In Your Share (Jan 21st edition)

What a glorious bit of clear weather we’ve been having! It has been nice to be out of the mud during harvest and get a few more outside jobs done on the farm.  We have also been busy planning for the upcoming 2013 summer season, but more on that in another post soon. You can download the Recipe Packet for this week’s share HERE. It includes some great recipes for the brussel sprouts, rutabagas and some of the different winter squash in your share.

This week your share may include…

Black Radish: Your recipe packet has some great suggestions for using these weirdly beautiful black roots. 

Brussel Sprouts: They look a bit rough, but peel a few leaves off  and they’ll be ready to go. The sprouts are really good when roasted. Cut the large ones in half, toss them with a bit of olive oil & sea salt, then put them in a 425 degree oven until they start to get a bit carmelized around the edges – yum! You’ll find more tips and recipes here.

Cabbage: Nice heads of sweet winter cabbage – the variety is Deadon, a beautiful semi-savoyed type with a pretty red blush.

Carrots: What could be better than sweet winter carrots!

Garlic: Some of the cloves are starting to sprout, but the garlic is still tasty and good. I had a chef tell me once that the sprouts made garlic bitter, but then we tasted some together and decided that was just an old wives tale. If some green shoots make it all the way out of the clove, clip them off and use like you would green garlic.

Kale: Beautiful Redbor is in your share this week and it will work just as well as the green for kale chips and my favorite raw kale salad.

Onions: We’ll have both yellow & red onions and this is the last of our Redwing crop for the winter. They traditionally don’t store as well as the yellow Copras do, though we’re always trying new varieties to find one that lasts longer. In 2013, we’re going to trial Red Beret and Red Emperor in our never-ending quest for red onion perfection.

Potatoes: This week we’re mixing it up with some Purple Viking (Mark Bittman’s favorite potato!) and also some Yellow Finn too.

Rutabaga: If you’re tired of hearing me wax poetic about the Gilfeather rutabaga, then you should just stop here because I’m doing it again – shamelessly! I love this thing – there seems to be some confusion about whether it is a rutabaga or a turnip or some cross between the two. I could care less about the genetics, the important thing is the sweet mild flavor which makes it fabulous raw, roasted, boiled or mashed. It is also in the Slow Food Ark of Taste, and by eating it you are helping to preserve this important and tasty variety.

Winter Squash: Several varieties in the mix to choose from including red kuri, hubbards &  kabocha squash. We’ll also have some Kakai hulless seed pumpkins that have the absolute best tasting SEEDS of any pumpkin I’ve ever grown!!

Coming soon… definitely King Richard Leeks and if the good weather continues we may see some Purple Sprouting Broccoli sooner rather than later.