Tag Archives: Celery

Summer CSA Week 17, 2022

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It’s pumpkin time!

This is the penultimate CSA week! You will be receiving a carving pumpkin with your share this week. The pumpkins do not fit in the box, so please remember to grab your pumpkin when you pick-up. Enjoy carving jack o’lanterns! Try roasting your pumpkin seeds for a bonus tasty snack.

Next week will be the 18th and final CSA box for this season. It has been a joy having you as part of the Food Farm family!

Loading up pumpkins for Monday deliveries.

In your share this week:

Noreaster Beans – Broccoli – Carrots – Garlic – Leeks – Lettuce – Onion – Sweet Red Peppers (not hot) – Jalapeño Pepper (hot) – Yellow Potatoes – Daikon Radish – Delicata and Acorn Squash – Tomatoes – Parsley

Leaves changing at the farm

Universal Cream of Vegetable Soup

This recipe works for nearly any vegetable the farm grows – from celery to leeks to squash! This is also a great way to use up veggies from last week.

Ingredients

  • 4 tbsp butter
  • 6-8 cups coarsely chopped veggies (suggested starting point: 1 med onion coarsely chopped, 2 leeks, one clove garlic minced, 2 diced carrots,  2-3 stalks celery coarsely chopped, 2 potatoes diced. Add any other veggie like broccoli, cauliflower, or  squash to total 6 cups veggies.)
  • 1/4 cup flour.  
  • 4 cups broth (chicken, pork or veggie)
  • 1/2 to 1 cup milk or cream
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Sauté veggies in the butter 10-15 minutes (until tender but not brown).
  2. Add flour and cook for a couple of minutes.  
  3. Turn heat to high and add 4 cups of broth (chicken, pork or veggie), while constantly stirring as the soup thickens.  Bring to a boil.  
  4. Reduce heat to simmer the soup.  Cook, partially covered, until the vegetables are very tender (appx 30 minutes).   Using an immersion blender, food processor, or blender process the soup until smooth.  Add a little water or more broth if the soup is too thick and difficult to process.  
  5. Return soup to the pot and add 1/2-1 cups milk or cream.  Salt and pepper to taste.
  6. Can be served with grated cheese.

Recipe from Deb Rausch

What to do with Daikon Radish?!

This week you will find daikon radish in your box. Daikon is a large peppery variety of radish that is common in Asian cuisines. This crunchy vegetable can be eaten raw, pickled (like in traditional kimchi), or cooked.

Vietnamese Pickled Carrots & Daikon Radish (Đồ Chua)

Ingredients

  • 1/2 lb daikon radish*
  • 1/2 lb carrots*
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • 1/2 c boiling water
  • 5 tbsp granulated white sugar
  • filtered room temp. water
  • 4 tbsp distilled vinegar

Instructions

  1. Peel daikon and carrots, then cut with mandolin slicer medium to small matchsticks. Smaller cuts will pickle faster.
  2. In a large bowl, sprinkle with salt evenly and toss to coat. Soak for 15 minutes.
  3. Rinse thoroughly to remove the salt and in small hand-fulls, squeeze to remove as much moister as you can.
  4. Add to jars, filling almost to the top.
  5. Create the vinegar solution (brine) by boiling water then adding sugar. Mix to dissolve. Add vinegar.
  6. Pour this liquid evenly into your jars. If needed, add extra room temp water to barely fully submerge the veggies.
  7. Screw on the lids, store at room temperature until pickled to your taste, checking every 12 or 24 hours. It usually takes 2-5 days depending on the temperature.
  8. Refrigerate when ready, for up to 3 weeks, or until too sour or veggies lose their crunch.

*You can change the ratio of veggies to your preference and/or scale the recipe up or down depending on how much veg you have to pickle. Just make sure you have enough brine to completely submerge your veggies.

Based off recipe from Hungry Huy.

Check out other daikon recipes here.

For the farm crew,

Starr

Summer CSA Week 6, 2022

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Cucumbers ripening in the greenhouse

It’s hot and the CSA boxes are bursting! New in the box this week is Swiss chard and napa cabbage. We hope you’re staying hydrated and wearing plenty of sunblock and enjoying the heat!

