A Holiday All Of Our Own: The First CSA Box of the Year

Mother's Day and Our First CSA Box of the Year: Two Holidays in One Weekend! Getting our first Harmony Valley Farm CSA vegetable box of the year has become our own little food festival! The anticipation of spring ramps, sweet asparagus, lemony sorrel, and tangy rhubarb begins mid-February, so by the time the first spring box arrives, we've usually idealized, planned, and discussed our intentions for the CSA season to exhaustion!

This year our CSA box goals include:

• creating a menu for the week immediately after picking up the box, and then, subsequently, freezing or preserving all the produce we will not use during the week
• making a "dump" dinner on Thursday or Friday evening in which we use all little leftovers in one dish; this week, on Thursday, we plan to make a stir-fry using all the little bits of asparagus, ramps, and other vegetables we have left
• making a "lunch of the week" on Sundays, even during our summer vacation, to stay healthy and to make the best use of our CSA box.

This week, we received:
asparagus
sorrel
ramps (yum!)
spinach
parsnips
Hon Tsai Tai
saute mix (really missed this!)
sunchokes
French Breakfast Radish
Rhubarb
Dogwood

Right after we picked up our box, we went to the Willy Street Co-op for their Brats in the Lot event, sat down with that and a coffee, and made the following menu:

Saturday night: Salad made of spinach, ramps, asparagus, sorrel, radishes, chives, and a homemade lemon vinaigrette (Andy's parents brought the main course!)
Sunday: Grilled trout and sauteed hon tsai tai
Monday: Veggie burgers and grilled sunchokes
Tuesday: Parsnip Patties (found in the From Asparagus to Zucchini Cookbook (aka the A to Z Cookbook) and saute mix
Wednesday: OUT
Thursday: Stir Fry (dump dinner)
Friday:  WE'LL SEE!

Lunches: leftover squash soup (squash from our freezer)
Breakfasts: oatmeal and raisins (obviously not from our CSA box!)
Other: Rhubarbade (from A to Z cookbook)

As a CSA member and as a gardener, the A to Z cookbook is essential; it has become the cooking Bible to use. What cookbooks really assist you in using up your produce? And, those of you who have CSA boxes, what's your favorite spring goodie?

Peep, Peep: Our First Chickens

Monday night marked the first night that we officially went to bed as chicken parents. Yes, we are effectively calling ourselves "chicken parents." I never would have thought that I could hold so much affection for poultry, but it's hard to be rational with such sweet little beady eyes and such endearing cocks of the head looking up at you. We are smitten for these guys...or girls?

To be honest, we know nothing about raising chickens. Last Friday, Andy's colleague, Teresa, told him that she had a chick whose little "buddies" were pecking at its feet - pretty much all-out bullying him/her. One of its toes was pecked off, and it seemed a dire situation for this particular fella (or lady?).  Andy agreed that on Monday, he'd take the chick along with a friend. All weekend long, we waited in anticipation, and finally Monday, we met our feathery friends.

When I returned home from work, Andy was admiring the elaborate cage he had set up with chicken wire, roosting branches, and lots of space. He placed a thermometer on the cage to monitor the heat and a red lamp over the cage to ensure the chickens' warmth. The chickens frolicked around, peeping excitedly as they tripped over their water dish and pooped in their food.

I couldn't resist! I  had to take them out. They responded pretty well ~ they continued to peep and were very tolerant of being man-handled. After we put them back in their cage, the trouble began. Our little white-headed fella/lady started burying him/herself in his/her pine shavings. He/she looked very cold. The thermometer read 85 degrees, the perfect temperature for 3-week old chicks. We madly searched the Internet for answers! What was wrong with our feathery furrballs?  Several diagrams that came up on the Internet revealed that the chickens might be feeling cold due to a draft (the cage we were  using was made of wire), so Andy dismantled his cage invention, and we put the chicks in our yogurt fish aquarium to guarantee they'd stay warm enough.  We went to bed unsure that we'd be able to sleep, worried that our new babies wouldn't make it through the night (Can you imagine if we had human children? We'd for surely be insomniacs!).

Well, they did live through the night, and no - we still don't know if we have two roosters, two hens, or one of each. Either way, I'm pretty sure we'll be keeping them both. Over the last four days, we've spent sunny evenings with them outdoors (they're amazingly talented at located almost invisible worms!) and rainy nights with them indoors. They are quite amusing. Even our cats think so: the chicks put the fear of God into Carmen (she runs away and hisses at the sound of one their peeps); they are a curiosity to Benson; and, of course, they look like dinner to Tucker.None of us can even remember what life was like before chickens.

