Hello Fellow Locavores,
Welcome to the Immune Booster Week 55 Newsletter. This week we have a stellar line up of produce in abundance and some creative, colorful prepared foods for the days you just can’t muster up cooking. This share is designed to fill in those days where you need to take a break and treat yourself to someone else’s fine cooking, thus inspiring you to divulge into something magical with your own fresh produce on another day. This share is also designed to highlight the depth of farmers, chefs and artisans we have in our local community and share their talents with you in our weekly shares. So, let’s share a little adventure together and follow the path it took to round up this local box of immune-boosting wholesome food…
Setting off on a fine spring day, we head south of Ann Arbor to Goetz Greenhouse and Family Farm to collect some super tender, hoop house-grown Rainbow Swiss Chard. These vibrant, crisp greens are packed with iron, magnesium, vitamins A and K. Delicious as a fresh tossed salad or as a wilted salad, my personal favorite way to prepare Swiss chard is to sauté with minced garlic, sesame seeds, mushrooms, and a splash of soy sauce. Simple, but so tasty!
Continuing on down the road, a little further south, we head over to Wayward Seed Farm to bulk up our produce for this week’s share. We packed our lunch and came prepared for a busy day of loading up the truck with an array of fresh spring produce and storage crops. First up into our refrigerator truck, we stack crates containing one-pound bags of organic Spinach. This early spring crop packs a serious punch of bone-supporting vitamin K. It is also incredibly beneficial for your skin by helping to heal scars and sun damage, enhancing its radiance and fortifying its natural barrier, perfect for these warmer, sunnier days. This spinach, like the Swiss chard can be consumed as a tossed salad or a wilted salad. It’s also great for throwing into hot pasta sauces just before the sauce finishes cooking, or maybe it’s time for a spinach and artichoke dip, just because it’s YUMMY!
Next in line and up into the truck are two pallet boxes of iridescent, green globes of organic Green Cabbage. Picked late last fall after a few light frosts that sweetened them up beautifully, these storage cabbages are a good source of dietary fiber and are great for your digestion, with nutrients that keep the lining of your stomach and intestines strong. Also, helpful in lowering bad cholesterol and controlling your blood sugar, these veggies are packed with vitamin C to further promote skin health. These cabbages would most definitely fit the bill for a colorful coleslaw served at a backyard cookout one of these bright spring days. If that’s not in the plans, cabbage is extremely versatile and can be stir fried, steamed, roasted or turned into a savory soup on some of these chillier nights.
Moving on through the Wayward Seed Farm produce, we get started on loading a colorful mix of organic Potatoes next. We have a super mix of red potatoes, golden potatoes, and sweet potatoes for this share. Potatoes are known as a universal superfood and are consumed in unimaginable amounts around the globe each year, because they contain all the essential elements to support a healthy and energetic immune system, plus they are delicious! Fried, mashed, baked or boiled they are easy to prepare, tasty and extremely good for you, especially if you keep the skin on them where much of the nutrition lies. So eat them up and maybe make a potato salad for that spring cookout to go with the ‘slaw’.
Next onto the produce party truck, we load up a fair amount of organic Parsnips from Wayward Seed Farm. Parsnips are loaded with fiber and a good dose of vitamin B6 and they tend to serve best when roasted in the oven with olive oil. Just slice them like you would a carrot, toss them in olive oil and roast them away with the beets and turnips that are coming up next.
Well, we are most definitely breaking a sweat now loading up this bounty from Wayward Seed Farm. The next rounds out of the cellar are organic Dark Red Detroit Beets. These beets are packed with vitamin C, and their high fiber content helps reduce triglyceride levels which means they are a super heart healthy food. So roast them up in the oven, do a quick pickle with red wine vinegar and sugar, or grate them over salads, pastas and soups. Get into the rhythm of the beet and see what other creative creations you can drum up with these robust tubers.
We have come to our last haul of Wayward Seed produce for this Immune Booster visit. Last but not least, we load up organic Purple Top Turnips. Purple on the top and white on the bottom with a good dose of copper, protein and manganese in between. These turnips are great for roasting and that’s just what you should do. Cut them into quarters and bathe them in olive oil, dried herbs, salt and pepper and you’re on your way to a savory roasted tuber with a little kick of zest. Like Deb says, “Turnips are the best!”
After a few elbow bumps and socially distanced ‘high fives’ we hit the road once again, so heavy the tires might pop! The show goes on, out west to Joe’s Blueberries for flavorsome packs of Frozen Blueberries. Joe has been in the blueberry business for the better part of his adult life and thoroughly enjoys cultivating these fine fruits. Blueberries are an antioxidant superfood. Packed with antioxidants and phytoflavinoids, these berries are also high in potassium and vitamin C. They are anti-inflammatory, lower your risk of heart disease, and reduce DNA damage, which may help protect against aging and cancer. So get your blueberry pancakes on, with a side of blueberry smoothie. Or why not eat them frozen right out of the bag? Little frozen nuggets that taste just like a mini blueberry sorbet and there’s no work involved besides hand to mouth and chew. How easy can healthy snacking get?!
Since we are close to the shores of Michigan, we take a scenic ride up north to Second Spring Farm for some organic Yellow Onions. Reid, the owner of Second Spring Farm, spent time farming through the ranks of Tantre Farm back in the day and is now up and running his own beautiful farm. These storage yellow onions are robust, pungent and good for you. They help fight inflammation, reduce blood pressure and lower cholesterol levels if consumed regularly. So roast them along with the other roasted veggie ideas above, toss them in soups, slice raw on salads or sandwiches, or just simply caramelize them and serve on top of pastas or salads. An onion a day keeps the doctor away!