In your share this week:

Swiss Chard – Napa Cabbage – Lettuce – Cucumbers – Green Onions – Broccoli – Carrots with Tops – Beets – Parsley – Garlic Scapes

Vegan Borscht

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 medium beets

3 small carrots (~1 1/4 medium carrots)

2 medium red-skinned potatoes

2/3 medium onion diced (approximately 2/3 cups, try substitution with the green onions in your box!)

2 stalks celery, diced

1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

5 cups vegetable stock

1 1/4 cups shredded red cabbage

1 1/4 cups chopped beet greens or chard

1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill

1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon white vinegar

1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon fine sea salt or to taste

freshly ground black pepper or to taste

1/4 cup sour cream vegan or regular (optional)

Instructions

  1. Begin by prepping your vegetables. Peel the beets. Scrub the carrots and potatoes. Dice everything up. It’s best if the beets are a slightly smaller dice than the rest as they take a little longer to cook (you could also shred them in a food processor).
  2. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the diced onion and celery and sauté for 5 minutes or until slightly softened. Add the diced carrots and cook for an additional minute or two.
  3. Tumble in the beets and the potatoes. Pour in the vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until root vegetables are al dente.
  4. Tip in the cabbage and beet greens. Bring soup back up to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10-12 minutes. Vegetables should be tender.
  5. Sprinkle in the dill and the vinegar. Season the borscht to taste with salt and pepper.
  6. Ladle borscht into bowls and serve with a dollop of vegan or regular sour cream.

Notes

Cool completely before refrigerating the leftovers in airtight containers. Borscht will keep for up to five days in the fridge and up to six months in the freezer.

Based off a recipe from Simple Bites.

Beets and Chard

Did you know beets and chard are actually the same plant, Beta vulgaris? If you’ve grown both in your home garden, you may have noticed the similarities between the seeds and the leaves. The difference is that Swiss chard has been bred to favor leaf production, while beets have been bred to favor sweet fleshy roots.

The vegetables we eat didn’t just appear in the wild one day. Desirable traits have been “selected” for thousands of years to develop the tasty crops we enjoy today. Seeds are saved from plants that show the genetic variations we enjoy (more leaves versus fleshier roots) and then crossed through pollination with other plants with desirable traits so the offspring are better and better for human production and consumption. Please note, this is different from genetically modified which is done in a laboratory versus going through the generations of plants crossing for desirable traits already present in the species.

Rows of chard in the field

Resources for Veg Care and Use!

Remember to use the Vegetable Guide! Click the link below to see a pdf that describes most of the Food Farms crops and how to best care for the produce:

Click to access foodfarmvegetableguide2022.4.18.pdf

For the farm crew,

Starr

December Winter CSA

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One of the highlights of my life the last few months is food preservation. It looks me right in the face every time I step foot in our amazing root cellar at the farm. From seed to storage, there is nothing more satisfying than preserving the bounty of the season, especially when you can watch a crop throughout its entire lifetime. My shelves are full of some amazing local produce thanks both to my job at the farm and having friends in the farm community. I am still relatively new to food preserving. The volume needed for a highly self-sustaining lifestyle hasn’t been attainable quite yet, so it seems like less of a chore and more of an experiment. We all know there are much less time-strenuous ways of getting and keeping food but I’m enjoying honing the craft of putting up food for the winter.

When I’m sweating over a hot stove by myself I often thing about the times when people would participate in community canning parties. It seems like a big stretch to organize events like that today, but it seems like such a great thing and I love hearing stories about farm members getting together with friends and family to process food together! It’s so great to know exactly what you’re eating and where it comes from, and doing the work with others makes it an occasion rather than just a chore. Plus, the apple fruit roll-ups I made with local apples taste much better than Betty Crocker’s.

Preserve (ca. 1917-1919) by Carter Housh

After last week’s storm the fields are covered in snow, though it looks like we may lose it all this week. A good hard freeze gives our soil a nice reset each year and can kill invasive pests, so we’re hoping that we do get some extended winter weather soon, and we sure could use some moisture in the ground. Towards the end of this harvest season, we removed all of the plastic walls from one of the greenhouses to give the soil inside a much-needed snow treatment this winter. While the plastic stays up on most of the greenhouses every winter, we try to leave it off over winter when it needs to be replaced. This helps wash away mineral build ups from many seasons of irrigation, loosen the soil with a few good freeze-thaw cycles, and build up the subsoil water reserves. I have a feeling that one of the first tasks to happen on the farm this spring is reassembling the greenhouse. I hope we have some calm days this spring, because any breeze can get pretty exciting when you’re holding a 48×150 foot kite! If you see us hitchhiking back from Wisconsin in April you’ll know what happened.

