Sweet sights in Boise

Saw this Mercedes Benz van also, had an encounter with a fox who had just eaten three city chickens. We saw him up close and personal. Just waiting around to get shot, uhhh, I mean caught.

Trial run of the Blogger App

So, Kellan and I have been off farm for two and one half months now. We have done a few things, seen a few places, and worked on the car a couple times. It is our intention to back track and share our pictures and stories with anyone who might be interested.

Unfortunately, now is not the time. Sitting in a Library! (library has an exclamation point in Boise) on an IPhone would not do our tale justice.
So, standby for a more complete recount of our travels complete with Irish saints in National Parks, Zen and the Art of Benz Repair, terrarium building for a luxury inn, and a synopsis of some great farms we have visited.

Be well.

Wil and Kellan.

June, a whole new world.

Ahh, the smell of summer: Basil

Cabbages

New potatoes, you never knew a potato could be this good.

Yellow crookneck, a beauty of a squash.

Green sungolds, they won't be green for long.

This week's bag sunning itself on a "hillbilly lawn chair." (an upturned wheelbarrow)


It includes:
Radishes
Green Garlic
Arugula
Pac-Choi
Tokyo Turnips
Head Lettuce
Spinach
Salud (not pictured.)

Mean Spring Greens, to keep us healthy and clean. Be well. 

If I Got a Bag of Veggies from Me, This is What I Would Do:

SALUD: Rinse it and shake off extra water or put it through a salad spinner. Then make your own dressing! In a small jar or bowl pour a few tablespoons of vinegar and add a little bit of mustard. Mix together with a fork and add some salt. Then, in a slow and steady stream, pour olive oil out of the bottle, mixing all the while with the fork so that it is getting incorporated into the vinegar as you go. Stop and taste. Add more olive oil or don't. Add your favorite salad toppings to the salud too: radishes, grated carrot, toasted sunflower seeds, etc.

STIR-FRY Mix: Wash and saute in oil of your choosing with garlic, fresh ginger, onion, and any other dried spices, any mushrooms or other veggies, tofu or meat, and serve with rice or other whole grain. You could also add it to hot miso soup.

SPRING ONIONS: Use as you would storage onions or scallions (green onions), or both! We substitute them for leeks too. I've been wanting to make this very simple lentil recipe (which I've made several times before—sooo goood!) with these onions, but haven't gotten around to it: http://bedouina.typepad.com/doves_eye/2004/04/mjaddarah_lenti.html

I sliced the greens up fine and added them to deviled eggs yesterday.

SPINACH: Wash for sure because dirt really sticks to these low growing plants! I had the good fortune of Wil making creamed spinach for my birthday...I highly recommend it! We've also been wanting to make an East Indian recipe called Saag Paneer: http://www.mykitchentable.co.uk/index.php/2010/12/madhur-jaffreyspinach-with-paneer-saag-paneer/.

KALE: I know Jennie makes kale chips! Do you want to send us the recipe? We could post it to the blog or send it out so everyone could have it.

I make kale salad: press or finely chop garlic into the bottom of a bowl, generously pour olive oil over it and mix it together so that it coats the sides of the bowl. Throw washed and chopped kale into the bowl and mix thoroughly. Squeeze a lime, or drizzle apple cider vinegar over the top and mix again. The acid in the lime or ACV serves to cook the kale, making it softer and really flavorful. Add any favorite salad toppings. You could make this type of salad with any of your fresh greens.

CHARD: I like chard wilted with butter and salt and an egg. It has oxalic acid in it and is very similar to spinach.

TOKYO TURNIPS: These little show stoppers are excellent raw. The greens are great in any of the above mentioned ways too.

HEAD LETTUCE: Put it on a sandwich. I really don't eat very much lettuce so I hope ya'll already have some ideas.

MIXED BABY UMBELLIFERA:

“The Apiaceae (or Umbelliferae), commonly known as carrot or parsley family, is a group of mostly aromatic plants with hollow stems. The family is large, with more than 3,700 species spread across 434 genera, it is the sixteenth largest family of flowering plants.[1] Included in this family are the well known plants: angelica, anise, arracacha, asafoetida, caraway, carrot, celery, centella asiatica, chervil, cicely, coriander/cilantro, cumin, dill, fennel, hemlock, lovage, Queen Anne's Lace, parsley, parsnip, sea holly, and the now extinct silphium.” --from Wikipedia

Your bunch contains parsley, bulb fennel, dill, cilantro, and baby carrots. This is a new thing for us (specifically the fennel, which is quite succulent and tastes like anise—delicious!) What I would do with it is 1) roughly chop it and top your salud with it, or 2) finely mince it and add it to yogurt along with some mined garlic and salt to make a sort of tzatziki or raita yogurt sauce, or 3) medium chop it, and add it to a grain salad, like cooked quinoa or rice along with a dressing and maybe some raisins and toasted sesame seeds.

RADISHES: Try them on a slice of good bread with butter and salt. That's my personal heaven! (Aside from pumpkin pie.) Also good in salads or even cooked.

Tuesday May 1st Veggie Bag, In it's Natural habitat

Sneak peek of what to expect on Tuesday:

Romaine

Stir-Fry Mix

Young parsley, will be accompanied by young fennel, and baby carrots

Swiss Chard (un-photogenic Swiss Chard, it seems)

Photogenic spinach

One of those baby carrots I mentioned earlier

Kale

Spring Onions

Radishes

Salud, our specialty salad mix: many different types of lettuce, 3 types of kale, beet greens, baby swiss chard, buckwheat shoots, sunflower shoots, and pea shoots.... and others..

More Salud fixins'

Made by the most wonderfullest elves I know

 

 

 

 Now, of course, this is all subject to change. Given the many things that could happen between now and Tuesday, it is tenuous to make projects as to what one will harvest. Barring unforeseen occurrences those of you receiving produce from us will receive something very close to these items. In a tote resembling this one: Can not wait to see everybody!!

Spring: A Visual Taste of What is to Come.

Compost piles sharing heat.

 Summer Squash, Tomato starts, and tomatoes in the new greenhouse..

 Enos, the artichoke.

 Potatoes! They were all hilled this morning and are looking lovely.

 Spinach with garlic and callendulas in the background.

 Some carrots intersown with rutabaga, direct seeded kale for the mix, garlic in the background.

 Kellan's flock o' chickens.

 Radishes on a spring morning.

The hoop house is full to bursting. The summer squash was transplanted today. Another succession will take its place along with winter squash, eggplant, and much more.