Last Share of September
Posted 9/30/2009 9:55am by Christy and Chris Kantlehner.
Hey everyone. Here is my second attempt of the morning to successfully complete this email without erasing it!!! There is a reason I work with plants, not computers! All in all, life is good, the rains have germinated our most recently planted cover crops, and we are finishing with big sections of crops that get disked in (incorporated into the soil with the disk harrow that drags behind our tractor). It feels good to clean up the fields and sense some completion for the season in a few sections. Four more weeks of the CSA to go. We are optimistic about the fall crops, but there are a few we will probably cover with Remay, that white "floating" row cover that lets light and water in, but is like a big blanket for keeping the plants warmer at night. That should help with their progress so they can grow in time to make it into your boxes.
The box this week included:
3 Lbs Yellow "Carola" Potatoes. boiled, roasted, hash browns, gratin, potato salad, homemade fries, soup, beef stew, gnocchi, mashed, potato bread.
2 Lbs Carrots. Loose Carrots, no tops. These should store, closed in a plastic bag in your fridge for quite a while, but let's hope they sooner find their way to be peeled for carrot sticks, scrubbed, sliced and thrown on a roasting pan with other roots, or shredded onto a salad or veggie sandwich. Carrots add special sweetness to soups and stews. Chris is making a chilli with lots of carrots and sweet peppers to balance the heat.
2.5 Lbs mixed onions. absolute staples to cooking at this time of year.
Garlic. kale's friend, garlic. another idea: look up roasting garlic in milk. my friend suzanne told me about this little trick. I am imagining both the milk and the garlic to be better after the process. I'm thinking mashed potatoes, perhaps a fancy soup.
a couple Sweet Peppers. raw or cooked. always a delight.
1 bunch Winterbor Kale. We didn't grow this variety in the spring; it does very well with the cold so we saved it for fall. what a big, fluffy bunch. This kale may need just a little more liquid as it is cooked down, to make sure it is tender. the usual generous olive oil and sliced garlic still applies, but if it seems to be crisping rather than cooking, try a couple shots of soy sauce and a dash of balsamic vinegar. these sauces will darken the color, but add good tang. other options are water (so-so) or stock (very good). chopped kale is a very nice addition to chicken soup, or spicy sausage and potato soup. once kale has been cooked, it does very well frozen and pulled out to add to a winter soup or pasta or breakfast potato, sausage, egg, scramble. yellow curry is pretty excellent with kale. try onions, kale, curry and a good melting cheese on a baguette or in a quesadilla. yes, we are weirdos that discovered this during a midnight snacking.
2 heads lettuce. garden salad veggies are diminishing, but you could still throw together a pretty nice greek salad. just pick up a good block of feta, thinly slice red onions, grate some carrot, slice up sweet peppers and if you like it hot, try a quick pickle of your sliced hungarian hots to add some flair. this time of year is good for the good old toasted walnut, dried cranberry, bleu cheese combo - good lettuce and shredded carrot is an adequate base.
Acorn winter squash. oven roasting is my simplest suggestion for cooking winter squash. you can cut it in half, scoop out the seeds (save for toasting if you feel inspired). then bake face down on a baking sheet to cook for maybe 25-30 minutes. check for fork tenderness. some recipes suggest then taking out the squash, flipping them right side up, and adding a pat of butter and sprinkle of brown sugar and baking again. You can decide what you think it needs. There are lots of great recipes for winter squash soups and risottos. I'll include those with some of the harder squashes that are more straightforward to peel.
1 bunch Japanese salad turnips. Remember these little guys from the spring? They are good raw like a radish for a salad vegetable or cooked. Roasting is good. they cook faster than purple-top turnips, so i don't recommend roasting them in the same pan with the potatoes, like i did with last week's turnips. the greens on these younger turnips are much more tender and have been quite good in the past, unlike last week's purple-top tops, which tasted bitter enough to be appropriate only for a liver cleansing diet.
1 Lb Broccoli. Yippee! this seems like one of the more ordinary veggies, but it is actually kind of difficult to grow on an organic farm. fall plantings tend to do better, as the timing is less in sync with broccoli seedlings' top enemies, flea beetles. I do see little white "butterflies" (imported cabbage moths) with the single polka-dot flitting all about our cabbage and broccoli patch, which means they are laying eggs, which become caterpillars, which chew holes in our plants! the plants are already pretty strong, so let's hope we beat the worms to the harvest. Most people know just what to do with broccoli. if you want some more ideas: consider a good stir fry. Molly Katzen (of Moosewood) has a good recipe for tofu and broccoli with peanut sauce. grilled broccoli is good - it needs to be marinated in some liquid so it doesn't just char - try soy, chopped garlic, lemon juice, a dash of balsamic vinegar, maybe some honey, whisk in a little oil. a grill basket would be super for this. We left on a few of the tender leaves that are right around the crown, if you are doing a soup or stir-fry these leaves, coarsely chopped, are nice for flavor.
hot peppers - Jalapeno, Hungarian Hot Wax, and Habanero. chilli. look back at some of the older emails and you should find a few recipes i included for a Jamaican Jerk marinade, and a quick pickled pepper.
