Chard Salad with Peanut Dressing

Chard Salad with Peanut Dressing

Ingredients for salad:

1 bunch chard
2 carrots
1 bell pepper, color of your choice
1 scallion

Ingredients for dressing:
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup unsalted peanuts
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
Salt and pepper

Directions
Take the chard and separate leaves from the center ribs. Slice very thinly in a chiffonade fashion. Peel the carrots of their outer skin. Then take your peeler and slice the carrot as much as you can, creating very thin carrot strips. Slice the bell pepper very thinly with a knife. Slice the scallion normally, down the entire stalk. Combine all ingredients in a large salad bowl.

To make the dressing, combine the oil, apple cider vinegar, 1/4 cup of the peanuts, brown sugar, salt and pepper in a food processor or blender. Blend everything together until it is a smooth liquid. Top the salad with the dressing. Garnish with reserved 1/4 cup peanuts and serve.

Sorry, Haven't written in a while!

It's been busy!
We finally got irrigation to the potatoes.  The sweet corn does not look good.  We hope to get a small crop so all of you can get some.
We water some part of the gardens almost every day.   It's hard to get seeds to sprout or do transplanting, or even work in this heat!

Drought and Oppressive Heat

But no terribly destructive fires or storms...
We are suffering working outdoors in this weather, right along with the vegetable plants.  In the South, where I'm from, people don't try to garden much in the summer because of extreme heat like we are having here in Michigan!

We irrigate every few days, but still are having trouble keeping some crops cooled enough to survive.  The tomatoes, peppers, melons and eggplant are loving it, but most crops do not like it quite this hot.  We have transplants to put into the ground, but they will not transplant well with it this hot.  We are working earlier in the day and later in the evening, trying to do what can be done in the cooler hours of the days.

Sweet corn and potatoes are our crops that are not irrigated, and we hope the few rains have been enough to help us get some production.  Winter squashes are irrigated, but are still drying up.  We should still have enough for CSA, but maybe not for winter storage.