Tag: recipe

Chef Inspiration

September 15, 2025

For those of you who made it to the Deep Roots Festival this weekend, I think we can all agree that the food was amazing. The guys at Spanky’s did a bang up job taking whatever we had in season and turning it into a something glorious. I was especially struck by how they combined our sweet corn, peppers, and tomatoes with some butter beans to make this corn succotash.

As I was sitting there eating with Mar and other festival goers, I was thinking, you know, this is how we should be eating all the time. On our good days, we certainly do. But, on the days we work too long or are simply out of juice, we eat like every other American on a weeknight – frozen pizza or some other pre-made thing – even though we have literally tons of fresh food sitting in fields surrounding our house.

So, the role of the chef? Get us inspired to do better! Fresh food in season doesn’t need to be complicated. This was Amy Thielen’s message at her demonstration at the festival and certainly one I needed to hear in this time of too many things going on. Get good ingredients, get slightly creative, and you’re good.

So I want to thank Zach at North Circle Seeds for hosting us and everyone who made this a great event. We started this as a way to celebrate the season and local foods. For myself, it just felt good to gather with a group of people as do this ritual as we transition from summer to fall. Maybe it’s just some deep tribal thing that’s in our genes.

  • Sweet Corn: Yes, this is the end. But this is a recipe that seems pretty close to what Spanky’s did on Saturday: https://eatsimplefood.com/butter-bean-succotash/
  • Yellow Onions: Cured in the field and will store at room temp in dry location
  • Carrots
  • Yellow Potatoes
  • Roma Tomatoes
  • A couple big Slicing Tomatoes
  • Spinach: Certainly not your baby spinach we’re used to buying – this stuff got big because it loves to grow when it’s wet and cool
  • Radishes
  • 1-2 Italia Peppers: Don’t let the long shape fool you – this is a sweet pepper
  • Buttercup Squash

In the Box

August 26, 2025

Hey all – sorry time disintegrated on me yesterday! I got the box out the door and delivered in good time, but zero time til now to write you anything. At the very least, I need to let you know what’s in the box if you’re wondering about things. My apologies.

The only news worth noting is about this most recent study on the health benefits of the Mediterranean Diet: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/well/mediterranean-diet-diabetes.html Kind of validates my advise to just go with a whole food diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables – hopefully what we’re all getting through this CSA.

In the box:

  • Watermelon: I think most got our orange variety, New Orchid, but don’t be surprised if it’s yellow or red inside – the patches blend into one another.
  • Sweet Pepper Mix: All these peppers are sweet. About half are Shishito peppers, which are good sauteed aka frying pepper and the others are just straight up snacking types. See picture of cooking idea below.
  • Cherry Tomato Mix
  • Sweet Corn: This first patch is getting mature but certainly still has sweetness. Some really like corn at this stage, while, for those of you who don’t may consider a succotash situation (see below) or try it grilled. A lot of the grilled corn I’ve had seems mature – maybe that’s just how my Mexican neighbors like their corn? IDK. Pelican people – I don’t know if that corn is going to hold out til Friday -I’ll substitute something if it doesn’t.
  • Cucumber
  • Cilantro
  • Arugula: Tall oakleaf green. You can use in a salad with the lettuce, but this is standard arugula (not baby) so certainly lends itself to cooking. Think something like this https://www.sipandfeast.com/lemon-arugula-pasta/
  • Salad Mix
  • Radishes
  • Green Onions
  • Regular Tomatoes: Boy, these have taken forever to ripen and these are still the early small varieties.

This time of year I get tired of corn on the cob and try other things, such as this succotash I made for breakfast. I don’t do recipes…I typically just start sauteing things 🙂 I first did the shishito peppers on high heat with olive oil for a bit, followed by the corn cut off the cob (the picture is 4 peppers plus corn from one cob). After those got some color, I added in a clove of garlic and one tomato for the last couple of minutes and finished with a salt. Ate with toast. Could certainly add some feta or other cheese.

Involving Others

July 7, 2025

When I started this farm in 2004, I had all intentions of pushing the whole thing along with just my back and good pair of Red Wing Boots. A typical ambitious dude in his 20’s who has energy to burn. I had no intention of working with others or needing the help of others. But, this work being what it is-lots of detailed labor that takes a lot of time-that’s a near impossibility. I certainly never saw myself as ‘the boss’ or ‘the supervisor’ of anyone.

But we age and our energy and ambition wane. Without fresh troops the army just slowly falls apart. But I’ve been blessed these last 20 years with a lot of people in my life who do jump in and take on some effort. We’ve hosted an apprentice each year since 2014 and I’ve done my best to get my own kids engaged in the farm – some days are more successful than others. And when multiple tracks of work are running with multiple people at once, it’s an incredible feeling.

Yesterday I had this feeling like the farm was hitting on a cylinders. Camila was working the pack house to prepare the green onions and cukes for today’s box, Willem was building the lean-to roof, and Graham was pushing stakes in the ground for the tomato trellis. My role was to bounce between them all to help start them and move each project along. Now let’s see if we can finish what we started and hopefully repeat some all-hands-on-deck days this month as it’s clear that the number of tasks is outstripping the capacity of me and Camila to take them all on. Typical for this time of year.

In the box:

  • Green Cabbage
  • Kohlrabi: Weird bulb thing – peel, cut, eat, simple.
  • A Couple Cucumbers: We have both varieties now ready in the high tunnel. The really wrinkly one is an English-type cucumber called Tyria. The other is a long variety called Tasty Jade.
  • A Couple Zucchini
  • A Couple Lettuces: One is a beautiful green butterhead lettuce and the other is a red lollo variety for some color.
  • Green Onions
  • A Bunch of Arugula: Bunch of greens with a red band. You can mix in with the lettuce and cukes in a salad or have on its own like in https://www.loveandlemons.com/arugula-salad/ People also top pizzas with arugula and add to pasta.
  • Daikon Radish: This is pretty mild radish which you can peel and eat just as you would any old red radish. But it’s also very common in Asian cooking like in this pickled Korean recipe: https://urbanfarmie.com/korean-pickled-radish/

New Season New Energy

June 23, 2025

Well, season 21, here we go!

