Here's what's in this week's basket... (#3)

Hey-yo... long day, gotta get this info out to you all though, so you know what you're working with + have a tip or two... so here goes:

Don't forget, you can click on it to enlarge it... if that helps! =)

Lettuce greens -- one thing we've actually gotten good at growing the past couple of years... the amount of slug pressure about two months ago was just WHOA, though... glad we managed to hand-evict all thousand-or-so of those troublemakers!

Radichetta -- basically a low-bitterness commercial cultivar related to dandelion. We did not forage these, but rather grew them from seed packets we ordered. Try mixing it in with other soft greens in a salad, or lightly wilt and season like you would cooked greens

Kohlrabi -- grate it into a small portion and season with vinegar or mayonnaise like slaw, or slice thin and raw and season lightly (or, dip in luxurious real-cream ranch dressing, like I do to this and broccoli =P)

Cucumbers -- hooray for new stuff!

Sunburst pattipan squash -- sorry not enough yet on the plants to include multiples, good flavor... the key, as with all squash, is to get some caramelization going (see https://www.thekitchn.com/pattypan-squash-recipe-23058706, for example, for more info)

Kale -- just a splash of it, honestly. Many uses for this stuff

'Green' garlic -- you can either use the cloves over the next week or two and enjoy the uniquely sharp taste of truly fresh-from-the-ground garlic, OR... leave off the ground in a cool, dry place (basement?) for the next two weeks, and then enjoy chipping away at it long-term. NB: It will NOT have a long shelf-life, if you don't take this important drying-out / skin-hardening step!

Basil -- Some purple, some the more common deep green. An old friend for most

Milkweed florets -- Doro and I have been cultivating for the past few years a special perennial patch of milkweed taken from the prairies surrounding Chicago that framed our earliest days living together here in the states... and it is doing well enough now, that we can share a little of this special foraging treat with you. Just stir-fry briefly (a few minutes) with butter and a bit of salt... tastes like a mix of broccoli, asparagus, and a faint hint of caper.

Daylily flowers (not pictured) -- also foraged; eat fresh, either diced up and adding fun color to a salad or arguably more-boldy whole, as a salad topper or sandwich topping.

And last and definitely also a bit LEAST: French breakfast radish. I have to apologize, as normally I get to sample a crop before deciding it goes in the share basket. These appeared and felt not at all overly ripe, but are also (very atypically) our first root crop after the bad-for-root-crops hot and dry spring we've had this year. Doro and I noticed that one we tried to cut up this evening was a little tough on the outside. CAVEAT EATOR... but hopefully only very few are like this!

Also, one share member let me know that he had a hard time using the stalk of the walking onion from a week or two ago, that it was fibrous. Now, I did pick and cut up and eat raw as well as test-fry one of these at the time, and it was not fibrous at all... and I also went for a consistent snapping-off when harvesting the stems and aerial bulbils. In any case, I'm sorry if you got unlucky there/then, as well. I will aim to make it up to you, with something extra in the next basket.

In the meantime, email me any fun recipes you find... and, may the rains and sunshine be appropriate in the coming weeks -- and the pests discovered (and remedied) early!

Basketto numero due... prego!

OK, I know 'Basketta' is not Italian... the inclusion of the letter K is a dead giveaway. Maybe baschetta is a better fake Italian word? =) Anyways, here is this week's loveliness, followed by a description:

Here's whatcha got this week -- 

a handful of onions, greens and all -- eat it ALL, please!

bundle of swiss chard -- is there any other national denomination of chard? Again, plz eat it all!

bundle of garlic scapes -- such a yum balance of garlic and leekiness

one head 'o lettuce greens -- one person got a MASSIVE head, everyone else got a substantial one :)

kohlrabi -- you can eat the leaves and the orb-like body... nevermind the little colored depressions on the body, there is nothing inedible about a slug pre-approving a nibble here or there (before we remove and skyrocketed them down the hill!)

radichetta -- a special, cultivated dandelion-like green with very minimal bitterness... you can probably sautee and serve these, no special tricks required (outside of a 'lil butter, sweetness, sour, or mix of those)

lamb's quarters -- we let this forage green grow up every year in our garden, looking forward to breaking off the tender top parts of the stalks for our members. Prepare leaves as you would any spinach recipe, including lightly cooked (ie topping on pizza) or raw on sandwiches. Stems you should discard.

SUPER-SPECIAL BONUS VIAL = some of my homemade apple cider vinegar; its sweet and sour and superyummy, kinda like a fine aceto basalmico (basalmic vinegar)... if you don't thing you'll use it, plz keep and bring back to next share meeting... very precious stuff and I'd like to not waste any of it :)

Send us a cool recipe or two, if you end up using something new (or trusted) and really liked the result!

best,

Matt

 

Basket #1 of 2021... diving in!

