CSA Week 12, 2018

CSA Week 12

This week you MAY have kohlrabi, apples, peaches, tomatoes, onion, squash, cukes, beans, lettuce, peppers, hot peppers, eggplant, broccoli? chard? tomatillos?

Gorgeous Paula Reds and Molly Delicious apples as well as peaches!! Enjoy the fruit!

Glenn says there is kohlrabi floating around this week…it’s like roulette: daily we spin the wheel and see what shows up in the barn for distribution. Okay, it’s not that random, but it is true that I might think they will be bringing back cabbage and broccoli appears, or i think there is TONS of radishes and only a box of bunches come in. That process keeps me on my toes too!

It gets really hard to know what is gong to find its way into the boxes and bags later in the CSA season. One of the wild-cards is who is packing the boxes on any given day. I think the guys get into a routine (that’s a good thing) and sometimes forget to add some of the odd treats like kohlrabi, pak choi, tomatillos, arugula, etc. And, as I just wrote, sometimes the numbers are not there. We all try to stay on it and mix it up from week to week, and we also try to not overwhelm you with produce, but, by all means, if we have it available at your location, ask for more if you want it 🙂

Coming soon should be the first winter squash. It looks like we will have a heavy crop of Delicata! Really, it was a mistake. Our seed company obtained some Honeynut seed that was mixed with Bush Delicata…we thought it was a planting mistake (though we don’t grow Bush Delicata, only the regular vining one) until we received a letter form the seed company informing us of the mistake. So no Honeynut for you, but look forward to some nice, sweet Delicata! Also coming soon are other apples like Redcorts, Early Macs, and Cortland.

I made vegetarian chili the other night, Glenn wasn’t even missing the meat! Here’s a link to my standard recipe, but, since you all know my recipes are merely guidelines, this is what happened last night:

Vegetarian Chili- September style

Mince:

• 3-4 garlic cloves
• 1-2 hot peppers (I used a whole Anaheim and a Hungarian Wax)

Chop small:

• 1 medium onion
• 1 eggplant
• 2  tomatoes
• 2 peppers any color
• 2-3 any summer squash

also

• 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
• 2 Tbs. chili powder (would have used more, but was out!!!)
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• salt to taste
• if you have corn laying around, cut the kernels off and add to cooking veggie or sprinkle on top of finished chili bowl for tasty garnish?

Heat oil in large frypan or 4 qt pot. Sauté onion and peppers for few minutes; add garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano and saute for for a few minutes more. Basically, I am chopping the next veggie while all the sauteing on going on.  Add squash, eggplant, tomatoes and corn (if desired), stir around, cover and simmer about 10 minutes. You should have enough liquid with the tomatoes, but stir from time to time to prevent sticking. I had some gorgeous liquid by the end of cooking, so I thickened with a little brown rice flour (would have used corn flour, but only found corn meal in the pantry) which made it perfect for serving over yellow rice!

You can chop your veggies however you like, but I like to go for small pieces that will cook quickly but keep the tooth I look for in chili. The eggplant really added a nice texture but shiitake mushrooms would serve the same purpose if you can’t do eggplant 😉

Member Aimee sent me this recipe a couple years ago, I like it! I don’t peel my fruit and often use peaches 🙂

Tomato & Nectarine Salad

(adapted from Boston Globe http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2015/08/18/recipe-for-lamb-spiedini-with-peach-tomato-and-mint-salad/Y2cdZ4ZU1QVu8fMXfu2fIJ/story.html)
2 T red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
3T olive oil
2 large tomatoes, seeds squeezed out, chopped
1 cucumber, peeled and seeded, chopped
3 nectarines, peeled, chopped
2 sprigs fresh basil, minced
In a salad bowl, whisk together the vinegar, salt, and pepper. Gradually whisk in olive oil. Add the tomatoes, cucumber, nectarines and basil.

Also check out:

Beet and Beet Green Risotto with Horseradish from member Jenn
Escarole soup
Cabbage and Apples Braised in Cider ~ Cooks Illustrated
Toasted-Oat Shortcakes with Basil-Scented Peaches

Really, no one thought the Buffalo Worm Burger was worth a closer look? Well, I was amused, and grossed out at the same time 😉

The Monday CSA has the week off for Labor Day, but we will add a week on at the end, as we do for the independence Day folks.

We finally welcomed a new calf to the farm!!! One of our first calf heifers had a very nice looking bull. I’ve had a tough time getting a picture. New mothers are often wary about bringing their calves out in the open. If you are new to us, we have had a large herd of Belted Galloway cattle for years and years. Glenn grew up on a dairy, so the cows were kind of a pet hobby. Yes, they are grass fed and we sent a certain number of steers off every year to subsidize keeping the herd. Two years ago, the year of the drought and no peach crop, we sold most of the herd (60+ animals, saving two cow-calf pairs to rebuild with. Last year I bought Glenn a bull as an anniversary gift. It is exciting to be growing again! I am glad we got a bull, but I am hoping for at least two heifers in the coming weeks.

In other great news, more land drained enough for us to get more land prepped for the last crops to be going in. I am so happy to be looking out the window at new rows of greens in stead of tall weeds!

Curt and Halley will be gearing up for their Winter CSA and Kate will be busy with turkeys and Thanksgiving. I love that, between all of us, we can feed you for so much of the year!

Eat well,

Geneviève Stillman