Top Row: Spinach, Cherry Tomatoes, and Amaranth Greens
Bottom Row: Corn, Onions, Gold and Red Beefsteak Tomatoes, Witch's Stick Pepper, and Radishes
Howdy folks! Welcome to week 13 of your CSA! We have a great box this week for you. New to your box this week are Witch's Stick peppers, Amaranth greens and Spinach! The peppers started off mild and with maturity they heat up. You can expect some heat, I needed water right after trying them, with the more mature pepper. Amaranth greens are the leaves of the amaranth plant, you may be more familiar with the grain. They are a beautiful deep green streaked with red and purple and can be eaten raw when young and tender, but are traditionally cooked. The most likely cooking suggestion you will get is to saute it with garlic, but you can use it anywhere you would include cooked spinach or Swiss chard.
Amaranth greens are delicious with cumin, chile peppers or onions and hold up well to intensely spiced dishes like curry. Saute, mix into stew or add to sauces for extra nutrition and texture. Amaranth is full of iron! The spinach is a tender, red veined, amazingly heat tolerant, and vine growing variety called Malabar. We absolutely love this spinach!
The farm has been good, and we were able to get some rows up in our bottom field to plant winter squash and fall tomatoes! If you have previously joined our CSA in the fall, you know the fall is a great time of the year in Mississippi to grow produce! We are expecting to have everything from squash, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes to carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, salad turnips, lots of greens, and winter squash like butternuts, spaghetti, acorn, etc. Next week is our last week for the summer CSA, and we appreciate you all so much and hope that you will consider joining us in the fall! It will be a 10 week share starting around the 2nd week of October and ending the first or second week in December. We will get our website updated soon for signups.
Unfortunately we were unable to get melons in the ground early enough this year due to rain, so we will not be able to include any in your CSA box for the 4th of July celebration. They are still a few weeks until they will be ready, darn! BUT we hope everyone has a great time celebrating and cooking some good food with loved ones. Happy Independence, y'all!!
1. Onions
2. Cherry Tomatoes
3. Spinach
4. Corn
5. Beefsteak Tomatoes
6. Amaranth Greens
7. Witch's Stick Peppers
8. Radishes
Amaranth Leaves in Coconut Milk