From Food Farm to you, enjoy this holiday season!

Queue “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas” by Bing Crosby

For the farm crew, Emily

In your shares this month:

Beets – Green Cabbage – Orange and Purple Carrots – Garlic – Onions – French Fingerling and Yellow Potatoes – Sunshine and Delicata Squash

Beet, Apple, and Walnut Salad – The Book of Salads by Sonia Uvezian

  • 2 large, cooked beets – peeled and chopped
  • 2 tart apples – peeled, cored, and chopped
  • 6 stalks celery
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 2 Tbsp wine vinegar
  • 2 Tbsp orange juice
  • 1 small clove of garlic – crushed (optional)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • Combine apples, beets, celery and walnuts in a bowl. 
  • Beat together the oil, vinegar, juice, salt, pepper, and garlic with a fork and whisk until well blended. 
  • Pour over salad.  Toss gently but thoroughly.  Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Creamy Garlic Dressing – Moosewood Cooks at Home

  • 3 garlic cloves – minced or pressed
  • 3/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
  • 1 tbsp chopped basil (or 1 tsp dried)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp grated Parmesan
  • pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • Put garlic, oil, vinegar, basil, salt, Parmesan, and pepper into a blender or processor and whirl for a couple of seconds. 
  • With the blender still running, slowly add the milk, whirling until the dressing is thick and smooth. Covered and refrigerated, this will keep a week.

Roasted [Sunshine] Squash Soup – Simply Recipes

  • 3-4 lbs. sunshine squash, seeded (about 1 large squash)
    • This squash is in your share this month!
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
  • Salt
  • 2 cups chopped or sliced onions
  • 2 ribs celery, sliced
  • 3 cloves garlic, chopped (about 2 tablespoons)
  • 2-inch piece of fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon ground coriander
  • 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • Lime juice, for serving
  • Chopped fresh cilantro, for serving
  • Roast the squash: Preheat oven to 400°F. Use a heavy chef’s knife or cleaver (it helps if you have a rubber mallet as well) to cut the kabocha squash half into a few large pieces. (Kabocha squash is thick and meaty and can be a challenge to cut. Make sure the squash is stable on your cutting board before you start to cut it.) Scoop out the seeds (you can toast them like pumpkin seeds!) and stringy insides. Place the squash pieces on a foil or Silpat lined roasting pan.
  • Rub 1 tablespoon olive oil over all sides, and sprinkle with salt. Put the squash pieces skin side up on the pan. Roast for 45 minutes to an hour, until completely cooked through, soft, and caramelized at the edges. Remove from oven and let sit.
  • Sauté onions, celery, garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander: Heat the remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil on medium-high heat in a large (4 to 6 quart) thick-bottomed pan. Add the onions and celery. Lower the heat to medium and cook until softened, 8 to 10 minutes.
  • Add the garlic, ginger, cumin, and coriander and cook 2 minutes more.
  • Add squash, stock, salt, pepper, then simmer: Once squash is cool enough to handle, remove and discard the skin. Place the roasted kabocha squash flesh into the pot with the onions and celery mixture. Add the stock, salt and pepper. Increase heat to high to bring the soup to a simmer, then lower the heat to low, partially cover and cook 8 to 10 minutes.
  • Purée the soup: Remove from heat. Use an immersion blender (or work in batches with a standing blender, only filling the blender bowl 1/3 of the way each time) to purée the soup.
  • Add more salt to taste. Sprinkle with lime juice and chopped cilantro to serve.

November Winter CSA

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Welcome to the first winter share of the season! There is no better time to receive your first dose of winter veggies than right after daylight savings time. Personally, after a long season here at the farm an extra hour of sleep is more than needed, even though we have to put up with Janaki complaining that his kids now wake up at 4:30 in the morning. This is also the final week of the season for many of our farm hands, some of whom have their own winter adventures ahead of them. Lucky for me, I get to stick around the farm this winter to help pack your winter shares and local wholesale orders.

If this is your first share with us, thank you for choosing local and organic. If you have been a member here for years, thank you for continuing to support our mission. Although we farm hands don’t interact with members very much, we definitely keep all of you in mind when doing various tasks on the farm. As we ventured through the great carrot and potato harvests of 2021, I considered how many mouths these crops will feed through the winter and it made the work more fulfilling.

