A dark green Asian salad green that has a spoon like shape, a pleasant and sweet aroma flavor like a mild mustard flavor, similar to bok choi. Tatsoi is generally eaten raw, but may be added to soups at the end of the cooking period.

You can think of this week's tamari as a living soy sauce, with a deeper, richer flavor. Like the miso, it is alive with beneficial bacteria, so save this tamari for flavoring your food after cooking, or using in uncooked dressings and sauces. It will last several years in your refrigerator.

I love swiss chard. A close relative to beets, the greens look very similar to beet greens. Like other greens, it is packed with the vitamins and minerals that are so hard to get in quantity in other foods. Chard is best eaten cooked, but is fantastic raw in smoothies. You can use it as a substitute for many recipes that call for spinach or other greens. As a side dish, I like swiss chard perhaps more than spinach. Which is saying a lot since I love spinach. For a quick side dish, try braising it one of two ways. Put a little olive oil or butter, 2 cloves of minced garlic & hald od a minced onion in a saute pan and allow the garlic to cook a bit and soften. Put in the chopped chard and cover tightly and let cook until wilted (if there's not enough moisture add a TB or so of water). Once chard has just wilted, add a sprinkle of red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar or balsamic and black pepper and serve. Or, add a bit of vegetable oil to the pan. Add the clove of minced garlic. Then add the chopped chard and cover and let cook until wilted. Then sprinkle with rice vinegar and a few drops of toasted sesame oil and maybe a teeny bit of soy if you want stronger flavor. Yum.

In order to distinguish between the more green and lush soil-grown sprout varieties, we have decided to refer to them from now on as shoots. This week's mix is made up of the cut seedlings of sunflower and radish. We will also mix in pea and buckwheat as the season progresses. These shoots can be used in place of greens in a salad and are awesome on sandwiches and in wraps. I particularly like them with hummus, as well as egg salad. Rinse and drain just before use. Keep in the crisper drawer of your fridge.

Sunchokes are the tuber of a perennial flower in the sunflower/aster family and are native to North America. There are competing theories as to how they came about their other name Jerusalem artichokes. In 1605, Samuel de Champlain first saw Native Americans harvesting these sweet crunchy tubers. The Native Americans called them sun roots, but Champlain thought they tasted like artichokes and called them artichauts de Canada. The plants were also clearly a member of the sunflower family and so were also called girasole (Italian for sunflower, meaning turning to the sun). It is thought that somehow these two names merged to become Jerusalem artichokes.

Sunchokes can be eaten raw or cooked in all the same ways that you can cook potatoes. Scrub the tubers thoroughly with a brush. Peeling can be difficult because of the knobbiness and is not necessary, the peels are edible. Like potatoes the flesh will darken with exposure to air so if serving them raw, dip in acidulated water. Because of high levels of iron, stored cooked sunchokes will also turn gray. This can be minimized by adding ¼ tsp cream of tartar or 1 TB vinegar or lemon juice to the cooking water. They cook quickly and will turn to mush so monitor carefully. Sunchokes should be stored in a cool, dry place or in the vegetable drawer wrapped in paper towels to absorb moisture and sealed in a plastic bag.

I often refer to Angelic Organics' Website for tips on how to best store my vegetables. Here's what they say about zucchini and summer squash"Zucchini and summer squash respire through their skins, so they need to be refrigerated as soon as possible. Store them unwashed in a perforated plastic bag in the vegetable bin, or refrigerate them in a sealed Tupperware container that you've lined with a kitchen towel. In the refrigerator they keep for about a week and a half."

We are coming to the last of our frozen bounty from last year's growing season. In order to cover everyone today, we ended up with a mix of squash and tomato purees. The squash puree is a mix from our fields, as well as High Mowing. If you see any teeny green flecks, that is just some acorn squash skin that squeezed through the food mill. It's entirely edible and shouldn't harm the consistency. The tomato puree with red pepper will go to Sweet Clover share members and would make an excellent pasta sauce, sprinkled with grated Bonnieview Ben Nevis cheese. Try sauteing some minced onion and garlic, adding the puree with some dried basil, marjoram, salt, pepper, red wine and honey, and then simmer for about an hour. Both of these should go right in the freezer, if you don't plan to cook with them in the next few days. Thaw in the refrigerator over night.

The sprouted beans in your share today are a mix of red, green and black lentils; adzuki; fenugreek; and mung. The beans sprout easily in the headhouse and pack a lot of nutritional punch into a small package. If you haven't already read it, Wikipedia gives a good rundown on the nutritional benefits of bean sprouts. These are perfect as a snack; tossed into a salad; garnish for soup or chili; or used in a stir-fry. It's hard to find nutritional information about the effects of cooking sprouted beans. However, most likely, the heat would kill some or all of the beneficial enzymes in the sprouts. Keep sprouts refrigerated and rinse and drain just before use.

It's been a long time since we've had spinach in the share and we are so happy to have it back in the bags. This is a larger leaf cooking spinach, versus the baby spinach you received for salads earlier in the season. Spinach is a staple ingredient from Persia to China to Europe to America. Like the French, I think that it has an affinity for a grating of nutmeg. Try adding a freshly grated pinch to your steamed, sauteed or creamed preparations as well as to spinach tarts, frittatas and casseroles. Wash the leaves in a sink or large bowl full of water, letting any sandy residue sink to the bottom. Lift out of the water and drain. Throwing it into a pan with a few remaining water droplets will allow it to steam nicely. Store unwashed, bagged in the crisper drawer for several days.