Fruit Tree Planting

We've enjoyed the early spring by cleaning up a neglected part of our yard. Overgrown long before we moved in, about a 1/4 of our yard is now ready to become a mini-orchard. Several mulberry trees are scattered throughout this space, and today, we added two pear trees and two apple trees.

Our fruit-tree-planting experience was next to zilch, so throughout this process we've learned quite a bit. One important piece of information which we acquired was that both pear and apple trees need cross pollination to produce fruit.  Put simply, an apple tree variety needs a partner of a different variety in order to cross-pollinate. For example, we bought a Honeycrisp apple tree; in order for this tree to thrive and produce fruit, it needs another  apple tree variety, so we also bought a Wolf River apple tree. As for the pears, we purchased and planted a Karl's Favorite pear tree and a Ubileen pear tree. Insects and bees will accomplish the cross pollination if the trees are planted close enough to each other. We planted both our pair of apple trees and our pair of pear trees 15 feet apart from one another.

We bought our trees in bareroot form, meaning that the roots are exposed and not bound in soil. We arrived home from Jung's Garden Store with a plastic bag of these four trees, and then decided we had better figure out how to plant them.

So, how does one plant a fruit tree? We did some reading and research, which gave us a wealth of information. The following lists some of what we found out and the steps we took in order to give our new trees a strong start to life and a future of fruit-bearing! 
1. Bareroots  need to soak in a root stimulator in water for 12-24 hours. We just soaked ours overnight.

2. Fruit trees like a well-drained, sandy soil. To assist in water drainage, we added a layer of pea gravel before placing each tree in the ground. Our soil is very thick and clay-like, so we added peat and sand to the existing soil and covered the tree roots with that mixture.

3. After planting the tree, it needs immediate water (around 3 gallons). Ours received 2 gallons each immediately following planting. We are to receive rain all week, so our trees will be getting plenty! 

4. Young trees need to be staked to provide stability.

We also learned that young trees need to be pruned in order to prevent moisture stress, which is what happens when there are not enough roots to get sufficient water to the very tops of the trees. Learning this was a bit disappointing! The young trees look so robust and proud in the yard; I hate to see them losing height and branches, but what's needed is needed, I guess. The pruning will happen tomorrow as we got rained out today.

Honeycrisp Tree

Wolf River Tree

Karl's Favorite Pear Tree

Ubileen Pear Dwarf Tree

Seed Order

Every year, by January, the Seed Saver catalog arrives. Both of us become starry-eyed with visions of tomato plants, melon patches, and fresh herbs. We pour over the catalog over and over, until the pages become worn and crinkled. Then, February arrives and we finally get to officially make the real order. This year, we plan on adding a few raised gardens, including one solely for tea herbs. Given that we knew our garden space would increase, it was hard to limit our order (and our idealistic and unrealistic visions of a perfectly huge garden), but we eventually managed. Below is what we ordered. We will use these in conjunction with seeds that we  had left over from last year and a few fresh herb plants from West Star Farms.

Calypso Beans
Hidatsa Shield Beans
Speckled Cranberry Beans
Detroit Dark Red Beets
Aunt Molly's Ground Cherries
Scarlet Nantes Carrots
Golden Bantam Corn
Tom Thumb Popcorn Corn
Stowell's Evergreen Corn
Parade Cucumber
Early Fortune Cucumber
Lacinato Kale
Charantais Melon
Eden's Gem Melon 
Noir des Carmes Melon 
Ailsa Craig Onion
Fish Pepper
King of the North Pepper
Gold Medal Tomato
Cherry Roma Tomato  
Sunberry
Bee Balm
Hyssop
Stevia
St. John's Wort
Chelsea Watermelon

And for potatoes...
All Blue Potato
French Fingerling Potato
Rose Finn Apple Potato

In just a few weeks, our house will turn into a blooming crowded "greenhouse." Florescent lights will be hanging from every free space of ceiling, tables and dressers will be full of trays of seeds, and chairs and other large objects will be set up around the trays to protect them from our kitty predators. And then, soon thereafter, gardening season will officially be here. 

Coleslaw with a Spicy Twist!