The last few weeks have been really busy here at the farm to get us set up for the winter. We have cleared many fields of the crops they have been growing all season long. We harvested so many tons of carrots, potatoes, parsnips, cabbage, and Dave’s favorite crop: rutabagas. Among these harvests, Janaki has a plan for exactly which crop is going where this winter. Many carrots will end up in your winter shares. Others will be on the shelves at local grocery stores. The odd shaped and broken carrots even get sold to local businesses to make things such as kimchi. If it’s in the root cellar, it has a plan.

Also, be sure not to forget that it’s officially SOUP SEASON! I know I said that right at the turn of the first leaf this fall, but now it’s more relevant as we have finally experienced cooler temperatures. As a disclaimer, you’ll probably see many soup recipes in these newsletters this winter. A staple in the diets of many Minnesotans, soup may be the defining soup of the winter season. Luckily for you all, many (if not all) of our winter crops are perfect for soup makin’.

Your local soup enthusiast,

Emily

In your shares this month:

Beets, Brussel Sprouts, Carrots, Celery, Onions, Russet and Red Potatoes, Rosemary, Spinach, and Delicata and Kabocha Winter Squash

Indonesian Carrot Soup (from New England Soup Factory Cookbook, Druker and Silverstein)

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 whole cloves garlic, peeled
  • 1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
  • 1 large onion, peeled and diced
  • 2 ribs celery, sliced
  • 1.5 lbs carrots (we also use winter squash), peeled and sliced
  • 1 tsp curry powder
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
  • 4 cups vegetable stock
  • 1/4 cup sherry
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 16 oz coconut milk (one can)
  • 2 tbsp cilantro 
  • salt and pepper to taste

Heat stockpot over medium high heat.  Add olive oil, garlic, ginger, onion, celery and carrots/squash.  Sauté for 10 minutes.  Add curry, coriander, cumin, pepper flakes, stock and sherry.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to med and simmer 30-40 minutes (until carrots and/or squash are tender).  Remove from heat and add honey, coconut milk, cilantro, salt, and pepper.  Puree the soup using immersion or conventional blender.  Makes 5-6 servings.

Spanish Tortilla (New York Times, Mark Bittman)

  • 1.25 lbs potatoes (3-4 medium)
  • 1 medium onion
  • 1 cup olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 6 extra large eggs

Peel and thinly slice potatoes and onions.  Heat oil in nonstick skillet over medium heat.  After 3-4 minutes, drop in a potato slice.  When tiny bubbles appear around its edges, add potatoes, onions, salt and pepper.  Gently turn mixture in oil with a wooden spoon and adjust heat so oil bubbles lazily. Cook, turning potatoes every few minutes, until they are tender when pierced with a knife.  Adjust the heat.  If potatoes begin to break, they are overdone.  As potatoes cook, beat eggs with salt and pepper in a large bowl.  Turn oven on to 350 degrees F.  Drain the potatoes in a colander.  Wipe out skillet and heat over medium heat for one minute.  Add 2 tbsp. of oil.  Gently mix warm potatoes with eggs and add to skillet.  As soon as edges firm up, reduce heat to medium low and cook for 5 minutes.  Finish cooking in the oven.  Bake until firm (appx 10-15 minutes).  Serve warm (not hot) or at room temperature.

Summer CSA Week 15

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It’s hard to believe that we are already on the 15th week of the CSA, it feels like the season just started last week!? Anyways, while we are excited to share with you the vegetables of the week, there are still a few that you may not see this week, or next. Crops like brussels sprouts take a long time to mature–they’re seeded in early June and usually aren’t ready until the last week of the CSA. Most crops, like the celery in your shares today, are a couple of weeks ahead of schedule, but the brussels are actually slow enough that they may not even mature in time. I’m excited to eat them even if we have to wait for the winter shares.

This past weekend we attended the Harvest Festival at Bayfront and enjoyed seeing many familiar and new faces at the booth. The crew worked all day Friday harvesting vegetables to ensure that festival-goers received the freshest produce possible. It was great to see everyone after a year off from the festival.

