… and I feel fine. (A little nostalgia for our late Boomers/early Gen-Xers.)
Last week of the season. Please plan accordingly.
We are taking orders for the 2023 season! Thank you to all who have already signed up. I appreciate your support. If you haven’t yet signed up please do so when you can. For existing members you can send/bring in $100 deposit or send it through PayPal. New members please order through our online store. There are multiple payment option including “Deposit Plan” if you don’t want to pay the full amount upfront. For those who have a credit on your account due to the egg fiasco this year please take that into account (or not since I will and the credit will still be on your account).
I probably should have mentioned this before and perhaps I did, if we give out potatoes or you pick up potatoes do not store them in the plastic bag they came in. The bags we use aren’t vented so the potatoes are more likely to rot — especially if they are wet. When we wash potatoes we put the bins of potatoes in front of a fan to dry them as quickly and thoroughly as possible. But sometimes they remain wet. So take you potatoes out of the bag and store them in a cool, dry, dark place.
Speaking of potatoes, we have the final allotment of WinterShare produce ready for pick-up. Plan to pick it up at your usual pick-up location. Thank you to those who willingly swapped out their potatoes for winter squash. We couldn’t have done it without you! I find it very interesting that we had the exact opposite problem last season — too few squash and lots of potatoes. Goes to show you that farming isn’t a cookie cuter business.
Finally, I want to mention before I forget that the radish tops do not look appetizing and you should just cut them off and use the roots. The tops have been through a number of frosts/freezes and just couldn’t survive the ordeal. But they aren’t bunchable without the tops so we leave them on for bunching purposes. Which brings up another point: Whenever you receive root veggies that have their tops on you should remove the tops soon after receiving them. The tops continue to transpire which draws water out of the root and causes the root to dehydrate faster. So store your root veggies topless!
Farm News
Not a lot of farm news since we are winding down the farming for this season. There isn’t a lot of harvesting left to do. We got all the carrots and potatoes last week when it was a bit warmer. We still have some green garlic to plant and then we need to mulch the garlic. Our biggest task is the removal of the plastic mulch and drip tape. It is time consuming and somewhat physical work so cooler weather is ideal — as long as it is sunny and not windy or rainy.
Other than that we are just wrapping up putting together the winter shares and completing the last week of pick-ups/deliveries. Kind of dull and boring this time of year. So instead or a long description of how boring farming is I put together an assortment of delicious recipes to utilize many of this week’s ingredients! (See below)
What will we have this week?
This is “Clean out the fridge and pantry week” also known as the last week of the season. We will have some extra large carrots (that in my opinion are the best carrots this season!), more winter squash, some sweet potatoes (though thanks to the deer not as many as we planned), the last of the peppers, more garlic, leftover leeks, radishes, a few broccoli, a few cabbages, some BS, lots of kale, the last of the green tomatoes, and whatever else I can find laying around.
It is also a ‘ShroomShare week! Yes two in a row! Please plan accordingly. There are no other shares this week.
Recipe Ideas
For those of you who think kale is too tough for using as a salad ingredient I suggest you add the salad dressing to the kale the day before to soften the kale. An oil and vinegar based dressing works quite well.
Speaking of kale salads. Here is a delicious kale and brussels sprouts salad sent in by one of our fabulous members!
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/kale-brussels-sprout-salad-368295
I don’t use the Pecorino since I have never heard of it and don’t know what it is but otherwise I use all the other ingredients. To cut the kale thinly I just take it off the stem and put it through a food processor using the cutting blade. I do the same with the BS. It works far faster than using a knife for me. The dressing is flavorful and hides the taste of the other ingredients — perfect!
For those wondering what the heck to do with the spaghetti squash we have the answer provided by another of our fabulous members on our farm Facebook Forum — Pizza Spaghetti Pie! This recipe is on my list of recipes to try.
I’ve used spaghetti squash under beef stroganoff. I also used the mushrooms from ‘ShroomShare for the stroganoff. I was pleasantly surprised by how delicious it was. I thought the squash would be too sweet for the dish but it turned out great. A nice way to enjoy gluten-free beef stroganoff.
Here is a great way to eat your butternut squash (is there a bad way to eat butternut squash?) I like to add the optional garbanzo beans because I like saying garbanzo. To peel the squash first cut a thin slice off the top and the bottom to create flat spots. Then, and here in my opinion is the genius step, cut the bulbous end off the long, skinnier end. Now you can slice the skin off the skinny end by standing it upright and slicing down along the sides. The bulbous end is still a bit tricky but cutting it in half to form two half spheres makes it a bit easier. Your results may vary.
Thai Butternut Squash Red Curry
Ingredients
- 1 butternut squash peeled and cubed
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 3-5 medium carrots cut into bite-size pieces
- 3 Tbs Thai red curry paste
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 red bell pepper sliced into strips
- 2 Tbs coconut or other cooking oil
- 15 oz can coconut milk
- ¼ tsp turmeric
- ¾ c chicken broth or water
- 2-3 leaves kale roughly chopped
- 1 small handful of Thai basil optional
- cooked rice for serving
Instructions
- In a large pot or wok, heat oil, onions, carrots and squash until onion is translucent, about 8 minutes.
- Add curry paste, garlic and red pepper. Stir and heat for another minute or two until fragrant.
- Add coconut milk, turmeric and broth. Stir.
- Heat to boiling then reduce heat. Simmer for 10-15 minutes stirring occasionally until squash is tender.
- Add kale and basil. Stir.
- Heat for another minute or two until kale turns bright green.
- Serve over rice.
Notes
This week’s brain teaser
One activity we spend more time on then most people would ever realize — especially those who want to get into vegetable farming — is washing the veggies. I suspect that we spend at least 25% of our time around the wash tubs trying our best to provide you the cleanest veggies possible. And this is where this week’s brain teaser comes from.
While cleaning the veggies I noticed that some — like potatoes — sink to the bottom. Many others — like winter squash — float. The majority of the veggies are floaters. Occasionally though we get an odd veggie that barely floats. It sits right at water level. Just the very top touching the surface of the water. Being the scientific sort I wondered what would happen if I poked it downward deeper into the tank? To find out, I did just that. So the question is, 1- what happened to the veggie B – why did it happen and III – what was the vegetable?
As always do not hesitate to send in your answer to this week’s puzzle (maybe I need to start giving out prizes for whoever answers it correctly), and of course anything else you might want to, say like questions, comments, suggestions, 2023 veggie share orders, etc.