Ah – the heat is back! As much as we miss last week’s lovely fall preview, we can’t deny the warm days have certainly brought out the best in some of our crops. Tomatoes! Squash! Beans! Basil! It’s a riot of high-summer harvest in your share this week.

Basil: Now these plants are really rolling! DO try the Chocolate Basil Cake. It is a perennial favorite with our members, and with us! You have enough here to make that and pesto this week. As usual, store basil in the bag, outside of the fridge.

High Summer Salad Mix with Purple Mizuna: What a gift is salad mix in the summer! Even this hot week couldn’t knock these little lettuce plants back.

Arugula: Getting spicier and more flavorful with each harvest. Try this as a bed under fresh grilled peaches or on top of a grilled pizza. Great mixed into your salad or on its own lightly dressed and served with big shavings of parmesan.

Tomatoes: Wowza, what a year for tomatoes! You’ve got a mix of pink Brandywine and Big Rainbow slicers, Early Girl small slicers, Big Beef giant slicers, pastes in yellow, red and striped, sweet Green Zebras, Goldies and a mix of SunGold and Juliets in your cherry boxes. We’ll take the boxes back, by the way!

Eggplant: A banner year for eggplant, too! This is the year to make babaganoush on the grill, if you haven’t before. Roasting eggplant yields an unbelievably creamy and flavorful flesh.

Zucchini and Summer Squash: This may be the last week for these, but celebrate their flavor this week the way they would in Provence with Ratatouille! Or make up the amazing Zucchini Chocolate Cake recipe we have on the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page.

Purple String Beans: First picking of these. Delish. Don’t worry, they turn green when cooked – use just like a regular string bean.

Peppers: Sweet Green and Purple Bells and Yellow Bananas, Spicy Jalapenos

Cucumber: Still going strong, still sweet and crisp. We sliced these this week and dipped them in Babaganoush.

Herb Bag: Oregano, Sage, Thyme

Mixed Kale: Now is the time to make Kale Chips!!!! We polished off a big bowl of these at lunch today in about 3 minutes. So addictive. We put several recipes up at the Farmer Kriss pinterest page, but the basic idea is: heat oven to 350. Rip up the curliest kale leaves in your bunch and spray with olive oil. Toss with salt and pepper. Bake on a cookie sheet for 20 minutes or until crispy.

All Red Potatoes: These potatoes are as good as they look. Yum! It’s a good week to make Zuppa Toscano. See the recipe at the Box 7 Recipe Blog at circlemfarm.com.

Garlic: Cured and ready to store in the pantry, should you not use it up in the next week.

Gosh. What bounty! What beauty! The gardens are at peak production this week and we are daily impressed with the riot of food we are pulling out of the fields. EAT! That’s what the earth says to us these days – and we do. In fact, we had our first ever Farm-To-Table dinner here last night, for our crew and their family members. And boy, we are still stuffed this morning! The evening was just more evidence that a farm is so much the sum of all its parts – the crew, the land, the veggies and the animals. We are so thankful for each piece. And for Kristi Waits, our Technology and Media Maven, who documents it all in such a way that we are overcome with gratefulness.  Here are her photos from Farm Appetit.

By the way, have you noticed we are now halfway through the CSA season? We thought this would be a great time to introduce our fabulous farm crew to you, so do pop over to our new blogsite, farmerkriss.com, and meet the amazing young adults who show up here every day – rain, sun, shine or chill – to plant, pick, weed, wash, haul and pack the Circle M veggie boxes.

Don’t forget to look at the three internet resources we are constantly updating to help you make the best use of the box: In The Box harvest list blog (list of veggies with identification and storage tips), Recipe Blog for each box (with a few of our favorite recipes used at the farm during the week), the Farmer Kriss Pinterest page (our new favorite way to show you both pictures and recipes of all the veggies). I’ve added so many recipes to the pinterest page, you may feel overwhelmed – but just open what appeals to you. My kitchen is all a-jumble with cookbooks and magazines and pages printed from the internet as I scramble to keep up with this joyous experiment in fresh eating at the height of the season. Hope you are having fun, too!

Salad Mix: The suddenly cool nights have brought the best out in our recently-seeded mixed lettuce rows. We didn’t expect to have salad for you for another few weeks – but here it is, sweet, succulent and beautiful. Enjoy by itself, or add arugula and mizuna.