The theme of last week seemed to be our potatoes. We worked on getting out the rest of the first planting of potatoes which included whites, russets, and yellows. Potatoes rock our world in so many ways and are incredibly versatile. I thought it might be useful to include a guide as to what potatoes are good for different potato cooking techniques. Disclaimer: this guide is based on a quick Google search and really, you can do whatever you want to your potatoes.

Fingerlings: great for baking, roasting, and potato salads. Not as good for soups.

Russets: These are the long brown potatoes in the share today. These are good for baking, mashing, french fries, and chips.

Reds: Unlike Russets, red potatoes do not fluff up as much when cooked. This makes them good for soups and stews.

Yellow/Gold: Creamier than most and are great for mashing, roasting, and grilling.

White: Great for french fries and hashbrowns. Doesn’t necessarily need peeling due to thin skin.

That’s the reference guide I use when choosing potatoes, but I use the different varieties interchangeably for the most part. Next up, I felt compelled to include a recipe for a classic potato dish that I grew up eating at every family gathering and holiday, and I hope you did too.

Thanks for reading,

Emily

We were fortunate to receive a few random rain showers and a big rainbow last week.

In your shares this week:

Beans – Broccoli – Carrots – Celery – Cucumbers – Dill – Lettuce – Onions – Red Peppers – POTATOES – Acorn Squash – Tomatoes

Farmer Kathleen driving the crew back to the potato fields for harvesting.

Potatoes au Gratin by RecipeTinEats

  • 1 1/2 cups cream
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter,melted
  • 2 lb starchy potatoes, Russet
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • 2 1/2 cups gruyere cheese (or mozzarella)
  • 2 tsp thyme leaves
  • Cream Mixture: Place butter, cream and garlic in a jug or jar. Mix until combined.
  • Preheat oven to 350°F.
  • Slice potatoes: Peel the potatoes and slice them 1/8″. Or use a slicer!
  • Layer 1: Spread 1/3 of the potatoes in a baking dish, then pour over 1/3 of the Cream Mixture, scatter with 1/3 of the salt, pepper and thyme. Sprinkle with 3/4 cups cheese.
  • Layers 2 & 3: Repeat for the 2nd and third layer, but do not finish with cheese on the top layer (will add later).
  • Cover & bake: Cover with lid or foil, and bake for 1 hr 15 min or until the potatoes in the middle are soft (use knife to test).
  • Top with cheese, bake again: Remove foil, top with cheese. Bake for a further 10 to 15 minutes until golden and bubbly. Stand 5 minutes before serving.

Cream of Celery Soup by AllRecipes

  • 3 quarts vegetable stock 
  • 1 head of celery, coarsely chopped
  • ½ pound carrots, julienned
  • ½ pound onions, chopped 
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour 
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
  • 3 quarts hot milk
  • 1 cup margarine
  • Step 1 Pour the vegetable stock into a large pot, and bring to a boil. Add the celery, carrots and onion to the pot.
  • Step 2 Whisk together the flour, salt, pepper, and milk; add to the pot along with the margarine.
  • Step 3 Boil for 10 minutes, then strain out the vegetables by pouring through a sieve, or if the vegetables are large enough, a colander may be used.

Summer CSA Week 6

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It seems that somehow the weather has been colluding with current events – when it rains it pours. When it pours it also hails. If you haven’t yet read Janaki’s storm report from mid-week last week it’s worth reading through, just scroll down this page.

We take a lot of pride in the food we send in the shares each week. The plants get a lot of TLC around here between greenhouse time, or field weeding and hoeing time (not to mention the tractor time and watering time). Janaki and Dave are always considering this or that about the appearance of the leaves, or the way plants look when they sprout, or how to perfectly place pac choi in a box so it’s as unrumpled it can be. The care and precision for every aspect of a plant’s life is time consuming, and it rubs off on everyone who works on the farm.

Doing things to the best of our ability is all we can do, and there is so much that isn’t up to us.. It is disappointing, and a little nerve wracking to see plants we are counting on look like someone stepped all over them. We can still do our best to care for the plants and to harvest them tenderly, but nothing is going to change the pock marks in the peas, or the dead carrots or other crops now open to more pressure from pests or disease.

During this whole insane time we find ourselves in as a society, I have really struggled to pull myself back from the precipice of “everything-is-horrible-and-it-shouldn’t-be-and-if-only-people-had-done-the-work-in-the-beginning-or-at-least-tried-even-later-or-just-did-anything-at-all-even-small-things-this-wouldn’t-be-happening-and-if-I-get-mad-enough-at-strangers-in-the-grocery-store-will-that-fix-how-terrible-I-feel”. It’s a long name for a precipice. I should consider an acronym.

