Boy O Boy! Have we had some rain and some wind and some extremes this past week! Many of our neighbors experienced tragic losses of old trees and necessary fences and expensive roofs, and we are sorry for any losses you had in the storm. We personally are very grateful that we had very little damage in our little neck of the woods - all the animals and plants are well. And we are certainly grateful for rains the week before horseradish digging! Look at these beautiful roots. You've got them in your boxes, and we're serving them grated in a balsamic reduction alongside a Rhubarb-Crusted Ham for our first field-to-table dinner this Saturday. DE-lish.

Heat and moisture have created such a lush environment in the fields that the vegetables are practically climbing into the kitchen and onto our plates. But of course the weeds are shooting up right next to them and we scramble here to keep up with the transplanting, harvesting, tilling, seeding and endless weeding of June.  June is bonkers on a market farm! But so very very yummy and so achingly beautiful.

We are excited to have you out this week - whether you'll be a guest at the dinner or just stopping by to get your box, we hope you have some time to wander the farm and taste some of the non-food delights the land offers us this month. There are baby ducks and chicks behind the barn, muddy piglets in the pens, tiny kittens on the back porch, lilies exploding in the perennial flower beds and nests of all sorts in the trees. Listen and look for spring peepers, orioles and hummingbirds. And enjoy the first few fireflies!

So  – we’re a little famous. See the July Issue of Mary Jane’s Farm magazine which features Circle M animals and people in the Soil Sisters article.  And save the date for the Soil Sisters Tour – this July 31 through August 1.  Visit us and other women-owned farms and field-to-table restaurants in southwest Wisconsin. Circle M will host several wool classes, and Kriss will be the tour guide for the bus trip!

Well, that's all of our news for the week - now it's on to the veggies! Here's what's In The Box. Remember to use the first things listed first, they are the most perishable:

Cilantro - So tender, first cutting. I had a handful chopped on top of a Mexican-flavored bean salad yesterday. Summer on a fork! Since we don't have tomatoes yet, we've been playing around with fruit salsas. Since mangos are in season and on sale at most grocers, we've been combining them with what we've got here in abundance to make wonderful combos. For the farm dinner Saturday, we'll have Mango/Rhubarb Salsa with Grilled Spinach Quesadillas for our appetizer.

Basil - Holy cow -  the basil really came on in the rain and heat. Hooray! Basil and scapes at the same time mean a wonderful sweet spring pesto! Sorry about the dirt - we got very very splashed around here. But if we wash them they won't last long for you. SO - Rinse these bagged leaves right before you are going to use them. Very tender. Best stored on the door of your fridge where it's not too cold.  Don't forget to consider basil as an ingredient in your summer cocktails. Booze and basil really suit each other. Check out our ideas on the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page under CSA Box Recipes and The Farmhouse Bar page.

Head Lettuce - This week we've got terrific tender-leaved Green Oakleaf.

Swiss Chard - First cutting leaves are so pretty and so soft and sweet. I just LOVE them. This week they are going in my Morning Glory Muffins for the little Blanchardville Farmers Market - come out and get one Saturday morning in Ryan Park from 8 to noon.  Try these raw ribboned into salad and please do eat the stems. Very tasty chopped into scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Spinach - Ah! Sweet stems and tender leaves. I think baby spinach isn't worth eating but young adult leaves are totally the bomb. I would never cook such lovely stuff, but you can if you like. Actually, I lied. I made great quesadillas for crew lunch yesterday with multi-grain tortillas wrapped around whole spinach leaves and cherry farmer cheese. AMAZING. But this is the last spinach we'll have for a few weeks, since these plants bolted in the heat. We've got new spinach and new salad mix growing, but neither are big enough to harvest yet.

Herb Bouquet: Chocolate Mint, Lemon Balm, Oregano,  Tarragon, Lovage, Sage and Chinese Leeks (Garlic Chives) - We've said this already but WE LOVE FRESH HERBS here at Circle M. Having a bounty of fresh herbs to choose from transforms our summer cooking and baking. The best way to have these at hand is to pop them in a Ball jar filled with an inch  of water and store in the fridge. This week we made this incredible Lemon Balm Sage Jelly  for our Bed and Breakfast guests to have on scones. You have enough of each in your box to make it, too.  Lemon Balm makes a great anti-anxiety tea. Add honey while steeping all the leaves in hot water, the strain and chill. Sip on it cold from the fridge throughout the day.  Chocolate Mint means Mojito Lemonade (simply add a few tablespoons of lime juice and a handful of mint leaves to a lemonade recipe) for crew lunches and Mojitos for REAL at dusk.  With your stalks of tarragon, which is lightly sweet and anise-flavored, we recommend making a wine-based salad dressing.  The lovage you've had before - a terrific perennial celery plant with a hint of nutmeg flavor.  The Chinese leeks are the flat-leaved chives - snip into eggs, salads, goat cheese.  The oregano - just about to flower - is great this time of year used on top of pizza cooked on the grill.  Both the mint and the lemon balm can be started in your own yard by holding some of the stalks in water on the counter until you see little roots form. Could be just a day or two.

