This simple dish is from TV presenter Dick Strawbridge, who lives in Cornwall. He cooked it with his son James on ITV’s The Hungry Sailors.

We’ll be using our homegrown basil in Camel CSA’s veg boxes this week to make it along with the potatoes supplied by James Mutton at Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn.

We have a strongly-growing crop of basil in the polytunnel and can look forward to plenty more in the weeks to come.

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients
For the gnocchi:
750g potatoes
300g plain flour
1 egg yolk, beaten
Pinch of salt

For the pesto:
2 garlic cloves
12 basil leaves
2 tbsp pine nuts
1 tsp sea salt
50 g parmesan cheese, grated
(use a vegetarian version to keep it a veggie dish)
4 tbsp olive oil

Method
Peel and roughly chop the potatoes and boil for 15-20 minutes until soft.

Push the potatoes through a metal sieve, or a potato ricer, to make a smooth purée. Allow to cool and mix in the flour. Beat in egg yolk and a pinch of salt until it forms a dough. Knead to ensure it is smooth.

Roll the dough into a long thin sausage then cut into 1 inch pieces to form the gnocchi. Using the prongs of a fork, make an indentation into the top of each gnocchi.

For the pesto, grind the garlic, basil leaves, pine nuts and salt together in a mortar and pestle to form a paste. Stir in the parmesan and olive oil.

Drop the gnocchi into boiling, salted water and cook for a couple of minutes. The gnocchi are ready when they rise to the surface of the water. Remove, drain and coat in the pesto.

All Camel CSA’s veg boxes have basil this week – grown in the safety of the polytunnel. Our standard boxes also have indoor tomatoes and aubergines as well as a selection of other seasonal vegetables.

All the boxes this week will have: –
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)
* French beans / peas (Camel CSA)
* cabbage (Camel CSA)
* onions (Camel CSA)
* calabrese (Camel CSA)
* cucumbers (Camel CSA)
* garlic (Camel CSA)
* basil (Camel CSA)

Standard boxes will also have: –
extra potatoes
* beetroot / turnips (Camel CSA)
* salad bag (Camel CSA)
* tomatoes / aubergines (Camel CSA)

* = grown to organic principles

As cucumbers are so plentiful at the moment, here’s another idea for using them – it’s from Yotam Ottolenghi’s book Ottolenghi. 

With large cucumbers (as opposed to the mini ones found in the Middle East), he advises halving the cucumber along its centre and scooping out the watery seedy core with a teaspoon.

Serves 4

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients
6 small cucumbers (about 500g) – or 1-2 of the CSA ones
2 mild red chillies, thinly sliced
3 tbsp roughly chopped coriander
60ml white wine vinegar or rice vinegar
125ml sunflower oil
2 tbsp poppy seeds
2 tbsp caster sugar
salt and black pepper

Method
Chop off and discard the end of the cucumbers. Slice them at an angle, so you end up with pieces 1cm thick and 3-4cm long.

Mix together all the ingredients in a large bowl. Use your hands to massage the flavours gently into the cucumbers. Taste and adjust the amount of sugar and salt according to the quality of the cucumbers. The salad should be sharp and sweet, almost like a pickle.

If not serving immediately, you might need to drain some liquid off later. Adjust the seasoning again afterwards.

We now have some smart new shelving in the packing shed to hold all Camel CSA’s weekly veg boxes. Many thanks to Mike and Chris, who constructed it.

All the boxes this week will have: –
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)
* French beans (Camel CSA)
* spinach (Camel CSA)
* spring onions / green onions (Camel CSA)
* calabrese (Camel CSA / Restharrow Farm)
* cucumbers (Camel CSA)
* Florence fennel (Camel CSA)
* beetroot (Camel CSA)

Standard boxes will also have: –
extra potatoes
* peas (Camel CSA)
* salad bag (Camel CSA)
* tomatoes (Camel CSA)

* = grown to organic principles

We’re holding an exciting programme of fun-filled summer holiday workshops for children. Three different sets of activities aimed at 4-11-year-olds start on Wednesday 15 August.

The action-packed sessions are led by workshop leader Diana Barry, also Camel CSA’s treasurer.

Diana says: “We’re aiming to help children understand exactly where their food comes from in a fun way. They’ll get to touch, smell and taste a variety of vegetables on our plot. They’ll learn how to recognise them, how to sow and grow and also how compost is made.”

Each workshop will run from 11am – 2pm (including break) on our vegetable-growing site at St Kew Highway.  The cost for each child is £4, which includes art materials, squash/water and fruit/snacks.

Wednesday 15 August – COOL AS A CUCUMBER
Tickle your taste buds! Try a variety of vegetables while blindfolded. Explore the site and discover about our environment during more hands-on fun activities

Thursday 23 August – WHAT’S ROTTING?
 Compost, marvellous compost! Examine it very closely and meet our specialists – the earthworms. Find out about the growth cycle of plants and how long it take for different things to decompose 

• Friday 24 August – READY, STEADY, GROW
Touch, feel and smell plants! Discover how to sow and grow. Learn how to take care of plants to make them grow strong and tall. Take your own plant home

Please note: parents and guardians must remain on site. Tea, coffee and other refreshments will be available for sale next door at St Kew Harvest farm shop.

