FENNEL

The fennel is starting to get big enough to harvest, so be looking for that in your boxes in the next few weeks! And I can already hear everyone saying "What is fennel?" Well here is some information out of my favorite book "From Asparagus to Zucchini" a guide to cooking farm-fresh seasonal produce!

Fennel has been utilized as a food, medicine, herb, and even insect repellent for centuries! In ancient Greece, fennel was used in celebrations of the gods and goddesses. It was planted in the temple gardens in their honor and worshippers wore crowns of the feathery leaves. In Greek mythology knowledge sometimes came to humans from Mt. Olympus in the form of a fiery coal contained in a fennel stalk. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans believed fennel an excellent aid for digestion, bronchial troubles, poor eyesight, and nervous conditions. Today, in India, fennel seed is used for seasoning as well as chewed after the meal as a breath freshener and digestive aid. Nutritionally, fennel is very low in calories, but offers significant vitamin A and calcium, potassium, and iron.

Fennel belongs to the Umbel family, it is related to carrots, celery, parsley, dill (which it resembles in looks), and anise (which it resembles in flavor).

Fennel thrives in warm, moist climates, hence its success in Mediterranean cuisine. In northern sates cultivating fennel is a tenuous thing. Seedlings are planted in the garden after danger of frost, and if all goes well, they're ready for harvest by midsummer and may continue to be available through early fall.

Cooking Tips: Wash fennel bulb, trimming off any damaged areas or woody parts of the stalk. Try crunching a fennel stem or a slice of the bulb to familiarize yourself with the flavor. You might find it grows on you quickly. Try substituting for celery in most any recipe. Fennel can be baked, steamed, or sauteed with excellent results. Try cutting fennel into quarter, drizzle with olive oil, and bake until tender, about 35 minutes. Try a saute of fennel, artichoke hearts, zucchini, tomatoes, sweet bell pepper, thyme, and a dash of salt and pepper. Steam fennel and chill it along with the other vegetables; dress with a spoonful of lemon juice, olive oil, chopped chives or green onion, and salt and pepper. Cut raw fennel into slices and use for dipping. To enjoy natural flavor, try dipping slices into a small bowl of extra-virgin olive oil seasoned with salt and pepper. Use feathery leaves as a fresh herb for seasoning. Try using it in place of dill. Fennel is excellent on baked or broiled fish with butter and lemon. Italians use fennel as part of an antipasto platter or for dessert along with a soft goat cheese. Add to soups, pureed or chopped. Slices can be sauteed first to lock in flavors.
Storage Tips: Store fennel in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. The delicate leaves will go limp. Wrap them in a moist towel and refrigerate.

For a couple of recipes go to my recipe page or click on "Fennel" and it will take you to a web page with more ideas and information!

CSA box day again today! Yeah! The full shares are getting eggs, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumber, zucchini, okra, blackberries and peaches. The half shares are getting eggs, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, okra and mini cabbage.

The blackberries are winding down, and the peach trees are dieing so the peaches are not going to amount to a hill of beans! Most of them have brown rot and have fallen off the trees! Too many wet Springs for too long a time. So the next fruit to look forward to will be apples. And I'm happy to say they are loaded!! You may have apples coming out of your ears!

The beans are looking good. Greg sprayed them again last night with his home made deer repellent. So keep your fingers crossed that the deer stay out and nothing else happens to them!

The okra is really putting out, so you are all going to get it again this week. So here are some Okra facts & tips. Okra is related to cotton. It is native to Africa & is popular in the South. Large tough okra pods can be dried and ground into a protein-rich flour. One pound serves 4 people. Okra seeds are pressed for edible oil in some parts of the world. They can also be roasted and ground for use as a coffee substitute. Okra is generally cooked for soups and stews. It has a mucilaginous, or thickening, property. It can be coated with cornmeal and deep-fat fried. Sliced raw okra adds attractive stars to salads. Okra is also processed for commercial uses such as vegetables soups and is sometimes used to thicken ketchup. Okra contains vitamins A, B-complex and C. It is a good source of calcium and contains phosphorus, potassium, and other trace minerals. The fat content is minimal. Fresh okra does not store well and should be used within 3-5 days. Keep pods wrapped in a plastic bag in your refrigerator. Blanch & freeze them for long-term storage. This information comes from "Whole Food Facts" The complete reference guide by Evelyn Roehl.

If you click on the highlighted okra word at the begining of this paragraph it will take you to a web site with more infromation about okra and recipes! Enjoy!

Wow, what is it with the rain?! At least it cools things down for a little bit, but then it gets hot and steamy and then it rains again! We've been working on insulating our box cooler. This is the box part of a truck that was wrecked and we got from a salvage yard. We cut a hole in it and put in a window air conditioner. We've had it for a couple of years, but never had got it insulated properly. So hopefully now it will be more efficient and won't have to work so hard to keep the temperature where we set it!

