Spring CSA

Spring CSA Bag Three is headed to you!

This week’s bag should include the following: Lettuce, basil, kale, spinach, microgreens, sweet potato, rutabaga, onions, apples, celeriac… If you are eating with us for Spring CSA, you are really getting to the nitty-gritty of farm food and seasonal eating.  Eating local and seasonal during the early spring means lots of overwintered roots, apples, and squashes.  BUT, we have the additional luxury of hydroponic lettuce and greens coming out of our high tunnels and greenhouses, to be cherished!

Correct storage of the items in your CSA share is the key to successfully eating seasonally.  Here is a Storage Cheat Sheet that I hand out with Winter CSA that also applies to Spring CSA.  Check it out if you need storage tips.

This weekly letter will be coming to your inbox the day before your pickup and is also available at stillmansfarm.com/blog and stilllifefarm.wordpress.com.  

If you cannot recycle or reuse them, we are accepting returned CSA bags.  Please be sure that returned bags are clean and in good condition.

We will see you in TWO WEEKS for your next bounty of Spring bag. The schedule is also on our website calendar.

Saturdays:

March 4, March 18, April 1, April 15, April 29, May 13, May 27
Jamaica Plain, 12-3pm

Sundays:

March 5, March 19, April 2, April 16, April 30, May 14, May 28
Lunenburg, 12-1pm

Thursdays:

March 9, March 23, April 6, April 20, May 4, May 18, June 1
Boston (Boston Public Market) 12-6pm
Brookline (Beals Street) 1-6pm
Watertown (City Hall) 12:30-1pm
Natick (Princeton Rd) 1:30-6pm
Worcester (Deadhorse Hill Restaurant) 5-9pm
Hardwick (Still Life Farm) 4-6pm
New Braintree (Stillman’s Farm) 12-6pm

Rutabaga!

This week we celebrate the rutabaga, aka Swede. Did you know that the original Jack-O-Lanterns were carved from either turnips or beets, and were quite terrifying? Fun fact. Did you know Swedes or rutabagas are a cross between a cabbage and a turnip? And did you know this often maligned vegetable is high in vitamins B, C, E, and K as well as calcium, iron,  magnesium, manganese, potassium, phosphorous,  and zinc. AND how ’bout those glucosinolates? Yes, rutabaga smell a little funky when they are cooking, but they are actually tasty AND good for you. the name rutabaga is actually a corruption of the Swedish rotabagge translating root-bunch, which is funny, because in our family recipes rutabaga is kålrot. So, you can ponder that while you are peeling it 😉

Rutabaga Soup

• 1 cup roughly chopped rutabaga (or turnips)
• 1 cup roughly chopped carrots
• 1 cup roughly chopped sweet potatoes
• 1 cup roughly chopped apple (preferably tart)
• 1 cup roughly chopped onion
• 2-4 Tablespoons butter
• 1 ½ – 2 cups chicken stock
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Pinch (or more) cayenne
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup heavy cream

Place the five cups of vegetables in a heavy pot and ‘sweat’ with the butter. Add chicken stock, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Cook at a simmer for 25 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add up to ½ cup maple syrup (try ¼ cup at first and add more if you like). Stir together for one minute. Remove from heat and puree with hand blender (at this point you can sieve the puree for a velvet finish, but this is not necessary). Add cream to taste (1/4 cup +). This is a wonderfully rich soup.

Celeriac – boil it with potatoes and mash with whatever you do to plain potatoes – yummy! OR, we like to make potato pancakes with a mix of celeriac and potato (also a great thing to do with kohlrabi).

Spinach Basil Frittata

• Ingredients:
  
• 6 x large eggs beaten with S&P
• Spinach
• Basil
• onions/shallot/scallions
• Garlic
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• grated/shredded cheese(optional)

Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 350℃
Sauté garlic and whatever form of onions you are using in oil in a large oven-proof pan until golden. Turn heat to low, sauté spinach gently until wilted.
Distribute the veg evenly around the pan, and slowly pour the egg over it. Top it with your fresh basil, turn the heat to medium, this is where I move the veg around in the pan a little to make sure the egg is settling in around everything. After the egg begins to set up, sprinkle optional cheese over the top and put the pan in the oven. It should be set up completely in 5-10 minutes, egg cooked in the middle. Enjoy with a salad!

Running the below again because Halley sent the gorgeous pic of her roots salad. if you still have roots from the last bag, do this 🙂

Genevieve’s go to Slaw Dressing

Simple, simple, simple: To 1/3 cup cider vinegar add 1/2 tsp kosher salt (sea salt would be good too), a bunch of black pepper, a fat TB of Dijon or spicy brown mustard, 1/2 tsp celery seed (if you like); slowly whisk in 1/2 cup oil (something light, I use canola or safflower), Toss over anything shredded: kohlrabi, radish, cabbage, carrot, apple…

Farm Dirt:

Jeepers with this cold weather! In spite of it, the pussy willows are out, the crocus are blooming and the Sugar Maples are budded up.

Stillman’s Farm.  The potatoes have arrived! The seed potatoes are on the farm and we are busy prepping land to get in the first planting. WHAAAAT? Yes, we finally plowed something beside snow, and turned over our first soil this past week. They may even be putting down plastic today, making things ready for the first potatoes and peas to go in the ground. We depend on the plastic mulch to prevent weed seeds in the soil from germinating and competing with the actual planted crop. Weeds not only take up the nutrients in the soil, but take extra water, light and aeration away from the desired plant. The alternative to plastic is mechanical or chemical weed control. The creation of genetically modified or engineered organisms is partially a response to effective and more economical weed control. Just to recap what you already know, we do not grow any GMO anything here and we use, at much higher expense, plastic and/or manpower to keep the weeds at bay; this is why we could never compete with big ag and why, back to potatoes, we cannot compete with price. It is important to us to continue to conscientiously grow with integrity and offer not only safe produce, BUT THE MOST DELICIOUS! that goes for SLF farm too 🙂

Speaking of plastic: The containers the herbs and microgreens are packaged in ARE NOT PLASTIC. They are 99% plant-based package with no BPAs, phthalates or other chemicals you might be avoiding. They are certified compostable and recyclable. They are also 2x the price of conventional containers, which is why you are not going to see everyone switch over to them in an industry where every cent matters on low margin products.

Still Life Farm: We spent lots of time turning over the greenhouses this week into spring crops. Salad radishes were direct seeded, hakurei turnips and mesclun salad greens were transplanted. Halley rocked the “potting soil purple” manicure, farm-HER fashion doing double duty looking cute AND hiding farm dirt. Kip got a new rake and has been ‘helping’ around the yard and in the greenhouses.  We have been able to obtain the services of a local contractor who is helping us rehab our back barn, original to the 1850 Poor Farm property – pretty exciting!

Eat well & love your food,

Halley Stillman (Still Life Farm) & Genevieve Stillman (Stillman’s Farm)