Basil: Basil is such a favorite in our house, we can never get enough. We hope you are getting enough in the boxes to make enough pesto to put up for winter. Basil doesn’t freeze well, but if you make up the pesto, it freezes wonderfully. Great recipes on the Farmer Kriss pinterest page. Store basil unwashed, in the plastic bag, outside of your fridge. Wash just before using. Even if the basil wilts, you can use it for pesto.

Swiss Chard: Shortie Shares only (Full Shares got it last time around)Try the Chard Sushi Recipe on the Box 6 recipe blog or the Chard Slaw on the Farmer Kriss pinterest page – perfect in the heat, especially if you add a little sesame oil and toss with rice wine vinegar.

Eggplant: I’ve always enjoyed eggplant. Maybe because I lived in a Middle Eastern neighborhood in Chicago where I could get fresh babaganoush made daily at the corner grocer. Maybe because it’s just so pretty. Maybe because the vegetable is called aubergine in France. But this year I’ve fallen absolutely in love with it. Pinterest has a lot to do with that, as now I can find recipes with sumptuous photos so easily, but the other part is a fabulous cookbook I bought back in December (winter is when I do most of my cookbook reading). PLENTY, a relatively new book by London’s chef Yotam Ottolenghi, has a whole chapter on eggplant, and the cover is roasted eggplant slathered in a buttermilk dressing. DO invest in this book if you enjoy feasting your eyes, spirit and body with fresh veggies. This book is full of great photos, recipes and stories.

Arugula: (Full Shares have separate bags of Arugula, Shorties have a bunch of arugula packed in the bag with the salad mix) So amazingly flavorful! Usually arugula is quite hot and bitter in August, but this first cutting of the fall rows is incredibly mild and interesting. Use as a bed under stuffed tomatoes, add to your salad, sauté lightly with pasta, add to pesto, or garnish a squash recipe.

Tomatoes: We’ve watched with horror as blight has consumed the bottom 2/3 of our plants, but they continue to produce beautifully! We actually are having a rather high-yielding tomato year in spite of what the vines look like. And boy, are these tasty tasty tidbits. Our favorite right now are the small Juliet bite-size oval tomatoes we’ve packed in your little cherry tomato boxes. But all the juicy heirlooms have their own unique flavors as well. They are all ripe, regardless of the color, as you’ve got orange, yellow, rainbow and even Green Zebras, in addition to some lovely red slicers.

Summer Squash and Zucchini: We don’t really know how these plants do it. They produce and produce and produce. If you don’t look at a zucchini plant for a few days, you just might find it climbing in your window to snuggle you at night. We eat squash happily every day right now in one form or another. Our absolute favorite dish right now is Squash Ribbons with Pesto. We’ve put the recipe up at the Farmer Kriss pinterest page, but basically, you just prepare the entire squash with a vegetable peeler, stopping when you hit seeds, and sauté them lightly in olive oil and salt. Use as the noodles or pasta in your favorite dish!

Purple Mizuna: This pretty Asian green (not green in color, but, hey, it’s a green) is so amazingly tasty, managing to be both sweet and spicy at the same time. At this tender stage, it can be added to salad, or used as a layer in sandwiches, BLTs and wraps. Picture it as a bed under a tomato salad, or chopped on top of a pasta plate.

Peppers: So many crisp peppers this week! We aren’t seeing any ripe red bells yet, so we are packing green bells for now. You’ve got all sweet peppers here except for the small jalapenos which aren’t too hot just yet. Go for some fresh salsa!

Herb Bag: Lemon Balm, Chocolate Mint, Parsley All of these should keep for a few weeks if you just tuck the whole bag in the fridge and reach into it when you need something.

Mixed Kale: These plants have finally reached that crisp fall stage where they are big and beefy enough that we want to cook them rather than ribbon them for salad. Our favorite recipe this week at crew lunch was Quinoa with Sauteed Kale, Sweet Potatoes and Mushrooms.

