Potatoes (Yellow or Red)
Leeks
Fresh Thyme
Red-stemmed or Traditional Spinach
Lettuce Heads
Carrots
Jerusalem Artichokes (aka Sunchokes)
Cabbage
Curly Parsley
This Week's Fruit Share Extension:
Bosc Pears
Concord Grapes
Mutsu Apples
This is the final week of the fruit share extension. Thanks to all those who participated!
Notes from the Farm Kitchen
Fresh thyme enhances the flavor of so many different things--vegetables, meat, poultry, mushrooms and fish. Here's a picture of me harvesting your thyme yesterday. We've planted many of our herbs in the field behind the house so that I don't have to go far when I need a pinch of this or that for whatever recipe I'm working on. (I'm a big fan of planting a garden right outside the back door!) You can store thyme in the refrigerator for a week or two. For longer-term storage, let it dry in a warm, dark place and then store it in an air-tight container.
Until a few years ago, the sunchoke had always been called the Jerusalem Artichoke. I think the name change was prompted by the fact that this plant has nothing whatsoever to do with either Jerusalem or Artichokes. Hmmm. The sunchoke is actually the root tuber of a wild-growing sunflower that is native to North America. I have heard that the original name was given when the plant was introduced to Europeans several centuries ago. Jerusalem is thought to be a corruption of girasole, the Spanish and Italian word for sunflower, and somwhere along the line somebody thought that calling them artichokes would make them a more appealing and accepable food than calling them knobby little tubers. Well, knobby little tubers they are, there's no getting around that, but I think it's worth going out on a culinary limb to get to know sunchokes. Wash them well before using but don't worry about trying to peel them. Although they can be eaten either raw or cooked, I prefer to cook them. Here are some ideas: (1) Try sauteeing par-boiled sunchokes in butter and then glazing them with honey toward the end of the cooking time and seasoning with salt. (2) Add chopped sunchokes and potatoes to the roasting pan when cooking a chicken. (3) Include them in a roasted root medley. (4) Combine mashed sunchokes with mashed potatoes and season with butter, salt and chopped fresh parsley. (5) Combine with other vegetables such as carrot or potatoes when making creamy vegetable soups.
The Mutsu apple, a cross between Golden Delicious and Indo, was first developed in Japan. Mutsu apples are large, yellow-green apples that can be eaten fresh but are also outstanding for use in baked goods. They store well (up to 2 months) in the refrigerator.
This Week in Photos
Jerusalem artichokes are the edible tubers of a 10-foot tall perennial sunflower. We planted a row along the edge of one of our fields last year. After the flowers had finished blooming, we mowed the plants down and allowed the tubers to cure in the ground for a couple of weeks. