CSA Week 15
This week you MAY have purple or green kohlrabi, apples, onion, peppers, hot peppers, kale, winter squash, peaches?
Redcorts, Cortland, McIntosh, Molly Delicious apples
There will not be any gourds in your box…so if you find something hard and squash-like, it probably is. Be sure to check out our website for lots of pictures for ID help if you need it. You may see Spaghetti Squash, Delicata, Carnival, Buttercup, Sweet Dumpling, Sunshine, or Butternut. The Carnival is a fancy looking acorn type and the Sunshine is a red kabocha type – looking much like a bright orange-red pumpkin.
I have it on good authority that there is a healthy crop of kohlrabi and that y’all are likely to get the purple one this week. What really is kohlrabi? Well, it is another freak hybrid from the wild cabbage EVERYTHING seems to be hybridized from (cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, rutabagas – though they are thought to be a wild cabbage and turnip hybrid ;)). Though kohlrabi looks like a root vegetable, it is really a swollen stem that grows above the ground. The skin should be peeled as needed and the leaves are delicious too.
Potatoes…they’ve been very busy digging this past week and you are bound to see several varieties. In addition to the white and red-skinned, white fleshed varieties, there are also the Yukon Gold, all red, all blue, fingerlings, etc, etc. If your taters come bagged, please remove them and let them breathe. New potatoes are moist and will transpire in a closed plastic bag – even storage potatoes are sold in perforated plastic bags 🙂
Recipes
Kohlrabi Pancakes
- 2 cups shredded kohlrabi (kohlrabi+potato is nice)
- 2 eggs beaten
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1/2-3/4 cup flour (wheat, almond, rice…it’s all good)
Place kohrabi, eggs, salt, pepper, in a large bowl and mix well. Add flour to bind ingredients. Heat oil in a large skillet. Drop mixture by spoonfuls in hot oil and brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels. Serve hot or cold.
Roasted Kohlrabi
Okay, whatev, pretty much roasting vegetables is the same no matter what the veggie is.
Preheat oven to 425
- Kohlrabi, peeled, cut into 1/2-3/4″ cubes
- 1-2 Tb Olive Oil
- kosher salt or any salt you want
- healthy pinch of crushed red pepper
- 1 garlic clove, minced
Toss the cut kohlrabi with the oil, salt, pepper, and garlic, roast in a baking dish (glass is best), stirring around occasionally, for 20+ minutes, or until tender. If you are a cheese hound (me), sprinkle with some Parmesan near the end of cooking 🙂
Squash soup – SOOOO many recipes!!! If you have never made it, why? All it really IS is pureed winter squash thinned with broth of your choice and seasoned with your favorite herbs and/or spices. It can be anything it wants to be!
Squash Soup
OK, don’t have any leftover squash on hand, start as above, add the broth, then add your peeled and chunked squash (5+ cups) and simmer until tender. Puree (I love my immersion blender for this) and enjoy. Adding an apple or two (peeled and diced) near the end of the cooking time is nice (season with a little curry, cinnamon and nutmeg if you like). You can’t go wrong!
My friend Nancy makes her soup by cooking the squash in a little water and them puree with a container of Boursin. What could be easier—or tastier!!!
Spaghetti Squash with Pomodoro Sauce (Self Magazine)
GORGEOUS Shunkyo Radishes. The greens are great cooked too!
Farm Dirt
The major potato dig is happening now. We actually have a potato digger. We bought one a few years ago from a company who makes them to order right here in the USA! It is pulled behind the tractor and is gear driven; it scoops under the taters, leaving them on the surface to pick up and toss into 15 bushel bins …much easier than using the carrot fork to turn them up and actually better for the tuber. Our early potatoes are still dug the old-school way (by hand), but when we get into the big harvest, we try to cut labor where we can. As hourly wages increase, we will continue to look for machinery we can buy to replace humans. It’s kind of tricky to buy machinery because we have such diverse crops. Those special crops require human attention. Two years ago we had some grad-students come out and take countless pictures of our greenhouse tomatoes; they were hoping to design a robot to pick them. They just came out again a few weeks ago to see how their robot was going to work! I think they have a little ways to go before they launch their product – how cool is that though?! With continued wage hikes, I am pretty sure we will be investing thousands in a tomato-picking-robot. Even in MA we have a false sense of what food costs. We have voted for rules and regulations in the US that make it more costly to farm than other countries. We’ve done the same in our own Commonwealth which makes it more costly to farm and run a business than in other parts of the country. It is more important than ever that we/you continue to support our farmers that abide by the laws and regulations we have voted for. In other words, we cannot, as a community, push for higher minimum wages and then buy produce from another region in our country, or a foreign country, where labor/costs are cheaper. The Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour we are headed to $15 here while in Mexico, where we (the US) get about 28% of our tomatoes, farm workers are paid $9.50-$14/day.
We know YOU, our CSA members, are committed, that’s why you are here, why you are CSA members. You are getting locally and conscientiously grown food, harvested, packed and delivered by fellow humans who care about your food and are also paid the prevailing wage 🙂 You also are getting a fabulous assortment of the best tasting varieties – often hybrids are created to be mechanically harvested at the expense of flavor. AND, your dollars spent with us stay local – always good! Thank you for keeping it local! Thank you for being part of Stillman’s Farm.
I hope you remain committed to supporting diversity, keeping farmland in farming, employing humans, and nourishing yourself with locally grown food from our (and yours!) family farm in Massachusetts.
Next week is week 16!
Eat well,
Geneviève Stillman
