CSA Share Week 22

Snow in October? Even here in Upstate New York, it’s just about unheard of.

     In the last week, we had not one but two snow events here. Neither accumulated more than an inch or so. More significantly, with the snow came overnight temps dropping into the 20s. Not many plants will survive that kind of cold. Some do: hearty greens like collards, kale, escarole (in pic) and even some lettuce.

     Fortunately, we harvested like mad before the first storm to get everything in that we knew wouldn’t tolerate the cold. Better said, Ken and our two remaining employees—Armando and Ariel Leal (cousins)—did the work, in the rain and in 30-degree temperatures, harvesting, washing and packing the produce. Talk about numb fingers.

     It’s a relatively large share, but many of the items will hold. So there’s no need to feel like you have to eat it all in one week. Store the garlic on your countertop. It will hold there for weeks. The onions can do the same. Potatoes are best kept in a dark, cool but not cold location (don’t refrigerate). Many of the greens will hold up in your crisper. Just store in produce bags.

     It was quite a growing season. We’ve never experienced anything quite like it. So you may be wondering if we’re glad it’s over. The truth is…nah. We love what we do and regret seeing another season come to an end. We are so very grateful for all of you who took a chance on us for yet another season or for the first time. We didn’t get all the crops we’d hoped or planted for, we were lucky that we never came up short overall.

    

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IN THIS WEEK’S SHARE:

1 bunch carrots

1 bunch kale

1 bunch cilantro

2 heads lettuce

1 bunch leeks

1 head escarole

1 bunch collards

5.6 ounces arugula (.35#)

Garlic *

3 pound bag potatoes

Onions (red and/or yellow)*

*Amounts vary at distribution sites based on onion and garlic size

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COOKING TIPS and RECIPES:

 

Potatoes, Leeks…. Need we say more. It’s time to make soup!

Similarly, escarole is a classic and tasty green in a chicken soup. For a quick fix, stir-fry it. It’s great with an orange-soy sauce (orange juice, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, honey, Vietnamese hot sauce). Every year we recommend this Escarole and White Bean Stew with Rustic Croutons. A number of CSA member have tried it and loved it, so we keep recommending it. (It’s perfectly delicious without the pancetta).

This side dish of Sauteed Escarole with Raisins, Pine Nuts and Capers developed by Maryellen’s friend Jennifer Armentrout of Fine Cooking is equally delicious and quick too.

 

Collards also make a nutritious and simple weeknight side dish, such as in this recipe by Susie Middleton for Quick Sauteed Collard Ribbons.

 

We also stumbled over this recipe—Mama Nava’s Ye’abesha Gomen (Collard Greens). The ingredients are a bit unexpected, but it sounds as if it's a hit.

 

Lastly, if you still have butternut squash left over from last week and are not saving it for Thanksgiving, it can be used with this week's cilantro in a quick side dish for Butternut Squash with Ginger and Cilantro.

The CSA structure truly helps to buttress our farm so we can better focus on what we are passionate about—growing great organic food. Thank you for your support.

CSA Share Week 21

Letter from the farm:
We finally were able to dig up our potato crop. Until last week the ground just had not dried out enough for us to be able to run our potato digger through the many, many rows of potatoes we planted this year. At one point we tried digging them up by hand, but the yield on the crop was so poor from the wet spring that the few crates we got out of a row would have to be valued at $16 a pound to justify the time it was taking to dig them up by hand. That’s a slight exaggeration. But, essentially, digging dozens of acre-long rows by hand wasn’t going to work.


While our digger got the job done, the ground was still a bit heavy for harvesting mechanically and a part on the digger did irreparably break in the process. It was an old digger, but as a farmer friend with a much bigger potato digger told us this weekend, his digger snapped from the weight of the wet soil too. We’ll need to look at replacing ours. A new one could cost anywhere from $5,500 to $16,000—and all that piece of machinery does is get pulled behind a tractor to dig up rows of potatoes towards the end of the season. There is no motor or anything electronic or computerized—just gears, belts and a lot of metal. Farm machinery can be costly that way, but without a potato digger, there’s just no sense in growing potatoes on a production scale. The time it takes to dig them up by hand with a potato fork and the percentage of potatoes that inevitably get speared and ruined by the fork make it worth investing in a replacement. There’s always the chance we might find a decent used one too.



