PICK-LIST
potatoes - carrots - green tomatoes - a radish bunch or a cucumber or a kol rabi -
shishito peppers - sweet pepper - cayenne pepper - napa cabbage -
bok choy - raspberry - watermelon - cilantro - eggs
KITCHEN LIST:
spicy zucchini bread - potato leek soup
BONUS LIST:
B.Y.O .Bouquet
Leftover farmstand greens and herbs (first come first served)
HERE WE GO FALL CSA!!
I am overjoyed by the start of the Fall CSA Season- bring on the roots, the cool crisp greens, those summer crops that keep hanging on (hello watermelon) and the 5 day work week! BOOM!
Bottomline y’all, welcome and I do hope you dig the next 7 weeks.
That said, let’s move on to the more pressing information that will certainly affect your weekly share. A few weeks ago, our chickens were attacked. While the majority of the hens made it, there were 30 casualties along the way. So this week, we start you all off with a ½ dozen eggs. Perhaps as the weeks progress, there maybe a chance at a dozen as our supply starts to grow again. But, don’t count on it.
I’m actually pretty blown away by this change of pick-list. It’s a real first for us. The beauty behind a CSA is that the community invests in the farm up-front. As a result, the CSAer has pretty low expectations of what the weekly share will look like, and ideally rolls with whatever the season supplies the farmers. To put it bluntly, there is always a risk of crop failure and as a share-holder, you are aware of that risk. However, In all my years of running the CSA, we have never truly had a crop entirely fail. Enter, the runaway dog that certainly affected one of my most beloved crops- the chickens. There is a real lesson in CSAmenship happening right here and I do hope you are ok rolling with the punches. To soften the blow, here is a pint of raspberries.
TIPS - TRICKS - RECIPES
Kimchi (taken from Sandor Katz's Wild Fermentation)
Yall- i made this back in JULY, and i am still enjoying daily- not kidding here people… I hear a little lacto-fermented food a day keeps the doc away, so dig in!
Makes 1 quart
sea salt 1 pound chinese cabbage (napa or bak choi) a few radishes
1-2 carrots 1-2 onions, leeks, a few scallions, or shallots 3-4 cloves of garlic
3-4 hot red chilies, depending on how hot you like your food, or any form of hot pepper, fresh, dried, or in a sauce
3 tablspn fresh grated ginger root
Mix a brine of 4 cups water and 4 tablespoons of salt. The brine should taste good and salty. Coarsely chop the cabbage, slice the radish and carrots, and let the vegetables soak in the brine, covered by a plate or other weight to keep the vegetables submerged until soft. This can take a few hours or overnight is even better. Add other vegetables to the brine such as snow peas, seaweeds, Jerusalem artichokes, anything you like.
Prepare the spices: grate the ginger, chop the garlic an onion, remove seeds from the chilies and chop or crush, or throw them in whole. Kimchi can absorb a lot of spice. Mix spices into a paste. You can add fish sauce to the spice paste, just make sure it has no chemical preservatives which function to inhibit microorganisms.
Drain brine of vegetables after soaking. Reserve the brine. Taste the vegetables for saltiness. You want them salty but on unpleasantly so. If they are too salty, rinse them. If you cannot taste the salt, sprinkle a couple teaspoons and mix.
Mix the vegetables with the ginger-chili-onion-garlic paste. Mix everything together and stuff it into a clean quart size jar. Pack it lightly, pressing down until brine rises. If necessary, add a little of the reserved, vegetable soaking brine to the submerged vegetables. Weigh them down with a small jar, or a ziplock bag filled with some brine. If you remember, you can just push them down with your fingers. Cover the jar to keep our dust and flies. Ferment in your kitchen or other warm place. Taste it every day. After about a week, when it tastes ripe, move it to the refrigerator or cool storage space like a root cellar or a hole in the ground.
Serves 4-6
Although this salad can be made at the last minute, it doesn’t suffer from being dressed hours earlier, which makes it a good picnic salad. Add the peanuts just before serving so they’ll be nice and crunchy.
THE SALAD
½ cup skinned raw peanuts 1 teaspoon peanut oil 1 large carrot
4 cups thinly sliced Napa cabbage 2 cups slivered bok choy leaves
3 thin scallions, including some of the greens, finely sliced diagonally
¼ cup chopped cilantro 2 tablespoons chopped mint leaves
2 tablespoons torn basil leaves, Preferably Thai basil
THE DRESSING
½ cayenne chile, finely diced ¼ cup rice vinegar 1 teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon sea salt ¼ cup roasted peanut oil
Heat the peanuts in the oil over medium-low heat, shaking the pan occasionally, until lightly browned after a few minutes. Blot with paper towels and set aside.
Peel the carrot with a vegetable peeler and discard the skins. Then, with the vegetable peeler, continue removing long strips of the carrot until you’ve reached the core.
Combine the cabbage, bok choy,, and carrot with everything except the nuts.
Whisk the dressing ingredients together and toss with the greens. Add the peanuts just before serving.