Week 13; beach it up and Food, Inc.

Yes!  This is a picture of the beach where we will be this Thursday!  We are very excited to be able to go away for the day, to take a dip in the ocean, to read a book on the sand (under shade of course) for a few hours, and to take a nice walk while getting our feet wet.  It has been fairly hot this past week; some days we leave the farm around lunchtime and take an inside break for a few hours until it cools off and then return to working in the field til' dusk.  We are probably more efficient that way as we slow down a little when it gets above 90.

Another very exciting thing for us this week is that we are going to see FOOD, INC. tonight at the Carolina Theatre in Durham.  Not only a mid-week outing, but an informative documetary covering the nature of our profession as well.  Awesome.  We encourage you all to see it as well and we have put a link to it in a blog post under this one if you're interested.  The more informed we all are, the better.
We'd love to hear how you all are feeling about the CSA at this point....we'll do a survey at the end, but are you feeling satisfied?  Too much of anything?  Not enough of some items? Let us know if you get a chance, we're always up for improvement and making our members' bellies happy and flowers enjoyed.  In your boxes this week:

half shares

Slicing tomatoes (heirlooms, big beef reds, pink girls)

pint of cherry tomatoes

lettuce mix

eggplant

2 green carmen peppers (these taste just like green bell peppers)

2 mole green peppers

pint of padron peppers

Full Shares

same as half with additional

slicing tomatoes

extra lettuce mix

extra mole peppers

RECIPES

So we were wondering what we be the best use for these beautiful mole peppers we're growing; they have a great taste....very thin and a great textured skin with just the faintest faintest hint of heat to them.  We had some cooked last night and we really like them.  We came up with the idea that they would be perfect for juevos rancheros.  Here is a great link to a recipe by Smitten Kitchen for juevos rancheros that of course looks delicious and has a couple items you can use from the CSA box.  Just substitute the mole peppers for the jalapeno.

Roasted Eggplant  We had some roasted eggplant last week and we really enjoyed it.  We just sliced up the eggplant into slivers or rounds, coated them with olive oil and salt, and baked them flat on a baking tray for 30 minutes on 400 degrees F.  

Another great recipe that a customer at market told me about was Sauteed Eggplant with Chives To cook, slice eggplant into thin rounds or slivers, heat a couple tablespoons of peanut oil over medium heat, and saute for 10-12 minutes.  Remove from heat and add a couple tablespoons of chopped up chives, some sea salt, and if you have it, some fish sauce for a more authentic asian flavor.  

Here is a nice and easy recipe from Martha Stewart for Tomato Salad with Olives and Lemon Zest.  I'm sure you could just as easily halve the cherry tomatoes and use them for this recipe with less of the other ingredients.  

Flower Shares

There are so many flowers blooming at Bluebird Meadows right now, I'm having trouble deciding what to make for you all.  There will most likely be some form of ornamental grass as we have some really beautiful jester grass (a cocoa/copper/green color) and some purple majesty millet (black with a millet plume) coming in right now.  I'll probably mix these grasses with either gladiolas or zinnias.  We hope you enjoy them, these grasses are one of my favorite.  

thanks everyone and have a great week!