It's the 4th of July next Tuesday!!! (and yes there is still CSA pick-up)

Hello everyone! Mid-week blog post CSA & Farmstand update! Next Tuesday is the 4th of July and we will indeed be open for pick up and store hours- same time as usual! If you are planning a long weekend away and won't be home on Tuesday, please know that you may pick up on Thurs or Fri from 2-6 or on Sat from 9-2. Have a fun and safe holiday and we will see you at pick up next week.
I also promised that I would post Kim Galbraith's recipe for the strawberry-cherry oat bars that she made for Tuesday distribution so just in case you missed them, you can make them for yourself...make a double batch and share with your loved ones over the holiday...!!!!

Strawberry and Sour Cherry Jam Bars

Ingredients
•    1 3/4 sticks salted butter, cut into pieces, plus more for greasing pan
•    1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
•    1 1/2 cup oats
•    1 cup packed brown sugar
•    1 teaspoon baking powder
•    1/2 teaspoon salt
•    5 ounces of  strawberry jam and  5 ounces of sour cherry jam 

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-by-13-inch rectangular pan.
Mix together the butter, flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Press half the oat mixture into the prepared pan. Mix the two jams together and spread over the mixture. Sprinkle the other half of the oat mixture over the top and pat lightly. Bake until light brown, 30 to 40 minutes. Let cool.

CSA Week 3: What's happening under our feet.

Bagged fertility arrives

It really is Summer. It is muggy and hot, but not actually too hot most of the time. The veggies are LOVING it. The soil is warming up and the veggies are singing in the fields. We have a whole new soil fertility program that we are working with and are already starting to see the results. This isn’t just about adding some fertilizer to the soil and standing back while the chemistry works to make plants grow, instead we are trying to wake up the whole living system that makes up the soil we depend on every day. Our soil tests show that our fields are full of nutrients, rich in organic matter and lots of things that should make for incredible crops, but there are a lot of things missing- a key one being the essential soil biology of bacteria and fungi that make all growth possible. I’ll bet you didn’t know that the roots of all plants intertwine with bacteria and fungi to the point where scientists can’t even see under the most powerful microscopes where the root stops and the fungi start? The roots depend upon them to turn take up nutrients and turn them into food for the plants…it’s sort of a whole universe happening under our feet. So that soil biology is what we are trying to wake back up (at least to higher levels). So we are doing a number of things- we are adding fertility, mixed with all kinds of minerals, in a complicated combination with kelp and microbiology. This is in a dry form that we spread on the fields, both before and after the plants are in the ground. This is the jumpstart for the soil. Then when we are transplanting, we are adding a magic potion, or at least that’s what it feels like we are doing when we are mixing it in the tanks, of humates (basically, this is a by-product

basil and lettuce intercropped (ignore weedlings)

of soft coal, it is mostly carbon in the form of humic and fulvic acids- we call it dinosaur blood), enzymes, a liquid limestone (smells like sulfur and is foul) and two types of liquid biology. This is the jumpstart for the plants. And I’ve got to tell you…it totally works. We are definitely watching our plants recover from transplanting faster. I also did a little test on some recently transplanted lettuce and basil with leftover potion and the results were nearly immediate and impressive. The lettuce and basil had been languishing in the bed for a few days, looking yellow with brown crinkled edges and I was worried we would lose the lettuce planting completely. I watered it with the potion and by the time I had done ½ bed and was starting on the second half I could already see the perking up of the basil happening on the first half. Three days later, the lettuce was not only fully recovered, but was doubled in size, dark green leaves and practically glowing. So. I’m feeling pretty confident in the process and I’m excited to watch our fields actually wake up, especially since we can’t use compost in most of them due to the very high levels of phosphorus already present (we can’t really add more and compost and most common fertilizers have phosphorus).

So, I was wrong about the fruit share being every other week: doh, sorry about that! I really need to pay better attention to the details in some of my emails. So we have fruit again this week! More gorgeous strawberries, this time from the original fruit grower we had signed up with. Turns out it was just his early strawberries that languished, but his later varieties are going strong, so we will take advantage of this glorious fruit while it lasts.

What’s in Your Share this Week (maybe):

·         Kale

·         Napa Cabbage

·         Salad Turnips

·         Escarole

·         Spinach

·         Salad mix

·         Lettuce

·         Chard

·         Garlic scapes!!!!!

