Happy Summer! This box represents the end of the spring harvest and includes some of the fleeting treats of that transitory season – like milkweed pods! Some, like the purple radishes and white turnips, grew faster and hotter than we usually see, since the heat has come on pretty fast and furious here in the past week. Others are at their perfect peak – like the salad and braising mix. Boy, is the salad crisp and fresh right now!
We’ve loaded you up with all sorts of greens for these first few boxes because many of these can’t be grown in the heat. Hope you’ve enjoyed them – you most likely won’t see so many again until fall. But we are trying to nurture along the salad mix and a few others under shade cloth to get a few more boxes out of them. We try to get some fresh eating and some cooking greens in every box, since that’s the biggest bang for your nutritional buck, but high summer is the most challenging time to pull nice greens out of the garden.
We’ve loaded you up with all sorts of greens for these first few boxes because many of these can’t be grown in the heat. Hope you’ve enjoyed them – you most likely won’t see so many again until fall. But we are trying to nurture along the salad mix and a few others under shade cloth to get a few more boxes out of them. We try to get some fresh eating and some cooking greens in every box, since that’s the biggest bang for your nutritional buck, but high summer is the most challenging time to pull nice greens out of the garden.
Here's what's In The Box! Use the first things first:
Circle M Spring Salad Mix (bagged): So many treats in this mix! White arugula flowers and spicy pink radish flowers. Curly hot cress and sweet snow peas. We LOVE mixing up the salads and we hope you like eating them…
Herb Bouquet: Cilantro, Parsley and Mint (bunched): This fragrant bouquet has so many amazing flavors in it! You should have no problem identifying them by smell or taste, but look for dark green, glossy or curly leaves on the parsley, fragile, light green leaves on the cilantro and dark square stems on the mint.Store in a glass with a half inch of water in the fridge.
Head Lettuce: You’ve each gotten two crisp heads of either green Royal Oakleaf, speckled Mayan Jaguar or Red Iceberg. Save these until you’re done with the salad mix because it will last longer. Wash well leaf-by-leaf when you are ready to use because the flood did wash a fair amount of sand into the heads.
Dragon Mix (bagged): One of the things we love about braising mix is that you can eat it fresh or cook it. Terrific either way. This mix is both sweet (baby bok and tatsoi) and spicy (purple mizuna): hence the dragon moniker! If you don’t want to eat the hot stuff raw, you can pull it off the top of the bag and cook it, which tames it a bit.
Milkweed (bagged): Hooray! This once a year treat is something we love to bring to our members from the meadows and prairies we have in our neighborhood. Obviously, monarch butterflies dig it, but you will, too! We promise. Saute these young buds up just like broccoli. Wonderful in Asian or Italian recipes. We just go with garlic and olive oil.
Frisee Endive: This little head of curly bitter greens is an English favorite not so well known here, but we had a great wilted frisee salad at Lombardino’s in the winter. We’ve been craving it ever since, and now finally these fancy little heads are ready to eat. Try sautéing mushrooms and shallots in olive oil, then pouring the hot mix over a few leaves of the frisee. Salt and pepper it – then enjoy! These leaves can be added to a raw salad, but they are really best lightly cooked. If you need a bigger salad, add the green Royal Oakleaf leaves – they have a hardy enough texture and flavor to stand up to wilting.
Arugula (bagged): YUM! You either love or hate this and I love it. We had several amazing arugula dishes this past weekend at Merchant – off the square in Madison. We put some great recipes in the Box 2 Recipes blog post, but you can also just eat arugula like salad, or add it in. We like it on top of pizza, and that’s one of the dishes we had at Merchant, which is a terrific restaurant, by the way – check it out! WARNING – very sandy! Wash again and spin.
Purple Radish with Greens: These purple radishes are a bit on the hot side, so cooking them isn’t a bad idea to soften and sweeten, if you don’t dig spicy. The greens are VERY tender and nutritious and you should cook and eat them in something. We’ve included a number of recipes this week on the Recipe blog. Mix with the turnip greens and arugula for a bigger meal.
Salad Turnips with Greens: One of our favorite spring treats here at Circle M. We had a great crew lunch with these this week. Wonderful eaten raw, terrific cooked – these are a sweet cabbage-y root that can get spicy in the heat. Some of these are hot, some not. Overall, they are less tender than we’d like, since we had some really hot weather a week ago, but they’ll cook up wonderfully. Use the greens, too. Find some great ideas on the recipe post – you can use the radish and turnip bulbs together in a recipe, and likewise mix the greens together, too.
