In Your Share (Oct 29th edition)

Welcome to the first share of the Winter CSA!! The season is shaping up nicely. We have all our storage crops out of the ground and tucked away for the winter in the barn. We had good yields on many varieties of winter squash, onions, garlic and potatoes so those should be consistently in the share for the next few months. Most of our crops will continue to grow outside through the wet and rainy weather. We have beautiful fields of brassicas planted – some of which we’ll harvest for you this week including broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower. In addition there will be many different root crops over the next six months including sweet winter carrots, beets, and parsnips. Thanks again for joining us – we’re looking forward to great season!

There is no recipe packet this week because Katherine Deumling, our recipe writer, is in Italy for Terra Madre, the  Slow Food  International conference. Don’t worry – she’ll be back and then  for the rest of the winter you’ll find inspiration in the Recipe Packets she creates for each pickup.

Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!!

This week your share may include…

Broccoli: These nice big green heads are the last of our fall broccoli crop. They have great flavor and work well simply steamed, roasted or sauteed. I also like to add raw broccoli (and/or cabbage, cauliflower, fennel & peppers) to this chopped veggie salad.
Cabbage: Beautiful heads of green cabbage! This NY Times article, pokes some fun at the humble cabbage, but also includes 3 great recipes.
Cauliflower and/or Romanesco: The cauliflower is so good this time of year! Here is a classic Cauliflower Pasta recipe from our friends at Gino’s Restaurant. We’re picking from several different varieties this week so you may see white, green & orange heads in the share. There may also be a bit of cauliflowers wierd fractal cousin (aka Romanesco) as well.
Fennel: These big sweet bulbs are very versatile – they can be shaved raw into salads and are also great in gratins. The mild licorice flavor is very bright when raw and much more mild after cooking. More ideas here.
Garlic: The seed for the variety in your share this week originally came from our friends at Persephone Farm. The true variety name is long since lost, so we just call it Persephone in honor of them.
Onions: They’re not pretty, but just trim the damage off these Cabernet red onions and enjoy.
Peppers: The last little bit of summer in the share – we have both sweet peppers and green peppers this week. Savor them because it’ll be a long wait until we have them again at the end of next summer!
Potatoes: One of our most versatile and tasty red potato varieties, Sangre.
Green Tomatoes: Try these in Enchilada Sauce or check out this article with recipes for fritatta, gratin, salsa and of course the classic fried green tomatoes. I also love to make the classic chutney with these.
Winter Squash: Variations on the Acorn Squash theme this week include some more little green Honey Bear and a striped delicata cross called Sweet Dumpling. Both these varieties are easy to cut in half, scoop the seeds out and roast cut side down in the oven until soft. Once they’re cooked you can serve them in the skin or scoop out the flesh. One half makes a perfect single serving. Both these varieties are tasty with savory toppings like olive oil, parmesan & herbs or the more traditional brown sugar & butter.

Coming soon… Pie Pumpkins & Delicata Squash – wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without them!!