Baby Kale - Kale at any size is a good thing. But Baby Kale is a great thing. You could make Kale Chips out of these whole leaves, ribbon into a salad or add to soup. Try blended into a guacamole - with the big bunch of cilantro in your box! We grow six different varieties so we ca make you pretty bouquets all season long.

Mini Napa Cabbage - We grew this tiny variety of Napa Cabbage because it seemed a reasonable size fit into our CSA boxes. The bonus is that these little leaves work great as boats for dips! The crew had them slathered in goat cheese or peanut butter for lunch this week.

Snap Peas - Hooray! A favorite crop for many of our crew each year, snaps are like a sweet snack that is good for you but keeps you craving more! Hopefully we'll have a couple weeks of harvest of these for you - it depends on how the weather goes, but the vines certainly are loaded now! Zip the string off the side before you munch.  Though it seems a shame to cook these, they get even sweeter when lightly sauteed!

Garlic Scapes - This bag of curly green pig-tails are the seed heads we harvest off off garlic in spring. Have a mild and sweet garlic-y flavor.  Mince like a scallion and add to eggs or any dish you'd enjoy with garlic. Our good friends at Stoney Acres Farm in Athens put these whole on their wood-oven pizzas - pick one up sometime when you go north. And our neighbor Chelsea Chandler at Plowshares and Prairie Farm makes them into great pickles. I'll be throwing them into the food processor with basil and olive oil for my first pesto of the year! Try pesto on grilled cheese with Farmer John's Provonella Cheese! If you need more inspiration than these curly little treats can provide, check out the wonderful Kitchen Vignettes video on making Garlic Scape Pancakes.

Green Garlic - This is young garlic, not cured. Store in your fridge and use up like regular garlic. You will find the taste is a bit more mild.

Scallions - The first of the new onions! Enjoy all the way up the stalk - Chinese-style! No need to throw anything in the compost but the roots.

Rhubarb - More! Experiment with a different dessert this week, or cook down with a little honey and chia seeds for a wonderful healthy jam. We've had rhubarb every day for the past month and I am still not sick of it. I'm cooking some down right now to make a concentrated glaze for the ham I plan to serve at our Saturday dinner.

Horseradish - The lumpy root at the bottom of your box is, in fact, horseradish. It won't smell like much until you grate it - either with a cheese grater or a food processor. Then the damaged cells will release enzymes that react with the air and do the horseradish-y thing. Make sure to keep your eyes away from the fumes! Immediately add vinegar and salt to preserve, and store in the fridge. YUM.

Herbs To Plant: Savory, Ornamental Hot Pepper, Basil - We've given you a pack of three plants this week to pop into a pot on your patio, or plant out into the garden. The tallest plant is an ornamental pepper, very pretty, but also edible. HOT. The long stem with tiny leaves is summer savory, which tastes similar to thyme but grows faster. Snip often and it will branch into a nice bush. Same with the little bright green basil. Snip daily for a great big bush.

Gifts from the Goats: Lemon Honey Goat Cheese - We love to experiment with cheese all through the milking season. We especially like the results this week. The lemon zest/honey chevre is perfect crumbled over a salad, spread on a Napa Cabbage leaf or used as a dip for snap peas.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE  take a look at the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page this week - I put a TON of great resources up on the CSA Box Recipe Page, but also at The Farmhouse Bar. And we've got a great recipe of the week up on the Recipe Blog page - our newly-invented Polenta Sage Muffins, to be served with our ham at the field-to-table dinner on Saturday.

 Ah! The intersection of strawberry and spinach season - what a treat! Made double-wonderful with the addition of goat cheese. We've given you everything you need for this salad Box 2 -  minus the delicious balsamic vinegar reduction that we recommend picking up at Brennan's Market. Trader Joe's also has a great one. We go through gallons of this stuff in salad season!