Sorrel (bagged): Back by popular demand! We got such a great response to this last week, with so many wonderful shared recipes, we had to pack it again. These bags are a bit smaller, as sorrel is really happier in cool weather and we didn’t have as much to pick this week.
Garlic Scapes: You’ve each gotten a curly-cue or two of garlic flower shoots. Chop these up small and use the way you would a scallion. Scapes are much hotter than garlic, though, so a little goes a long way. We’ll have garlic for you later in the summer, but we harvest these now to direct more energy toward the bulbs below the ground.
Basil Plants to Grow: These bagged balls of dirt are hardened off and ready for you to plant in your own garden or pot. Keep basil pinched back from the top, and it will make a big bushy clump you can harvest from literally every day all summer. Yay, summer!
Herb Bouquet: Cilantro, Parsley and Mint (bunched): This fragrant bouquet has so many amazing flavors in it! You should have no problem identifying them by smell or taste, but look for dark green, glossy or curly leaves on the parsley, fragile, light green leaves on the cilantro and dark square stems on the mint.Store in a glass with a half inch of water in the fridge.
Head Lettuce: You’ve each gotten two crisp heads of either green Royal Oakleaf, speckled Mayan Jaguar or Red Iceberg. Save these until you’re done with the salad mix because it will last longer. Wash well leaf-by-leaf when you are ready to use because the flood did wash a fair amount of sand into the heads.
Dragon Mix (bagged): One of the things we love about braising mix is that you can eat it fresh or cook it. Terrific either way. This mix is both sweet (baby bok and tatsoi) and spicy (purple mizuna): hence the dragon moniker! If you don’t want to eat the hot stuff raw, you can pull it off the top of the bag and cook it, which tames it a bit.
Milkweed (bagged): Hooray! This once a year treat is something we love to bring to our members from the meadows and prairies we have in our neighborhood. Obviously, monarch butterflies dig it, but you will, too! We promise. Saute these young buds up just like broccoli. Wonderful in Asian or Italian recipes. We just go with garlic and olive oil.
Frisee Endive: This little head of curly bitter greens is an English favorite not so well known here, but we had a great wilted frisee salad at Lombardino’s in the winter. We’ve been craving it ever since, and now finally these fancy little heads are ready to eat. Try sautéing mushrooms and shallots in olive oil, then pouring the hot mix over a few leaves of the frisee. Salt and pepper it – then enjoy! These leaves can be added to a raw salad, but they are really best lightly cooked. If you need a bigger salad, add the green Royal Oakleaf leaves – they have a hardy enough texture and flavor to stand up to wilting.
Arugula (bagged): YUM! You either love or hate this and I love it. We had several amazing arugula dishes this past weekend at Merchant – off the square in Madison. We put some great recipes in the Box 2 Recipes blog post, but you can also just eat arugula like salad, or add it in. We like it on top of pizza, and that’s one of the dishes we had at Merchant, which is a terrific restaurant, by the way – check it out! WARNING – very sandy! Wash again and spin.
Purple Radish with Greens: These purple radishes are a bit on the hot side, so cooking them isn’t a bad idea to soften and sweeten, if you don’t dig spicy. The greens are VERY tender and nutritious and you should cook and eat them in something. We’ve included a number of recipes this week on the Recipe blog. Mix with the turnip greens and arugula for a bigger meal.
Salad Turnips with Greens: One of our favorite spring treats here at Circle M. We had a great crew lunch with these this week. Wonderful eaten raw, terrific cooked – these are a sweet cabbage-y root that can get spicy in the heat. Some of these are hot, some not. Overall, they are less tender than we’d like, since we had some really hot weather a week ago, but they’ll cook up wonderfully. Use the greens, too. Find some great ideas on the recipe post – you can use the radish and turnip bulbs together in a recipe, and likewise mix the greens together, too.
Sorrel (bagged): Back by popular demand! We got such a great response to this last week, with so many wonderful shared recipes, we had to pack it again. These bags are a bit smaller, as sorrel is really happier in cool weather and we didn’t have as much to pick this week.
Garlic Scapes: You’ve each gotten a curly-cue or two of garlic flower shoots. Chop these up small and use the way you would a scallion. Scapes are much hotter than garlic, though, so a little goes a long way. We’ll have garlic for you later in the summer, but we harvest these now to direct more energy toward the bulbs below the ground.
Basil Plants to Grow: These bagged balls of dirt are hardened off and ready for you to plant in your own garden or pot. Keep basil pinched back from the top, and it will make a big bushy clump you can harvest from literally every day all summer. Yay, summer!
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