Spring in Southern Utah!  Hot one day and a freeze the next and lots of wind!  One thing is for sure and never seems to change is the winds here!  This past few days we have kept on eye out for extreme winds and I feel blessed that we don’t live on Foremaster Ridge, St. George! 70 mile wind gust!  If you like to watch the weather, you might want to add the ” Davis Instruments WeatherLink” mobile app to your phone.  We will soon be launched on this app with our own station as well.

Produce this week will have many mixes of greens including kale, radicchio, beet greens with baby beets and celery. S  Spinach, green onions, broccoli, lettuce and herbs (cilantro, dill, oregano, sage, rosemary & fennel).  We have some other onesie, twosie items that will be a mix in your share as well.  As usual, I will list a recipe for some of our produce later today…. I also did a post on our other blog, Out Standing in the Garden, on kale that includes a recipe for a blueberry smoothie if your interested HERE is the link for that.

This week I recruited a new gardener and farmer.  I think he is coming along nicely!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a small skillet dry roast 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds until fragrant, then grind with a mortar and pestal.

Halve 1 pound carrots lengthwise.  Place in baking dish add 3 peeled and quartered beets, 1 unpeeled orange cut into 8 wedges, 2 T olive oil, 1 T cider vinegar, 1/4 t sea salt and 2 T fresh thyme.  Add 1 teaspoon cumin and toss until all ingredients are coated.  Roast uncovered for 45 minutes or until beets are tender throughout.

Dressing

Pick orange wedges out of roasted vegetables and squeeze juice into separate bowl and discard peel.  Add any juices from baking dish.  Add 3 tablespoons olive oil, 1 T lemon juice, 1 T red wine vinegar, 1 t maple syrup, 1/8 t sea salt and a dash of pepper.

In a large bowl, combine 4 cups chopped kale, 1 peeled and sliced avocado, and 2 T fresh chopped chives. Add dressing and toss to combine.  Transfer roasted vegetables to a serving dish and top with dressed greens.  Sprinkle with sunflower seeds and chive flowers if available and serve.

Week six buzzed in quickly this spring!  This weeks shares will include beets with beautiful beet greens.  Saute, steam, juice or chop those greens up into your salad.  Kale is also on the menu.  Have you ever made kale chips?  How about a beet and kale salad?  I’ll include recipe for the beet and kale salad later today.  You will also find young leeks, scallions, plenty of mixed lettuce greens, a nice mixed herb bundle and radishes.

Don’t forget to bring your baskets back each week and any egg cartons!  Also, as a reminder, last week we asked for small berry containers if you had any you don’t have a need for them, we would love to fill them!  We should be seeing strawberries in about two weeks.

Farm update ~ New babies arrived early Friday morning.  One doe, one buck.  Cute as a, well, baby goats!

Okay, so you may not be familiar with broccoli rabe and in it’s in your shares this week!  What or what should you do with it?  Give this a try~

Spicy Broccoli Rabe Bruschetta

1/2 – 3/4 lb broccoli rabe

3-4 Tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

6 slices baguette cut into 1/2″ slices

1/4 cup ricotta cheese

Preheat broiler.  Cut broccoli rabe stems into 1/4 inch pieces and coarsely chop leafy greens.  Rinse and drain.  In a frying pan, medium heat, warm half olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes and saute until fragrant.  Add broccoli rabe, raise heat to high until greens wilt.  Season with salt and cook until tender, 4-10 minutes.  If pan seem dry add a splash of water.  Remove from heat, toss remaining olive oil.  Brush baguette with olive oil and broil until golden brown on both sides.  Spread each slice with ricotta cheese and top with the broccoli rabe.  Drizzle with more olive oil and serve immediately.

The wind is HOWLING!  With March weather being so nice and not to many days of wind we can expect to start April out with a bang!  Hopefully the wind will die down by this afternoon like it did yesterday.  Expect to find your share baskets inside our store!

High winds make it very hard to harvest tender greens, as it blows them out of our lettuce buckets and wilts them quickly.  As the day goes, we may bypass this weeks young lettuce greens and double up on them next week….

Today’s harvest will include green onions, celery stalks

with their fabulous greens, baby lettuce (depending on wind), chard, herbs, baby mixed greens (arugula, bok choy, mustard, chervil, kale, ect.), broccoli rabe and hakurei turnips. Plus other produce. I will list more of what will be in this weeks shares as the day goes on this post.

Those that are getting eggs, please bring a carton or basket as we are very low on cartons today.  We do have some extra eggs this week.  Eggs are $3.50 a dozen and they are feed all organic soy-free feed and run the yard for several hours during the evening pecking for extra goodies.  Feed prices have increased and our eggs will have to jump to $3.75 – $4.00  a dozen in May.  Hopefully the lower end.