IN THIS WEEK’S SHARE:

6.4 ounces baby winter mesclun mix

1 bunch carrots

½ pound shallots

2 1/2 pounds red potatoes

1 head red curly leaf lettuce

1 butternut squash

¾ pounds green beans

2 kohlrabi




Winter Greens and Green Beans: One of our CSA members said she had delicious success cooking her green beans with the winter mix that’s in this week’s share. She said to start cooking the beans in butter in a 12-inch skillet and, once they’re crisp-tender, stir in the greens and some minced garlic. As soon as the greens have begun to wilt, remove the pan from the heat. It should be just enough time to wilt the greens. The winter mix does contain a number of baby-sized cooking greens, including kale. It is equally good enjoyed as a salad—cold or lightly wilted. This is a cool-weather loving crop of greens, which is why you are just seeing it this time of year and not through the summer months.






Tip from the farm on Kohlrabi: Not sure what to do with kohlrabi? Trim off the leaves and slice the bulb into matchsticks. Our kids think they’re as tasty as eating apples. Kohlrabi is a cabbage but a surprisingly sweet one. You can always dip the sticks into a dressing. Or add to a stir fry or make a cole slaw…

CSA Share Week 20

This is the 3rd to last CSA share (that is, 2 more weeks to go).

It’s definitely feeling like we’re well into fall here. It’s so much harder to harvest, wash and pack produce when it’s chilly out, like it was here on Monday.


Almost everyone in our family has caught a cold in the last couple of weeks. This shouldn’t be a big deal—everyone gets colds—but for someone like Ken who is working outdoors 7 days a week and getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning a few times a week only to work until dark, a little cold can easily turn into pneumonia. So we’re making lots of soups, drinking cold-friendly teas, and eating raw garlic to stay strong (okay, maybe the kids aren’t eating the garlic).


One of our interns years ago taught us the trick of eating raw garlic when feeling run down, and our local natural food store owners swear by it too. Sliced and sandwiched between a couple pieces of cheese, it’s quite tasty. Sure, it’s strong. It takes some getting used to. And if you have a special someone in your life, it’s good to consult with them first or have them ingest along with you. And it’s definitely not a friendly thing to eat before attending an event. But once you’ve gotten a taste for sliced raw garlic (eat at least a clove), it can be habit forming.


While there isn’t any garlic in this week’s share for members to snack on if they’re feeling run down, there are purple carrots. Yes, the purple carrots are back!!! Carrots were originally purple, and, from what we understand, any vegetable with purple pigmentation contains more nutrients.


So, if you don’t have any garlic hanging around from last week’s share and you too have or are coming down with a cold, eat your carrots!




In this week’s share:


1 bunch purple carrots

1 bunch beets

1 head curly leaf red lettuce

1 head frisée

5.6 ounces arugula
1 bunch scallions
Parsley
Winter squash
Red onions

 
Frisée or curly endive is a chicory. It’s classically known for being served with a warm bacon dressing, but there are a lot of other delicious ways to enjoy it. Wash it, spin it dry, and tear the leaves into pieces to prepare. It would be delicious as a salad with roasted beets (in this week’s share; diced or in wedges), toasted walnuts and an orange vinaigrette. Or try one of the following recipes:
Wilted Frisée Salad with Hot and Smoky Tomato Dressing--http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/wilted-frisee-salad-with-hot-smoky-tomato-dressing

Frisée Salad with Blue Cheese, Dried Cherries and Walnut Vinaigrette http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/frisee-salad-blue-cheese-dried-cherries-walnut-vinaigrette.aspx

Upside-down-apple-cheddar tarts with Frisée and Walnuts-- http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/upside-down-apple-cheddar-tarts.aspx

CSA Share Week 19

On a day when we’re typically straight out harvesting and packing up the share, we somehow squeezed in a fun birthday party Monday for our oldest child, who is turning seven.
Every age seems to be magical, and seven is no exception. As we set up for our CSA distribution at the farm, our daughter now makes the signs that we attach to the bins, labeling the item and letting members know how much to take (as in pic). And this week both she and her brother, almost 4, helped pack all of the eggs. That was a lot of eggs.

It’s not easy involving our children in the work we do. The fact is, the pace is fast, there is a certain skill set often required (plus strength and endurance), and many aspects of farming are not safe for children to be around. But we try to include our kids when we can, whether it’s offering a learning experience—such as figuring out how to spell the name of a vegetable—or, most importantly, a chance to spend time together. After all, those birthdays seem to come all too quickly.

