Fall CSA Newsletter ~ Week 2

Last week should have been a simple week of vegetable deliveries and field clearing and storing!! It ended up being one of those weeks! As one of our customers said "CSA builds community" and we could not agree more.

We delivered our first box on Tuesday morning all excited, jumped back into the truck to head off to the next delivery and the truck just died on us!!!!! 

Long story short the starter motor had gone.  We have to say a huge thank you from us to our CSA members and one of our friends Marj, who were all ready to come to our rescue.  

We were certainly very lucky that where the truck broke down our CSA family were home. We took over their home, phones and phone books in order get the truck towed and to figure out how to do deliveries.  

We had several of our CSA families offer to come and get us, loan us a vehicle and one of our families offered to chauffeur us to complete the deliveries. So I spent the afternoon cackling away with Linda as we drove around Belleville doing vegetable deliveries while Michael got the truck towed and headed back to the farm.  So again a huge THANK YOU to all of you who offered to rescue us on Tuesday we would not have got through the day with out you. 

You will notice you will be getting some of the same greens again this week.  They have held on really well in the field under fleece covers so while these vegetable remain happy in the field we are going to keep filling your boxes with fresh greens rather than root vegetables. 

We love receiving pictures and recipes of what you are all doing with your produce from the farm.

Colleen sent in her Fall Stir fry with left over roast pork.  As Colleen said in her e-mail, everything was from Strattons farm! 

We have added Debbie's picture to the recipe list below for radicchio.

This weeks basket

Potatoes - Great recipe for hiding those greens in foods! Why not try Kale and potato cakes
Carrots - carrot mash
Radish 
Kale - kale, potato, celeriac Stilton Pie You could replace the Stilton with any blue cheese!
Lettuce
Spinach - sag aloo spinach or chard and potato
Pac Choi - With the winter nights drawing in why not try a chicken broth and pac choi broth.

Napa Cabbage - Why not try roasting your napa cabbage this week!
Leeks - We like to find you different recipes and this weeks leek is for cottage pie with leeks and potato topping
Mustard Greens
Celeriac - This vegetable may come under the ugly category but it is yummy added to mashed potatoes or roasted with other root vegetables
Radicchio - Debbie sent in this photo and recipe for her Radicchio.

Quarter and wash the radicchio. Dry on a tea towel for 1/2 hr or so. Put in a baking dish. 

Make dressing. Mine has apple cider vinegar, thyme, salt, pepper, olive oil, lots of chopped garlic, Dijon mustard and sun dried tomatoes. Crumble  bacon on top and pour dressing on top. Cover with foil at bake at 350 for ~1 hr or how ever you like it cooked. 

CSA Newsletter ~ Week 15

Happy First Day of Fall

The weather this last week has been crazy! From a frost warning on Thursday which had us covering sensitive crops and digging the last of the sweet potatoes out, to high winds with hot and humid temperatures by the weekend! But as we welcome fall will we be getting back to normal temperatures for this time of year?  We have sorted our seed garlic for seeding and will shortly finish the last of the bed prep and then the chore of cracking bulbs and seeding will commence.  
Our green manures are doing great this year.  Lots of beds have been seeded. We also did some seeding just before the temperature dropped and we are happy to say the seed has germinated! 

Shortly you will all be receiving a survey about winter vegetables.  We would like to get an idea of what you would like as this will help us this year in what we offer but also in planning future winter vegetable boxes.  

This week's basket:
Watermelon - Yes they are still with us! Do remember you can freeze your watermelon in chunks.
Tomatillos -  if you don't fancy making anymore salsa why not try this stew.  If you do not eat meat you can replace the meat with kidney beans.  Do remember you can roast your tomatillos and then freeze them for winter stews and soups.
Tomatillo, sweet potato and pork stew.
1lb of pork stew
One batch of tomatillos roasted.
400g can of chopped tomatoes
2 sweet potatoes peeled and cubed or you can use normal potatoes
3 medium onions diced
3 cloves of garlic chopped
1 heaped tsp of cumin
2 Tbsp of paprika
2 Tbsp of chopped chili
2 litres of stock vegetable, pork or chicken.
Salt and pepper to season
Saute the garlic and onion in a large dutch oven till soft
Add in the cumin paprika and chili stir to coat then add the pork stir to coat for several minutes, add the potatoes and stock bring to a boil cover and simmer gentle for 1 1/4 hours or until the pork is tender.
Sweet Peppers - We are hoping to get a another couple of weeks of these as they are doing really well in the hoop house.
Cabbage want something different to do with cabbage then try these roasted cabbage steaks.
Celeriac also called turnip-rooted celery or knob celery is a variety of celery cultivated for it's root.  Can be eaten shredded raw into a salad, added to mashed potatoes or what is rather nice is Jamie Olivers recipe for smashed celeriac.
Leeks
Sweet potatoes - We are so excited to be able to add more sweet potatoes to this weeks boxes.  We did find on the last two rows the voles had chewed a few but over all we have had a much better yield this year.  Sweet potatoes do make great soup!
Garlic - The Garlic is cured. This weeks garlic bulbs are red russian and tibetan.
Lettuce 
Braising greens - These can be eaten raw, added to soups or stir fry.  This is our first time growing these and they have grown really well in our greenhouse so hoping you all enjoy them as much as we enjoyed growing them.
Beans
Turnips - These stunning golden turnips can be eaten raw, roasted, added to mash or made into soup.  The tops can also be eaten as well.
Turnip Soup.
4 turnips chopped
2 medium onions diced
1 1/2 litres of vegetable or chicken stock
2 cloves of chopped garlic
2 Tbsps of curry powder.
Saute onions and garlic in a little oil until soft, add curry powder and turnips saute for a few minutes then add stock.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes or until turnips are soft, season with salt and pepper.  Blend soup and serve.