Arctic Organics Week Seven

U-Pick Raspberries!
Our raspberry patch is loaded with berries! There are enough this year to invite you out to pick. The price is $5.00 per pound; a pint weighs about 1/2 pound. Call us for an appointment.
- River and Sarah
Vacation plans?
A reminder during these large delivery days: If you go on vacation PLEASE call Sarah or River and they won't bring your order. This helps to keep down the bags of left-overs. Thanks!
Open Farm Day:
Sunday, August 19th
2:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Come out and take a tour, engage in conversation and generally have a fun-filled afternoon here at the farm where your veggies grow.

Today’s delivery includes:
Broccoli
Zucchini
Baby beets w / greens
Kohlrabi
Redbor kale
Spinach
Tat soi
Radicchio
Lettuce x 3
ArugulaDill

Arctic Organics Week Six

It ’s a big harvest, and with an Asian twist!
We do our best to plan the season so that the harvest will be metered out throughout the summer, but this week we had to pick more varieties than we might have planned because they are inarguably ready. You’ll also find a nice selection of herbs this week to spark your creativity. So get out your salad bowls and pans and get busy! The veggies are thriving with the intermittent rainy and sunny weather of the past week. Enjoy!
- River and Sarah
Today’s delivery includes:
Cabbage
Broccoli
Market Express turnips w /
greens
Toscano kale
Tat soi
Pac choi
Daikon
Swiss chard
Lettuce x 3
Red rib dandelion
Escarole
Chervil
Italian parsley
BasilGarlic Whistles

Arctic Organics Week Five

Not beets yet! But such tender greens
The mid-season crops are eager to burst into production, just not quite yet! The first of such vegetables is the kohlrabi that you’re seeing today. Hot on its heels are the zucchini and broccoli, along with the early cabbages. Part of today’s harvest is helping with the main crop development, as with the beets. In order to make large bulbs, the beet patch must be thinned. These beet greens are the most tender and delicious you’ll have all summer. We are working hard to keep the weeds at bay in order to let the veggies outgrow them! Enjoy the veggies!
- River and Sarah

Today’s delivery includes:
Kohlrabi
Zucchini
Collards
Spinach
Purple pac choi
Beet greens
Lettuce x 3
Dandelion greens
Watercress
Herb bouquet
Cilantro

Arctic Organics Week Four

Many shades of green! Here at Arctic Organics, it’s greens season pretty much all season, but we do try to keep it exciting with variation and new options each week. This week you’ll find watercress and Swiss chard premiering. The bags are generally organized with the cookable vegetables in one and the salad vegies in the other, although there is certainly no set rule.

We’re also seeing many shades of green in the weeds here at the farm! They are absolutely thriving, and are definitely getting the best of us in the carrot field where the crew is spending all of its spare time searching out and unburying the carrot seedlings.

Enjoy the greens!

- River and Sarah

Today’s delivery includes:
Pac choi
Swiss chard
Market Express turnips
Red Russian kale
Mizuna
Tat soi
Lettuce x 3
WatercressBasil

Two Quiche Week

This Tuesday I was drowning in greens--and that was before I picked up this week's CSA allotment. On the way home from work I picked up the puppy at daycare, then stopped at Carr's for milk and dinner. Walking through the dairy aisle I saw them: refridgerated pie crusts. Hmm. Anathema to this farmer's grandaughter, but perhaps a lifesaver. I could make quiche with all my greens!!!

So Wednesday I made my first quiche--which turned out to be more like a spinach pie. I took every green from Arctic Organics that their info sheets had told me I could treat like spinach, chopped it up, and mounded it in the pie crust, adapted a recipe from the Horn of the Moon cookbook for Spinach and Feta Quiche, and into the oven it went. Tasted good, if a little green-heavy.

Every Friday here at work is potluck lunch, and I didn't feel like going back to the grocery store. Since I still had greens--thanks to Tuesday's pick-up--and I had cheese, eggs, milk and the second pie crust from the packet, I decided my contribution would be quiche.

This time the green was kale. I micro-steamed it, layered it with mushrooms and cheese, and poured in the egg/milk mixture. Forty-five minutes later, it was beautiful. Sorry, no photos. Not that organized yet.

As I was assembling the quiche, I was thinking about what a great metaphor it was for my green philosophy--something like "be as green as you can be, one step at a time." Here's an ingredient list:

Pie Crust--storebought, not organic, not local
Kale--local, unofficially organic
Mushrooms--canned, storebought, not organic, not local
Monterey Jack cheese--"O" brand ("big" organic), not local
Milk--organic, not local
Buttermilk--not organic, not local
Spices--not organic, not local
Garlic--bottled, not organic, not local
Onion--dried, not organic, not local

Arctic Organics Week Three

From the Beans:

Rain finally came! It was such a pleasure to be lulled awake Sunday morning by the sound of a true down pour. The fields and plants are soaking it up. The potatoes now have a chance to grow after 60-plus dry days! This is the time of the season when, just as we are resting on our laurels for having finished planting the entire field, we realize that the weeds have been enjoying the freshly cultivated soil as well. Do we have a healthy crop of weeds! It’s all hands on deck for
weeding in the full season crops like rutabagas, Purple Top turnips, carrots and beets. Enjoy the vegetables!
- River and Sarah

Today’s delivery includes:
Chinese cabbage
Broccoli
Winterbor kale
Mizuna
Tat soi
Lettuce x 3
Spinach
Arugula
Radishes
Herb bouquet – sage, marjoramand thyme

Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler

About a month ago I bought some rhubarb from River and Sarah at the Anchorage Farmer's Market, and this past week there was some more rhubarb in the weekly CSA bag. I've been searching for this perfect Strawberry-Rhubarb Cobbler recipe, and have been tweaking this one from Simply Recipes.

The first incarnation I made in too small a pan, and the topping refused to cook in the middle. I corrected this mistake the second time around, and substituted buttermilk for the milk. The buttermilk gave the topping a flavor that I didn't like as much as I had liked the flavor of the first cobbler, and the rhubarb didn't cook as thoroughly as I would have liked.

Still working on it!