In Your Share (Oct 27th edition)

Pumpkin_ColorPretty little pumpkins will be in your share for the last and final summer pickup! In addition to making great pie & pumpkin bread, they are also adorable as jack-o-lanterns and have tasty (but not hulless) seeds.

This has been such an interesting season! So many crops came on super early because of the spring heat wave. Sweet corn was 2 weeks early and loved the hot summer, but the same weather made lettuce harder to grow. This long dry fall has been nice to ripen winter squash but our native hedgerow would have  been happier if the rain started sooner.  We do lots and lots of farm planning, schedule each planting for every variety and then hold on tight and enjoy whatever ride the weather has in store for us. Thank you to all our members – and Mother Nature – for another great season!

If you haven’t done so already, don’t forget to sign up for the WINTER SHARE soon!! It starts NEXT WEEK…

You’ll find one more week of recipes for everything we grow on the farm at Cook With What You Have. CSA members will find the password to the site in your email – enjoy your 24/7 access to recipe inspiration!

This week your share may include…

  • Arugula: So nice to have these greens to spice up my salads!
  • Broccoli: Yum!
  • Dill: Beautiful sprigs of fragrant dill go great with steamed potatoes or sprinkle them fresh onto salad.
  • Eggplant: Love these long skinny japanese eggplant! If you haven’t tried my favorite roasted eggplant salad you definitely should do it soon. Eggplant in the Moorish Style makes a great side dish – the flavors are subtle, but wonderful – cumin, mint, red onion and a little vinegar combine to make this an unusual but wonderful salad. The Calabrian Spicy Eggplant salad would also be a great choice this week.
  • Garlic: This variety has pretty purple wrappers and nice big easy to peel cloves.
  • Leeks: First picking of the season! I love potato-leek soup this time of year or just sauté leeks in place of onions in your next recipe.
  • Jimmy Nardello Peppers: This is an italian roasting pepper but I’ve been eating most of mine raw lately. Either way, they are sweet and tasty – as a snack or sautéed.
  • Italian Sweet Peppers: Thank you Frank Morton  at Wild Garden Seeds for these lovely, sweet, thick walled, productive peppers. The open pollinated Stocky Red Roaster and Gatherer’s Gold were “born” in Philomath when Frank began to de-hybridize various lines of italian sweet peppers. We are luck to live in a place that not only has lots of great farmers, but amazing seed breeders as well.
  • Pie Pumpkins: or use them for pumpkin bread or jack-o-lanterns!
  • Cimi di Rapa Greens: A traditional Italian cooking green.
  • Winter Squash: Everyone loves the sweet Delicata’s. Cut in half and roast or make Squash Rings.

Coming soon… Winter Share!