Gosh. What bounty! What beauty! Weeks like this are why we are in the market farming business. The weather is delightful, the breezes healing, the plants robust and the produce fairly leaping off the vines and stems. EAT! That’s what the earth says to us these days – and we do. I’ve added so many recipes to the Farmer Kriss pinterest page you may feel overwhelmed – but just open what appeals to you. My kitchen is all a-jumble with cookbooks and magazines and pages printed from the internet as I scramble to keep up with this joyous experiment in fresh eating at the height of the season. Hope you are having fun, too! By the way, have you noticed we are now halfway through the CSA season? We thought this would be a great time to introduce our fabulous farm crew to you, so do pop over to our new blogsite, farmerkriss.com, and meet the amazing young adults who show up here every day – rain, sun, shine or chill – to plant, pick, weed, wash, haul and pack the Circle M veggie boxes.

Don’t forget to look at the three internet resources we are constantly updating to help you make the best use of the box: In The Box harvest list blog (list of veggies with identification and storage tips), Recipe Blog for each box (with a few of our favorite recipes used at the farm during the week), the Farmer Kriss Pinterest page (our new favorite way to show you both pictures and recipes of all the veggies).

Sweet Corn: YAY! We are always so thankful for this fleeting treat. Eat this today if you can – it is sweetest the day it’s picked. Boil just briefly, under 5 minutes.

Salad Mix: The suddenly cool nights have brought the best out in our recently-seeded mixed lettuce rows. We didn’t expect to have salad for you for another few weeks – but here it is, sweet, succulent and beautiful. Enjoy by itself, or add arugula and mizuna.

Basil: Basil is such a favorite in our house, we can never get enough. We hope you are getting enough in the boxes to make enough pesto to put up for winter. Basil doesn’t freeze well, but if you make up the pesto, it freezes wonderfully. Great recipes on the Farmer Kriss pinterest page. Store basil unwashed, in the plastic bag, outside of your fridge. Wash just before using. Even if the basil wilts, you can use it for pesto.

Eggplant: I’ve always enjoyed eggplant. Maybe because I lived in a Middle Eastern neighborhood in Chicago where I could get fresh babaganoush made daily at the corner grocer. Maybe because it’s just so pretty. Maybe because the vegetable is called aubergine in France. But this year I’ve fallen absolutely in love with it. Pinterest has a lot to do with that, as now I can find recipes with sumptuous photos so easily, but the other part is a fabulous cookbook I bought back in December (winter is when I do most of my cookbook reading). PLENTY, a relatively new book by London’s chef Yotam Ottolenghi, has a whole chapter on eggplant, and the cover is roasted eggplant slathered in a buttermilk dressing. DO invest in this book if you enjoy feasting your eyes, spirit and body with fresh veggies. This book is full of great photos, recipes and stories.

Arugula: (Full Shares have separate bags of Arugula, Shorties have a bunch of arugula packed in the bag with the salad mix) So amazingly flavorful! Usually arugula is quite hot and bitter in August, but this first cutting of the fall rows is incredibly mild and interesting. Use as a bed under stuffed tomatoes, add to your salad, sauté lightly with pasta, add to pesto, or garnish a squash recipe.

Tomatoes: We’ve watched with horror as blight has consumed the bottom 2/3 of our plants, but they continue to produce beautifully! We actually are having a rather high-yielding tomato year in spite of what the vines look like. And boy, are these tasty tasty tidbits. Our favorite right now are the small Juliet bite-size oval tomatoes we’ve packed in your little cherry tomato bags. But all the juicy heirlooms have their own unique flavors as well. They are all ripe, regardless of the color, as you’ve got orange, yellow, rainbow and even Green Zebras in addition to some lovely red slicers.


Summer Squash and Zucchini: We don’t really know how these plants do it. They produce and produce and produce. If you don’t look at a zucchini plant for a few days, you just might find it climbing in your window. We eat squash happily every day right now in one form or another. Our absolute favorite dish right now is Squash Ribbons with Pesto. We’ve put the recipeup at the Farmer Kriss pinterest page, but basically, you just prepare the entire squash with a vegetable peeler, stopping when you hit seeds, and sauté them lightly in olive oil and salt. Use as the noodles or pasta in your favorite dish!

Purple Mizuna: This pretty Asian green (not green in color, but, hey, it’s a green) is so amazingly tasty, managing to be both sweet and spicy at the same time. At this tender stage, it can be added to salad, or used as a layer in sandwiches, BLTs and wraps. But it’s wonderful lightly sautéed in a stir fry. Picture it as a bed under a tomato salad, or chopped on top of a pasta plate.