Our lives unfold each year with different color and energy and each farm season is no different with different weather, issues, and crew. For the beginning of the season, we had Gen Z Farm going on with the Sylvia and Camila show (both 20 years old) until Sylvia went to Ann Arbor to study biostats. With this much youthful labor we were keeping up on things even as the weather was throwing us some curveballs – 90 degree heat and dry in May, followed by 34 degrees and wet. Some crops were casualties, but others did awesome. All told, I’m feeling great about the state of the farm as of mid June.

We also try new things each year. This year I went deep into changing up the production system to permanent raised beds in our two oldest fields.

For the last 6-8 years we’ve been moving towards more intensive plantings of crops on smaller 30-inch beds in contrast to a typical 60-inch bed made with a tractor. Although the effort is great on the front end to built up these beds, the end result is beautiful. Each bed is easier to handle, really productive, and standardized so irrigation and covers planted really intensively and producing well. The big thing is we’re focusing our energy on these small intensive plots instead of a larger space and things are going well. I’m sure I’ll recap the experiment as we move through summer, but right now it’s looking good:

In the box:

  • 2 Bok Choy: We made a great rice noodle dish just a couple days ago which used bok choy. An example is at https://choosingchia.com/15-minute-sesame-ginger-noodles/ but I just made one up. Sautee the stalk together with an onion, add the leafy part after the onion and stalk soften just before the sauce (mix of rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, hot sauce, with a T of corn starch or a person could just use a pre-mixed sauce like Bachans). Top this over the prepared and drained noodles, mix, and serve.
  • Basil
  • Garlic Scapes: The bunch of long curly things. Wherever you would use fresh garlic, use scapes. They are a bit more mild than garlic cloves.
  • 2 Big Beets: These greens are about as good as beet greens get, so you can certainly put into a salad, smoothie, or saute
  • Green Leaf Lettuce: This is just straight-up lettuce – pretty delicate with good nutty flavor grown in the high tunnel.
  • Salad Mix: A mix of lettuce colors and varieties in the produce bag.
  • 2 Radish Bunches
  • Swiss Chard: The rhubarb-looking stuff for those of you not familiar with chard. Taste just like beet greens. One idea I do most mornings this time of year is to saute with those garlic scapes and top your morning eggs or fold into an omlette.
  • Kale: Standard curly variety called Winterbor. Can be used fresh or cooked.
  • Fresh Mint: Mojito anyone?
  • Fresh Terragon: Pairs nicely with chicken – think Mediterranean French cooking 🙂

Veggies, Ahoy

June 17, 2024

We’re setting sail on a new season to ports unknown. It takes faith each year to launch and hope all the necessary pieces line up well enough to make for a solid 16 weeks of CSA boxes. This is season #20, which is hard to believe. For 20 years we’ve been assembling a crew, putting seeds in the ground, and hoping for the best. We’ve had super rocky starts, terrible weather, and a range of farm mishaps, but we’ve also seen glorious harvests, perfect rains, and near flawless vegetables.

Each year, it’s difficult to know what’s in store. I do think of it like a voyage, but not like a cruise in the Bahamas, more like a whaling expedition circa 1750. We push off shore and labor on the ship for days on end. Some days are boring where we’re handweeding for hours in the sun. Other days we see some action, batten down the high tunnels and hope the hail stays north or reel in a huge harvest of potatoes. To take this stupid sailing metaphor a bit further (honestly, where am I going with this?), I know we have a very capable chief mate in Mason Berube, who has two seasons of farming under his belt. The family crewmates have dropped off since Sylvia’s gone off to college. This summer she’s working at a music camp in Wisconsin and the boys are not much for farming.

Lots of things are on the verge of getting ready, but not quite there yet – makes for a box lighter than I like, but that seems to be the nature of the first box of the year.

In the box:

  • 2-3 garlic scapes: These are shoots that come off the top of hardneck garlic -chop up and use wherever you’d use green onions…got a mild garlic flavor. I put in eggs.
  • Radishes
  • Mizuna: Red-banded green with frilly leaves. See recipe below.
  • Cilantro
  • Arugula: Red-banded greens with oakleaf shape. Commonly used in a pasta or as a salad – think Italian with parmesan.
  • 1-2 Sprigs of Basil
  • Fresh mint: Mojitos?
  • Bunch of kale: Big bunch of greens with a blue band. This is young and especially tender as the first kale of the year, so maybe try your hand with kale salad.

SIMPLE MIZUNA SALAD

from https://dishingupthedirt.com/recipes/simple-mizuna-salad/

PREP TIME: 10 MINUTES    COOK TIME: 0 MINUTES    SERVES: 2-4

  • 1 large bunch of mizuna
  • 2-3 radishes, very thinly sliced
  • 2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoons fresh lemon juice + additional to taste
  • flakey sea salt
  • 2 Tablespoons sunflower seeds, lightly toasted on the stovetop for  a few minutes
  • a few thin slices of fresh Parmesan cheese (optional)
  • a few pinches of micro greens (optional)

Preparation

  1. In a large bowl toss the mizuna with the radishes and drizzle in the olive oil and lemon juice. Toss well. Sprinkle the salad with a few healthy pinches of flakey sea salt, the toasted sunflower seeds, shaved parmesan (if using) and micor greens (if using). Serve immediately.

Notes*Use this recipe as a guide *Adjust measurements and ingredients as necessary