Goodbye July: Keep that summer comin’

Hello CSA members!

It’s the last week of July and I hope you’re ready for another week of great eating. As to be expected at this time of year, we are hauling in hefty sums of squash and cucumbers from the fields. The cucumber plants are particularly generous this week, so I hope you have some cucumber recipes you’ve been yearning to use! Lately my favorite way to eat cucumbers is tossed into salad with fresh dill, but we have so many cucumbers these days that I decided to try fermenting some in a jar with garlic and dill. They turned out wonderfully with a lovely crunch and a little tang that is characteristic of fermented foods. And they are just as nutritious as they are delicious. The beneficial bacteria, which occur naturally during the fermentation process, is excellent for the digestive system!

Here is a recipe from Food Network’s Alton Brown for fermented dill pickles: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/dill-pickles-recipe.html

Other ideas for using your cucumbers might include:

a kale and cucumber salad with a dill mustard dressing

roasted beets and carrots with cucumber, caraway seeds, and goat cheese

Mediterranean-style salad with lentils, parsley, cucumber, and lemon

Let your imagination run wild and long like a cucumber vine!

I’m sure we’ve all been waiting anxiously for fresh juicy tomatoes since the end of last season. This week our tomatoes began to yield more generously (at long last!), so we hope to give you even more in your share. Your share will include other things too! Here they are:

Kale

Chard

Beans

Carrots

Tomatoes

Peppers

Cucumbers

Summer Squash

Dill

Basil

….and possibly some other surprises.