Winter CSA 2010: Delivery #1

Posted November 2, 2010

Welcome to the Primrose Winter CSA! We appreciate your commitment to eating locally and hope the newsletters & recipes will help in this endeavor. Each delivery day the entire membership will receive an email with that week’s newsletter ” everyothers, you’ll receive the newsletter even on you €˜off’ delivery days. This newsletter contains four recipes, but don’t stop there! We encourage you to use our online recipe search to find many more archived recipes. Simply type a vegetable(s) in the search box and many more recipes will come your way.

From the Fields: We’ve been really lucky with the weather this fall ” nice and mild. Currently we are working on getting the remainder of our root crops like carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, radishes, and beets out of the ground. We’re feeling really spoiled too, because for the first time the large majority of our preparation for the winter share is being done indoors in our new blue pack shed at our home farm in Cross Plains. In the past we’ve done all the washing and bagging outside at our leased farm on Pioneer. This year we are in the shed, heated to a balmy 55 degrees.

Your Share: Here are some general storage tips for the items in your share this delivery. With the exception of the leafy greens (lettuce, spinach, kale, tatsoi, & bok choi), these vegetables will easily store 1 to 2 months if stored properly. Most vegetables fit in one of two storage categories:

– Store Me in a plastic bag in the refrigerator: Beauty Heart Radish, Bok Choi, Brussels Sprouts, Carrots, Celeriac, Green Cabbage, Head Lettuce, Kale, Leeks, Potatoes, Spinach, & Tatsoi.

– Store Me in a dark, dry, place that’s not too warm ” like a cabinet or pantry that’s not above the stove or refrigerator (they give off too much heat): Acorn Squash, Butternut Squash, Garlic, & Onions

– Meet the Sweet Potato, the one exception: I’m picky. I like it warm, but will shrivel with too much heat & lose flavor if I get too cold (like in a fridge). Dark, dry, and warm is best. For storage of more then a couple of weeks you can wrap them in newspaper and just seal them in a paper bag and put on top of your refrigerator. A side note on these: the heavy moisture in June led to darker skins and cracking. These potatoes aren’t the prettiest, but they are still yummy!

Here are some cooking ideas for items with which you may be less familiar:

– Beauty heart radishes are what’s called a storage radish. They are bright magenta inside and much sweeter that the little red ones. They are excellent shaved thinly onto sandwiches or grated onto salads. They also do quite well in stir-fries or curries.

– Bok choi and Tatsoi are Asian greens. You cook with them the same way ” generally in stir-fries or in soups. Mushroom complement these greens well. There are lots of recipes on our website for these two greens.

– Celeriac is celery root. It has a similar flavor as celery and is best used in soups to give stocks a more complex flavor. Simply peel and chop it into cubes.

– Brussels sprouts love butter. Seriously. You can roast them if you like, but generally they are best simply sauteed in butter. They also make a great soup when paired with sweet potatoes.

– Leeks ” These are in the onion family. To clean, slice down the center of the stalk and rinse with water. Potato leek soup is classic winter fare. Leeks are also great when used in egg dishes.

Enjoy your veggies! Sincerely, Mike, Cassie, Zea and crew

In Your Share:

Acorn Squash
Beauty Heart Radish (large, spherical, whitish on bottom, greenish on top)
Bok Choi (green/whitish stems, with large light green leaves)
Brussels Sprouts
Butternut Squash
Carrots
Celeriac (round, knobby)
Garlic
Green Cabbage
Head Lettuce
Kale (leafy bunch)
Leeks
Onions,Yellow & Red
Potatoes, Red
Spinach
Sweet Potatoes
Tatsoi (long green/whitish stems, with smaller dark green leaves)

REGS and EO’s boxes will all be the same. EO’s only pickup on delivery #1 & #3.

Recipes:

Delivery #1: Wednesday, November 3rd – REGs & EOs Pick-Up