In Your Share (Jan 19th edition)

My trusty old grain drill. Held together with the proverbial duct tape and bailing twine. Still works great! I used it to seed many acres of cover crop at Grand Island this fall which is lush and green now. The cover crops have been growing slowly over the winter, trapping any residual nutrients in the soil and protecting our beautiful silt loam from compaction and erosion.

Lots of tips for all the veggies in the share at our exclusive CSA recipe site Cook With What You Have. Check your email for the password to access the site and enjoy your 24/7 access to recipe inspiration!

This week your share may include…

• Beets: Love these Lutz, aka Winterkeeper, beets! It’s an amazing variety – the only one lasts through our challenging winter weather. Here’s some of my favorite recipes.
• Brussel Sprouts with tops: The cold we had over the holidays only made these even sweeter! Try them roasted or in my old standby recipe, Brussel Sprouts with Pesto & Gnocchi. Use the tops like you would collard greens, and don’t forget the stems of the leaves – they are tasty this time of year too.
• Cabbage: There’s nothing better than cabbages kissed by the cold! This variety, Danish Ballhead, is sweet and crunchy & yum.
• Garlic: Beautiful Music is one of our longest storing and most productive garlic. The large cloves have a nice medium to hot garlicky flavor.
• Kale: Beautiful curly dark purple Redbor kale is in your share this week. I chopped up a heap of this kale last night and started to sauté some for dinner, then got impatient and added some water & put the lid on to steam it – steamings is a little faster and much less stirring required. Ten minutes later it was done – drizzled balsamic, a little olive oil & a bit of parmesan on top. I thought there would be plenty leftover for lunch tomorrow – no way, it was so good we devoured all of it!
• Onions: Nice red onions this time – the varieties are Redwing and Red Beret.
• Parsnips: One of my favorite additions to winter soups and stews. 
• Rutabaga: Heard some rave reviews at pickup last time we had these Gilfeather’s in the share – they’re big & ugly & so tasty!
• Winter Squash – Butternut: The sweet creamy orange flesh makes great soup and holds up well in pasta or risotto recipes too.

Coming soon…  we’ll start including some of our dried crops in the share – heirloom beans, popcorn and hot peppers!