Folks, so glad to being you your first basket of goodness! I'm gonna try to keep this post short, and just enumerate what is in there... but first, a general tip: we lightly rinse all our stuff, do give it a second rinse just to be sure. OK here's a pic of a dissected basket this week:

We've got:

Spinach greens (in zip lock)

Garlic scapes... super-yum, use sunflower seeds for a cheap and yummy pesto

Salad greens -- various varieties, everyone got a 'head' :)

Sprig of oregano

Egyptian walking onion stalk (all parts are edible; you can pluck and replant the top bulbils if you want to try cultivating a growing patch of this for yourself)

Tatsoi (Asian greens)... very mild, can use for a lot of things (including making kimchi ;)

Dandelion greens -- well, dandelion and a couple of very closely related species... the first stars of spring, they get a better jump on the growing season than anything else I know! Be generous with your sour, sweet and oil, the only tricks I know to get kids OK with eating them (can also mix lightly into a fresh salad, if you are used to eating greens)

Well, email me any recipes you end up using, bring your basket back next week, and we really hope you get to use and enjoy everything!

Doro and Matt and the gang

Loving the springing of Spring!

Doro, about to take some kale and collards for a stroll !

Every year it is a blessing to see the plants, trees and shrubs slowly re-animate (and re-green) themselves. From the wild onion tufts, to the exploding leaflets of the brambles (blackberries, raspberries and such), to next dandelion rosettes... and then, spring beauty, and young sassafras leaves, and evening primrose rosettes sticking their heads up... culminating (at least, in my foraging mind's-eye) in the luxurious patches of stinging nettle that reliably dominate their surroundings (and, beg to be harvested).

spinach, kohlrabi, tatsoi greens, radicetta, mixed lettuces...

Of course, the seasons have greater and greater unpredictability these years, so there can also be quite some disappointment... for example, that cold flash we had about a week ago killed every last fruit blossom that was on our twenty-or-so-fruit-trees mini-orchard. Its nice to have a reminder of how fragile things can be. I mean, even as preparations are as thoroughly made as possible, there are always circumstances outside of our control!

...lettuce, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, okra... mmm!

Anyways, enough waxing poetic, a couple of important updates about this year's share:

1) Please make sure you are by now getting these blog posts delivered direct to your inbox; I will follow up with a Google Groups message to double-check, but double-check your spam folder!

2) Our very good friend and organic / locally sourced ingredients baker-friend Laura Walton is offering a 'baked goods' addition to the share this year. If interested, $30 gets you one serving of whatever yumminess she will bake for us weekly (and just before share pickup), while $60 gets you two. Please message her at thecrunchybaker@gmail.com for more info, or just to let her tell you how you can pay!

3) We are aiming for the first share to come out June 2nd, and barring more than two members telling us its an absolute non-starter, we'd like to keep last year's pickup day, time and place of Wednesdays from 4-6PM at the Wedge. Please email me if you have serious qualms about this, or if you've found some kind of alternative that promises to be even more magical than this place! =)

Tomatoes, tomatoes and more tomatoes... oh my!

There will be a LOT of transplanting of things into the garden over the next month, so wish us luck in keeping them well fed, watered, and protected from insects!!!

- Matt, Doro and the gang

Welcome to growing year 2021, at Coburn Cove Cooperative! =)

First off, let me thank you all for being a part of our community-building, food-growing, space-and-time sharing enterprise LAST year (2020). It was a weird year that definitely now has a younger, square-peglike sibling... but you worked together with us to make the veggie, eggs and baking share from CCC possible. You rock! I think that was our fifth year so far, since starting in vacant urban lots in Chicago several years ago, that we had people sign on to help us grow food for ourselves and them by sharing in the tools, consumables and work-time expense.

Our veggie plot rolodex. Recently updated, with new 2021 contacts ;)

This year our cooperative is welcoming several new members, and also having one (maybe more; I haven't heard back from everyone I emailed several months ago) depart. I have tried to leave everyone I have NOT definitely heard a 'no, thanks' from on the distro list for the blog, but the peeps that have followed up with my email offers + payment instructions so far this year are the following: Jane Anne, Jessica, Marcel, Calder, and Kimberly. If you haven't paid yet and want to, please confirm your intent NOW with an affirmative email and either a check in the mail or a PayPal plop =)

Those rows don't tidy back up themselves, you know...

A few weeks ago we started our first batch of seedlings for the garden, and are about to move them outside to make room for another round... cross your fingers and/or pray for us that we manage to keep the frost off each successful eviction from our warm and artificially lit basement-bunker seed-starting room!

The most tedious work in the garden (absent weeding and trying to fight off pests, which is a unique blow-by-blow delight reserved for mid-summer =/) is nigh... we are hand-amending the rows with lime and topsoil presently, and will follow that with newspaper mulching (once you get to know clay, you know how much of a d@&n baby it can be about drying out) as well as traditional mulching with double-ground wood chips. These are the days when gym memberships seem a pretty dumb re-engineering of otherwise natural processes, for sure!

