Essentials Box | October 22, 2022

This week’s lineup is all-organic and includes a few local items:

• LOCAL Bartlett Pears (OPMA)
• LOCAL Cameo Apples (OPMA)
• LOCAL Carrots (Ralph’s)
• LOCAL Butternut Squash (Sound Sustainable Farm)
• LOCAL Rogue Blue-Green Curly Kale (Sound Sustainable Farm)
• LOCAL Broccoli
• Bananas
• Green Onions
• Tomatoes

With Diwali in mind and coming up on Monday, here are some recipe ideas to get you started:

Essentials Box | September 18, 2021

Here’s this week’s all-organic Essentials Box lineup with several locally sourced delights:

• Delicata Squash (Sound Sustainable Farms)
• Lacinato Kale (Sound Sustainable Farms)
• Blue Italian Plum (OPMA)
• Bartlett Pears (OPMA)
• Lime
• Red Onion
• Romaine Lettuce
• Red Potatoes
• Broccoli

Here’s a great idea for using the Delicata squash and Lacinato kale (along with apples from the store) from Love and Lemons.

Delicata Squash and Lacinato Kale

Essentials Box | June 5, 2021

Here’s this week’s all-organic Essentials Box lineup:

• Red radishes (Sound Sustainable Farms)
• Spinach (Sound Sustainable Farms)
• Pink Lady apples
• Bananas
• Navel oranges
• Garlic
• Zucchini
• Red onions
• Broccoli

Recipe Starters

This week, DGC volunteer Agen Schmitz provides some starting thoughts for what to do with the contents of this week’s produce box.

  • When broccoli is available, the first thing that I think of is making the Forbidden Burger from the Veggie Burger Atelier. The burger itself combines black rice, black beans, and shitake mushrooms (you could also use the Chef’s Mix of mushrooms available at the DGC storefront this weekend). But what makes this really special is topping it with spiced up broccoli florets (I prefer to roast, not steam). [Recipe via Recipe Wisdom]
  • A favorite one-pot recipe that’s easy to prep during the week is this all-in-one sticky rice with broccoli and squash dish (which looks to be adapted from the Vegetarian Dinner’s in the Oven book, which is where I got it).
  • One of my few kitchen gadget treats during our COVID year was a spiralizer, and our family enjoys “zoodling” zucchini, beets, and carrots to add a little something special to salads. (We might even try to spiralize the stalk of the broccoli this week.)

Meet the Producer

As we move into the spring and summer growing seasons, our DGC Essentials Box will feature more and more local growers, and we want to introduce you to the folks who are filling our boxes with fresh produce.

Founded in 2017, WSDA certified organic Sound Sustainable Farms was launched by Cedar Grove, who picks up and processes our compost every week. Cedar Grove brought its organic compost to a dormant farm in Redmond to restore soil health and initiate productivity on land that was protected for farming. They grow their beautiful vegetables on 60 acres of farm land, right here in King County!

Sound Sustainable Farms is devoted to building and maintaining healthy soils by using compost, cover crops, rotating crops and reducing tillage. They reject the use of synthetic insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers.

We’re looking forward to partnering with them more throughout 2021.

Jamie and Arturo showing off some of Sound Sustainable’s colorful carrots