Winter CSA Newsletter Week #4, Nov 19 - 25, 2023 “B” week
The herd gleaned and grazed the fully harvested vegetable fields this weekend.
Newsletter Table of Contents:
This Week’s Shares with Guides & Recipes- VEG, MES, EGG, APPLE
Recipes
Field News & Photos from the Week
VEG SHARES
(see FULL and HALF list for which share has what, how much, along with info, guides, recipes)
FULL SHARE:
RADISHES with GREENS (1 bunch) - Separate radish from leaves for storing! Keep the greens in a loosely wrapped plastic bag in the crisper bin of your refrigerator and eat them soon. Store the colorful roots in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for a week or so. Eat them raw with a sprinkle of salt, slice into salads or on sandwiches for added crunch, pickle or roast with carrots. Guide & Recipes
RED ONION (1 lb) - Colorful and spicy-to-mild flavor. Because of their bright color and crispy texture, they're great for salads, salsas, and other fresh recipes. They're also excellent sliced for sandwiches. With cooking, the color fades, but they're still delicious cooked. Store on your counter or in your pantry out of direct sunlight. Onion peels can be put into a freezer bag with other vegetable scraps to make soup stock later, as they are full of antioxidants. To freeze: Cut or slice onions to desired size and place in Ziplock bag. Remove all the air and seal. It helps to freeze them in 2-3 cup increments.
GERMAN BUTTERBALL POTATOES (2 lb) With a brown peel and flesh that's a vibrant yellow to gold and is firm, waxy, and dense. German Butterball Potatoes are most commonly used as baking potatoes but can also be fried or roasted. When cooked, they're creamy with a smooth consistency and offer a rich, buttery flavor. Guide & Recipes
TURNIP GREENS (1/4 lb) Sauteing greens brings our their best flavor and adding salt and fat (oil, butter, a little bacon grease) is a great way to prepare them. They can also be boiled, steamed, and microwaved. However, they will cook down quite a bit so this smaller amount, eating fresh in salads, sandwiches, BLT’s, burgers, tacos, pitas, pizza, scrambled eggs, stir fries, etc. may be a better option.
Small WINTER SQUASH (2) - Different varieties include squashes that are cylindrical or oval shape with cream or copper color and green or yellow stripes. These have thin skin that is edible so there is no need to peel! And they will store for up to 1 to 3 months at room temperature. Great steamed. Cut in half, scoop out seeds, and lay them face-side down in a sheet pan filled with a bit of water. Bake/steam at 375 for about 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on size, until the inside is soft. Or roast the lazy way - put the whole squash in the oven in a shallow pan, on a cookie sheet or sheet pan & roast. Carefully remove from the oven when a fork or knife can easily be inserted, slice in half, and scoop out seeds. Serve in the skin with butter or brown sugar. You can also microwave Delicata for 3 to 5 minutes. Or prepare in a toaster oven @ 425F for 20 to 25 minutes. Guide & Recipes
CARROTS (1 lb roots) - Store the roots dry and unwashed in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for up to 4 weeks. certified organic from Red Door Family Farm Guide & Recipes
GARLIC (1 bulb) - Ready to be used now or later, this is “cured”, or dried garlic, and as such should be stored on your counter out of direct sunlight.
