Week 2 of the Main Season CSA

This Week’s Veggies:

Carrots                                                 Radish/turnip mixed bunch*

Beets                                                    Fava Bean greens*         

Frisée Endive                                     Baby Leeks*
Galactic Red Leaf Lettuce             Herb Choice*

Green Leaf Lettuce                         Mixed Bunch Choice*

Spinach                                                *”Large” share items; not included  in the “small” share.

Please Remember to Wash Your Vegetables Carefully and Thoroughly.

This Week’s Recipe:

Quinoa, Red Beet, and Cooked Greens Salad

with Baby Leek and Tarragon Pesto

Serves 2

1/2 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed and drained

1 cup diced red beet root

2 or more cups frisée, beet, or other greens, chopped

4 Tbsp (or more) Leek and Tarragon Pesto or your favorite Salad Dressing

1/2 cup pre-cooked chickpeas (or 1 can, drained)

olive oil for drizzling

salt and pepper

Bring 1 cup water and quinoa to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and simmer, covered, for 15-20 min. After the first 10 minutes, add in the diced beet root.  With about 5 min. of cooking time remaining, add in the greens, and replace lid.
Drain any remaining water from quinoa pot.  Add pre-cooked or canned chickpeas and pesto or your favorite dressing to the quinoa beets, and greens. Drizzle with olive oil, if desired, and season with salt and pepper.

Baby Leek and Tarragon Pesto:

3-5 baby leeks, washed and diced

1 bunch tarragon washed and diced

1 tsp garlic, minced

2 tsp lemon juice

1/4 cup roasted walnuts

1/4 cup olive oil (For a thinner pesto, simply add more olive oil.)

salt and pepper

You may simply chop or crush the walnuts and combine these ingredients for a coarser pesto, or you can combine them by pulsing in your food processor for a smoother version.  Add the olive oil last and stir or pulse until pesto becomes the desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper.
(adapted from:  http://cooktolove.com/2012/03/15/quinoa-red-beet-and-kale-salad-with-chive-tarragon-pesto/)

News from the Farmers:

            The sunny couple of weeks made for great weeding weather (when it is warm and dry the weeds are easy to kill as they whither up as soon as their root is disturbed), and these couple of overcast days have enabled us to get a lot of transplanting done… the lettuces, melons, pumpkins, winter squashes, cucumbers, and zucchinis of the future are marching out across our fields, and everything looks lush and green in the rain.

            We hope you all enjoy the spinach this week.  What we harvested for you today was our earliest planting of Spinach out in the field, and it had a hard time going from the cool wet weather to the hot and dry, so we probably won’t get a second harvest from this bed as we had hoped to do...  The next spinach planting did not germinate as well (spinach is notorious for poor germination issues), but our third planting has come up thick and lush, so there is more Tyee spinach on the horizon for everyone.

            If the cool weather and drizzle continues, we’ll have time to plant out the last of our peppers and tomatoes into the greenhouses, too.  We are having a bit of a problem with aphids and other pests in there at the moment, but 9,000 hungry young lady bugs should be arriving to help us out on Thursday…