“Enough with the potatoes, we aren’t in Ireland,” wrote one of our CSA members, sounding exasperated because there have been little bags of potatoes in the CSA boxes over and over for quite a while. Sometimes red skinned, sometimes yellow fleshed, always fresh from the ground, less starchy than cured supermarket potatoes, usually smaller than the potatoes used for McDonalds French fries, they’re something of a staple.
We admit that our members may have gotten over the big exclamation point that we have in our heads when we say NEW!! potatoes, meaning that these are fresh vegetables, we have plucked them from the ground before they reach maturity. “New” indicates that they should be stored in the refrigerator and you may find that their skin is thin and delicate.
Full Belly has two potato seasons, a spring and a fall harvest, and we usually don’t run out until the dead of summer heat. This means a lot of weeks of potatoes – but it’s a versatile vegetable! Roasted, fried, boiled, baked… Our web site has lots of tried and true new potato recipes for you. The potato is very low in calories, has zero saturated fat, more potassium than a banana, iron, plus vitamin C and lots of dietary fiber. This week is your chance to catch up on the leftover potatoes in your refrigerator. Luckily they store really well!
When summer officially starts, on June 21st, people may forget that in northern California, the summer vegetables need to soak up a few of weeks of sun before they start to turn really sweet and summery. Shouldn’t the tomatoes appear on the first sunny day? In many recent Junes, the potatoes are one of our reliable June standbys, in part because there really aren’t a lot of other fruits and vegetables available on the farm, despite our human-centric idea that summer arrives on the same day every year. In recent years, for most of June, we are still waiting for everything to ripen.
This year is different, as you can see from your box, with sweet corn, cherry tomatoes and green beans available several weeks ahead of schedule. The potatoes will be back, but meanwhile, enjoy your summery box!