The box this week included:
3 Lbs Yellow "Carola" Potatoes. boiled, roasted, hash browns, gratin, potato salad, homemade fries, soup, beef stew, gnocchi, mashed, potato bread.
2 Lbs Carrots. Loose Carrots, no tops. These should store, closed in a plastic bag in your fridge for quite a while, but let's hope they sooner find their way to be peeled for carrot sticks, scrubbed, sliced and thrown on a roasting pan with other roots, or shredded onto a salad or veggie sandwich. Carrots add special sweetness to soups and stews. Chris is making a chilli with lots of carrots and sweet peppers to balance the heat.
2.5 Lbs mixed onions. absolute staples to cooking at this time of year.
Garlic. kale's friend, garlic. another idea: look up roasting garlic in milk. my friend suzanne told me about this little trick. I am imagining both the milk and the garlic to be better after the process. I'm thinking mashed potatoes, perhaps a fancy soup.
a couple Sweet Peppers. raw or cooked. always a delight.
1 bunch Winterbor Kale. We didn't grow this variety in the spring; it does very well with the cold so we saved it for fall. what a big, fluffy bunch. This kale may need just a little more liquid as it is cooked down, to make sure it is tender. the usual generous olive oil and sliced garlic still applies, but if it seems to be crisping rather than cooking, try a couple shots of soy sauce and a dash of balsamic vinegar. these sauces will darken the color, but add good tang. other options are water (so-so) or stock (very good). chopped kale is a very nice addition to chicken soup, or spicy sausage and potato soup. once kale has been cooked, it does very well frozen and pulled out to add to a winter soup or pasta or breakfast potato, sausage, egg, scramble. yellow curry is pretty excellent with kale. try onions, kale, curry and a good melting cheese on a baguette or in a quesadilla. yes, we are weirdos that discovered this during a midnight snacking.
2 heads lettuce. garden salad veggies are diminishing, but you could still throw together a pretty nice greek salad. just pick up a good block of feta, thinly slice red onions, grate some carrot, slice up sweet peppers and if you like it hot, try a quick pickle of your sliced hungarian hots to add some flair. this time of year is good for the good old toasted walnut, dried cranberry, bleu cheese combo - good lettuce and shredded carrot is an adequate base.
Acorn winter squash. oven roasting is my simplest suggestion for cooking winter squash. you can cut it in half, scoop out the seeds (save for toasting if you feel inspired). then bake face down on a baking sheet to cook for maybe 25-30 minutes. check for fork tenderness. some recipes suggest then taking out the squash, flipping them right side up, and adding a pat of butter and sprinkle of brown sugar and baking again. You can decide what you think it needs. There are lots of great recipes for winter squash soups and risottos. I'll include those with some of the harder squashes that are more straightforward to peel.
1 bunch Japanese salad turnips. Remember these little guys from the spring? They are good raw like a radish for a salad vegetable or cooked. Roasting is good. they cook faster than purple-top turnips, so i don't recommend roasting them in the same pan with the potatoes, like i did with last week's turnips. the greens on these younger turnips are much more tender and have been quite good in the past, unlike last week's purple-top tops, which tasted bitter enough to be appropriate only for a liver cleansing diet.
1 Lb Broccoli. Yippee! this seems like one of the more ordinary veggies, but it is actually kind of difficult to grow on an organic farm. fall plantings tend to do better, as the timing is less in sync with broccoli seedlings' top enemies, flea beetles. I do see little white "butterflies" (imported cabbage moths) with the single polka-dot flitting all about our cabbage and broccoli patch, which means they are laying eggs, which become caterpillars, which chew holes in our plants! the plants are already pretty strong, so let's hope we beat the worms to the harvest. Most people know just what to do with broccoli. if you want some more ideas: consider a good stir fry. Molly Katzen (of Moosewood) has a good recipe for tofu and broccoli with peanut sauce. grilled broccoli is good - it needs to be marinated in some liquid so it doesn't just char - try soy, chopped garlic, lemon juice, a dash of balsamic vinegar, maybe some honey, whisk in a little oil. a grill basket would be super for this. We left on a few of the tender leaves that are right around the crown, if you are doing a soup or stir-fry these leaves, coarsely chopped, are nice for flavor.
hot peppers - Jalapeno, Hungarian Hot Wax, and Habanero. chilli. look back at some of the older emails and you should find a few recipes i included for a Jamaican Jerk marinade, and a quick pickled pepper.
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