Field notes: This last week we had two nights with freeze warnings, so to prepare we picked out our entire eggplant and pepper crop (these plants don’t tolerate those kinds of temps). It got cold. We’ve seen “burn” marks on some of our beans from frost . But new and delicious crops are here this week too: bok choy, acorn squash, mesclun mix... And we’re not giving up. We put new plants in the ground just last week with hopes we might have an extended fall. Sometimes that can happen. Wouldn’t it be nice!

IN THIS WEEK’S SHARE


½ pound mesclun mix
1 acorn squash
1 bunch leeks
1 bok choy
1 bunch cilantro
¾ pound green beans
2 habañero chiles
2 jalapeños
1 head of garlic
4 bell peppers

CSA Share Week 18

This week we feel fortunate to be able to offer a decent variety of vegetables—some new, some familiar, all ones that have been able to stand up to the ridicule of persistent rain we continue to experience.

It’s like déjà vu here. The season is ending just like it started. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. We might get one bright afternoon or even a full day of glorious sunshine only to be followed by more rain. If our fields can’t dry out, we can’t can work them. Things are just too saturated.

We don’t mean to harp on this topic of bad weather. But we are frequently reminded that most people don’t connect how all this rain affects a farmer. At a farmers’ market this weekend we had customers tell us they were unable to find spinach. This is a market with 36 vendors, granted, the vendors are not all farms and where at least 3 farms have had to drop out because of the weather this fall. Even though this market is located where federal disaster funds are being allocated due to flooding, we find we still need to do a lot of educating as to how so much rain is putting all farms under great stress—whether or not they’re in a flood plain or are a vegetable farm, orchard or dairy farm.

As we plan our meals here at the farm, however, we don’t find ourselves thinking about what’s not at hand because of the rain. What we have we’re thankful to work with. It is good food, delicious food, mindfully grown and true to what nature is able to offer during this sodden season.

So, maybe we’ll make a pasta dish tonight with golden cubes of sautéed eggplant, wilted arugula, garlic, and some goat cheese feta we purchased from a local farm. And maybe tomorrow we’ll make a lentil dish studded with butternut squash and Indian spices scooped up with some homemade flatbread or a fall stew with the turnips, squash and onions in this week’s share. And the braising greens (seen in pic)—we’ve been waiting for this mix of spicy, cool-weather greens to come into season. They’re just so good and nutritious.

At this stage in fall, we are lucky there are some vegetables still hanging on from summer. They haven’t been knocked off by a frost—yet. And there are some heartier vegetables new to the scene (despite the odds) that satisfy cravings for comfort foods as cooler temperatures arrive this week.



THIS WEEK’S SHARE:


arugula


eggplant


4 onions


1 bunch mixed braising greens (see note below)


1 head Freckles Romaine lettuce


1 butternut squash


1 bunch turnips*


¾ pound green beans




We’re not totally sure why the spicy greens in this week’s share are called a “braising mix” (the seed catalog has tokened the it this and at the farm it has just stuck). This bunched mix includes green mustard, red mustard, kale, tatsoi and hon tsai tsai—a Chinese specialty green also known as Kailaan (purple stems, some with edible flowers). You can chop and use in salads. At the farm, we like to lightly cook or stir-fry in olive oil, stirring in some minced garlic as soon as they’re wilted.



*If you have a bunch of turnips with healthy green tops and don’t plan to use them, pass them on. They’re delicious and super nutritious. There’s apt to be another CSA member glad to use them. Cook them like you would the “braising mix” mentioned above.


REMINDER: This is the 18th of 22 share weeks. The last distribution is Tues., Nov 1.

CSA Share Week #17

Fall has arrived. We can see it in the lengthening of the trees’ shadows. We can hear it in the quietness of the air and the occasional call of a single Blue Jay swooping between the trees. We can smell as the colorful decaying leaves begin to accumulate on the ground. And our CSA members can taste it in this week’s share—with the arrival of winter squash and sweet potatoes.

We continue to hear of more and more farmers that have been completely washed out for the season. Many fellow growers and CSAs are done prematurely for the season. On our farm, many of our fall crops were damaged or lost to the extreme rains. The fields look so barren. But we are fortunate to still be standing and still able to offer a variety of vegetables in this week’s share.