We have been getting some heirloom tomatoes out of our hoop house. We planted Cherokee Purples, Mr. Stripey, Wasipian Peach, Red Zebra, Kentucky Beefsteak, German Johnson and Paul Robeson's inside along with some regular hybrid reds. They are doing pretty good. The nice thing about being protected in the hoop house is all this rain is not causing them to split and get all the fungal diseases! The tomatoes are getting much bigger then they have when we grow them in the field. We had a 2lb. one the other day! Some of the vines are about 9 feet tall now! Will try to remember to take my camera out today when I pick and take pictures! The okra is really coming on, it likes this hot steamy weather, and the zucchini have gone to town! So nice after last years crop failure do to the deer! We are barely starting to get cuccumbers, but the deer have been munching on them. It's hard to keep the deer repelent spray on them with all this rain!

Another big thunderstorm last night! Now it needs to wait about 1 1/2 to 2 weeks, then rain again! The zucchini is going mad, which is so much fun, and the okra is picking up, too, the heirloom tomatoes in the hoop house are huge! So everyone today is going to get 1 huge tomatoes along with some littler ones! Today's CSA full share boxes are getting eggs, eggplant, zucchini, potatoes, peppers, onion, cabbage, blackberries, tomatoes and okra. The half shares are getting eggs, eggplant, zucchini, potatoes, peppers, cabbage, blackberries, cabbage and tomatoes. Since the eggplants are coming on and everyone will be getting some this week and for weeks to come here is some infromation on them! Check out the recipe page for some more eggplant ideas!

EGGPLANTS
Eggplant are related to potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. There are many different varieties, including varied shapes, sizes and colors. Eggplant varieties are interchangeable in recipes. Eggplant is believed to have originated in India or Burma. Introduced through trade routes, it became popular in many Arab countries & Northern Africa around 900 A.D. Eggplant appeared in Europe in the 15th century, but believed poisonous, it was cultivated only as an ornamental curiosity. Eggplant reached the U.S. during the 17th century. Eggplant is low in calories and high in fiber, and offers very small amounts of vitamins and minerals.

Cooking Tips:
Eggplant can be peeled, but peeling is not essential. It depends on personal preference and the intended dish.
To remove any acrid flavors and excess moisture, lightly salt slices of eggplant and allow them to sit in a colander for 10-15 minutes. Gently squeeze out any liquid. Eggplant will now soak up less oil & need less salt in preparation.
Eggplant is always cooked, eliminating a toxic substance called solanine.
Eggplant is surprisingly versatile! Here are some very basic ideas. Don't hesitate to elaborate: To bake: Prick eggplant all over with a fork & bake at 400 degrees until flesh is tender, about 30-40 minutes. Flesh can be pureed. To Stuff: Bake 20 minutes, scoop out seeds, replace with stuffing, and return to oven for 15 minutes. To saute: Try dipping slices or chunks in flour or eggs & bread crumbs before sauteing. Saute in hot oil until light brown. Season with herbs, garlic, grated cheese, etc. To Steam: Whole eggplant will steam over an inch of water in 15-30 minutes. Use the flesh for pulp or season with olive oil, lemon, salt, and pepper, or cover in a tomato sauce.
Blend cooked eggplant with lemon juice and seasonings of choice for a dip or spread.
Grill slices along with other vegetables, such as peppers, or skewer and grill along with other shish kabob ingredients.
Dip in a favorite batter and lightly fry in vegetable oil.
Storage Tips: Eggplant is best when it's fresh. Store unrefrigerated at a cool room temperature, or in hydrator drawer of the refrigerator for up to 1 week. For long-term storage, dishes like baba ghonouj and ratatouille freeze well in airtight containers.
The above information is from Asparagus to Zucchini a guide to cooking farm fresh seasonal produce.

Boy did we need the rain we got this past week! We picked our first tomatoes out of the hoop house this past week, and also picked our first zucchinis! We've dug all our candy onions, and are working on getting the potatoes dug. Today I'm stringing up tomatoes again. (The field ones). We had to get some 8' re-bar poles and stake the heirlooms in the hoop house as they are over 6' tall and still going! We are still picking blueberries, but they are slowing down. The green beans are looking very good, now to just keep the deer out of them! Greg has been working on getting two new fields started. He's plowed, disc, tilled and planted buckwheat in one and rye grass in the other for green manure crops. Hopefully we'll be able to use those next year and rotate the crops around a little better! Hopefully in a couple of weeks we'll be getting some cuccumbers, if we can keep that pesky deer out of them! He's been making a deer repelent spray of hot peppers and eggs to spray on things. But you have to mix it up a bit as the deer can get "immune" to the spray, so you have to keep finding something different to add to it. So he added mint to the mixture this week! Seems to work, but you have to keep spraying it as the rain washes it off.

Remember a while back when I said, "Rain, rain go away come again another day"? Well it's "another day" time!! We are dry, we've been running water pretty much 24/7! We laid drip tape down the rows of winter squash, pumpkins, gourds, cucumbers and summer squash so we could water them. Greg set up a sprinkler system in the potato field and over the lettuce and green beans!

I strung up the top row on the tomatoes in the hoop house on Wednesday. We are going to have to get some taller (8') stakes to put in there as they are already over our heads! But while I was stringing away I found some ripe tomatoes! So hopefully this week everyone will get at least one tomato in their box! We also dug some blue potatoes today so be looking for those. I fried some for lunch today, and they are no different then regular ones, in fact they weren't that blue inside! I was a bit disappointed, but they are very blue almost purple on the outside!

We are still picking blueberries, but they are slowing down. The blackberries are starting to ripen though, so look for them maybe this week!