Pick Your Own:

It’s time to pinch the basil! Please be gentle and look at the diagram before going to the field, we want the basil to bush out and be lush for as long as possible, but we need to pinch it properly for that to happen and we are relying on you to help.

Get the cilantro while it is still small and leafy and before it bolts to the sky (cause it is trying!!). We will have this fragrant herb again in the fall when it is cool enough for it to grow big without flowering, but that is a whole two months from now!

Animal news and Meat CSA blog info: Trusteesmeat.blogspot.com. Jesse is writing a fun, short blog every week about what the cattle and hogs are doing at each of the farms. He also includes some yummy recipes for meats and how to cook them, so it is interesting even for those of you who aren’t in the meat CSA.

The goats are still in the Gore at the back side of the hill behind the hangar barn. It is a nice walk (watch out for poison ivy- I will personally attest that it is there and works). And you can see the bobolinks really well from that side of the hill. They will only be in residence for a couple more weeks, so see them while they are still raising babies! 

Events:

We can sign you up for the Friday Farm Dinner happening on July 7^th in the farmstand! This is going to be super fun, the beautiful new tent went up in the orchard last week (just in case it rains), we will have the campfire going and eat delicious food. We are working with Didi Emmons!!! She is responsible for a great many of the gorgeous recipes that you see in my many blogs over the years. Her book, The Vegetarian Planet, is one of my go-to books for most of the basics (try the perfect pizza crust and BEST dumpling recipe) and for anything and everything vegetarian. It isn't quite falling apart, but it certainly looks like it will- I bought it as a young farm apprentice working for my first CSA twenty-five years ago now. Many of her recipes are my family's favorites, so we are super excited that she will be catering our Farm Dinners! Rumors have it that our musical entertainment will be the Railroad House Band (just waiting on final confirm).

Our new tent!!! Bring on the rain, we can handle it!!!

Our Little Sprouts program is happening on Thursday mornings from 9:30a-10:30a starting in July! Come and bring the kids for an early morning program on the farm and then hang out in the cool of the orchard while they climb trees or go for a hike to see the goats and explore our 3 miles of hiking trails before coming back to picnic in the orchard once again. Our picnic tables are longing for visitors to use them and they are open to you anytime.

Vegetable(s) of the Week: The garlic scape and escarole

So we are still in the time of cleansing vegetables, adding allia to chicories. So again, I LOVE escarole, maybe it is just the French Canadian in me, but I long for these in the spring and fall. Adding the glory of garlic scapes, which happen just this time of year and I’m in heaven. I love garlic too, but raw garlic does a job on my stomach that doesn’t happen when I eat the sweet tender flower heads of the garlic. Anything you can do with a scallion, you can do with scapes and it will be a delight of garlicky flavor. I’m planning on trying the scallion pancake recipe from a preseason blog with them. Also, scapes make an amazing pesto (or you can just grind them up with olive oil in a food processor and freeze it and use it in every batch of spaghetti sauce or replace the garlic in any recipe all winter long.

Garlic Scape Pesto with toasted walnuts

·         1 cup garlic scapes

·         ½ cup fresh basil leaves

·         1/3 cup toasted walnuts (or cashews or pine nuts)

·         ½ cup EVOO

·         ½ cup grated parmesan

·         ½ tsp lemon juice

·         2 Tbsp butter, softened

·         Sea salt and pepper to taste.

In a food processor, process the scapes and basil for 30 seconds. Add the nuts and process for another 30 seconds. Add the butter and slowly drizzle in the EVOO as the processor runs. Add the parm, lemon juice and then the salt and pepper to taste. Use immediately or freeze in ice cube tray for handy individual serving sized pieces.

Smitten Kitchen’s Perfect Strawberry Shortcake recipe

I made these the other day for a special dessert…and they were perfectly delicious. This calls for a drop biscuit type shortcake that is rich, delicious and easy- my only advice is that you don’t have to make just 6 cakes with the recipe below. I felt like they were a great adult size, but a smaller size would be fine for a younger child.  You can see handy photos on the Smitten Kitchen blog- https://smittenkitchen.com/2017/06/easy-drop-berry-shortcakes/

Shortcakes

• 2 1/4 cups (295 grams) all-purpose flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 tablespoons (40 grams) granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea or table salt
• 6 tablespoons (85 grams or 3 ounces) unsalted butter, cold, cut into chunks
• 2 large egg yolks
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (205 ml) heavy cream
• 3 tablespoons (35 grams) raw or turbinado sugar

To finish

• 1 pound (455 grams) strawberries or mixed berries, hulled and halved if large
• 2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar, or more to taste
• 1 tablespoon (15 ml) fresh lemon juice (optional)
• 1 cup (235 ml) heavy or whipping cream

Make shortcakes: Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, granulated sugar, and salt until thoroughly combined. Add butter and using your fingertips or a pastry blender, break it into small bits, the largest should be no bigger than a small pea. In a small bowl, whisk yolks with a splash of cream, then pour rest of cream in and whisk to combine. Pour into butter-flour mixture and use a rubber spatula to mix and mash it together into one cohesive dough.

