DOOR STEP HARVEST Weekly Delivery Newsletter 6/27/11
This week you’ll find at your doorstep: salad mix, Asian stir fry mix, red and white beets, radish, onion, berry bag (gooseberry, Crandall), lavender, culinary herb bag (rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage, basil, tarragon, wild garlic), “tea” bag (mint, lemon balm), mung bean sprouts, elder flowers, flower bouquet, and the surprise of the week (Rose of Sharon flowers!).
I’m adding a new part to the newsletter that I hope you will find interesting. Every week, I will feature a VITAMIN OF THE WEEK. You will learn what foods that week have a significant amount of that vitamin in it. I’ll make a graph for you to keep. Sources for information range from Wikipedia, other internet resources, and nutrition text books.
The vitamin of the week is Iron. Some sources say Recommended Daily Intake for adult male is 10mg and Optimal Daily Intake is 0-60mg. Iron is important as it is a “component of hemoglobin” that transports oxygen.
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FOOD
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SERVING SIZE
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IRON PER SERVING
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Lettuce
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1 cup loose
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.6mg
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Swiss Chard
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1 cup
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3.2 mg
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Kale
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1 cup cooked
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1.8 mg
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Broccoli, raw
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½ cup
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1.7 mg
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Beet greens
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½ cup
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1.4 mg
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Lambs quarters
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½ cup
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1.2 mg
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News from the garden
Black berries continue to ripen well and are red now. Okra is coming in strong but still not mature enough to bloom. Tomatoes need one more week to be ready to harvest. Carrots are sprouted so we may have fall carrots. Scarlet Runner Beans are growing very well this year. It’s hard to keep the bugs out of the greens but these generally slow down this time of year anyway. The green beans are heirloom and are not very productive. Next year I’ll plant more or else choose a different variety. The Crandall’s at Grandma’s are a hit; they are only two year old bushes. I hope you like the flavor of the “tasting quantity” of the first production year as much as I do! Mom has plans to order this variety for our yard on Cedar Street. If we plant late in the fall, then they should bear like this the summer after next… The kiwis are growing well and may bear tasting quantities next year at this rate. The beets are still going strong. Late green beans are up (6” tall now). Sunchokes look great. The wet spring made most of the potatoes rot but some late planted ones are doing okay. The egg plant never came up. Cucumber was very very slow to come up but it at last is. We’re wrestling with squash bugs. Sweet potatoes are growing well. And it looks to be a bumper harvest this fall for Autumn olive berries!
*/** Salad Mix: Believe it or not, there is a small salad this week as the latest planting of lettuce is big enough to use and the older plants we’ve been cutting from have returned due to the cool spell we had a few days ago!
*/** Asian Stir Fry Mix: the bugs hit hard this week so this is what we could salvage of chards, kales, and bulls red beets. Add the beet tops to it and cook as explained earlier in the year. (Included is a small amount of broccoli, green beans, and the first of the summer squash for the year). Add some canned bamboo shoots, baby corns, water chestnuts, ginger, onions, garlic, mirin, and soy sauce to make an Asian stir-fry with rice. The mung bean sprouts can be added into this mix as well.
**Beets (red and white): Cover them with one inch of water and boil until tender, rinse in cold water, slip the skins off, cook, slice, and dress with generous amounts of dill, salt, vinegar, and olive oil. Prepare beet tops as any green… (Wiki fact: Beetroot can be peeled, steamed, and then eaten warm with butter as a delicacy; cooked, pickled, and then eaten cold as a condiment; or peeled, shredded raw, and then eaten as a salad. Pickled beets are a traditional food of the American South. It is also common in Australia and New Zealand for pickled beetroot to be served on a hamburger).
**Lambs quarters: more nutritious than most cultivated greens, these are at the height of the season. I like it when mom makes them like this- place 1 lbs ground beef with 1 quart water, 1 cup quick cooking rice (like white basmati), salt, pepper, rosemary/thyme/oregano, and lambs quarter leaves. Boil until meat is done. Great soup. You can add onion and any other veggies. Notice how ½ cup lambs quarters have 1.2 mg Iron!
** Radish: planted late and still enduring the heat, enjoy with salad.
**Onion: cook with stir fry mix above or enjoy with salad.
**Berry Bag: Tasting quantities of any available berries including Gooseberry, Crandall, and mulberry. Crandall, a member of the ribes family and relation to current and gooseberries, is sometimes called “clove currant,” it is “sweet and flavorful with a hint of spice.” This is its first year in production at Grandma’s. This week we have tasting quantities.
*Culinary Herbs: Rosemary, Tarragon (nice with fish), Genovese Basil, Purple Basil, Thyme, Sage, rosemary (Leaf and flower), and Oregano (two varieties): WARNING: herbs are not washed. Rinse before use. Many of these can be used to flavor dolmus (stuffed grape leaves)
*Lavender: (WikiFact: Lavender lends a floral and slightly sweet flavor to most dishes, and is sometimes paired with sheep’s-milk and goat’s-milk cheeses. For most cooking applications the dried buds (also referred to as flowers) are used, though some chefs experiment with the leaves as well. Only the buds contain the essential oil of lavender, from which the scent and flavor of lavender are best derived.)
*Wild Garlic: Small but tasty! Add it to the stir fry above.
**Mint: On hot summer days, I make a peppermint tea by filling a quart jar half full (NOT half empty) with the fresh peppermint leaves, and fill it with boiling water. Then we let it cool, sweeten it, and enjoy.
*Lemon Balm: Crush and use in tea for calming effect. So far, mom says if she crushes enough of it, and applied is directly and liberally to the exposed skin, that the bugs are leaving her alone, just as the books say it will…
*/**Flowers: Mom made the flower arrangement this time. It includes Salvia, Rose of Sharon, Zinnia, Russian Sage, and Geranium. Save the Rose of Sharon flowers and use in the enclosed recipe! Also, you can use the geranium petals in salads, a common practice in Europe.
Wild Crafted Elder Flowers: Believe it or not, it’s still in season. Check out the new recipe is included this week.
*Mung Bean Sprouts: I sprouted these from seed this week and they’ve come along nicely. Use in salad or on sandwiches. Mung bean sprouts are stir-fried as a Chinese vegetable accompaniment to a meal, usually with ingredients such as garlic, ginger, spring onions, or pieces of salted dried fish to add flavor.
Surprise! Rose of Sharon is our early surprise of the month, because there will be no box next week as I’m at Boy Scout camp! Just use the flowers out of your bouquet this week to make one of the tasty treats on the attached pages.
*= organically grown in my 4-H garden on Cedar Street **= grown in my 4-H garden at Grandma’s house near Talmage