Veg of the Week 7/20/20: Beans
Our beans are coming in full tilt, so now is the perfect time to explore your options! Currently available are Yellow Romano, Purple Romano, Fortex green bean, and compass green beans. They're all great snacks but can have advantages over each other depending on the preparations you enjoy!
The Yellow Romano Beans are delicious marinated in a bit of oil, citrus, salt, and a dash of chili flake then tossed on a hot grill. Purple Romano Beans add a great pop of color to salads while Fortex Green Beans are perfect for canning or Lacto Fermenting. Compass Green Beans are delicate, they add an elegant touch to any dish and are wonderful Lacto Fermented.
When adding green beans to salads we prefer to blanch and shock. This is simply bringing a large pot of heavily salted water to a rolling boil and adding your beans (not so many that the boil stops), cooking until just tender but still vibrant and crunchy (this should only take a few minutes depending on the size of bean). Once cooked add them to ice water so that they quickly cool and do not continue to cook, this preserves the texture and color.
We also recommend pickling them, with the exception of the Purple Romano Beans as the color will leach.
What else is growing:
These are new additions to our garden and they're ready to be ordered now. Pictures will be added to the order sheets soon!
Yellow Romano Beans
Fortex Green Beans
Little Gem Lettuce
Chives
Fennel Flowers
Dill Flowers
Green Coriander
Notes from the Farm:
Did you know that Owls swallow their prey whole? The food that they cannot safely digest (bones, teeth, and feathers) they regurgitate in what's known as an Owl Pellet. Owl Pellets are fascinating because they provide a lot of information about the lifestyle and diet of the Owl. As we clean out the barn and prepare it for winter projects, we will have access to an abundance of owl pellets. Are you interested in dissecting an Owl Pellet? Let us know and we'll provide some for you! This is a great opportunity to take a closer look at the lives of our Barn Owls and learn more about what animals live on our farm. Here is a guide we found that can help provide some framework for the learning opportunity!
We will continue to donate 10% of coffee and tea sales to the Equitable Giving Circle, which from their website, "aims to build immediate and increased equity throughout Portland’s BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities through a combination of fund development and network building opportunities that center economic equity." We feel strongly about supporting our local community, farmers and access to fresh produce for all.