Divide dough into 6 (for large, 3 1/2 to 3 3/4-inch wide and up to 2-inch tall) shortcakes or 8 smaller ones. I do this by pressing the dough somewhat flat into the bottom of the bowl (to form a circle) and using a knife to divide it into pie-like wedges. Place raw or turbinado sugar in a small bowl. Roll each wedge of shortcake into a ball in your hands and roll it through the raw/turbinado sugar, coating it in all but a small area that you should leave bare. (I found that the sugar underneath the shortcakes would burn, so better to leave it off.)

Place it, bare spot down, on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with remaining wedges of dough. Bake for 15 minutes, until lightly golden all over. Let cool completely on tray or on a cooling rack.

While cooling, prepare fruit and cream: Mix berries, 2 tablespoons sugar (more or less to taste), and lemon juice, if desired, in a bowl and let macerate so that the juices run out.

In a larger bowl, beat cream until soft peaks form. Add sugar to taste, or leave unsweetened, if that’s your preference.

To serve: Carefully split each cooled shortcake with a serrated knife. Spoon berries and their juices over bottom half. Heap generously with whipped cream. Place shortcake “lid” on top. Eat immediately and don’t forget to share.

New store items this week!

We have jam from Peter's Farm here in Eastern Mass. It is gorgeous jam, full of real chunky fruit. We also have locally made cards- they are beautiful and inspirational- definitely a better choice than your regular run o'the mill hallmark type cards. These are lovely, bright photos on heavy card-stock. Check them out!

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Week 2: The beauty of variety

Need to weed after finishing spinach harvest!

The second week of CSA is dawning muggy, but the plants are loving it. The soil is warming up and drying out and the soil biology is going bonkers. We’ve literally watched the plants in the field double their size in less than two weeks as the soil temps make it up above the 60 degree mark. That means that our soils are finally waking up and getting going and it is a pleasure to watch.

The melons and second planting of tomatoes, first of cherry tomatoes went in today!  Later this week we will finally be able to plow one of our main fields and hopefully get the beans and rest of the cherry tomatoes planted by the end of this week. 

I wanted to talk superfoods with all of you. We’ve all heard of them, right? Superfoods- the foods we should all focus on eating because they have the highest nutrient profiles and supposed to be the best for us. Sort of a ‘more bang for your buck’ in the food world. Avocadoes, kale, and salmon to name a few. However, I sort of have an issue with naming something a ‘super’ anything when really, it is variety that is the best for the human diet. I tried to do a little research on the subject to find how it all started and it really seems to be mostly another hype to get folks to eat a nutritious, healthy diet. And, it apparently works, except when we take it too far in one direction and don’t eat enough of a variety to be truly healthy. One food thing won’t help us live longer, happier or healthier lives, it has to be a diversity of foods.

Spinach is beautiful

What this list (and really, there are many ‘lists’) of superfoods has meant for the food world is that everyone wants to eat the superfoods and ignore the vast variety of the rest of the veggie world. Not that I don’t LOVE an avocado, but we gave out soft, delicious, gorgeous, perfect swiss chard last week and no one wanted it. Kale, on the other hand, went out the door at an incredible rate! I have been farming long enough to tell you, no beating around the bush here either, I remember when you couldn’t get folks to take or buy kale to save their lives. It was a garnish. I could get folks to take collards and chard 50 times over more than anyone would take kale. That all changed when kale became a superfood and changed the veggie industry overnight. It used to sell for $1/bunch retail in the store…now it is over $3/bunch. We farmers have a hard time getting seed for it. Kale in smoothies, kale recipes, kale chips, kale flakes to sprinkle, kale in brownies. And the poor, lonely swiss chard in all its rainbow-colored glory, is just sitting by the wayside. I’m here to tell you that too much kale isn’t good for you either (actually, too much raw kale will interfere with proper thyroid function). Swiss chard is rich in nutrients (different ones, but just as good for the body), easier to cook, lower in sodium. Try it sautéed with a little lemon juice, sea salt and a sprinkle of Parmesan and you will see what I mean.