Peppers: So many crisp peppers this week! We aren’t seeing any ripe red bells yet, so we are packing green bells for now. You’ve got all sweet peppers here except for the small jalapenos which aren’t too hot just yet. Go for some fresh salsa!

Herb Bag: Chives, Oregano, Chocolate Mint, Sage, Parsley and Thyme We’ve pretty much given you a Simon and Garfunkel Song for an herb bag this week. Enjoy! There are so many applications for herbs this time of year. We use a fresh herb mix in every dish we eat right now – breakfast, lunch and dinner! All of these should keep for a few weeks if you just tuck the whole bag in the fridge and reach into it when you need something.

Mixed Kale: These plants have finally reached that crisp fall stage where they are big and beefy enough that we want to cook them rather than ribbon them for salad. Our favorite recipe this week at crew lunch was Quinoa with Sauteed Kale, Sweet Potatoes and Mushrooms.

Sweet Corn: Eat this right away! This heirloom variety is called Spring Treat and is a very short, quick-to-grow sweet corn we always enjoy very much. Cook very briefly for best flavor.

Basil: A staff favorite to pick, a family favorite to eat. We’ve posted a wonderful light Pesto Potato Salad on the Box 5 Recipe Blog, as well as on the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page.

Swiss Chard: Lovely for your salad. Full Shares only (since only Shorties got it last time.)

Tomatoes: You’ve got a mix of heirlooms – stripey pastes,  juicy reds,  sweet yellows and some mixed cherry and currants.

Herb Bag: Sage, Cilantro, Chives, Thyme, Oregano. We’ve loaded a bag full of lots of herbs you can use for the next few weeks. They should be recognizable, but they are layered in the bag to help you sort them out.  Chives are at the bottom. The biggest bunch is next – Oregano. Then you’ll find fuzzy grey Sage. Then a handful of Cilantro – some of it is bolting so you’ll see flowers, but all of the flowers, leaves and tender stems can be chopped and used. Finally, you’ve got a handful of spicy tiny-leaved Thyme. These are very easy to dry on your kitchen counter should you not use them in a week or two. YUM!

Eggplant: Note that we prefer to pick our eggplant small so that we can enjoy the taste of the flesh without the bitter mature skin. So you should be able to lightly sauté this, or grill with other veggies, or roast in the oven and transform into a dip, don’t bother peeling or soaking in salt, or whatever method you usually use to deal with the skin. You may have green, purple or pink eggplant. See the Box 5 Recipe Page or Farmer Kriss on pinterest. Use soon and store OUTSIDE of the fridge.

Summer Squash: We’ve enjoyed these so many ways this summer, but our favorite recipe by far is marinated in lime juice, olive oil and salt and grilling quickly outside. A great compliment to steak.

Calendula Confetti: This is most gorgeous sprinkled over a Massaged Kale Salad. However, we used it lastweek to decorate a cake to say farewell to our summer Arts and Agriculture Intern Abby and and new Crew Member Annalea who’s headed back to school. Be creative!

Peppers: The first to ripen here on our plants are Yellow Sweet Bananas, tiny green Jalapenos and Purple Sweet Bells. There may be a few green bell peppers as well. You’ve got one or two of each, with lots more to come!

Cucumbers: These are slowing down a bit, but you all should have one or two.

Mixed Baby Kale and Collards: Those of you who know me well know that I eat a salad every day for lunch. So what do I have in the height of summer when the lettuce is on break? Kale – every day. I LOVE it. The way we pick our kale and collards, young, small and tender – is the perfect age for fresh eating. Wash, rip the stems out, then cut the leaves into bite-size pieces. Throw in a dish and sprinkle with salt, vinegar and pepper. Then mash up with your hands and let sit in the fridge for about ½ hour until you are ready to eat. I dress this up with goat cheese and pickled eggs – because that’s what our farm gives us a lot of right now – but kale is perfect with nuts, dried cranberries, sliced peaches, figs and even grilled beef.

New Potatoes: These pretty Red Norlands are perfect to make into potato salad because they need very little cleaning or cooking. The skins are tender and bright (oh, and you may have some blue or golden mixed in) and the flavor is fresh and wonderful. Eat them soon and store in the fridge – they won’t keep in your pantry the way cured russets will.

