CSA Week 14
This week you MAY have apples, tomatoes, onion, peppers, hot peppers, Napa, kale, radishes?winter squash?leeks?
Molly Delicious and now appearing the Redcorts, Cortland, maybe Gingergold!
Last week I saw MANY folks get a bag of mesclun…which was a pretty sweet substitute for lettuce! The winter squash harvest is happening slowly and as it does, you may see other varieties like Carnival, Delicata, Buttercup, Sweet Dumpling, Sunshine, Butternut.
It sounds like there might be Napa this week. Napa, aka Chinese cabbage, is Brassica rapa vs Brassica oleracea (regular head cabbage). Napa is specifically part of the Pekinensis group, whereas Bok Choy is part of the Chinensis group. What’s what? The Brassica rapa Pekinensis forms tight heads, like the regular cabbages, the Chinensis form a bunch of stalks with leaves – more like the habit of celery. Though we are picking from the fall crop, the tomatoes are winding down with the cooler weather. It’s been a wonderful run for tomatoes this year and we even got to enjoy the cherry tomato bounty from Still Life Farm. Thanks Curt and Halley for sharing! Speaking of amazing, GOLLY! how many weeks of peaches have we seen? And with the exception of some quickly spoiling yellow peaches the week of the never-ending-rains – they have been GORGEOUS and TASTY! As the peaches wane, the apples will fill the void.
Recipes
Quick Stir Fry Chinese Cabbage
- 2 TB oil (not olive)
- 1+ tsp minced ginger (optional)
- 2 cloves minced garlic (optional)
- few pinches red pepper flakes
- Shredded cabbage
- other veggies if you have on hand (shredded carrot, turnip, kohlrabi, thinly sliced onion or pepper)
- 3+ Tb soy sauce
- sprinkle rice vinegar
This is so simple to throw together! The cabbage is featured, but any other veggies you have laying about are supporting characters! Shred or slice very thinly everything. Heat oil in large skillet (by all means use your wok if you’ve got one!), add onion, ginger, red pepper flakes, stir around a minute, add cabbage, garlic and any other veggies. Stir around until wilted. Remove from heat, drizzle with soy sauce and rice vinegar, cover and let rest 2 minutes and enjoy!
My full complete “recipe”: Cook 1lb ground sausage; when browned, add oil if needed and continue with above recipe. Usually I serve with rice 🙂
Also check out my favorite Chinese Cabbage salad:
We just installed a HUGE water tank to help all of us at Stillman’s from running out of water. The tank is 6 feet tall by about 40″
Farm Dirt
Three calves now! It is SO fantastic to see the little ones popping around their mommies! This week has also brought us a new visitor which we have struggled to identify. When I first spotted it, I thought it was a Green Heron, then Glenn took a look and thought Night Heron but missing the striking black and white contrast. We have not ruled out the American Bittern, but as of today, we are sticking with immature Night Heron. Oh, the complexities of bird ID from 400 feet away!
Exciting (not really unless you live here) news is that we had a 300 gallon water tank installed last week to support the water needs of the Stillman’s Farm crew (that includes me and my household too!). Many of you know that our awesome guest workers from Jamaica live in an addition on the farmhouse. It’s really another whole house, but attached to ours. The past two years we had been running out of water often, mainly on the weekends when there might be lots of showers and laundry running. It’s very sad to turn on the shower and have no water forthcoming. What to do? Add a gigantic reservoir for extra water. It was a lot more costly than we had hoped, but it was necessary. Fingers crossed there will be no more disappointed workers or family members!
Halley and I spend most of a day canning tomatoes. If there were never any scheduling issues, we would have taken care of this task a month ago! Or at least 2 weeks ago. C’est la vie. It is done and now I must determine if I will attack salsa and have a contented farmer this winter, or try to squeeze by on what remains from last year. I still have peppers, beans and broccoli yet to freeze. By now there are usually zucchini cakes and bars all packaged up in the freezer, ready for school lunches – I have no idea what happened to this summer! Did you manage to squirrel a few things away for the winter?
Speaking of squirrels… we are overrun! Jasper (our Border Collie) seems to have an agreement with them, something to the tune of: I’m going to look super interested in catching you, but will wait until there is no chance of capture before I start the chase. It’s laughable, really. The squirrels are very cute, even if they eat tons of bird seed and have taken every single Butternut. I am referring to the regular Eaters Gray Squirrel…not the diminutive, even cuter Southern Flying Squirrels I wrote about previously. Clearly they were not as deft as their jumbo cousins as we must have had 15 picked off and left in the back garden. I have not seen a fresh on for 10 days, so hopefully they have figured out it’s not a good place to shop. While thrilled they had not moved into my house, I was sad to see so many killed by our cats and perhaps even Jasper. There is no shortage of any squirrels in Massachusetts. Though you may never see them (they are nocturnal), the two flying squirrel species we have here are plentiful and of least concern with regard to conservation.
The leaves are just starting to show some Autumn color. We are still hoping for great weather to push along your cauliflower and cabbages. Until next week!
Eat well,
Geneviève Stillman