We have another set of baby goats due this week to add to the triplets we had last week and we are looking forward yet another batch of loveable kids hopping around the farm yard.

Garden update;  Spring Jersey Early and Red Cabbages are starting to head, so you will be seeing those in your baskets in two to three weeks.  Snow peas and strawberries are now flowering!  We are looking forward to that.  If anyone has little plastic strawberry baskets that they have saved up and want to send them our way, we’ll take them and fill um up!  We are hoping to be adding baby leeks in next weeks baskets.  We also will be harvesting horseradish this spring for anyone that is likes it. This year we planted ramps and hoping that they will multiply like crazy.  They typically grow in wooded areas that are cooler, but we created a little micro climate for them and hoping for a great harvest if not this year, next.  We can only harvest 15%.

A great way to use these delicious little turnips and their greens!

Clean and cut turnips into equal size wedges, discard roots and cut off greens (save for later).

Steam turnips using a steaming rack or insert until just barely soft (about 4 min), add greens and steam for two more minutes, until bright green.

Toss greens and turnips, 1 tablespoon olive oil, zest and juice of 1 meyor lemon.  Season with sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste and serve.

This dish is simply and fast!  You’ll fall in love with Hakurei Turnips!

With Warm Maple Pear Vinaigrette ~

Vinaigrette:

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 garlic clove

1 small shallot

1/2 Asian pear ~ grated

1 T maple syrup

2 teaspoons mustard

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt

Heat t teaspoons olive oil over medium heat, add garlic & shallot, saute 3 min.  Add pear and continue sauteing until pear is soft and cooked through.  Remove from heat, add maple syrup, mustard and lemon juice. Transfer to a bowl, add 1/8 cup olive oil and sea salt. Whisk quickly until smooth.

Salad:

3 cups arugula

1/2 pear thinly sliced pear

1/2 avocado sliced into wedges

1/8 cup toasted sunflower seeds

Toss salad and warm dressing to coat and serve.

Enjoy!  We will as well tonight with a nice slice of artisan bread!

Spring is buzzing by us!  I can’t believe it is Thursday again.  This week has been very busy for us on the little farm.  We now have three new additions of baby goats with feeding chores every two hours and milking once again twice a day.  Planting is at it’s all time best right now.  We are putting in heirloom tomatoes and peppers for an early harvest for Summer Shares.  Napa cabbage plants, potatoes and more onions.  There isn’t a day that goes by that something doesn’t go in the ground.  Things are living up around here!

What we have this week ~ Hakurei turnips.  Don’t mistake these for radishes.  I have never met a turnip that I have liked until I met Hakurei.  I will post a recipe by this evening.  Chard, arugula, lettuce mix, herbs and radishes.  We are adding asparagus to the mix this week as well.  I think this will be the only harvest we get this year.  As the day goes we will more than likely add to this post of other produce in your shares.  Maybe a baby goat??  Haha!

I also have a great recipe for bitter greens using arugula that is to die for.  You will need to get a pear and an avocado  for the dressing.  I will post that as well after we harvest today!

Ok, mustard greens are not my most favorite in a salad, but saute them and I will eat a basket full!   This recipe, you can use any greens included dandelion greens!

1 bunch of greens (kale, collards, mustard, chard, mizuna, bok choy, dandelion, spinach) chopped

1 Tablespoon virgin coconut or olive oil

1 Tablespoon minced fresh garlic or ginger root, or both

1 small onion or leek, chopped

Toasted pumpkin seeds

Trim and discard (or save for vegetable stock) thick stem ends of greens. In a large skillet over medium-low heat, saute onion or leek in oil until soft.  Add garlic and/or ginger and saute 2 minutes longer.  Add chopped greens and fold until just wilted, but still bright green.  Remove from heat and season with sea salt or coconut vinegar (a share holder got me hooked on coconut vinegar).  Serve topped with a sprinkle of pumpkin seeds.

You can’t go wrong by adding a variety of greens to your menu.

Greens, greens greens!  We just love the feeling that fresh greens gives us.  Weather we juice them, saute them or eat them fresh they really get our bodies in great condition.  This week we have mustard greens, collard greens, salad mix, red pearl onions (from early winter harvest), baby bok choy, spinach, lemon grass and rosemary.  Some will get cilantro and some dill.  Possible hakurei turnips this week, if not, for sure next week. I’m sure there will be other produce as we pick through the garden at harvest time tomorrow.

I’ll post a recipe later for the mustard greens.  Looks like with these warm days we will be harvesting asparagus for week four.