CSA #8 (7/15/2025)
First, a few dates for your calendars:
1) If you haven’t been able to come to our October Farm Tours, Henry invites you to come to The Land Connection’s Tour of Henry’s Farm on Monday Aug. 4.
2) Many of you knew our Dad, Herman, and we invite you to a “Tree Walk” in his memory the afternoon of Aug. 30. If you would like to attend, please go to our Tribute site and click on “Gathering” to RSVP. This will help us have enough food, drink, and parking for everyone! (If you already signed up, I will be sending an email update with more information soon.)
3) While you’re looking at your calendar, mark Saturday Oct. 4, the date of our Annual Farm Tour and Festivities.
Before getting to this week’s vegetables, a reminder that the list you see in the Monday email is usually, but not always, what you get on Tuesday. That’s because sometimes, during the Tuesday morning harvest, we discover there isn’t enough of one thing for ALL members, so some locations get one vegetable while other locations get a different one. But Henry always evens things out over the weeks so that in the end all members will have received the same items!
In Your CSA This Week (most likely!)
Zucchini and other Summer Squashes
Potatoes
Onions
Garlic
Choice of Amaranth or Purslane — see Food Notes about these delicious and nutritious wild greens below.
Beets
Choice of Fennel or Shiso — Henry was sad to see the share boxes full of these two vegetables, so urges you to try the salad below that Hiroko made recently. You can also make the Shiso Drink from last week’s email. A number of people did, and told us it was amazing!
Beets — Boil or roast your beets, then use them in the great salad recipe below. The beets provide the rich, flavorful base, while the fennel adds a sweet crunch, and the purslane adds a light, lemony note. Chopped shiso leaves elevate it to the gourmet level!
Hiroko's Beet, Fennel & Purslane Salad, garnished with Shiso
1 bunch of Purslane
1 bunch of Beets, cooked
1 Fennel bulb (save some of the fronds for garnish)
1 onion (any color), thinly sliced (optional)
a handful of raisins, craisins, or other dried fruit (optional)
Feta Chese (optional)
Shiso (optional)
Lemon vinaigrette, or the dressing of your choice
Rinse and roughly chop the bunch of purslane (stems and all) into about 1-inch lengths.
Cut the cooked beets into cubes.
Thinly slice the fennel bulb, using a mandolin if you have one. If not, slice as thinly as you can with a sharp knife. Ditto for the onion if you are using it.
Place all the prepared vegetables and the Feta and dried fruit into a large bowl. Pour the vinaigrette (or other dressing) over it, and use your hands to toss, coating all the vegetables with the dressing. Garnish with chopped shiso leaves and/or fennel fronds.
This is wonderful as a side salad — or as a light meal atop toasted bread.
This bunch of Amaranth Greens is from earlier in the season, and the bunches you’ll see this week will have larger leaves and bigger stems. Just rinse and chop the whole bunch, stems and all, then put into boiling salted water for a few minutes until tender. You can drain and serve with a little butter or olive oil, or add to pasta, rice, eggs, etc. I also love to make a "spinach" soup or saag paneer with it.
Food Notes: Wild Things!
Even though lettuce season and spinach season are over until the fall, and even though the deer ate pretty much all of Henry’s chard, Nature Provides, and this week you can choose either wild Amaranth (use as you would cooked spinach) or wild Purslane (delicious either raw or cooked). As with all wild things, they are more nutritious than their domesticated cousins.
Amaranth greens are a valued food all over the world, from Asia to the Himalayas to North and South America and the Caribbean. In China, tender young amaranth leaves are used as a stir-fry vegetable called yin choi. In the Caribbean it is known as callaloo, and used in delicious soups and sautees.
Although the stems are large, they cook down nicely, and there's no need to strip the leaves from the stems. Just chop the stems and leaves roughly, and then use amaranth in your favorite dishes that call for cooked spinach. (True Saag Paneer is made with wild amaranth greens!) And you can use amaranth in quiche, lasagna, or on its own as in this simple and delicious recipe:
SAUTEED AMARANTH
1 Tb olive oil
2 onions, chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1 pound Amaranth greens and stems, washed, rinsed and sliced
Salt and pepper to taste
In a large skillet, heat the olive oil, and then add the onions, and cook until soft. Add the garlic and cook another minute. Then add the broth and bring to a simmer. Add the greens, in batches if needed. Cook until soft, stirring often. Season to taste and serve.
NUTRITIONAL HIGHLIGHTS: Like most native plants, amaranth is rich in vitamins and minerals, including vitamins A, B6, C, riboflavin and folate, as well as calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese.
Purslane Health Benefits
Purslane is high in omega-3s, and great either raw in salads, or sauteed with eggs or other vegetables. People around the globe have known and loved purslane as far back as we know. It was cultivated in ancient Egypt and was enjoyed by the ancient Romans, Greeks, and Arabs. In Europe, its cultivation goes back to the 13th century.
Until recently, it was considered a weed here in the U.S., although flower gardeners love its more showy cousin, Portulaca or Moss Rose. Weed or not (and we say Not!), purslane is a worthy addition to your salad repertoire -- tasty and healthy!
Like other "weeds," purslane is far more nutritious than most domesticated greens. Here are just a few of its health benefits:
* Seven times the beta-carotene of carrots
* Six times more vitamin E than spinach
* Fourteen times more Omega 3s than other greens
* High in vitamins and minerals
* Strong anti-oxidant activity
* And folk medicine holds that purslane cures insomnia!
How to Use Purslane
* Toss into salads -- not just green salads, but beet salads, potato salads, egg salads, and more!
* Add to soups and stir-fries
* Add to scrambled eggs or omelettes
* Lightly steam for 4 to 5 minutes, then serve with salt and butter
* Add to smoothies
* Try this simple Turkish Purslane Salad with Yogurt, and substitute Shiso for the Mint!
The Great Garlic Harvest is done, but there are so many more jobs to do, including fall planting!
Farm Notes: Too Hot and Dry to get the Fall Crops Planted
We’re not sure what the weather was like in Peoria, Morton, and Eureka last Tuesday, but we know there was a torrential downpour in Bloomington—probably a couple of inches of rain in less than an hour.
But on Henry’s Farm, just 20 miles away, we got barely a half inch, which was sucked up by the vegetables, or evaporated, in just a day or two. Rain is in the forecast again this week, but so far we have seen none, and it is really dry.
This is the time Henry usually starts seeding fall crops, but he needs to wait until the highs drop down to the mid-80s, or the tiny plants will burn up as soon as they germinate, assuming we water them after planting.
Although it’s too hot and dry to seed fall crops, Henry is nevertheless going to transplant out starts of fall kale, broccoli, and cauliflower. If he doesn’t get them into the ground now, they won’t have time to size up and be ready for your CSA shares in the fall. He will immediately water them and hope they survive until we get a good rain. So do your rain dance!