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Note on last week’s corn: A few members reported they found a worm in their fresh corn last week. We are sorry to hear that, but it’s actually not such a bad thing. It’s an indication that your corn has been organically grown and with certified organic seed. Corn is a tricky crop to grow pest free. Conventional corn can be grown with pesticides spliced into the seed, so that it’s in the plant tissue. So corn can be sold as “spray free” but contain a pesticide component in the plant itself.

For the future, if you see a bug or worm in your corn, simply cut off that portion of the corn cob. We know, it’s not a comfortable sight to discover. Usually pests invade at the tip. Cut it off and you’re set to enjoy the rest of the ear of corn.


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IN THIS WEEK’S SHARE:

1 head escarole


6 1/3 ounces salad mix


1 bunch swiss chard


2 delicata squash


2 heads of garlic


1 bunch leeks


3 bell peppers


1 bunch radish


sweet potatoes




DELICATA SQUASH

Delicata is a favorite winter squash here at the farm. It’s a great weeknight squash. Creamy in texture and nutty in flavor like a butternut squash, but not a big project to cut up and cook. In fact, don’t even bother to peel them.

Perhaps the simplest way to cook it: slice it in half down its length, scoop out the seeds, brush cut sides with oil, sprinkle with coarse salt, and roast on a heavy duty sheet pan with raised edges in a 375 degree oven. At Free Bird, we like to start the roasting process cut-side down until it’s nicely caramelized underneath where the flesh touches the pan. Flip once it’s richly golden brown to finish cooking through (if the squash flesh is not already fully tender when pierced with a fork). Sorry—we’re guessing on the time: about 30 minutes? Check after 20 minutes, just to be on the safe side. To serve, rub the flesh with butter and, if you like, lightly drizzle with maple syrup. Or melt a few tablespoons of butter with chopped rosemary in a small saucepan. Add ½ cup of cider and bring to a gentle boil. Cook until the cider mixture is reduced by about half. Drizzle over the roasted squash halves (cut side up) and serve.

Alternatively, slice the squash in half down its length. Then slice each half into thin slices to make half-moon slivers. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper and spread in a single on a heavy duty rimmed baking pan (like a jelly roll pan). Once golden brown on the underside, flip and continue to cook until golden brown and tender. The skin will shrivel and tenderize so it can be eaten (no need to slice off). In the last few minutes of roasting toss with minced garlic and some minced rosemary, if you like. Or serve with the cider glaze in recipe above.

CSA Share Week #16

We have the best CSA members. We really do. And this weekend’s Open House at the farm was a strong reminder as to just how lucky we are. It was a gorgeous fall-like day—the sun warm and relaxing. We took a tour of the farm’s main growing field, where Ken was able to talk about our farming philosophy, answer members’ questions, and show members how and where things grow. Then members shucked corn and helped set up a large table of food for a pot luck lunch, which was chock full of delicious, healthy food. (see recipe below for Neil's dish we all really loved)

We enjoyed hearing from members as to how the CSA has enriched their lives—whether it has meant eating more healthfully, trying vegetables they would never have tried, enjoying how fresh everything tastes or insuring one’s family is eating sustainably-raised food. And we were inspired by just how much of a commitment members expressed for the farm. (We can always use that kind of morale boost.)

Thanks to all those who took a day off to come here to the farm (we know, we’re far). We wish the day could have stretched on longer.

This week’s share is showing just a glimpse of how the farm has been hurt by the drastic weather events of late August and early September. Call them Irene and Lee. The result: slim pickings. And, yet, we’re among the lucky ones! We have something to offer—just not many things we had planted for. At one of our farmer’s markets in the Hudson Valley we heard from many, many people that their CSAs were simply done for the season. Wiped out. Kaput. We appreciated hearing their tone of compassion for those farms. As it’s not an “us” vs. “them” kind of thing. We’re all in it together. We’ve all been hurt. Some just more seriously than others.

-Ken & Maryellen

P.S.- for those who were fans of the gingerbread made at the Open House, here is a recipe that’s similar to what she followed in the King Arthur cookbook: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/gingerbread-recipe.

