In Your Share (Nov 18th edition)

The veggies this week are all about Thanksgiving!! Included in your share are many  of the staples you’ll need for the traditional meal – at least the one we always had a my grandparents house when I was growing up – Yukon Gold potatoes for mashing, celery for stuffing, and pumpkins for pie. When I was little, the pumpkin pie at our thanksgiving dinners came from a can. I can’t remember exactly when we switched to using real live pie pumpkins, but the cookbook I remember pulling out for the holidays was an old fashioned one and I still have my grandmothers original  recipe – from The American Woman’s Cookbook, circa 1943.

In the Recipe Packet this week you’ll find both elaborate Thanksgiving ideas and simple comfort food.

This week your share may include…

• Brussel Sprouts: Kissed by the frost, these are so sweet and good! I just cut them in half, drizzle with olive oil and salt and put them under the broiler for a few minutes until the outer leaves just start to carmelize.
• Carrots: What could be better than sweet winter carrots?
• Celeriac (aka Celery Root): This is very closely related to celery except that it forms a hairy, knobby, bulbous root just as it comes out of the soil. Not the most attractive vegetable I know, but it shines in a variety of preparations both raw and cooked. I always have to include a link to my favorite recipe for Celery Root Remoulade. Other things I like to do with it – roasted with carrots & onions, mashed with potatoes and pureed in soup. And it’s great in Thanksgiving stuffing as a sub for – or in addition to – celery.
• Celery: It may be a bit rough around the edges, but much more flavorful & tasty than the watery stuff from the grocery store!
• Garlic: There are many many varieties of garlic available, but it’s hard to beat Music. It has a nice sized, easy to peel clove with just a blush of pink. The flavor is classic – sharp and hot, but not overpowering.
• Kale: This red russian type is actually called Russian Hunger Gap. So named because it produces kale raab much later than other varieties and fills the early spring “hunger gap” that can occur after winter food stores are exhausted and before spring crops are ready. We originally heard about it from Adaptive Seeds, a great regional seed company that is always introducing fun new flavorful and productive varieties specially suited to organic systems. We liked it so much after the trial that we’ve been growing it ever since!
• Onions: Yellow onions this time – we’ll try and alternate the red & yellow for the next few weeks so you always have some of each. The variety is Frontier.
• Parsley: Beautiful big bunches of Italian flat leaf parsley.
• Potato – Yukon Gold yellow potatoes are hard to beat! They are good roasted, mashed and make great fries too.
• Rosemary: This is one of the herbs I use most often in the winter – it’s such a nice compliment to veggie stews and root roasts.
• Winter Squash: Both Pie Pumpkins and Sweet Dumpling squash. The latter are a rounder ribbed relative to the Delicata and have the same amazingly sweet flesh!

Coming soon… Watermelon Radish!!