Week 2 distribution! Love Community!

Animal News

Goats are on the far side of the hill, in what we call the old gore, it is easier to find them by parking in the trailhead parking area and walking the pasture loop to the right of the parking. It’s a pretty walk and a nice view of the farm from up and behind the old hangar barn. The gore is a section of old stone walls that come together in a triangle. It was used as a way of gathering livestock for easier sorting or performing health checks. Unfortunately, these are places where invasive plants also manage to gain a strong foothold because they are typically difficult to maintain as open spaces with modern equipment and quickly grow up in saplings, bittersweet and honeysuckle. Which makes it the perfect goat habitat! They have access to almost two acres of their favorite foods, stone walls to jump on and lots of shade on these hotter summer days.

What’s in Your Share this Week (maybe):

And remember, box share folks, not everything always fits in the boxes, so we have to pick and choose sometimes, please know that we are not excluding you from something, we just can’t fit it all.

• ·         Napa cabbage
• ·         Spinach
• ·         Baby Swiss Chard
• ·         Baby bok choi
• ·         Radishes
• ·         Salad turnips
• ·         Lettuce

Fruit Share Pickup is this week!

We are so excited by this offering. We had a slight change in our offering for this first week. Our fruit provider was a little abashed, but it seems that his strawberry plants just up and plooped out on him. When we frantically called other growers in the area (literally called something like every orchard/fruit grower on the eastern part of the state) and found that the same thing had happened to a lot of them. We were finally able to locate berries from Brookdale Fruit Farm just over the border in NH and they will be arriving fresh in time for CSA. If you haven’t paid, then please do so when you pick your berries up!

Pick Your Own

Okay. It is Strawberry time! However, unlike those fabulous berry farms that have the time to really micro-manage their strawberry beds, we don’t and despite ridiculous amounts of weeding last season, this season’s rain has made for a jungle in the strawberry fields. Really. It is adventure picking out there, and it also turns out that one whole variety really really didn’t like the cold and wet and is making sort of gross, flavorless berries that look beautiful. We will mark out where those are and encourage picking the berries that look and taste good. For those more adventurous, there are berries everywhere in that section of the field, but will take some looking for. Good luck!

Upcoming Events:

 A new series of farm dinners starts in the beginning of July! These are casual, farm-based dinners prepared by professional caterers and served in the gorgeousness of our orchard.  The food is awesome, the company is fabulous. Last year’s farm dinner SOLD OUT of the 75 tickets offered so don’t wait until the last minute. We had to turn folks away last year and we hate that. So get your tickets asap. First dinner is Friday, July 7^th. Now that the store is open four days a week along with CSA, remember that you can purchase your tickets right at the farm!!!! Or if you would like to sign up online you may do so with this link: https://goo.gl/NPBu8V

Our Little Sprouts Program starts up on July 6^th! This is a fun, drop in program designed to get the kids outside and hands in the dirt! It is every Thursday morning from 930-1030 and is all about our new learning garden! Come help us design, plant and enjoy this kid-friendly space.

We are also having S’mores Night. Come bring the kids after dinner on Saturday July 15^th for some fun on the farm at sunset (7-830 or so). We will have the campfire going and s’mores makings. Hopefully there will be fireflies and we can play some twilight lawn games. Bring your instruments and favorite songs and maybe we will get everyone singing to the stars. There might even be a contest to design the most delicious s’more!  This is a free event for CSA shareholders. 

Recipe of the Week:

So it’s all about the chard folks. I made the most delicious dinner after CSA on Tuesday night. I’m a crepe fan, so I made up some buckwheat crepes and then filled them with baby chard sautéed with chorizo sausage and a little feta. I then made the béchamel sauce recipe from last week’s lasagna recipe and drizzled that over the top. SO GOOD!!! If you don’t have a favorite crepe recipe or don’t regularly make crepes, I highly suggest these easy thin pancakes for folding around our gorgeous veggies, wrapping around cheeses and drizzling with creamy sauces, jams, dressings or nut butters.

Easy Crepes, from Martha Stewart. Use a blender and this makes it easy to pour. And, just a note, I’ve been making crepes for a very long time and I have fancy crepe pans and I still mess up the first one.