IN THIS WEEK’S SHARE
3 pounds Tongue-of-Fire heirloom shell beans (info. follows)
6.4 ounces salad mix
¾ pound fresh edamame
6 ears sweet corn*
1 bunch carrots or other item
Sweet bell peppers
1 melon

*Natural sugars in sweet corn turn to starch rapidly. If you can’t cook the corn immediately (Tues. night), wrap in a damp towel and then tuck in a plastic bag and store in your refrigerator’s produce drawer to help preserve it best.

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TONGUE OF FIRE SHELL BEANS.  At Free Bird, shelling these Italian heirloom fresh shell beans is a family affair. If there’s extra after a market, we all sit on the back of the truck and start shelling away—prying open the colorful mottled shells and flicking the beans into a communal pot. If we aren’t finding something to laugh over while sharing in the task, we simply enjoy the time together just being quiet. And then we cook up a big pot. Whatever beans you cook up and don’t eat, drain and freeze in zipper-locked bags and enjoy later on in a stew or pasta or with sautéed greens and lots of garlic. These beans are creamy in texture and mildly nutty in flavor, similar to a cannellini bean. A lot of our market customers buy them to make pasta e fagiole (pasta and beans).
TO COOK THE FRESH SHELL BEANS: place the shelled beans (pods discarded) in a pot of water. Add a bay leaf and any aromatics you have on hand, such as a chopped carrot, parsley stems, or an onion, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a gentle simmer, stirring occasionally, until the beans are creamy in texture all the way through, about 30 minutes. (Taste to test for doneness.)

HOW TO FREEZE PEPPERS. As you may be noticing, the farm had one heck of a pepper crop this year. If you’re not sure what more to do with your peppers, stash them in the freezer. They hold up beautifully. First, remove the stem and core and then slice the pepper into strips or chop up. Place in a freezer-grade ziplock plastic bag removing as much air out the bag as possible. Then freeze. Pull the peppers out any time this winter when you want to make a stir fry, a pasta dish, chili, soup,… They hardly even need to be thawed before throwing in a hot pan.

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Neil Doshi's Fabulous Stew:

Hello everyone,

I went to the open house at the farm the past weekend and brought this dish for our potluck lunch. A few people asked me to share the recipe for the newsletter so here it is. It is a slightly modified version of a dish my girlfriend and I had in Turkey. All the ingredients are easy to obtain except for the last two, but both of them are optional. The resulting stew is great hot, cold, or at room temperature. It only gets better the next day and is great with some some pita. The prep and cooking time is under an hour.

Ingredients:
1 medium-sized italian eggplant (1/2" cubes) or a few skinnier eggplants cut into rings (about 1/4" thick) with the skin on
1 red pepper cut into strips
1 onion (cut along the grain, julienne)
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2-4 Tomatoes chopped (see notes)
2 tbsp of tomato paste
1-2 tsp of turkish pepper paste (optional - see notes)
a few pinches of turkish pepper flakes (optional - see notes)

Directions:
Add olive oil to a stewing pot of some sort (I used an enameled dutch oven)
I turned the stove to medium heat (I wasn't going for any caramelization or browning)
Fry the peppers in the oil for about 5 minutes
Add the onions and fry for another 5 minutes
Add the garlic and fry for about a minute or so
Add the tomato paste and the option pepper paste and powder and fry for a few minutes
Add the tomatoes and cook on low for 10-20 minutes until a sauce forms

While this is going on, pan fry the eggplant on high in a different pan until browned and thoroughly cooked with a high heat vegetable oil to prevent smoking.
You can press out some of the oil from the eggplant after it is cooked with some paper towels because it will have absorbed quite a bit.
Stir the eggplant pieces into the vegetable stew and turn off the heat after a minute or two.

Notes:
1) You can use whole fresh tomatoes (I like roma tomates) with the skin & seeds or tomatoes from a can of whole peeled tomatoes without the liquid (its too salty). You could even add some whole cherry tomatoes in addition to the cut up tomatoes that form the sauce.
2) Turkish pepper paste is basically the red pepper equivalent version of tomato paste. I used something I picked up in Turkey, but you can buy something similar at Kalustyan's called "Biber Salcasi".
3) Turkish pepper powder is a dried pepper powder that is made from a mild to medium red pepper. Once again, I used something that I bought abroad, but they have two versions at Kalustyan's that you could try called "Kirmizi Biber" and "Biber Tursu". Alternatively, you can use a little bit of the usual red pepper flakes (cayenne) or some hot paprika.

--neil