Greetings CSA Members,

No pity-party today, for the sun is shining magnificently and the leaves on all of the plants are drying out nicely. Dry leaves don’t invite many insects or disease. Thank goodness! However, due to the abundant rainfall, Brian has been pacing the floor trying to figure out the best box to send your way this week. Lots of vegetables are not quite mature and some were lost. So this week, my listing is not very clear. I do know that you will receive green beans. But there are a few holes in the list for right now. By tomorrow, be assured that there will be a full box delivered. Check the white board for the most accurate list.. An additional piece of business - It has come to my attention that the delivery sites are in need of organization so that they can remain neat and tidy. Please remember to flatten your recycled box and pile in an appropriate place. If no pile has been started, please create one. Remind those picking up for you what the process is. And finally, please remember your third installment due in July. Thank you all so very much.
I have just finished reading a humorous gardening piece (written by John Hershey and published in a magazine called GreenPrints) that I thought that I would share with you all.
So here you go – enjoy:
“To help us cope with our harvest, newspapers and magazines publish many recipes at this time of year. The recipes all sound great, but I never follow any of them. They aren’t really useful for gardeners, because, in addition to my vegetable, they always call for some strange ingredient I don’t have – shallots or caciocavallo cheese or ostrich steaks or whatever. I know there are gardeners out there growing Belgian endive, Portobello mushrooms, and so forth. But for most of us this time of year brings a superabundance of a few basic crops. I need a recipe where the only ingredients are three quarts of cherry tomatoes and 15 cayenne peppers.
You know what would be a useful recipe for me right now? Roasted medallions of zucchini in a tangy zucchini sauce over a bed of zucchini-stuffed zucchinis topped with a caramelized zucchini glaze. As a side dish, perhaps a nice zucchini-spear salad with our house dressing, a zesty zucchini-infused vinaigrette. For dessert, may I suggest the positively decadent triple-zucchini cake? And don’t forget to try our signature cocktail, the crisp, refreshing zucchini-tini…
Despite my gourmet ambitions, here’s the only recipe I ever use: Pick everything that’s ready in the garden, throw it all in a big pot with some olive oil and garlic, and cook on low heat until it turns into some sort of pasta or pizza sauce… Sure, toss it in! Just about anything you dig up in your garden can be blended into the sauce with hardly a trace, its taste and color cleverly concealed by the flavorful, bright-red tomatoes. And, of course, no pizza sauce would be complete without the frappe’d remains of a two-foot-long zucchini.
While that simmers, I need to head back out for a few more baskets of tomatoes to start the next batch. If my boss calls, tell him I’m in the garden with my zucchini-tini.
Make it a double.”

This week in your share, you will most likely find: Green Beans, a bag of Salad mix or Spinach, Cucumbers, Lettuce, Basil, Carrots, Radishes………..

Have a great week – Justine

To accompany this week’s excerpt, here is a killer Zucchini Chocolate Cake Recipe

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

2 ½ cups all purpose-flour
½cup cocoa
2½ tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
¾cup soft butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups coarsely shredded zucchini
½cup milk
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
Glaze (directions to follow)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, soda, salt and cinnamon; set aside.
With a mixer, beat together the butter and the sugar until they are smoothly blended. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. With a spoon, stir in the vanilla, orange peel and zucchini.
Alternately stir the dry ingredients and the milk into the zucchini mixture, including the nuts with the last addition.
Pour the batter into a greased and floured bundt pan. Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes (test at 45) or until a wooded pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in a pan 15 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool thoroughly.
Drizzle glaze over cake.
Glaze: Mix together 2 cups powdered sugar, 2 tbls milk and 1 tsp vanilla. Beat until smooth.

And now a recipe selected and tried by Rebecca!

Pan Fried Cucumber with Perilla (Basil would be an excellent substitute)

2 Large Slicing Cucumbers, peeled, sliced in half lengthwise, seeded, and cut crosswise into 1/4" slices
3-4 Cloves of garlic chopped
2 tsp Premium quality light soy sauce
1-2 tsp Clear Chinese Rice vinegar
1/2 tsp white sugar
2 dried chilies de seeded
1 Tb Chili Oil w/flakes
1/3 Cup of perilla leaves, cut into a chiffonade (shredded or finely cut leaves)
1 tsp Sesame Oil
3 Tb peanut oil
- Heat wok over high heat until smoking
- Add oil and swirl around wok. Add dried chilies and scald, but do not burn.
- Add the cucumber slices in a single layer around the wok and fry until the cucumber slices start turning golden brown
- Turn cucumber slices as necessary.
- Once slices start developing color, add sugar, garlic, and chili oil, and stir fry.
- When dish becomes fragrant, splash in soy sauce and vinegar, and mix well.
- Remove from heat and mix in perilla leaves. Stir in sesame oil and serve.