It's been a great recovery week in the gardens. We had a dry few weeks that were very stressful on our tender spring crops, but now everything is lush and happy with all the rain we've had. Including the weeds, unfortunately - but that's just how it goes! Everything grows. And thank goodness. We are eating so very well.  And we are excited to share with you!

Hey – we’re a little famous. See the July Issue of Mary Jane’s Farm magazine which features Circle M animals and people in the Soil Sisters article. And save the date for the Soil Sisters Tour – this July 31 through August 1. Visit us and other women-owned farms and field-to-table restaurants!


Here's what's in the box - remember to use the first things first. We've made our harvest list from most perishable to least.

Salad Mix WITH Edible Flowers!- One of our farm hands did confess last Thursday that the violas got skipped in the salad mix :) Ooops. No big deal - they are for fun more than flavor. But you've definitely got them this week - along with cream-colored arugula flowers.  For greens, we've made a sweet and spicy mix of lettuces, mustards,  brassicas,  arugula and nasturtium leaves (they look like lily pads and taste like pepper - yum!).

Strawberries - These little heirloom varieties are small but sweet. Enjoy!

Basil - Holy cow the basil really came on in the rain and heat. Hooray! Basil and scapes at the same time mean a wonderful sweet spring pesto! Rinse these bagged leaves right before you are going to use them. Very tender. Best stored on the door of your fridge where it's not too cold.

Pea Shoots - We didn't think we'd have these a second time around for you - but we did!

Head Lettuce - This week we've got terrific tender-leaved Green Oakleaf and the lovely spotted Mayan Jaguar semi-Romaine.

Swiss Chard - First cutting leaves are so pretty and so soft and sweet. I just LOVE them. This week they are going in my Morning Glory Muffins for the little Argyle Farmers Market. Try these raw ribboned into salad and please do eat the stems. Very tasty chopped into scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Spinach - Ah! Sweet stems and tender leaves. I think baby spinach isn't worth eating but young adult leaves are totally the bomb. I would never cook such lovely stuff, but you can if you like. Actually, I lied. I made great quesadillas for crew lunch yesterday with multi-grain tortillas wrapped around whole spinach leaves and cherry farmer cheese. AMAZING.

Baby Kale - Kale at any size is a good thing. But Baby Kale is a great thing. You could make Kale Chips out of these whole leaves, ribbon into a salad or add to soup. Try blended into a guacamole - with the big bunch of cilantro in your box! We grow six different varieties so we ca make you pretty bouquets all season long.

Mini Napa Cabbage - We grew this tiny variety of Napa Cabbage because it seemed a reasonable size fit into our CSA boxes. The bonus is that these little leaves work great as boats for dips! The crew had them slathered in goat cheese or peanut butter for lunch this week.

Broccoli Raab - Truly a spring favorite for me. I feel spoiled everytime I eat eat! So much bang for the prep buck! Just chop everything but the toughest bottom stem into two-inch pieces and saute! Would be amazing with the fresh garlic, but also wonderful dressed with garlic scape pesto.

Garlic Scapes - This bag of curly green pig-tails are the seed heads we harvest off off garlic in spring. Have a mild and sweet garlic-y flavor.  Mince like a scallion and add to eggs or any dish you'd enjoy with garlic. Our good friends at Stoney Acres Farm in Athens put these whole on their wood-oven pizzas - pick one up sometime when you go north. And our neighbor Chelsea Chandler at Plowshares and Prairie Farm makes them into great pickles. I'll be throwing them into the food processor with basil and olive oil for my first pesto of the year! Try pesto on grilled cheese with Farmer John's Provonella Cheese!

Green Garlic - This is young garlic, not cured. Store in your fridge and use up like regular dried garlic. Discard the stem once the green gets tough.

Cilantro - So tender, first cutting. I had a handful chopped on top of a Mexican-flavored bean salad yesterday. Summer on a fork!

Rhubarb - More! Experiment with a different dessert this week, or cook down with a little honey and chia seeds for a wonderful healthy jam.