At this time of the year, it can be hard to create in-season, veggie-loaded dishes. It's always a pleasure to discover some new tantalizing recipe involving winter produce as the season ends and spring begins. Last night, wanting to make something with the cabbage I still had left over from my CSA box, I found a recipe for a red cabbage slaw in From Asparagus to Zucchini that kicks things up a few notches (to quote Emeril!). I modified the recipe a bit, and the slaw turned out wonderfully. Here's my version:

Red Cabbage Slaw
1 head red cabbage
1 pound carrots
1 bunch cilantro
1/3 cup lime juice
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2 Tbs. salt
1 Tbs. ancho chili powder
3/4 cup canola mayo (or to taste) ...not included in the original recipe, but added a nice creamy flavor

Quarter and core the red cabbage. Slice cabbage and carrots by hand or in a food processor. Chop cilantro. Toss all ingredients. Let stand one hour; rinse the slaw if so desired. Ours was really salty before the rinse, so we rinsed ours. Serve as a side dish or as a garnish (yummy with fish tacos!).

Wheat Berry Cereal: Affordable and Healthy!

A few weeks ago, when we made our Garlic and Kale soup, we discovered the wheat berry. Little did we know what a powerful little food we had found. Wheat berries are whole wheat kernels. When ground, flour is created, but as a whole grain, you can use wheat berries as a cold or hot cereal, in salads (as a base or as a garnish), and in soups. Because the grain is whole, and therefore, no nutrients have been stripped away, there are a  number of nutritional benefits. Wheat berries are rich in iron, protein, fiber, Vitamin E, and magnesium.

Additionally, wheat berries are so inexpensive! We buy them in bulk once a month and use them every other week for our daily breakfast.

Prepared Wheat Berries
1. Soak wheat berries 4-8 hours (or overnight) with a two-inch covering of water. We soak three cups on Saturday evening which lasts for an entire week's worth of breakfasts.
2.  Drain and rinse the wheat berries. Put into a pot and cover with fresh water, with about an inch covering.
3. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low. Finish cooking for 45-60 minutes until wheat berries are tender and a bit chewy.

Wheat Berry Breakfast
1/2 cup cooked cold wheat berries
1/2 cup kefir or yogurt
dash of cinnamon
1 tsp. brown sugar or maple syrup
(optional) 1 Tbs. flax-seed oil

Combine all ingredients. Add desired fruit. In the winter time, we like to add applesauce or strawberries from the freezer. In summer, well the possibilities are endless!

Nutritional Information is based on the recipe WITHOUT flax-seed oil.

Nutrition Facts homemade Wheat Berry Breakfast
Serving Size: 1 meal
Amount Per Serving
Calories	230
Total Fat	1.5g
Saturated Fat	0.8g
Trans Fat	0g
Cholesterol	5mg
Sodium	64mg
Carbohydrate	43.4g
Dietary Fiber	8.1g
Sugars	9g
Protein	13g
Vitamin A 5% Vitamin C 3% Calcium    19% Iron 11%

Homemade Veggie Burgers!

At this time of year, both of our jobs get insane. Lots of late night meetings. Lots of school club events. Right now, we're in the thick of the school year with no end in sight. There's no real time to cook, which makes us very happy that we have our own version of "fast food" ready to go in our freezer. Lately, we've been partaking in the veggie burgers we made and froze over Winter Break (we quadrupled our batch and are so thankful we did!). We found the recipe in Vegetarian Times several years ago. We love experimenting by adding the various types of cheese we receive through our CSA cheese share and by whipping up tantalizing sauces!

Chicago Diner Burgers
3 stalks celery, diced (about 1 1/4 cups)

1 small onion, diced (about 1 cup)

1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce

2 tsp. onion powder

2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
12 oz. mushrooms, finely chopped
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

Directions (makes eight burgers)
1.Bring 4 cups water, celery, onion, soy sauce, onion powder, garlic powder and pepper to a boil in pot over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and simmer 5 minutes. Stir in oats, mushrooms and flour, and cook 5 minutes more. Transfer to bowl, and chill.

2.Preheat oven to 350F. Coat baking sheet with cooking spray. Shape mixture into patties, and bake on prepared baking sheet 15 minutes. Flip, and bake 10 minutes more. Cool.

3.Heat grill to medium-high. Place foil on grill, and coat with cooking spray. Grill burgers on foil 7 minutes per side.
 
Per SERVING:  Calories 175; Protein 9g; Fat 2g; Saturated Fat 0g; Carbs 32g; Choelsterol 0mg; Sodium 289mg; Fiber 5g; Sugar 3g

In this picture, the burger is served with Otter Creek and Harmony Valley Farm's beet-garlic cheese and our own homemade red aoili sauce. To make our red aoili sauce, we simply blended some of the roasted red peppers from our freezer with Canola Mayonnaise. Yum!