In your share (Oct 7)

The sunshine this week was a nice surprise and meant we were able to harvest heirloom tomatoes one more time. We also put some Napoli Roma tomatoes in the share so if you want to make a little sauce – with the last of the basil – now is the time. Peppers of all sorts are a little sturdier than their tomato cousins so you will likely continue to see them in the share for a few more weeks. I’ve said this before and I will say it again – this time of year when we have summer crops winding down and fall/winter crops ramping up is so very delicious!

If you want the veggies to continue then now is the time to sign up for the Winter Share!! Our favorite partner farms will be offering fruit and eggs through the winter too…

• Oct 28th – final Summer Share pickup
• Nov 4th thru April 14th – Winter CSA Season

Some of the things in shareholders’ boxes this week include…

Rainbow Chard is a beautiful and delicious cooked green that can be sautéed and used over pasta or in frittatas or made into bisque. If you are looking for inspiration, you’ll find almost 4 dozen recipes that include chard at the Cook With What You Have (our shareholder get free access, by the way!).

Poblano Peppers come from Puebla, Mexico, and are typically mild in heat (around 1,000 to 1,500 Scoville units), though occasional peppers surprise with more fire. When dried, it becomes the ancho chile, a staple in Mexican cooking—especially mole sauces and the patriotic chiles en nogada. We like to roast, peel, stuff, or char fresh poblanos, often bulking them into salsas or layering them into casseroles, and sometimes drying spare pods for winter spice. There are many recipes for poblano peppers at Cook With What You Have recipe website.

Roma tomatoes are meaty, low-moisture tomatoes but because that preserve like a dream and carry the taste of the season into the darkest corners of winter. They don’t have the glitz of heirlooms or the pop of cherry tomatoes, but they’re dependable, productive, and deeply flavorful when grown right — slow and steady under the summer sun. The cool nights here in the Willamette Valley help the fruit retain acidity, giving our sauces a bit more brightness than those grown in hotter regions. Try roasting and freezing them, water bath canning or dehydrating them. One of my favorite sauces is Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter (No. 3) or take check out Cook With What You Have for more recipes.