To view Farmer John’s latest update, click here.

This week’s share will include:

• Veggies: Lettuce, sweet corn, scallions, broccoli, radishes, spinach, zucchini or eggplant, colored peppers, choice of arugula or tatsoi, acorn squash, ornamental gourds, and choice of an herb. Reminder to use the “extras” bin for anything you don’t want to take
• Add-on shares:
  • Mushrooms: oysters
  • Fruit: paused
  • Flowers: done for the season

For those with half shares, this is “B” week. Remember to cross off your name when you pick up!

Serving Suggestions:

• In the past I’ve struggled to turn our CSA spinach into good homemade creamed spinach. I grew up with my grandmother making it from frozen boxed spinach and whenever I tried to replicate its taste and texture from memory it went haywire. She didn’t love to cook so I know her version was simple — onions, flour, dairy, cheese. After reading through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s recipe, I think my ratios in past attempts were all off. Spinach has a high water content and cooks down almost to nothing so you need to be careful with seasoning and when you’re adding your ingredients. I was seasoning based on the initial leafy volume rather than the final cooked down amount. I was over flouring because of all the moisture in the pot. This week I finally got it right by following Kenji’s advice and letting the mixture cook for awhile, simmering off much of the water. Admittedly I didn’t measure anything so we’ll see if I can duplicate it! I sweated a cupful of chopped onion and garlic, then tipped in all of the spinach and tatsoi, which I had washed and roughly chopped. After that all cooked down for a while I added about a quarter cup each of milk and heavy cream with freshly grated nutmeg. The last addition was grated parm and gruyere. That was all made a day ahead and then it was reheated in the oven and topped with more cheese just before serving. (I still over salted it just a bit so next time I’m going to hold off on any seasoning until I add the grated cheeses.)