This year so far has been a lot of rubber meeting the road and wool being pulled from our eyes. It is a lot to digest, and it feels like it’ll digest us. It’s not easy to put one’s head down and keep doing right, and keep working for better when it seems like a hail storm is going to come along and undo whatever you’ve worked for. Or even trying again after a hailstorm of life- it’s hard to keep on when maybe the damage that’s been done won’t be out-weighed by the effort and vulnerability of our attempt for better.

In pulling myself back from the aforementioned precipice, I have to constantly remind myself that I am only in control of what I do and don’t do. I can not control most of what happens to me, or other people. I can not control what the weather does, or the climate, or the people in the grocery store.

On the farm, we’ll keep tending to the crops tenderly, even though (especially because) they’re in rough shape. We’ll harvest them well and pack them for you as gingerly as we can. That’s what we can do. We can keep on doing the right thing for the soil on the farm, year in year out and keep making choices that keep us as off the grid as possible.

Thanks for doing your part by using our vegetables, and for sharing in the ups and downs of farming and life with us. None of this would be happening without all of you choosing to eat our food for yourselves and your families.

For the farm crew,

Karin

 

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In your share this week:

Beets – Broccoli – Cauliflower – Carrots – Cucumbers – Head lettuce- Snap peas

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Straw all stacked -done and done!

Napa Cabbage Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

From The Smitten Kitchen

-I am including this recipe mostly for the dressing, because having a good dressing on hand can be a key part of getting veggies from your fridge and into your mouth! Also, did you know that Napa cabbage (should you have any left from last week) can be stored for quite a while, well wrapped in the fridge? Not maybe as long as hard cabbage, but for at least a month.

1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons minced shallot
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons finely chopped chives (or green onions!)
1 pound Napa cabbage, cored and thinly sliced crosswise (4 cups)
6 radishes, diced
2 celery ribs, thinly sliced diagonally

Whisk together buttermilk, mayonnaise, vinegar, shallot, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a large bowl until sugar has dissolved, then whisk in chives.

Toss cabbage, radishes, and celery with dressing.

January Winter Share

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dapper

When I was a kid I hated January. I loved November (my birthday month, and Thanksgiving) and I loved December and the lead up to the holidays. When all the excitement was over, my little kid feelings (which are the biggest feelings) were in a free fall. School started again. There wasn’t any more candy. No more lights and Christmas music.

For years and years now, much as I love the holiday season, I tend to think of January as the real start to winter, and I’m glad to see it come. It is the real time of hunkering down and getting in the swing of winter and all its glory. To me that means burning candles, reading books, getting out for winter walks, and eating a lot of potatoes and parsnips. My baby enjoys three of those four things. These next couple of weeks we’ll be working on the love of food. I think he’ll be a natural, since putting things in his mouth seems to be the main event of any given minute.

All the candle burning and walking doesn’t always make up for this being a challenging time of year for many of us though. Short, cloudy days can leave one feeling rather bleak and cooped up. I hadn’t realized I was feeling that way until I was in the root cellar on what felt like the first sunny day in forever, last week. There will be more where that came from though, I’m sure.

Until then, I hope you all can bask in the left over summer sun that has been hiding in the vegetables! Squash and carrots and beets can add a splash of color to a winter plate. Perhaps you’ve started off this year with some new goals, or aspirations. Mine is to eat more squash! I’m so obsessed with potatoes, all the time, but I want to mix it up. And eating more squash really isn’t mixing it up so much. I’ve got some pesto thawing in the fridge right now – more stored up summer sunshine – and I love a big spoon-full on delicata halves.

I hope this New Year has been good to you so far, and that you’ve been good to you as well. And I’m sure our winter veggies will brighten your meals, and hopefully inspire more slow, good food!

