The Farmer’s Cookbook: Winter CSA 2017 – Delivery #3
When the farm work slows down, each year around this time I find myself in a distinct home mode: de-clutter and organize. This feeling is akin to the crazy housecleaning phases I would go into just before the birth of each of our daughters. The winter becomes my time to deep clean and get the house in good order before the 8 months of the farm season chaos ensues.
My current project: recipes. We have loads of cookbooks in the kitchen, as well as printed recipes from the internet poking out of every book and crevice in the kitchen it seems. In addition to books, I use our farm website for recipes and also an app called Pepperplate (which was the failed project of a prior winter organizing stint). Having recipes in all these different places frustrates me. I want to have all the cookbooks and recipes that I like to use in one easy place and platform to reference.
To do this, I am creating my own cookbook – old school hard copy. It’s a huge 3-ring binder that has recipes I like to use in plastic protectors. These recipes are gathered from all over: print outs from the Crossroads website, recipes I found on the internet that the whole family liked, recipes that came from cookbooks that I checked out from the library and copied, recipes from friends, etc.
The cookbook is organized by months of the year, as well as with sections on baking and meat and sauces. We eat seasonally all year round. While cookbooks organized by vegetable can be great, what I need is a collection of recipes that are great at combining the veggie ingredients I actually have on hand at specific times of year. I also want a cookbook that recognizes that in October I’m looking ahead at 4 solid months of root crops, so I don’t want a root crop meal when there’s still eggplant to savor. I need a cookbook that knows kale will be in every single meal in November, because by March we’ll be thirsting for fresh greens.
It’s kind of fun to make this cookbook, because the end product will be a sweet resource. In addition to organizing and centralizing my recipes, I have also recorded every single meal we’ve cooked in the house over the last year and half so that I can have an easy reference for meals that work at certain times of year. My super organizer dork self is having great fun with this! I can’t wait to give away all the cookbooks that fill our cupboards, and pare down to the essentials: family cookbook, Joy of Cooking, Better Homes and Garden cookbook (for baking), A to Z, and Farmfresh and Fast. De-clutter and reorganize = winter farm/home fun for Farmer Cassie.
Thanks for your support of our family farm and enjoy your veggies!
Sincerely,
Mike, Cassie, Zea, Edie, and Juna
In the Box:
- Beauty Heart Radish
- Beets
- Butternut Squash
- Cabbage, Red
- Carrots
- Celeriac
- Festival Squash
- Garlic
- Green Kale (soft from freezes but still edible!)
- Onion, Yellow
- Parsnips
- Potato, Russets
- Sweet Potatoes