IngreDIENTS

·         1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)

·         1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

·         1 1/2 cups whole milk

·         4 large eggs

·         3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

DIRECTIONS

1.      In a blender, combine flour, salt, milk, eggs, and butter.

2.      Puree until mixture is smooth and bubbles form on top, about 30 seconds. Let batter sit at least 15 minutes at room temperature (or refrigerate in an airtight container, up to 1 day; whisk before using).

3.      Heat a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium. Lightly coat with butter. Add 1/3 cup batter and swirl to completely cover bottom of skillet. Cook until underside of crepe is golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes.

4.      Loosen edge of crepe with a rubber spatula, then with your fingertips, quickly flip. Cook 1 minute more. Slide crepe out of skillet and repeat with remaining batter. (Coat pan with butter as needed.)

Week 1: Welcome to CSA!!!!

So first things first- this weekend is Father's Day and the day that we celebrate our fathers and father figures who have raised us, cared for us, taught us to change a tire (and maybe the oil and spark plugs and how to rig a carburetor and change the distributor), to make a good omelet, to ride a paddleboard, and if you were really really lucky, you had a person in your life who always believed in you more than you did in yourself. I feel like my dad saw the grown-up me inside of the tiny defiant kid and then the awkward teen and the waffling young adult and just knew I would get here eventually. This is what we are celebrating on Sunday afternoon here at the farm.

We are celebrating the dad figures in our lives this weekend at our Father's Day Bluegrass and BBQ. It is Sunday from 1-4p. We will have a live bluegrass band- Sparrow Blue- and catered BBQ lunch fare from Firefly BBQ and a cash bar. The shiny new tent will be up in the orchard so that we can enjoy the gorgeous rolling hills and farm field backdrop while we listen to tunes and eat even in inclement weather. Sign up here.

Alright!!! This is the first week of CSA!!!!!!!! WHOOHOO!!!
And so yeah, up until today, many many of our fields looked like this:

Yep. Lots of cold, standing water in the fields. We haven't even been able to get into one field due to the ever present pond in the middle of it. We've been moving things around in an effort to get our spring crops in as fast as possible, but some things might be a little later than planned. Peas, for example. Um. We won't be seeing any of those until fall. Sorry. We will plant the beans a little early and get them going instead and aim for fall snap peas.
In any case, we've still got some nice spring crops for you! Lots of greens to really clean you out and jump start your system for the summer veggie extravaganza that is CSA. In case you haven't had a chance to read any of the emails- our handbook is online so try and peruse that before you bring a pet to the farm or pull a garbage bag of green beans out of the PYO. :) It has a lot of interesting info in it, including charts and maps.
Park in the CSA and farmstand parking area and/or the trailhead parking! Please don't park in front of the red barn (if you have mobility issues, please contact me at ddubois@thetrustees.org before your pickup day so that we can arrange closer parking).

Farmstand!

We are still adding products to our line-up. We will have Moose Hill Farm grass fed beef in the

freezers for getting your grill on with some of the best beef around. In our fridge:  there are Kate's Butter (salted or unsalted), refreshing Spindrift sparkling fruit waters, Honey Sodas in Green Tea/Lemon  (my fave right now) and Ginger get these before the farm staff drinks them all, and hopefully Anna Banana's Chocolates and Appleton Farm cheeses (due to arrive tomorrow). On the- shelf, we have Kitchen Garden Sriracha hot sauces (from Sunderland) and Aunt Elsie's Oatmeal Crisps (from Belchertown).  We will add Appleton Farm milk next week! Thinking about ice cream and yogurt- would you all prefer pints or single serve cups?

In Your Share:

Arugula
Broccoli Raab (or Raapini or Spring Raab)
(not so) Spicy Salad or Braising greens
Radishes
Baby bok choi
Lettuce (butterheads)
Kale
Baby Chard
Baby turnips
Baby salad turnips

What we do like crazy when it isn't raining right now.

Our greens are suffering a little from some pest damage- we've done everything we can short of spraying noxious chemicals- including physical covers and fertility and more. We will be buying some parasitic nematodes that help prevent next year's damage but only work in the fall (bet that's a new one for you- we will buy in a parasite that will destroy these little annoying beetles and we will literally sprinkle them in the beds we plan on using for spring crops in 2018, plant our cover crop and let them do their job all winter long.) Until then, there will be some shot holes in our greens- it doesn't affect the flavor or texture, and since most of these greens are for cooking, please try to ignore the less than perfect.