After we bid farewell to Reid and his crew, we once again hit the road and head back to the Washtenaw Food Hub here in Ann Arbor to drop off our bounty and prepare to receive more delights for the share. Among them are about 100 dozen Local Free-Range Chicken Eggs that we have sourced from multiple small local farms and Webbed Foot Pines. Spring is the laying season for all birds, including chicken eggs by the crates full. The handful of partners that contributed the eggs to this share are longtime friends to Tantre Farm, and we support their good stewardship of the land and their animals. Their well-loved hens have been free ranging and consuming the new spring growth, scratching and kicking the old leafy debris aside for some protein to maximize a well-rounded diet. The end result is a happy chicken laying happy eggs that pack a happy dose of immune boosting qualities, like a rich dose of omega-3, high quality protein and an array of vitamins and minerals. Boiled, scrambled, fried, poached… eggs are versatile and delicious however you serve them. How do you make an egg roll? Just give it a little push. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist!)
Kicking things off this week with the prepared foods, we dig into a creative Mushroom Tart from EAT. This pentagon-shaped open-faced mushroom tart is composed of flour, butter, local eggs, water, salt, onion, herbs, parmesan cheese and local Detroit Mushroom Company mushrooms. It’s always great to see two local businesses working together to create a tasty dish and this is sure to be a crowd pleaser. Just pop it into the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes to reheat it, and then you’re ready to chow down this savory mushroom tart. Enjoy!
Next up to the prepared food party, we get things popping with a very colorful Vegan Ceviche and Corn Chips from Ginger Deli. Originating in Peru, Ceviche is traditionally a marinated seafood dish that has been adopted and adapted by chefs all over the world. I have had at least 50 different versions of this dish, but this is a new one for me and I can’t wait for you to try it! This particular vegan and gluten-free Ceviche is composed of fresh kaffir (lime leaves), tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, mango, lime juice, paprika, jalapeno, Tofu, The Brinery Tempeh, fresh herbs and cilantro. Accompanied by a pint of corn chips to swoop and scoop this tasty dish into your eager mouth. It’s a refreshing spring dish both aesthetically because it’s so colorful and on the palate because it’s so tasty. Viva El Ceviche!
Back by popular demand, we feature an El Harissa salad for our final prepared meal in this week’s share. Created especially for the Immune Booster, El Harissa came up with a hearty and extremely colorful Fattoush Salad that is vegan and gluten-free. This splendid North African salad is composed of Tantre Farm carrots, Tantre Farm cabbage, beets, Tantre Farm purple daikon radish, pickled red onion, tomatoes, cucumber and grapes. It comes with a citrus dressing that has sumac and mint to balance out the flavors, and a side of homemade pita chips. (Pita chips are not gluten-free). This salad is bursting with color and flavor and if it leaves you wanting more, just head on over to El Harrisa and get yourself round two.
Need a little bump on the side to the abovementioned prepared meals? An extra healthy and super flavorful sidekick perhaps? Then look no further than a fine jar of Stimulus Package Sauerkraut from The Brinery that is vegan and gluten-free. This is the perfect dance partner to all three dishes above and gives everything an extra little zing, if you know what I mean. This kraut is composed of Wayward Seed Farm green cabbage, filtered water, caraway seeds and sea salt. Good for your inner gut economy and packed with pre and probiotics, this is a fine fermented food.
Coming in last, but by no means least in this Immune Booster share, we end things on a delicately sweet note with Apple Pie Granola from Harvest Kitchen. This vegetarian and gluten-free granola is composed of Ferris Organic Farm oats, dry apples, dates, walnuts, cinnamon, honey and canola oil. This is a great trail hiking snack right out of the container, or it can be consumed in a bowl of your preferred milk. Lately I have been using this granola to mix into homemade cookies to give the kiddos a bit of extra nutrition to their chocolate chips. It’s good for them and good for you, so granola up to a healthier you!
So there we have it, another food bazaar full of life-nourishing nutrition and mouth-watering flavors. We hope you enjoy this local box of wholesome goodness, and we thank you for your continued support of this beautiful project, where many hands in our community pull this share together each week. It’s a labor of love, week in and week out, and we are grateful you have come along for the ride. Supporting the local economy, buying local food and reducing our carbon footprint are key targets to this project and please do stay tuned – We have lots more to offer as the weeks continue to roll out, with new ideas and new talent to be featured. For now, eat well, do well, be well and we look forward to seeing you all at the Washtenaw Food Hub or at Agricole Farm Stop this coming Saturday.
Here’s a link to Tantre’s treasure trove of recipes, where you can get some additional ideas for using this week’s share: http://tantrerecipes.blogspot.com
Don’t forget to keep an eye out for our next email on April 18 regarding Tantre Farm’s Immune Booster CSA Share, Week 56 for pick up on April 24.
All the best,
Ryan Poe and the Talented Tantre Farm Crew
**We look forward to hearing your weekly feedback on the shares and welcome any suggestions on how to improve. Please understand that we try to give you an accurate listing of the produce in your box each week; however, since this menu is published before we pack the boxes on Fridays, we may sometimes have to substitute some vegetables for others. Mostly we are able to update you of changes in our Friday newsletter, but sometimes our decisions are made after the newsletter is published. Please let us know whenever you think you are missing anything, and we will try to find some way to make amends. Thank you for your patience and understanding, as we try to keep things as smooth as possible. Please contact Ryan and Zoe with questions or comments at immuneboosterbytantre@gmail.com.
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