TOMTEN FARM

Arugula or Salad Mix
Pickling or Suyo Long Cucumbers
Asian Long Beans or Eggplant
Verona or Heirloom Tomatoes
Crimson Spineless Okra
Danvers Carrots
Jalafuego Jalapeno
Red Creole Onions
German White Garlic

Long Bean, Cucumber, and Tomato Salad

Okura Okazu (Okra Side dish)

Sichuan Style Stir-Fried Chinese Long Beans

CURRIED OKRA AND EGGPLANT

Taqueria-Style Pickled Carrots

CARROT-GINGER DRESSING

Eggplant
Okra
Tomato
Basil
Potatoes
Copra Onion
Purslane or Arugula
Ali Baba or Crimson Sweet Watermelon

Danvers Carrots
All Purpose Tomatoes
Cantaloupe or Asian Melon
Aji Dulce, Thai Khmer, & Serrano Chiles
Anaheim Peppers or Eggplant
German White Garlic
Chinese Cutting Celery
Thai Basil
Shiso

This week’s share includes herbs and aromatics for making a myriad of dishes. Check out the recipes below for some ideas. The chiles will include Aji Dulce (look like a habanero, they are a seasoning chile with almost no heat at all), serrano (green, best used fresh, with a med-hot heat), and khmer thai (our hottest chile, can be green or red these chiles are small with pointed ends, they are great pickled, used in stir fry, dried, or eaten fresh). The chinese cutting celery has very thin stalks, it is stronger in flavor than traditional celery, and is often used for flavoring dishes. Please read about it here. Enjoy the share….Autumn and Brian

Cantaloupe Salad with Thai Basil and Chile

Yam Khai Dao (Fried egg salad) Pok Pok by Andy Ricker
Must find some cilantro and lettuce for this recipe but it is soooo delicious, a must try!

Thai basil chicken recipe (pad kra pao gai )

Szechuan Spicy Eggplant and Carrots

Tomato Onion and Green Pepper Salad with Shiso

Refreshing Chilled Carrot Ginger Soup

Vietnamese Salad Rolls (Gỏi cuốn)
When we make these we let everyone prepare their own, as it makes for a really fun meal activity. As the recipe states, you can substitute various herbs’ we particularly like thai basil, shiso, and mint together. We always add julienned slivers of scallions and sometimes substitute shredded pork or shrimp for tofu. For dipping sauces we use a traditional Nuoc Cham and peanut sauce (recipes below).

Nuoc Cham –Hot Sour Salty Sweet by Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid
1/4cup fresh lime juice
¼ cup fish sauce
¼ cup water
2 tsp rice or cider vinegar
1 Tbls sugar
1 small clove garlic, minced
1 bird chile, minces
several shreds of carrot (optional)
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir to dissolve the sugar completely. Serve in small condiment bowls. Store in a tightly sealed glass container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days (after that, the garlic starts to taste tired).

Vietnamese Peanut Sauce –Hot Sour Salty Sweet by Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid
¼ cup dry roasted peanuts
2 scant Tbls tamarind pulp, dissolved in 2 Tbls warm water or substitute 2 Tbls tomato paste
2 tsp peanut oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbls fermented soybean paste (tuong in Vietnamese; dao jiao in Thai)
1 cup water
1 ½ tsp sugar
1-2 bird chiles, minced
Generous squeeze of fresh lime juice
Place the peanuts in a food processor or large mortar and process or pound to a coarse powder; set aside. If using tamarind, press it through a sieve; reserve the liquid and discard the solids. Heat the oil in a wok or skillet over high heat. Add the garlic and stir-fry until it is starting to change color, about 15 seconds. Add the soybean paste and the tamarind or tomato paste and stir to blend. Stir in ½ cup water, then stir in most of the ground peanuts, reserving about 1 Tbls for the garnish. Stir in the sugar and chiles. Add up to ½ cup more water, until you have the desired texture: a thick liquid, pourable but not watery. Serve in small condiment bowls, warm or at room temperature, squeezing on the lime and sprinkling on the reserved peanuts just before serving. The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for 3 days or in the freezer for 1 month. Reheat it in a small pan and simmer briefly before serving.