What's missing? Well, mulch, more mulch, weed fabric, drip hoses, protective fencing, eh... (I'm getting faint just thinking about how far we've still got, before even we start 'greening' the dag-gum thing) =P

A week or so ago we managed to plant potatoes and new onions, and are waiting to see them sprout as the first intentional greenings at the plot. Next on the list will be some experimental direct seeding with some more 'expendable' early spring crops (meaning, ones I found for a GREAT deal at AgCare on Smokey Park Hwy). And then, there is plenty of non-share-related homesteading work staring me squarely in the eye.... namely, getting the various fruit trees in our little orchard properly weeded and mulched. And then, on the horizon, transplanting the seedlings into bigger pots. And then...

...well, let me cut this short for now, and just say that things are fully into 'beginning' again on our grounds... and it feels not only good, but proper.

- Farmer(-ish) Matt and the Gang

Share #10... hope you enjoy it!

Well, what a strange share delivery, devoid of the usual fun due to not just rain but more importantly the Wedge being temporarily closed. If I could have made it out for delivery, I would have brought cold cider for all, and we could've still had a brew (and the parking lot and tables 100% to ourselves for a change!)

Sorry it took me an extra day to get this informative blog post out... here is what we put in the share:

- Potatoes (mostly kennebec but you may have gotten a red-skinned pontiac or two)
- Slicing tomatoes (main varieties are green zebra, better boy and red zebra)
- A mix of salad/cherry tomatoes as well as Mexican sour gerkins (basically, pop-a-cukes)
- Cabbage (I think its early jersey wakefield variety, but don't quote me on that)
- Pepper mix
- New Zealand spinach (really good pan-fried, btw... not sure if you've tried it yet, but its 100% sub for spinach this way)
- Kale (plants are on their way out, I'm not sure what's doing it... maybe the rain? I also know they technically don't last forever, but they sure seemed like they would, up until two weeks ago!)
- Carrot mix
- Rosemary sprig (try crushing some leaves and adding to a gin tonic w/gentle lime splash... pretty yum!)
- Rando-fun = butternut squash, eggplant or baby canteloupe

Twas kinda sad that our last share pickup had about the least hangout-y vibe of them all... and that the eggs didn't get brought (nor the local bags of dried porcini-and-friends). You can still get your eggs that you missed, and some dried porcini if you'd like, if you come to... (read below)

I will be sending out a form in the next day or so that will ask you to list some of your favorites, some things you'd have loved for us to have worked into the share (we tried a lot of things but the slowness and failure to sprout of some crops, like eggplant and corn for example, dumbfounded us)... and also any kudos or suggestions for improvement. The form will also ask you to check any days you would be willing to come out for our end-of-share, socially distanced, outdoor pizza-making celebration with (I have to brag) practically zero-food-mile toppings =P. We're hoping to get one last, quality gathering in around the food we've grown here for our friends and family, sometime either the weekend of the 22nd or the 29th =)

I'm pretty sure that we'll go up in price a little for next summer/year (as we barely even pay for supply costs, much less our time, with the current rates)... but we'll still be less than half of the typical local CSA cost. But we're also not doing this to pad our income -- more to bond with you all better, and to live more in tune with the natural world! We'd love to either have you back next year, or if you really liked this experience and want even more food to work with, we'd also love it if you graduated on to a real farm share (and kept in touch with us, about the yummy experiences you get from that)

You all are the best; look for that Google Form invite, and I'll hope to see most if not all of you in a week or two.

Your mini-farmers and friends,
Matt, Doro, Josie and Yanusz

Share #9... second-to-last, second-to-none...

...for the price and the love that goes into it, at least! =)

Mixed peppers, basil, salad and slicing tomatoes, he gets, chard, carrots, a spilt of 'moon and star's watermelon (and, a baby canteloupe if your slice was significantly smaller than the others), and... our own potatoes. You'll think I'm BSing, but these potatoes will be soooo yummy! Reminder: don't toss your best greens if they look good. instead, slice them finely (slaw or addition to salad), OR a little less finely and fry up (perhaps with your chard?).

Also, an idea for using the flower heads on your basil stalks, that works well for us: steep them in a nice olive oil for anywhere from a couple days to up to a week (ideally, in a sealed container, out of the sun), and then pour the resulting, herbed oil into ice cube trays, make frozen cubes, and throw into any batch of noodles (first-pass or refried) for a burst of great basil flavor!

Finally, today beef share ppl got the VERY LAST of my grillable cuts, from our two steer. Sob, sob, sniffle, sniffle... please do me a favor, and send me a picture of you enyoying your first bites of these flavor-monsters... so I can at least live vicariously through you! =)

Looking forward to the last share, and to the socially-distanced pizza-making 'picnic-on-the-farm that we will announce (and then do) some weekend soon thereafter.

Y'all are the best!

- M