Booking for the workshops is essential, please e-mail: info@camel-csa.org.uk. If you have any queries, please e-mail dbarry2904@gmail.com or phone Danny on 01208 895083

A tasty-sounding salad from Nigel Slater’s Tender Vol I: “At first rich, then intensely warm and piquant, this is a perfectly balanced salad for accompanying fish or maybe a grilled steak. It is just the job with freshly dressed crab or smoked trout or eel.” The potatoes should be warm when you dress them.

Serves 4

Preparation: half an hour draining the cucumber
Cooking: 20 minutes

Ingredients
half a cucumber
500-750g new potatoes

for the dressing:
a good pinch of caster sugar
1 tbsp white wine or cider vinegar
generous tbsp Dijon mustard
4 tbsp olive oil
6 lightly crushed juniper berries
2 tbsp chopped dill (or substitute parsley)

Method
Peel the cucumber, halve it down its length and remove the seeds with a teaspoon. Slice the cucumber into chunks about 2cm in width. Sprinkly lightly with salt and leave in a colander in the sink for about half an hour.

Put a pan of water on to boil. Scrub the potatoes. Salt the water, add the potatoes and let them boil for about 15 minutes, until they are tender to the point of a knife. Drain and briefly set aside.

While the potatoes are boiling, make the dressing. Put the sugar and vinegar in a small mixing bowl and stir till the sugar has dissolved. Add some black pepper. Mix in the mustard, then gently whisk in the olive oil. Stir in the juniper berries, the cucumber and the chopped dill and set aside.

Slice the warm potatoes, letting them fall into the dressing, then fold them together gently. Leave for no more than 20 minutes, then serve.

It can take a couple of hours each week for Camel CSA’s pickers and packers to harvest our crop of polytunnel-grown dwarf French beans.

Our professional growers have made it easier for us this year by planting a special yellow variety that’s quicker to spot among the luxuriant foliage.

Also in our standard boxes this week are peas, Florence fennel and the first of the tomatoes. And redcurrants from one member’s garden in St Mabyn.

 All the boxes this week will have: –
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)
* French beans (Camel CSA)
* Swiss chard / spinach (Camel CSA)
* spring onions (Camel CSA)
* calabrese (Camel CSA / Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
* cucumber (Camel CSA)
* salad bag (Camel CSA)

Standard boxes will also have: –
extra potatoes
* peas (Camel CSA)
* Florence fennel (Camel CSA)
* tomatoes (Camel CSA)
* redcurrants (Charlotte Barry)

 * = grown to organic principles

We need carrots! Unfortunately we haven’t got any carrots in this week’s veg boxes as we’ve used up all the indoor-grown crop.

The few we planted in the field have fallen victim to the recent foul, wet weather. There’s some more just showing through the compost in the polytunnel, but they won’t be ready for some weeks.

So we’d like to source carrots from other local growers. Do you know of anyone who’s growing carrots within a 20-mile radius of our site at St Kew Highway in north Cornwall? (We put local food first, so they don’t have to be organically-grown.)

If you know of anyone, please tell us. And if not, please help us by sharing this request – either on Facebook or Twitter.

I found this refreshing, summery dish while browsing through my Co-operative Food magazine (I like our friendly Wadebridge Co-op).

You can include the courgettes and the spring onions in Camel CSA’s veg boxes, but this week I’m afraid you’ll have to get the carrots elsewhere.

This recipe can be adapted in a number of ways. As I hadn’t got any sesame seeds, I sprinkled sunflower seeds on top. I also used juice from a whole lemon and omitted the honey. You could replace the spring onions with chives for a milder flavour.  

Serve: 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes

Ingredients
2 medium courgettes
3 medium carrots, scrubbed
1 large eating apple
Juice of half a lemon
2 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
2 handfuls (about 70g) of nuts and dried fruit (optional)
For the dressing
1 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp natural yoghurt
A little runny honey
2 tbsp sesame seeds to sprinkle on top

Method
Grate the courgettes, carrot and apple into a bowl. Add the spring onions and nuts and fruit, if using, and stir together.

Mix together the mayonnaise, yoghurt and honey. Add to the bowl and stir. Sprinkle the seeds over the top before serving.

What a difference ten days of sustained warmth and sunshine can make! Just two weeks ago, our growing team were in despair. Torrential rain, leaden skies, mud, mildew, slugs, snails…

Now, in the space of a week, we have some spectacular heads of calabrese and some enormous cabbages on our plot.

In the polytunnel the French beans are cropping prolifically and the cucumbers are doing well. The indoor tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and chillies are coming along nicely.

The field-grown peas and beans are a bit of a mess and we have few outdoor carrots. But we have plenty of Tuscan and red Russian kale and purple-sprouting broccoli in modules ready to be planted out.

All the boxes this week will have: –
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)
* Swiss chard (Camel CSA)
* spring onions (Camel CSA)
* calabrese (Camel CSA)
* French beans (Camel CSA)
* courgettes (Mark Norman, Bodmin)
* garlic (Camel CSA)
* cabbage (Camel CSA)

Standard boxes will also have: –
extra potatoes (Growfair
* mixed salad bag (Camel CSA)
* turnip or beetroot (Camel CSA)
* cucumber (Camel CSA / Mark Norman)

 * = grown to organic principles

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