Herb Bouquet: Chocolate Mint, Lemon Balm, Rosemary, Sage - We've said this already but WE LOVE FRESH HERBS here at Circle M. Having a bounty of fresh herbs to choose from transforms our summer cooking and baking. The best way to have these at hand is to pop them in a Ball jar filled with an inch  of water and store in the fridge. This week we made this incredible Lemon Balm Sage Jelly to have for our Bed and Breakfast guests to have on scones. You have enough of each in your box to make it, too.  Lemon Balm makes a great anti-anxiety tea. Add honey while steeping all the leaves in hot water, the strain and chill. Sip on it cold from the fridge throughout the day.  Chocolate Mint means Mojito Lemonade (simply add a few tablespoons of lime juice and a handful of mint leaves to a lemonade recipe) for crew lunches and Mojitos for REAL at dusk. Snip the rosemary into potato dishes or a shortbread cookie recipe.  Both the mint and the lemon balm can be started in your own yard by holding some of the stalks in water on the counter until you see little roots form. Could be just a day or two.

Herbs To Plant: Savory, Ornamental Hot Pepper, Basil - We've given you a pack of three plants this week to pop into a pot on your patio, or plant out into the garden. The tallest plant is an ornamental pepper, very pretty, but also edible. HOT. The long stem with tiny leaves is summer savory, which tastes similar to thyme but grows faster. Snip often and it will branch into a nice bush. Same with the little bright green basil. Snip daily for a great big bush.

Gifts from the Goats: Peanut Butter Truffles and Lemon Honey Goat Cheese - We love to experiment with goat milk all through the milking season. We especially like the results this week. These creamy peanut butter truffles are made with our chevre and Callebaut bittersweet chocolate. And the lemon zest/honey chevre is perfect with a Spinach Strawberry Salad!

DO NOT FORGET to take a look at the Recipe Blog page and the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page.

Welcome to the CSA Season, local farm friends! We are so excited to be welcoming you to the homestead this weekend to pick up your produce shares and hopefully take some time to visit the piglets, lambs, goat kids, chickens, ducklings and kittens.  You will likely be greeted by Sunny the cow dog or Toulouse the goose, but we would love to say hi, too, so look around for us.

You'll find a lot of herbs in your box this week because they need to be cut back early and often in order to keep producing for us through the season. Use what you can, freeze or dry what you can't, and enjoy experimenting! We'll give you lots of ideas for using these in all of your dishes both savory and sweet, but the main thing is to nibble them yourself and see what you might like to do with them based on how they appeal to you. We think that fresh herbs, used creatively, are the main thing that sets great cooking apart from good cooking. In fact, we're such believers in herbs, we include some herb plants in your early boxes each year so that you can plant some at home in pots or the ground, and harvest fresh every day, even in between boxes. This week, you've got parsley and cilantro to get started with. Both of these benefit from a little bit of shade in the heat of the day, so you should have no problem growing these on a porch or patio. Cut often!

It may seem obvious, but we want to mention that we'd like you to return your boxes and clamshells to us. Hang on to them and bring them back to us at the next delivery. Thanks!

And now, here's what's in the box. Please notice that we'll put the most perishable things at the very top of the list and work our way down to the least. So use the things at the top of the list first. For recipe ideas, click through to the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page and the Circle M Recipe Blog. Have fun and bon appetit!

Pea Shoots - These are a very fleeting treat we are only able to pack in the first box each year. We grow these little peas in the greenhouse so they'll get long, leggy and tender, as opposed to the beefy pea vines we have in the garden growing up the trellises to bring us snap and snow pods in the coming weeks. Enjoy these tossed on top of a salad. You can use them long as is, or chop into smaller pieces. You might end up just eating them straight out of the clamshell!

Circle M Spring Salad Mix with Edible Violas - Those of you who've already been with us through the years know that we LOVE edible flowers here at Circle M. We grow lots of them to try and get them in the salad mixes all season long.  If you ever need flowers to decorate a cake or cheese plate, let us know and we'll pick you some! This mix features a little bit of everything - lettuces, baby brassicas, tiny kale, spicy mustards and tender Asian greens.

Head Lettuce - Crisp and delicious Oakleaf head.

Chicory - Yep, that is a version of a dandelion! These pretty red-veined leaves are a bitter green, wonderful raw, lightly steamed or sauteed in a tiny bit of olive oil and served with our warm chive goat cheese and some caramelized onions and mushrooms.

Nettles - We harvested these with gloves and you SHOULD NOT TOUCH THEM. But you should eat them. Pour the entire bag into a colandar. Rinse. Then put the whole bunch into a skillet and saute in butter or olive oil. I usually serve with eggs. But these are great with mushrooms, or brats. They have a rather spinach-y flavor and are nutritionally fabulous.

Spinach - First cutting. Sweet and tender. Try raw. And those long stems? They are the best part of the plant at this time of year. Trust us.

