What’s In The Box? August 13-19

Italian Summer
The Italian summer calls to mind visions of flavorful pasta enjoyed alongside a bottle of fine wine and beautifully prepared garden-grown produce. Hence, this week’s box captures the flavors of summer by way of Italy with Skagit River Ranch’s organic Italian sausage and imported semolina pasta to toss with a super-fresh heirloom tomato sauce, plus garlic fougasse bread and creamy chevre cheese from Lost Peacock Creamery. Also included for this relaxed, refreshing meal: Ripe and juicy summer nectarines, Badger Flame beets and other seasonal highlights like Romano beans, English cucumbers and Little Gem Romaine.

Here’s what you’ll find in your box:

Skagit River Ranch Italian Sausage

The pampered pigs raised on the Skagit River Ranch in Sedro-Woolley roam outdoors in certified-organic pastureland to root, dig, and cavort as only happy pigs can, thriving on a diet of flax seed, corn and wheat. Spiced with savory herbs, this delectable Italian-style sausage will add a savory note to pasta kissed with herbs and fresh heirloom tomatoes—see recipes for details.

Imported Cannolicchi Pasta

Crafted in the traditional Italian style from semolina flour and cut using Old World bronze dies, this artisanal pasta imported by Rustichella d’Abruzzo is made in tight twists to resemble the razor clam shells of the Adriatic Sea.

Garlic Fougasse Bread

Baked just for us at a small bakery in Snohomish, this rustic flatbread is ideal for sharing. Similar in style to traditional focaccia, the artisanal-style loaf is studded with fresh garlic to give it extra depth and flavor.

Contini Tonaghe Cannonau di Sardegna

This beautiful red from the Sardegna region of Italy is intense with aromas of ripe plum and wild blackberries, and is warm and relatively full-bodied with fine tannins on the palate.

Farm Fresh Eggs

Busy scratching through the straw mulch in their spacious outdoor run looking for tasty bugs and worms, our heritage breed laying hens supply us with fresh eggs in beautiful shades of brown, beige and cream.

Lost Peacock Creamery Chevre

Soft and spreadable, this lightly creamy chevre from the Grade-A Lost Peacock goat dairy in Olympia, Washington is a simply beautiful farmstead cheese. Crafted with just goat’s milk and sea salt, it features notes of summer pasture and bright lemon.

Ripe Summer Fruit

Juicy nectarines and blueberries.

Seasonal Organic Greens

Little Gem Romaine lettuce and escarole.

Badger Flame Beets

Featuring all the vegetal sweetness of classic beets, without the polarizing earthiness, this brilliant new varietal is the brainchild of breeder Irwin Goldman as part of the new venture, Row 7, a startup that selectively breeds a variety of vegetables to maximize factors like yield, shelf stability, and, of course, flavor.

Seasonal Organic Vegetables

This week’s produce selection also includes heirloom cherry tomatoes and heirloom Curo di Bue Albenga tomatoes, English cucumber, Pinto Gold potatoes, broccoli raab, Tropea onions, eggplant, purple scallions, orange carrots and both yellow and green Romano beans.

Fresh Garden Herbs

Italian parsley, garlic, basil and golden marjoram from the walled garden at Bella Luna Farms.