Shiso Granita – Japanese Farm Food by Nancy Singleton Hachisu
15 green shiso leaves
¼ cup granulated sugar
Place the shiso leaves in a medium-sized bowl or 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup. Heat the sugar and 3 cups water to boiling in a medium saucepan, stirring the sugar to dissolve. Pour the boiling sugar water over the leaves and steep until cool. Set a strainer over a plastic container large enough to hold 3 cups and strain out the leaves. Cover and transfer the shiso-flavored sugar water to a freezer shelf. Let sit, undisturbed, in the freezer for 1 hour. Remove to the countertop, open the lid, and gently stir in the crystals that have formed on the perimeter. Repeat this operation every 30 minutes, breaking up any larger crystals as you go. The finished granita should be flaky. Serve alone in a glass bowl or goblet. This is also wonderful served alongside Fig Ice Cream and Plum Sorbet. Keeps frozen for several weeks.

Swiss Chard
Crimson Sweet Watermelon
Peppers: Poblano or Padron
Black Eyed Peas or Borlotti Beans
Eggplant: Rosa Bianca, Prosperosa, or Dancer
Onion: Borretana Cippolini or Candy Sweet
Tomatoes: Red Pear, San Marzano, & Celebrity

Finally after a month with practically no rain, we have gotten poured on quite a bit this past week. Things look fairly wet around the farm and many plants look more hydrated although with these warm, humid conditions it is a perfect climate for disease to crop up. Our earliest successions of tomatoes are dying along with squash, cucumbers, and early beans. As we wait for our latter successions of these crops to begin producing we will have a short window without them. Our okra and eggplant crops are thriving and ramping up to full production, although we are still a few weeks away.

This coming week marks the beginning of our fall plantings; which dominates our time over the first three weeks of August. We look for windows of cooler weather to seed beet, carrot, turnip, salad, cilantro, and broocoli raab crops. We have a tremendous amount of transplanting to fit into our Wednesday and Thursday project days. All of our lettuce head, chicory, fennel, scallions, and brassica family (cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, bunching greens, bok choy, etc.) crops get planted during these three weeks. So we keep our fingers crossed that the weather will be agreeable. Every week that we postpone planting means 2-3 weeks postponed in harvesting, because day lengths over the next two months begin to shorten considerably and this directly affects harvest dates. We are now in a small holding pattern for the soil to dry up enough to get our beds shaped and transplanted this week. Wednesday may turn out to be a 14 -15hour workday, going into the night hours. Each year we have expanded the amount of fall and winter crops that we grow, as we have found that our winter crops are very successful. This actually means a lot more workload in August and September. We are excited that this year we have not only our full time intern Ellen helping out, but we also have two other people working on Wednesdays and Thursdays to offset a bit of the work load.

In this weeks share you will receive either black-eyed peas or borlotto beans. These plantings are small trials and so the CSA gets small amounts, which are shelled easily and quickly. These beans should not need much preparation and will be delicious cooked with other veggies or in a rice or pasta dish. As we learn more about these crops and techniques for larger yields in small intensive plantings, we hope in coming years to get larger amounts to CSA members. For now though you get a smattering to accompany a dish. This is the beginning of the eggplant and peppers are slowly beginning to produce. This rain has helped both plantings considerably, as we literally could not get them enough water over the past 6 weeks to adequately hydrate them. Now we are seeing more flowering and healthier vegetation. Check out some of the recipes below and enjoy the share…..Brian and Autumn

Green Romesco (Use either Padron or Poblano peppers only in this recipe, delicious)

Couscous With Black-Eyed Peas and Greens

Borlotti Beans in Tomato Sauce with Creamy Polenta

BEANS WITH AUBERGINE AND PARMESAN CRUST

Incredible Sicilian aubergine stew (Caponata)

