CSA Report

This weeks CSA featured our first squash of the year...

Red Leaf Lettuce
Spinach
Strawberries
Scallions
Garlic Scapes
Sugar Snap Peas
Arugula
Napa Cabbage
Amaranth
Summer Squash
Chard

Harmony Valley Farms Strawberry Day

OK...

...so we had every intention of attending, but the weather was iffy, the kids were less than well behaved and the thought of traveling 3+ hours with them kvetching in the backseat was less than appealing.

Looks like we missed a really good time.

You can see what we missed here- Simple Good and Tasty

New CSA Box

So we picked up our new CSA box from Harmony Valley Farms, and much to our delight, we got the first Strawberries of the season... We love them with a touch of sugar and Balsamic Vinegar, but I want to try this recipe.


Here is the rest of the contents...
Red leaf lettuce
Kohlrabi
Spinach
Red radish
Scallions
Garlic scapes
Broccoli
Salad mix
Napa cabbage
Red Komatsuna



Dear wife made this fantastic Potato Au Gratin with some potatoes we had laying around, and added the garlic scapes, the scallions and used the rest of the Cheddar we got in the Cheese CSA last week.






In other news, our garden is starting to show some life!

A few tomatoes starting to grow...

And a couple of the peas that are starting to form...

Radishes with salt and butter

Have you tried this yet? I first heard about it from watching Anthony Bourdain and I've been wanting to try it ever since. We got French Breakfast Radishes in our CSA box this week and I decided this would be the perfect excuse to try this recipe. Just slice your radishes into thin rounds, sprinkle with sea salt, spread good butter on some high quality french bread and enjoy. We toasted the bread on the grill first and the crunch of the bread and radishes went beautifully with the creaminess of the butter.

Another really cool place to take your kids

My husband discovered the coolest park totally by accident. He'd been itching to take the kids and I for days. So, we picked up some sammies from Nelson Cheese and Deli and then let the kids run wild at the Treasure Island playground between Hamline and Snelling in the Highland Park area. They have a drinking fountain, a port-a-potty, (all very important amenities when you're towing 2 small children) some picnic tables and plenty of shaded area so it's a great place to take lunch and set up camp for a couple of hours. Which is exactly what we did! Enjoy the photos!

CSA Box June 11th

So sorry about not posting last week's CSA box. The pictures didn't turn out very good and we learned a valuable lesson about taking photos outside vs. inside. This week we started getting more summery vegetables and the twinadoes ate kohlrabi for the first time. They have dubbed them "crabby radishes" in part because they can't pronounce kohlrabi and also because they have the crunch of a radish and I guess they do kind of look like crabs to a preschooler who doesn't know any differently. So, this week we got a head of red leaf lettuce, 2 heads of green kohlrabi and one purple kohlrabi, spinach, french breakfast radishes (which we are going to serve raw with butter and sea salt on french bread), purple scallions, garlic scapes, yukina savoy, asparagus, rhubarb, and arugula. We've been very committed to buying our eggs, milk, and meat each week at the Saint Paul Farmer's Market and we've had nothing but great experiences and great food as a result.

A really cool place to take your kids

So, for a cool place to bring your kids this summer check out Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis. It's an indie book store designed with kids in mind. Since most of the early part of the week was rainy and cool I decided it would be a great time to take the kiddos to the book store then Punch Pizza for lunch. I knew we were in for good things when I noticed that built into the standard size door was a smaller door for the kids. They were elated as they walked inside their very own door and things just got better from there. It's such a kid-friendly place. In fact, I should probably classify it as grown-up tolerant as it's really a store for kids. The book selection was vast and eclectic and I was drawn into the books even more than my children. There were nooks and crannies and all kinds of wonderful places to sit and read for awhile. There were birds, two very friendly ferrets, two amazingly patient cats, a scared silly chicken (frantically running around the store, I might add), a tarantula (in his cage), a lizard (also in a cage) and a really cool in-floor viewing area for the rat. My kids were truly beside themselves as they discovered books, animals, posters, and an environment that brings out the magic of reading.