CELERY (2 ribs) - Celery is a herbaceous plant, in the same family with parsley, carrots, dill, and fennel. It’s crunchy, juicy, and aromatic, with a grassy, sweet, spicy flavor, and is regarded as a so-called "aromatic" vegetable, like onions and carrots, and is widely used as one of the three components of mirepoix (along with onions and carrots). Celery is also combined with onions and bell peppers to make up the "holy trinity" of Cajun cuisine. These mixtures are generally sautéed or roasted, and form the flavor base of innumerable sauces, soups, stocks, broths, stews, and other dishes. Celery will go limp if it isn't refrigerated. Remove the band holding the bunch together, put in a plastic bag or wrap the bunch loosely in paper towels, and store it in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator for about a week or so. Alternatively, trim off the very bottom of the ribs and put them in a glass of jar with an inch of water. Store the glass in the refrigerator and replace the water every couple days. from Red Door Family Farm
HALF SHARE: (see Full VEG Shares above⬆ for info on each item)
RADISHES with GREENS (1 bunch)
RED ONION (1 lb)
GERMAN BUTTERBALL POTATOES (1 lb)
TURNIP GREENS (1/4 lb)
Small VARIETY WINTER SQUASH (1)
CARROTS (1 lb roots)
GARLIC (1 bulb)
CELERY (2 ribs)
OPTIONAL ITEMS:
Extra CARROTS (1 lb)
Extra GERMAN BUTTERBALL POTATOES (1 lb)
RUTABAGA ~(1 lb) - Nutritious root vegetable with dense sweet-tasting flesh also known as Swedish turnip or neep. When you buy at the store, rutabagas are often coated in wax so they need to be peeled before cooking. Since these are organic and not waxed, peeling is optional. Can be used in hearty soups like beef barley or chicken noodle, stew, and casseroles, boiled, mashed (with potatoes and/or cauliflower, or on their own), and are excellent roasted, either alone or, with other root veggies like carrots, radishes, turnips, potatoes, onions, etc. This long storing veggie can be stored in the refrigerator, in the crisper drawer. Or if you’ll be using within a week or two, these can be stored like potatoes and onions in a cool, dark place on the counter.
SPAGHETTI SQUASH (1) - These have a pretty long shelf life - several months if you store them properly in a cool, dark place. Their characteristic “noodle-like” flesh gives them their name. These can be cut in half and steamed upside down in a sheet pan filled with water. To use, cut the squash around the middle (belly button) of the squash. This will ensure you get the longest “noodles.” Guide & Recipes
MES SHARE for Big Sky (unless we made other arrangements)
FULL : 1 pkg breakfast sausage, 2 doz
HALF: 1 pkg breakfast sausage, 1 doz
EGG SHARE Weekly Shares = 1 Dozen Biweekly Shares = 1 Dozen
RECIPES:
Several great Rutabaga recipes in FairShare's cookbook Farm-Fresh and Fast (including Rutabaga Bisque by share member Edith!) if you have it.
Click the link to go to a printable pdf of the recipe.
Field News & Photos:
Snapped this photo of dried asparagus in the field. It seemed to be reminding me that even though it doesn't seem like it right now, spring and the next asparagus season will be back faster than it looks!
Here the guys are walking the fields and making plans for planting more apple trees along with more raspberry brambles.
The orange tractor and blue sky inject brighter colors against the yellows an browns of the dried grasses and other vegetation of the fields.
There's still lots to do around the farm from daily animal chores, harvesting for shares and market, spreading compost, catching up on paperwork, and planning for next year, but Bill still managed to find time to work on fixing up the stairway in the house.
He, Liam, and Aidan removed some walls around it last year so the fireplace stones could be seen more.
Doing so meant revamping the stairway sides and adding some supports. He worked on it last year but kept getting interrupted with other more pressing tasks. Then spring came, and it was shelved as an "off-season" project.
It was pretty exciting to hear him say, 'It's time!" and start work on it again. It still isn't done but is another step closer.
(Get it? Another step . . . stairway. Lol.)
Probably won't be done for a few more weeks, but Marlee is already lobbying for him to make a closet in her room next!
All of us chipped in and helped where we could, but Aidan definitely won the "Best Helper of the Day" award.
The coming holidays also means soap-making time for us.
Hundreds of bars of soap-making time!
It's a really good thing that I really enjoy making it.
It's the perfect time because I'm not so busy outside, and soap sells well for stocking stuffer gifts. I'm already restocking our website store with varieties we've been out of.
Often Bill will help if we start early in the morning when it's quiet and too early to do anything outside. He weighs oils for me while I get the mold ready, weigh up essential olis, and mix clays for color.
Then comes mixing the lye and oils over heat and watching them chemically combine to make something new. It's both an art and a science to knowing when we have soap.
The process never gets old.
Soap, soap, soap!
And guess what? We have piglets AGAIN! They're just adorable.
Several of our pigs from last winter are getting up to size and will go to the locker next month so we'll be offering pork halves. Let me know if you have any interest!
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