loving this heat and will be coming in strong for the next few weeks.

We hope summer is treating you well and that you’re enjoying the vegetables!

This week: 1 bunch rainbow carrots, 1&1/2 pounds snap beans, zucchinis, 1 cucumber, 2 heads of lettuce, 2 bulbs of fennel, 1 bunch of cylindra beets, 1 bunch of kale, 1 mix bunch of onions.

The cylindra beets are an heirloom variety that lends itself well to being pickled and is good for any other type of cooking too. Their texture is firm.

There are 2 heads of lettuce in your share; 1 is red bibb and the other looks more like frisee endive but is a lettuce. The cucumbers are just getting started so there is only 1 this week but more will be coming in future weeks. With the heat really turning on this week, I think the kale won’t last much longer so we hope you enjoy the last of it until fall. The onions this week are 1 each of red, yellow, and white. The white and yellow look pretty similar but the white are slightly more oblong and are a spanish sweet onion; great for salsa or taco topping.

This week: 1 head of cauliflower, 2 pounds of broccoli, 1 bunch of kale, 1/2 pound of mizuna, 1 bunch of garlic scapes, 1 bunch of baby carrots, 2 pounds of new potatoes.

The mizuna greens are a mild mustard and are good as a fresh salad green, lightly braised, or made into a pesto with the garlic scapes and served over boiled or roasted new potatoes.

The continued cool/ cold nights we’re having this spring are making for a beautiful crop of cauliflower and broccoli!

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

1 head of cauliflower (about 2 pounds), 1 onion, 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil, 4 tablespoons sour cream or plain yogurt, salt, white pepper, nutmeg.

cut off the stem and any leaves of the cauliflower, break into flowerets, wash in cold water

peel and slice the onion thin, then in a soup pot stew the onion and cauliflower pieces in the butter with a little water for 15 minutes, stiring occasionally, for 15 minutes; add water to cover and cook covered for 25 minutes more over medium heat

puree in a blender and reheat gently to just under boiling; add the sour ceam and season with salt and a pinch of nutmeg and white pepper

serve as a soup or as a gravy over steamed broccoli or new potatoes.

This Week: 1 bunch of kale, 1 pound of spinach, 1 bunch of beets, 2 heads of lettuce, 1 kohlrabi, 1 bunch of garlic scapes, 1 bunch of scallions.

We’ve been enjoying beet and kohlrabi slaw almost daily. Give it a try! Just shred the beets and julienne the kohlrabi and make a vinaigrette dressing. Add any kind of fresh herb you have sitting around.

Spinach Pie

You can make this with or without a crust. If you use crust, you can make a standard pie crust or crumble up all the stale leftover bits of tortilla chips in your pantry and spread them in the pie pan.

For the filling:

saute 1 pound of washed and chopped spinach in a skillet with an onion, add salt and pepper and oregano or basil

in a bowl, mix 1 pound of ricotta cheese, 3 beaten eggs, 1/2 cup of shredded sharp cheese and a pinch of nutmeg

add the cooked spinach to the cheese mixture, stir to combine and spread into the pie pan; sprinkle with paprika or crushed red pepper

bake at 375 for 40-45 minutes

(this can be frozen while unbaked and then when you want to eat it, let it thaw and bake)