Tomato and Watermelon Salad

Sugar Baby Watermelon
Lettuce or Arugula
Cutting Celery
Flat Leaf Parsley
German White Garlic
Red Creole Onions
Romano Beans, Anaheim, or Padron Peppers
Mix of Slicer, Sauce, and Cherry Tomatoes

Purslane
Cucumbers
Beets
Dill
Basil
Garlic
Candy Onions
Sangre or Red Gold Potatoes
Red Pear & San Marzano Sauce Tomatoes

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind and today is the first day “off” we have taken in a long time. Last weekend we had a wonderful dinner at Sub Rosa Bakery benefitting Birdhouse Farmers Market. We collaborated with Evrim and Evin from Sub Rosa along with Paul Winston of Dutch & Company in designing the menu and creating the vegetable heavy all local feast. It was a very satisfying and fun meal to make. Some of the highlights include working with a wood-fired oven as our main cooking source, working with food all coming from Birdhouse Market vendors, having a great group of market volunteers for the service, excellent alcohol pairings coming from Native Selections, Potters Cider, J EmersonWines, Ardent Craft Brewery, and Lamplighter Coffee and a adventurous group of diners willing to be over fed. Spending time experimenting with dishes is something of a rarity for us in mid-Summer; so although exhausting this dinner was a great reminder of why we grow food: so people can cook amazing meals and eat deliciousness.

On the farm we are consumed with harvesting and managing our Summer crops. Mainly we are hoping for rain. In our immediate vicinity we have been without rain for a few weeks, 15 miles in every direction has been hit with many of the storms over the past few weeks, but not us. We are also feeling the effects of the May monsoon; that delayed a lot of our nightshade plantings by 2-3 weeks. Now 2 months later we are noticing a slow start to our peppers, eggplants, and 2^nd and 3^rd succession tomatoes. Although we are harvesting some, they are increasing production very slowly. In May the plants were held in pots longer than needed, so their roots stagnated in growth and they often take time to bounce back. In addition we have had limited rain and really hot conditions. Most heat loving plants prefer 85 degrees and good amounts of water. All this means that the CSA will see slow starts to some of these Summer crops. On a good note though our early and sauce style tomatoes are in full swing, our onion and garlic crops survived and are curing nicely, and we have had a bumper cucumber crop over the past few weeks. This week we are giving you wild purslane, the stuff that grows in many areas on our farm and amongst our crops. This green is widely used throughout the Middle East. The leaves and tender stems (not main stem parts) can be eaten simply dressed with salt, lemon, and olive oil or used in a multitude of ways. Check out this article with many recipes 45 Things To Do With Purslane or check out the recipes we have highlighted below. Enjoy the share……Brian and Autumn

Purslane and beet salad

Cucumber, Onion And Purslane Salad

Salade Khorfeh – Shirazi Style Purslane Salad

Creamy Cucumber and Grilled Potato Salad

Tiella di patate, cipolle e pomodori (Potato, Onion and Tomato Casserole) 

Pasta Pomodoro

Sungold Cherry or Early Tomatoes
Fresh Cippolini Onions
Zephyr Squash or Cousa Zucchini
Mesclun Salad Mix
Swiss Chard
Escarole
Parsley

Happy Fourth of July to you all. Summer seems to officially be here and this coming week’s heat and dry conditions are proof. So we are seeing the last of some of our Spring greens in the share such as escarole and salad mix. Over the next few months we will occasionally have some lettuce heads or arugula; but it’s always hit or miss with our Summer plantings and never any guarantees. Tomatoes have finally really begun to ripen. We currently have three successions of plants loaded with leaf foliage and fruit; but the ripening has been painfully slow. Summer squash has been enjoying these conditions and producing very well. Even our peppers and eggplants are beginning to really put on foliage and size. Over the next month we will begin to harvest from some varieties. Our first beans are flowering and putting on small beans, so we are a few weeks out from beginning to harvest them, with 3 different successions going. Our early corn, Cateto (flint style for polenta), is also putting on heads and looks like it might be ready by early September this year. With all of these crops it is just a matter of keeping weeds at bay and getting them sufficient amounts of water to produce well. Being that it is looking like a hot and dry July, keeping things properly irrigated will be one of our biggest challenges. More about our irrigiation plight in future weeks. We have included some inventive ideas for both the swiss chard and escarole, if you are over sautéing them as a side or using in a salad. Check out the recipes below and enjoy your share…….Autumn and Brian

