Back to the Basics: Heirlooms!

• You'll notice in your box this week (and throughout the season), we enjoy growing and eating heirloom vegetables.

Heirloom vegetables are from an older species of plant that kept it's original traits through open pollination. We enjoy heirlooms because of the superior flavor and the variety they bring to the dinner table (and we want to support their continued return to our food system!).

In this week's box, you'll find one of our favorite heirloom tomatoes: Cosmonaut Volkov. It's a Ukrainian tomato we like for its rich, deep, true tomato taste. We grow a large variety of heirloom tomatoes and other heirlooms (e.g.,lacinato kale) throughout the season. Let us know what you think!

This week, your box includes:

• Heirloom & Slicer Tomatoes
• Purple & Corolla Potatoes - Keep in your refrigerator (they are not yet cured). Slice and roast in the oven or on the grill with a bit of olive oil, salt & pepper. If you boil the purple, they will lose some (not all) of their color, but they are still great fun for kids to see (and delicious to eat!).
• Broccoli
• Salad Mix - Triple washed (same for arugula), so simply put into your crisper and then put into your salad bowl! Keeps for 1-2 weeks.
• Arugula
• Young Lettuce - These are very young and we were afraid to lose to the heat, so we harvested early.
• Cippolini Onions - Pronounced chip-oh-LEE-nee this is a smaller, flat, pale onion. These are sweeter onions, having more residual sugar than garden-variety white or yellow onions, but not as much as shallots. The advantage to cipollinis is that they are small and flat and the shape lends them well to roasting. This combined with their sweetness makes for a lovely addition to recipes where you might want to use whole caramelized onions.

• Hard-neck Garlic - Try roasting a head of garlic (I roast several heads at a time using a cupcake pan) and spreading on a baguette for a delicious side!
• Baby Leeks
• Swiss Chard

Swiss Chard and Golden Raisins, foodnetwork.com

2 1/2 pounds (the average weight of 2 bundles) red Swiss chard

1 1/2 tablespoons (1 1/2 turns around the pan in a slow stream)

extra-virgin olive oil

1/8 pound, 2 slices, pancetta or bacon, chopped

1 small yellow skinned onion, chopped

1/4 cup (2 handfuls) golden raisins

14 ounces chicken stock or broth

Coarse salt

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, a couple pinches ground or equivalent of

freshly grated

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Coarsely chop the greens of clean red chard. Add oil, pancetta, and chopped onion to

the pan and cook 2 or 3 minutes until onions begin to soften and pancetta is lightly browned. Add chopped chard to pan in large bunches, adding remaining chard as the greens wilt.

Sprinkle in raisins, pour in broth and season with salt and nutmeg. Bring liquid to a boil, reduce heat and simmer greens 10 to 15

minutes until greens are no longer bitter and you are ready to serve. Raisins will plump as the dish cooks through.

**EGGS NOTE: We have eggs! This week, our Deerfield and Milwaukee CSA members will receive eggs. We'll also have eggs for sale at our farmers markets in Lake Bluff and Deerfield.

Reminder: Please return your CSA boxes so we can reuse, thank you!