Sorrel - These bright lance-shaped leaves in a bag are the Sour Patch Kids of the veggie garden. They'll make you pucker - in a good way! We love these ribboned and added to a breakfast salad, or sauteed on pasta, or even chopped into a rhubarb cake recipe.  The English do a great creamy Sorrel Soup. When schools come for field trips to the farm, these leaves are always the ones the kids come back to and want to taste some more.  Zip in the blender with olive oil and lemon juice for a great salad dressing.

Arugula - The few days of heat has made these leaves grow rather aggressive in flavor. We like them raw in salads, but cooked they are a bit more mild. Chop or ribbon. Great paired with lentils in a Mediterranean style and dressed lightly with olive oil and feta cheese. Try a terrific pizza with arugula bits tossed ON TOP of whatever you typically enjoy. It'll crisp up for you and taste peppery and amazing.

Mibuna - This rubber-banded bunch of dark green lance-shaped leaves is a much-loved cooking green in Japan that is from the mustard family. Try raw in salad, or chopped and tossed in stir-fry. Wonderful in miso broth or egg drop soup. You can mix with the turnips and turnip greens and cook like Southern collard greens - with bacon or ham and onions (or the green garlic we've included in your box). We've posted a few great recipes at the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page titled CSA Box Recipes.

Herb Bouquet - Chives, Oregano, Lovage
These will keep for a week or more on your kitchen counter in a vase of water. Better yet, put the vase in the fridge. Just pull flowers and leaves daily and cook away! Both the chive flowers and the chive leaves are edible. BUT the stalks that the chive flowers grow on are not. So pull the little bulblets from the flowers and toss them on egg dishes, salads and pasta, then toss the stems. Oregano is terrific fresh - toss on top of pizza in whole leaves. Simply hang what you don't think you'll use this week, and it'll dry in a few days. Then crumble into a ball jar and use all year. Lovage is a perennial celery. We won't have celery to harvest until fall, so these leaves and stems will make a great substitute until then. Has a hint of nutmeg flavor in it!

Broccoli Raab - A personal favorite of mine. Spicy and fresh all at once. These stalks look like broccoli that hasn't quite made it, and that's just as it should be. I chop the entire stalk, leaves included, into two-inch pieces and sautee in green garlic and olive oil. But you can also strip the leaves and chop separately and steam or saute the stalks alone to plate up in a lovely manner. Have had some wonderful raab dishes at Lombardino's.

Green Garlic - Looks like scallions, but it is early garlic that you can use just like a green onion. Chop all the way up the stalk until you get to the stiff green part. Mild and amazing!

Rhubarb - OH! The joy of that first fruit taste in spring! Thick stalks may seem intimidating, but they are so easy to clean and chop and they cook up as tender and tasty as skinny stalks. Please forgive the dirt and grass on these! This pounding rain was much needed and is much appreciated, but has really muddied the produce up. In the past we've washed the stalks at harvest time, but we found that the ends split that way. Please wash right before use.  We put our latest favorite Rhubarb Cake up at the Recipe Blog and if you scroll down that blog, you'll find our Gluten-Free Rhubarb Custard Pie Recipe.  OK, and so I also went crazy on the Pinterest recipe search for rhubarb this weekend - in preparation for baking some rhubarb goodies for our first Blanchardville Farmer's Market on Saturday. Check out the Farmer Kriss CSA Box Recipe page, which includes this great Rhubarb Brownie Recipe!

Tiny Turnips and Turnip Greens - Our early spring radishes took a beating in the heat this past week and got woody and tough before we could get them in your boxes. We've seeded more in the shade, but until then, enjoy these few thinnings from our up-and-coming turnip rows. The turnips have some bug damage, but cut the holes out end enjoy both the tender roots and the nutritious greens cooked lightly in olive oil and salt.

Popcorn - We harvest this in fall and let it dry all winter and spring. The darling little ears can be shelled and popped by the quarter-cup in a lunch bag put in the microwave for about a minute and a half. For a fun experiment, husk an ear and put the whole cob in a bag to pop in the microwave! Not all of the kernels will pop this way, but it will be fun and cute!

Herbs to Plant: Parsley and Cilantro

Gift from the Goats: Chive Blossom Goat Cheese!
Since we've gone with a smaller CSA membership this year, we are able to share more of the farm's goodness with you. Each week, your box will include some small gift from the goats - our lovely dairy does. This time around, we've got the first goat cheese of the year - a Chive Blossom Chevre that'll pair great with the arugula or chicory! Coming next week - Chevre Truffles!