Escarole Tart

Whole-Wheat Spaghetti with Gorgonzola and Escarole

Pasta With Corn, Zucchini And Tomatoes

Eggs Nested in Sautéed Chard and Mushrooms

Swiss Chard Pancakes

Roasted Zucchini and Cippolini Onion with Hazelnut Romesco Sauce

Tendersweet Cabbage
Red Gold New Potatoes
Marketmore Cucumbers
Early Tomatoes
Danvers Carrots
Little Gem Lettuce
Fresh Garlic
Dill & Mint

Roasted Calamari with Garlic, New Potatoes, and Chickpeas

Our 10 best new potato recipes

Chickpeas with Tomatoes and Carrots

Anchovy, Little Gem, and Tomato Salad

Flatbreads with Cucumber Raita

Cowtown Coleslaw – adapted from A Cowboy in the Kitchen by Grady Spears & Robb Walsh
serves 4 – This peppery slaw is colorful and has a zing to it.
4 cups julienned Green Cabbage (can mix in about ¼ red cabbage too)
1 large or 2 small carrots, peeled and julienned
3 jalapenos peppers, stemmed, seeded, and julienned
1 Tbls fresh chopped dill
3/4 cups mayonnaise (preferably Dukes)
1/3 cup malt vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbls freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice
kosher salt to taste
freshly ground pepper to taste
Place all of the vegetables in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar, and lime juice. Pour the dressing over the vegetables, season with salt and pepper, and toss to combine. Set aside in the refrigerator until serving time. Its best made and served on the same day.

Salata Arabieh (Arab Salad) – The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden
Serves 4 – In this most common of Arab salads, all the ingredients are cut very small. Do not prepare it too long before serving, and dress it just before serving.
1 small head romaine lettuce
1 small red Italian or mild white onion or 5 scallions
1 small-med cucumber
2 tomatoes
4 radishes, thinly sliced
2 Tbls chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 tsp chopped fresh dill or chervil
1 Tbls chopped fresh mint
3 Tbls extra-virgin olive oil
Juice of 1/3 lemon
salt and pepper
1 small clove garlic, crushed
Shred the lettuce, chop the onions finely, and cut the vegetables into tiny dice, using a sharp knife. Put them in a bowl with the radishes and herbs. Make a dressing with oil and lemon juice, slat and pepper, and garlic if you like. Pour over the salad and mix well.

Basil
Parsley
Arugula
Fennel
Candy Onions
Frisee or Escarole
Chioggia or Red Ace Beets
Russian Kale or Spigariello
Zephyr Summer Squash

We were lucky this past week in that the devastating storm missed us by about 20 miles, so although we experienced some wind and rain it was nothing to speak of and all is well on the farm. We got a nice amount of rain, but we still need to irrigate in order to catch up for dry conditions over the past few weeks. The weed pressure has definitely set in and it is a bit intimidating; but we pick and choose what is top priority and get down to hand-weeding, cultivating, hoeing, whatever we have time for. June is a time when we are harvesting a tremendous variety of crops, some semi-weekly and others in one or two big harvests such as onions, garlic, and potatoes. Plus we are always catching up with planting multiple successions of nightshades, cucurbits, beans, and quick green crops. After all this is done, we feel a bit limited in time; but this is the most important time for managing the Summer crops, meaning not just the weeding; but also debugging, feeding the crops through foliar feeds or injections into their irrigation, and sometime mulching, shading, etc. This year has been more “caught up” than in past years; mostly due to the fact that we have more help, in addition to our full time intern Ellen, we also have some returning part-time help and having more hands makes this all possible. Even so each week seems hectic and the list is too long, but it is June and this week is the solstice, so we are officially in the summertime.