Pick Your Own

The strawberries are really, really close, but I'm pretty sure that there aren't quite enough to turn 175 families loose in the patch and expect you to find more than a single berry each. 
I will do an evaluation of the field tomorrow (on Saturday there was only one variety doing anything) and I will open the field if I think there anywhere close to enough and if not, we will open next week.

Animal News

Goats are on the stone wall and on the hill pasture just off the trailhead parking area. Nothing is more fun than watching goats jump around on rocks. The babies are all getting big very very fast. Our kid cuddle last Saturday was so fun, we are definitely thinking of doing it again. Especially before the babes get too big to be cute when they accidentally bonk into you or try to stand up on your shoulders. Be on the look out for announcements for another Saturday kid cuddle event. :)

Recipe of the Week: Broccoli Rabe Lasagna

OK! I know it is almost a 100 degrees out there. But it won't be by the end of the week and then it will be the PERFECT time to make this incredible casserole. I love a good lasagna and I love raab...the bechamel will mellow out the bitterness of the greens in case that isn't your favorite thing, and if you really don't like bitter greens (they are SO GOOD FOR YOU YOU SHOULD EAT THEM ANYWAY AND THEN YOUR BODY WILL CRAVE THEM AND YOU WILL FORGET THAT YOU DIDN'T LIKE THEM).
So yeah, what I said there. Broccoli rabe, raab, spring raab, rappini, or any way at all, these bitter greens are what jumpstart the body in the spring. Clean out all the pathways, even if you have to eat them with creamy sauces like bechamel or  lemony hollandaise. This richly bitter green is popular in Europe, particularly Italy, Spain and France, where they take their bitter greens to a whole new level. You can actually sub arugula, kale, chard, spinach, the spicy salad greens and the turnip tops or just toss them all together in this recipe for a dazzling greens extravaganza. Don't be intimidated by the bechamel, it's a pretty simple and mightly versatile sauce to have in your repertoire of recipes.

Ingredients for Broccoli Rabe Lasagna, courtesy of the NY Times.

For the béchamel sauce:

• 4 tablespoons butter
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups half-and-half, heated, plus a little more if necessary
• Salt and pepper
• Pinch of cayenne
• Grated nutmeg, to taste

For the lasagna:

• 1 pound dry lasagna noodles
• Salt and pepper
• 2 bunches broccoli rabe, about 2 pounds
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 pound ricotta cheese
• ½ teaspoon grated lemon zest
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 ounces grated Parmesan, about 2 cups, or a combination of Parmesan and pecorino

Preparation

1. Make the béchamel: Melt butter in a small saucepan. Whisk in flour and cook for a minute over medium heat without browning. Gradually whisk in half-and-half, 1/2 cup at a time, to obtain a smooth, lightly thickened sauce. Turn heat to low. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt, some ground black pepper, the cayenne and nutmeg. Cook, whisking, for 4 to 5 minutes, then place saucepan in a hot-water bath to keep sauce warm. Thin if necessary with a little more half-and-half.
2. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to the boil. Add lasagna noodles and cook for 5 minutes. Lift noodles from water with a spider and rinse well in a bowl of cold water. Drain and lay noodles flat on a kitchen towel.
3. Using the same cooking water, blanch the greens for 1 minute, until just wilted. Rinse greens with cool water, squeeze dry and chop them roughly. Put 1 cup of chopped greens, the minced garlic and 1/2 cup olive oil in a food processor or blender and purée to make a pesto. Season with salt and pepper to taste and transfer to a small bowl.
4. Mix the ricotta and lemon zest in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Organize to have all ingredients within easy reach for assembling lasagna. Use 2 tablespoons butter to grease an 8-by-10-inch baking dish.
5. Assemble the lasagna: Put a layer of cooked noodles on the bottom of the baking dish. Spoon a quarter of the béchamel over noodles, then dot with a third of the ricotta. Complete layer with chopped greens, a drizzle of pesto and some grated cheese. Continue layering, finishing with a layer of pasta. Spread the last of the béchamel on top and sprinkle with Parmesan. (There should be 4 layers of pasta and 3 layers of filling.)
6. Dot with remaining butter and bake, covered with foil, for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake for 20 minutes more, until nicely browned and bubbling. Let lasagna rest 10 minutes before serving.