For the hunkered in farm crew,

Karin

In your share this month: 

Beets, green cabbage, carrots, onions, parsnips, red and yellow potatoes,

Delicata and Kabocha squash

 

Cabbage Soup -from the Smitten Kitchen

1 pound pork butt, cut into small cubes
1 1/2 quarts chicken stock
4 cups water
3 allspice berries
3 bay leaves
1 tablespoon dried marjoram
1 cup sauerkraut, plus around 4 tablespoons juice
1 large potato, peeled and diced
2 carrots, minced
3 stalks celery, minced
1 onion, diced
2 cups fresh cabbage, shredded thin

Place the pork in a medium stockpot with the chicken stock, water, allspice, bay leaves, and marjoram. Bring to a boil and then simmer on low heat for about 2 hours. Remove the pork and set aside on a plate to cool. Skim fat from stock, leaving a few “eyes” of fat for flavor.

Add sauerkraut and simmer for 20 minutes. Add potato and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the carrots, celery, onion, and cabbage and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the pork and simmer for 10 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add sauerkraut juice.

 

As you may know by now, I am not much of a recipe person, but I wanted to pass on something I’ve made a couple of times, and enjoyed. During the summer season I love making zucchini fritters for lunches on the farm. When the weather turned cool last year I found myself wondering about a winter veggie version of  farm-fritters.

Roughly, this is what I do:

Grate a delicata squash, a carrot or two, a potato or two (and parsnips too, why not?) and lightly steam. Turn out into large bowl and add 3-4 eggs and ~3/4 cup flour. Eye ball it so it looks lightly battery, i.e., add another egg if necessary. Add salt to taste.

Spoon onto a heated pan with cooking oil, and fry on both sides until crispy brown. Serve with pepper and whatever condiments you like!

November Winter Share

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farm to table (1)

 

Welcome to the first Winter Share of the season! The warm and colorful part of the autumn is very much past, the evenings are dark and it is time to start getting in the wintery culinary mood!

I love this time of year, and I know I’ve said so every winter newsletter for a couple of years now. It’s still true. I love the subdued colors of everything, and cold wind on my face and snow falling in the sunshine. I love planning exactly what I should wear outside, and thinking about how I’m so great at planning outfits for winter activities… until I start shedding extra layers along a trail to retrieve on my way back.

I love eating as many potatoes as I want (job perk!). I love getting into a different “breakfast rut” each winter. Two years ago it was hash browns. Last year it was carrots, parsnips (stay tuned for them in later shares!) and potatoes all cooked in a pan with yogurt or ketchup on top.

This year my favorite part of the season will be coming up in just a couple of months: my infant son’s first bites of food. I am so excited for him to eat with me out of the root cellar at the farm. I haven’t decided which of the veggies will be his first. Probably carrots or squash. Or parsnips. Or potatoes. Or rutabaga. I feel so lucky to start him off with such wholesome, good quality food. What a blessing.

Thinking about my boy, and what and how I want him to eat as he grows has been fun, and also challenging for me. It has required me to look at how I eat and my imperfect relationship to food. I want him to have good food, the best food. Healthy and as much organic as possible. But that’s not really all of it. Not at all. I also want food to be something that he sees is worth spending time planning, preparing, and sitting down for.  I want to show him that there is value in investing time and money in food. I don’t want to treat the preparation of food like an inconvenience that just needs to be got over as quickly as possible. And by the time he’s taking his first bites I want to do less eating above the kitchen sink, and more sitting down. Even if it’s just for a fried egg sandwich in the morning.

I say that now. But I recognize that our meals won’t always be balanced, or include a complete protein, or be organic or mostly local. Maybe sometimes they’ll be mostly take-out pizza. And, I want him to see that too, and not see it as a thing of shame. There should be so much LESS shame and embarrassment around familial and personal food choices. Because it isn’t easy to always make the ideal choices we’d like to imagine ourselves making.

At the end of it all, I want him to learn joy- the joy of food in our lives. Food is work, fun, tasty, beautiful, communal, and sustaining.

So thank you for taking on a counter-cultural approach to food with us this winter season. Thanks for being willing to slow things down a bit and put your money down on something of quality.

Whether this is your first or tenth Winter Share with us, welcome or welcome back! I hope this season of local produce finds you well, and keeps you trying new ways of cooking with old staples.

With joy,

Karin

Potatoes with Shaved Celery Salad

(I think in newsletters of yore, I have mentioned that I don’t tend to be much of a recipe follower. Perhaps some of you are though, and perhaps you also got celeriac instead of celery. Ah! If I were you, I’d still give this recipe a whirl, but I would roast scrubbed and halved celeriac until tender (an hour or so) and chop it after that to toss with the salad. But I am not you, so perhaps you’d like to simply roast it with oil and salt and enjoy as is!)

