August 30
Herb ID above: at the top, curly parsley; right, cinnamon basil blooming; bottom, cilantro!, left, marigolds.
Pattypan squash in the middle.
Below: amaranth greens, a cooking green. Some of them are purplish-red all over.
This week's harvest:
NEW: Pattypan squash, or as I think of them "flying saucer squash". Back after a while, cilantro, it's in the bouquet.
ONGOING: Corn, beets, not-even-baby-beets with tops that are better as cooking greens, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, pole beans, amaranth cooking-greens, okra, green onions.
MAYBE THE LAST: full-size lettuce. Hot days are giving me trouble with bolting. There are little lettuces and lettuce seed in the ground but possibly nothing will get back to full head size by the end of the year.
Recipe suggestions:
Pattypan squash recipes, fairly simple
Since summer squashes carry sauce so well, I like making a really different sauce/marinade each time I roast them. Here's a two-minute video on the "start by sauteing" ingredients of fifteen cuisines.
Summer squash and tomato tian (like ratatouille without eggplant)
Korean veggie pancakes for a mix of vegetables (carrots piling up?), a video demonstration.
Cucumber kimchi; not a long-fermented one, only needs an afternoon to sit and then keeps in the fridge.
Getting ripe for next week:
Maybe green peppers! Hot or not? don't know yet. They aren't supposed to be very hot. Maybe a few weeks from now. Otherwise, more of what we've had recently.
Storage notes:
Rinse anything outside the big plastic bag before eating. Some crops don't wash well or don't store well when wet, and those will be delivered UNWASHED and OUTSIDE the big plastic bag, possibly in a small plastic bag. Big sturdy things like summer squash will just be loose. Rinse anything outside the big plastic bag before eating.
Everything INSIDE the BIG plastic bag has been washed in at least three changes of water and drip dried.
Basil and cilantro and flowers keep best with their stems in water, like little bouquets, I find. Basil outside the fridge, cilantro in the coolest part of my house or the warmest part of my fridge.
In general: root veg, including carrots, should have their greens taken off promptly, after which the roots like cool dark storage. The greens on our root veg are all edible. All greens like cool humid storage.