CSA Newsletter: September 7, Week 14

September 7, 2016 by CSA Newsletter

Ahhhh, lovely September, my favorite month of the year. The weather is perfect, the food is bountiful, and the trees are beginning to change. I love the mornings this time of year. The air is crisp and the harvest begins when there is just a hint of dawn. It is such a treat, even if you have to drag yourself out of bed, to see the sunrise every day.

We are starting a few of our “big” harvests now. “Big” just means it is the last main harvest of the year. We harvested all of the onions and they are curing in our hoop house. We also harvested all of our dry beans, something that is new to us this year. They are also in our hoop house to keep drying but we still need to figure out a good way to get the beans out of the pods and cleaned. I really hope it is worth all of the effort because they have been fun to grow and are a beautiful mottled pink. Hopefully they taste as good as they look! Next we will be harvesting all of the potatoes and soon the squash and sweet potatoes. We have so much food coming in for the winter months it looks like we will need to build another walk-in cooler. I think it is a good problem to have.

September 7th, Week 14

Announcements:

IMPORTANT! Crossfit times will change to winter schedule:
12-1pm and 4:15-7pm

Fall Harvest Dinner Sept. 18th- 4pm. RSVP Please!

In your box this week…

Head Lettuce OR Bok Choy
Carrots
Potatoes
Dill
Onions
Celeriac
Spicy pepper-green
Winter Squash- Carnival
Tomatoes
Sweet peppers-red, yellow, or orange
Garlic

Serving Suggestions:

Head Lettuce- crisp and mild. This lettuce makes for a nice salad, but it is hearty enough to add crunch to a great sandwich.

Bok Choy- my personal favorite of the Asian greens. Succulent, yet crunchy stems offer lots of interesting potential for a wide array of dishes. The standard is stir fry. Pluck the stems off and wash/dry. Stack a few at a time and chop across the grain. I then separate my chopped piles into stem and leaf. Toss the stems in toward the end of cooking to add a little moisture to the skillet while tenderizing them slightly. The chopped greens I add Just before removing from heat and covering this will just wilt them slightly without letting them get bitter.

Carrots – Great for blended soups! I love my immersion blender and I highly recommend one for fall soups. Cook the carrots long enough to sweeten and soften in either the soup pot or a skillet. Once blended the carrots add a nice rich color, texture and sweetness that’s hard to overestimate. For best results, roast them in the oven until caramelized, then add to soup and blend. Stores well in a bag in the fridge. (See Dill.)

Potatoes – These spuds are great for smashing, baking or roasting. They will keep in a drawer for quite a while. Store out of direct light.

Dill- Fresh dill is really great in potato salads or on roasted carrots. Cut carrots into sticks or rounds, roast them under broiler with a little butter or olive oil until well browned and just tender. Toss with lemon and/or honey until evenly coated serve still warm or room temp as a side.

Onions- will store well in a drawer now too, but don’t store them in the same drawer as the potatoes. Caramelized onions are so good and an easy way to make almost any dish “pop.” Caramelized onions are loaded with umami and sweetness that lends itself well to soups, pizzas, and meats. Simply chop rather finely across the grain and sautee over low/medium-low heat with either butter or olive oil. Stir as often as necessary to keep from sticking and deglaze the pan with a couple teaspoons of water or white wine.

Tomatoes– Saucing tomatoes for immediate use or canning/freezing? Try roasting them first! The flavor is excellent and really makes the sauce shine. Halve them and roast in the oven until lightly charred. Scrape all the gooey goodness off the pan and into the sauce. Sauce will be thicker, sweeter and more richly flavored.

Celeriac- is the root of the celery plant and it is not that pretty, but it sure is delicious! Wash thoroughly with a scrubber or sprayer, then cut the gnarly skin off and set aside for soup/stock. As for the rest, it is great eaten fresh in thin slices with a little peanut butter, but it really shines in small cubes for soups and stews. The root is hearty, flavorful and dense. Cut smaller than other vegetables and use more like an herb. Celeriac has a similar flavor to its herbaceous upper half, but unlike regular celery it will just sweeten with longer cooking and never gets bitter. If your celeriac still has the greens attached, just use like celery. But be warned, this stuff is stringier and packed with more flavor. Great for chopping fine and adding to soups. Store celeriac off the greens in the crisper drawer for over a week.

Sweet Peppers – Any color, other than green, is a sweet pepper this week. Fresh peppers are such a treat, and these are about as fresh as they get. But they do keep well in the fridge, and roasted peppers are great too! Can’t use them this week? Try roasting them while you bake anything else then freeze them whole in a bag for winter use. Great in sauces and blended soups.

Hot Peppers- Green = Hot this week! Most of the heat hides in the veins and seeds, so use them according to your tastes. These peppers are all relatively mild, but might still be too much for some. If some of your family doesn’t appreciate the heat, just chop some finely from the tip (or blossom end) and serve in a bowl to be added to each serving of whatever’s for dinner. De-veining and roasting these peppers will yield the mildest form they can take. Try chopping roasted peppers into cream cheese for a full-flavor dip with less heat.

Carnival Squash- The first winter squash of the year, this year. Pretty enough for a centerpiece, sweet enough for a pie. Roast in halves and scoop out the pulp for pies, sauces or soups. Halve squash, scoop out the seeds, then place cut-side down on a roasting pan in 350 degree oven until skin can easily be pierced with a fork and pulp is sweet and tender. These squash have not been cured off yet so use promptly!

Garlic- Sweet when roasted, strong and savory when raw. Stores well on the counter and compliments almost any dish.

Recipe of the week…

Roasted Veggie Pile

This is a standard recipe with more possible variations than I could ever list. We are coming into root-veggie season and this is a family staple that ebbs and flows throughout the season as different things become available.

It stands as an entrée, or a side that compliments any meat. Leftovers can be the basis for a soup or stew, or refried with eggs for a hash.

– As much and as many different root veggies as you like. (some of the best are: Carrots, potatoes, rutabagas, beets and radishes.)
– Fresh or dried herb of your choice (thyme, parsley, sage, rosemary and dill are all great options)
– Onions and /or garlic and/or celeriac
– Butter, oil, or lard (enough to coat)
– Salt and pepper to taste
– A little bit of maple syrup drizzled over and tossed to coat goes a looong way.

*small whole tomatoes, big chunks of sweet peppers and cubed squash meat all make good additions too.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Chop veggies into sizes that will cook evenly for the same time. Finer pieces will leave more surface area to caramelize and also more readily become soups or stews.

Place the oiled vegetables onto a roasting pan and roast in the top of the oven. Veggies should not be too deeply layered, as they will not brown well and stay too wet.

Stir occasionally. Add salt, herbs and any syrup once veggies have reached their desired tenderness. Toss and return to warm oven (turned off) for the glaze to set-up until ready to serve.

Simple and ubiquitous, goes well with anything and readily uses new additions to the box!