"The Sun is Trying to Kill Me"...

...was printed on a tee shirt worn by Patrick of The IT Crowd, a British sitcom. It about sums up how I've felt the last couple days.

It's unbelievably hot here and like it or not, it's time to cook very little if you don't have air conditioning. So, here is a list of recipes our members may want to try this week using some of their weekly produce.

Potato Salad with Avacado Dressing sounds good...

If you're looking for a way to use up your purple/red cabbages, David's Mother, Peggy, tried this Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage with Plums yesterday. It was an easy, tasty, and attractive dish. The tangy bacon goodness reminded me of my grandmother's German Potato Salad.

Strawberry Sorbet
This recipe uses apple juice instead of sugar and doesn't require an ice cream mixer.

Potatoes and Kale! Yay!

So it's going to be a hot week if everything goes the way they predict it will here in the Willamette Valley. I've decided to dig up a few recipes that will require as little cooking as possible, maybe a little grilling outside in the shade and breeze. Good luck and stay cool!

Baby Red Potatoes and Pesto Butter
This recipe includes our basil, parsley and red potatoes.



Mediterranean-style Potato Salad
It has a feta, mint and our new red potatoes...plus, only about 12 minutes of boiling.

Red Potato Skewers with Garlic and Mustard
I love mustard dressings!

Kale Recipes Galore!
So, someone out there has already done the hard work of trying kale recipes and listing their favorites on a special blog dedicated to their love of kale. The blog is called "I Love Kale". Check it out. It also connects you to all their favorite food blog sites, if you need more ideas.

Spicy African Kale with Yams
You could experiment by subbing our red potatoes in for the yams. This recipe might help you use up any of your extra purple cabbage.

Kale and Ricotta Salata
This recipe will use our delicious shallots!

CSA Recipes for Week 5

This week will be a little weak in the recipe department for my CSA members. I have been traveling with my sister, Beth, since last week and am just getting my roots in the ground again here at the farm. She lives in Michigan and I only get to see her once a year these days. So, we try to live it up a little.

Below are a couple recipes I found that might suit some of our CSA member's taste this week. Have fun!

If you're a bacon lover, use our CSA's Benning's Green Tint Squash in this Stuffed Patty Pan Squash recipe. They're attractive and how could they not be good? They have bacon in them!

And because I know a few of you could use a new twist on an old favorite:
Double Dutch Mac and Cheese with Chard

And finally, something very easy and basic. It calls for swiss chard, but the rainbow will work just as well:
Sauteed Chard and Onions

Have a great week everyone!

A few more recipes...

Zucchini + cukes are coming on strong this week. Check out the zucchini recipes at epicurious.com. I may be trying the Summer Salmon Cakes and Fennel Slaw or the Grilled Zucchini Pasta with Pecorino Walnut Crumble this week.

I'd also like to share what Mary and Dean Warner, two of our CSA members, did with their beets a couple weeks ago. It sounds delicious! Beets are back this week.

"Last week I made a yummy fritatta with the chard, beet greens and onion sauteed in olive oil and garlic. I had some leftover whole wheat rolls and crumbled them into the pan too then sprinkled in some shredded swiss cheese and added about 4 eggs whisked up with about 1/2 cup of milk. After the eggs were cooked at the bottom of the pan I put it in the oven and broiled it for about another 7 minutes until the top was puffed up and the eggs cooked (I cook with cast iron so it goes into the oven without consequence). Ohhhhhh that fritatta was so good. Thanks for growing this beautiful food."

Thanks for doing such beautiful things with it, Mary!

Here are a few beet recipes I found that sounded good. One uses tarragon and chives, so I'll be including those in your boxes this week or in the free/trade bin at your pick up site. The recipes below include roasting your beets but if anyone has suggestions for raw beet recipes, please send them to me and I'll share them in the next newsletter! Also, if you want a good beet salad when you're out on the town sometime, try Pambiche's! It's a Cuban restaurant in NE Portland.

Charcoal Roasted Beets and Red Onions
Roasted Baby Beet and Carrot Salad(this is the one with Tarragon and Chives. Also, this calls for sherry vinegar but I wouldn't let that stop you if you don't have it!)
Simple Roasted Beets Recipe

Apollo Wonder?

I've been itching to tell this story for several weeks.

Last month, I found this stunning butterfly floating legs up in a pail of water inside the greenhouse. A little sad, I scooped it up, showed it to David, took a couple pictures, and then set it on a piece of paper. I placed the paper on a table.

The next afternoon, I looked him up on the computer and concluded that he was probably an American Apollo Butterfly or Clodius Parnassian. I thought I'd better be sure by checking out the real thing on the table, but when I went to retrieve him, I found him MIA. I started looking under everything, assuming that a good wind probably blew him under a chair or into the corner .

A fluttering sound against the screen of our yurt window caught my attention, however, and that's when I saw it. An Apollo Butterfly, just like the one I pulled from the water! He let me scoop him up and carry him outside. When I opened my hands, he stood there for a minute or two, not licking salts from my hand, just standing and staring. During this time, I was tempted to go inside, grab the camera and snap a couple pictures. I knew I'd risk losing him to the captivity of the yurt, however, so I just sat in a chair on the porch and watched him. He eventually flew away.

That was a good day and I've never found the butterfly I scooped from the pale of water.