  • 2 1/2 pounds red potatoes, cubed
  • 2 cups cider vinegar
  • 1 cup low-fat buttermilk
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped green onions
  • 1/2 cup light sour cream
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh dill
  • 1/4 cup canola mayonnaise
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons grated red onion
  • 1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 2 cups thinly diagonally sliced celery
  • 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Bring 12 cups water and potatoes to a boil in a large saucepan. Reduce heat; simmer 20 minutes. Add vinegar; simmer 10 to 15 minutes. Drain. Spread in a single layer on a baking sheet; cool.

Combine buttermilk and next 8 ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl. Stir in potatoes. Stir in celery and pepper. Chill at least 1 hour.

 

Curried Carrot and Coconut Soup

  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
  • ¾ pound carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch coins
  • 1 teaspoon peeled, grated fresh ginger
  • ½ teaspoon ground cumin, to taste
  • ½ teaspoon ground turmeric, to taste
  • ½ teaspoon ground coriander, to taste
  •  Pinch of cayenne pepper
  • 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
  • 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
  •  Juice from ½ lime
  •  Salt and freshly ground pepper
  •  Cilantro, if you have it
  1. Heat the butter until the foam subsides. Add the diced chopped onions, sprinkle with salt, stir to coat with butter. Add the chopped carrots along with the spices. Stir and cook until softened, about 10 minutes.
  2. Add the stock; there should be enough to cover the vegetables. Bring the pot to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and continue cooking until the carrots are cooked through, about 10 to 15 minutes.
  3. If you have an immersion blender, purée the soup in the pot. If not, wait until the soup cools slightly, and purée in a food processor. Add enough coconut milk (and a little more stock or water if necessary) to bring the soup to the consistency you want. Adjust the seasoning (depending on the stock you use, you may need more or less salt), and lime juice to taste. Garnish and serve.

Summer CSA, Week 16

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Honey Boat is a new variety of squash we grew this year. With their dusty orange hue they look a little different then the bright yellow torpedo shaped Delicata.

Standing alone they appear rusty orange but among the old faithful variety the honey boat looks like pink lemonade. Claiming to be sweeter and more fun the honey boat added a bit of pizzazz to the trays of delicata. An intermingled splash of summer to be enjoyed in the coming winter.

We were slinging squash around all week. We harvested the Delicata in Wednesday. We brought in the Winter Sweet, Kabocha, Acorn and Sunshine on Thursday. And we brought in the pumpkins on Friday.

Also the process of tossing squash to someone on the hay wagon is delightful. We were a well oiled squash slinging machine.

As the daylight diminishes, as we continue to harvest veggies, I think about you all. I think about the people who will enjoy this food come the fall and winter months. I think about the enormous amount of food that is grown here. In one single root cellar we can store enough food to feed shareholders, send food to restaurants, and stock co-op shelves.

The world needs more root cellars and more Fisher-Merritts and more Food Farms.

From our rockstar farm crew,

Tiffany

In your CSA box:

Green Beans, Celery, Carrots, Cilantro, Cucumber, Leeks, Yellow Onions, Sweet Red Peppers, Yellow Potatoes, Tomatoes, Turnips, Acorn squash!

Potato Leek Soup

  • 2 large leeks
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 4 cups veggie broth
  • 4 cups of potatoes-chopped
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 1 tsp dried parsley
  • Fresh chopped onion for garnish
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Chop leeks and place in pan with butter, stir until coated in butter. Cover pot and reduce heat to low. Cook leeks 8-10 minutes or until soft. Stir in broth, spices and potatoes.

Increase heat and bring to slight boil. Reduce heat and let simmer 20 minutes. If you desire a creamy consistency add to blender.

Otherwise enjoy chunky.

Acorn Carrot soup

  • 1 acorn squash
  • 2 lbs carrots
  • 2 sticks of celery
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 medium onion
  • 4 cups veggie broth
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 2 cups water

Prepare squash, carrots, celery and onion by chopping each.

Add olive oil and butter to stock pot and melt together. On medium heat. Add onion and celery. Cook 5 minutes.

Add the veggie broth, water, squash and carrots. Bring soup to boil and let simmer for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and garlic powder.

Let soup cook for 15 minutes. Working in batches blend the soup in a blender. Re heat and serve!