So although this week marks the beginning of Summer, the early Summer crops seem to be happening so slowly this year. Part of this is due to the 3 weeks in May that were temperate, grey, and wet. Not only did we get behind in planting our crops such as eggplant and peppers, the crops we had planted such as tomatoes and cucumbers grew loads of green leafy mass, but the fruit set and now ripening has been painfully slow. Although we are now harvesting cucumbers and tomatoes, they are small amounts, teasing us just a little bit. When they do actually become available it will be all at once, multiple successions and every farm in the area will be flush. It is coming any day now. Your share this week is full of aromatics: the basil, parsley, sweet onions, and fennel. All of these can and should be used to brighten up your dish or meal. There are also some bitter or strong greens included in this share. We encourage using them as a base for a heavier salad as a meal or thinking about grilling, sautéing, or using sparse amounts in a sandwich or such. For those of you unfamiliar with Spigariello, it is a cross between broccoli leaf and Tuscan kale; but like broccoli raab it can be used stems, leaf, and all. Unlike broccoli raab, it is not super bitter, but rather a bit nutty and earthy. It is great added into a pasta or egg dish. It can be blanched and then sautéed with garlic and onions in olive oil and served as a side. Get creative with the summer squash and zucchini as now is the flush time with this crop. For us it is delicious fried, grilled, grated, roasted, sautéed, and especially with herbs and eggs. Enjoy the recipes and the share……Autumn and Brian

The sweet side of bitter greens

Grilled endive recipe works with any type (frisée, escarole, radicchio, chicory, witloof)

Grilled Zucchini with Buttermilk-Basil Dressing

CARAMELIZED FENNEL AND ARUGULA PIZZA WITH A SOURDOUGH CRUST

PASTA WITH FENNEL, KALE, AND LEMON

SHAVED ZUCCHINI SALAD WITH PARMESAN PINE NUTS

Napa Cabbage
Mustard Greens
Daikon Radish
Carrots
Scallions
Fresh Garlic
Lettuce (iceberg & red leaf)
Broccoli or Bok Choy
Shiso aka Perilla

The farm has been a flurry of activity. We processed chickens for a second time in a month last week. We are struggling to find enough cool daylight hours to get our planting all accomplished as well as our cool season crops harvested before they wilt from the sun. This time of year is when we are always in a time crunch, either from the weather, or just lack of enough time and manpower. We have gotten a lot in the ground though since the rain stopped at the end of May, most of our peppers and tomatoes, all our eggplant, corn, okra, and watermelons, and early successions of beans and cucumbers. Now its just making sure they are properly managed, i.e. weeded, irrigated, fed, etc. Soon we will be looking to harvest onions, garlic, and potatoes, all which take considerable time when they are ready. It is an exciting week though, we ate our first cucumber and some first tomatoes and before you know it we will be having those in our shares. For now though we are happy to offer cabbage, daikon, and some delicious carrots. This week’s share ingredients are perfect for making pickles, whether Korean Kimchi or Vietnamese Dua Chua. Kimchi is a fermented pickle, combining salt and chile powder on whatever vegetables you use, such as napa cabbage, mustard greens, daikon radish, carrots, and scallions. Dua Chua translates to “pickled stuff” and is a sweet and savory mixture of white vinegar and sugar over julienned carrot and daikon radish. This condiment or salad is most often found on Bahn Mi. In addition we have added a recipe for Perilla (Shiso) Kimchi, although you might need to make a much smaller amount than the recipe indicates, as we are giving you a very small amount of our wild shiso since it is still small. We love its unusual earthy, minty, flavor. It can be used alongside cilantro, mint, or basil to garnish many dishes or as a seasoning herb. If pickling is not your thing, you can make an Asian style slaw, stir fry, salad rolls, and soups. For some inspiration you can look back to recipes in the May 23^rd – 29^th share or check out the ones listed below. Enjoy the share……Brian and Autumn

Easy to make Kimchi

Perilla leaf kimchi

Carrot and Daikon Pickle Salad

Japanese-Style Daikon Radish Curry

Anything Goes Donabe

Asian Style Slaw