Garlic: We harvested our garlic this week and were delighted to see these lovely heads. The bulbs are planted in the fall then lay covered in mulch until we harvest them in July – so you never know what you’ve got under there! Enjoy soon and store in the fridge – the skins on these are not yet cured so they won’t keep in the pantry. Whip up some pesto!!!!!

Now THIS is summer in Wisconsin! All of us on the crew here at Circle M have very much enjoyed the week of reprieve from heat, as I’m sure you have – and it looks as though the veggies have, too. We think these boxes are especially beautiful, with the first of the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and potatoes mixed with fresh herbs and greens. Delicious!

Basil: A staff favorite to pick, a family favorite to eat.

Swiss Chard: We've got just little bunches for you this week - but consider eating fresh as salad, rather than cooking it down.

Tomatoes: These are just getting rolling here in our valley, but they are tasting great so far. You’ve each got a few heirlooms – a stripey paste, a juicy red and a sweet yellow. Full Size boxes have the first bags of cherry and currant tomatoes.

Herb Bag: We’ve loaded a bag full of lots of herbs you can use for the next few weeks. They should be recognizable, but they are layered in the bag to help you sort them out. On top is vining Summer Savory – similar in taste to thyme, the stems are longer and stronger and the leaves are easy to slide off the stem. Great with beans, lentils or eggs. Next you’ve got a few handfuls of Cilantro – some of it is bolting so you’ll see flowers, but all of the flowers, leaves and tender stems can be chopped and used. Underneath that is grey, fuzzy Sage leaves – terrific with the new potatoes, or with summer squash. These are very easy to dry on your kitchen counter should you not use them in a week or two. Finally, on the bottom of the bag we have Lovage – our perennial celery. Both leaves and stems can be chopped and added to anywhere you’d use celery – though we find the flavor also has hints of curry and nutmeg. YUM!

Eggplant: This is just the first harvest from these pretty purple plants, and we only got enough to add to Full Size boxes . You’ll all eventually get eggplant though. Note that we only pick our eggplant small so that we can enjoy the taste of the flesh without the bitter mature skin. So you should be able to lightly sauté this, or grill with other veggies, or roast in the oven and transform into a dip. Use soon and store OUTSIDE of the fridge.

Summer Squash: We’ve enjoyed these so many ways this summer, but our favorite recipe by far is marinated in lime juice, olive oil and salt and grilling quickly outside. A great compliment to steak.

Calendula Confetti: This is most gorgeous sprinkled over a Massaged Kale Salad. However, we’re using it this week to decorate a cake to say farewell to our summer Arts and Agriculture Intern and another Crew Member who’s summer has come to a close. Be creative!

Peppers: The first to ripen here on our plants are Yellow Sweet Bananas and Purple Sweet Bells. You’ve got one or two of each, with lots more to come!

Cucumbers: These are slowing down a bit, but you all should have one or two.

Mixed Baby Kale and Collards: Those of you who know me well know that I eat a salad every day for lunch. So what do I have in the height of summer when the lettuce is on break? Kale – every day. I LOVE it. The way we pick our kale and collards, young, small and tender – is the perfect age for fresh eating. Wash, rip the stems out, then cut the leaves into bite-size pieces. Throw in a dish and sprinkle with salt, vinegar and pepper. Then mash up with your hands and let sit in the fridge for about ½ hour until you are ready to eat. I dress this up with goat cheese and pickled eggs – because that’s what our farm gives us a lot of right now – but kale is perfect with nuts, dried cranberries, sliced peaches, figs and even grilled beef.

New Potatoes: These pretty Red Norlands are perfect to make into potato salad because they need very little cleaning or cooking. The skins are tender and bright (oh, and you may have some blue or golden mixed in) and the flavor is fresh and wonderful. Eat them soon and store in the fridge – they won’t keep in your pantry the way cured russets will.

Garlic: We harvested our garlic this week and were delighted to see these lovely heads. The bulbs are planted in the fall then lay covered in mulch until we harvest them in July – so you never know what you’ve got under there! Enjoy soon and store in the fridge – the skins on these are not yet cured so they won’t keep in the pantry. Whip up some pesto!!!!!

Flower Bouquets: It suddenly feels like the cusp of fall here on the farm, and our wildflower bouquets this week reflect that time of year. What a treat! Cattails, Queen Ann's Lace and yellow coneflowers from the hedgerows, baptista and hosta leaves from the garden.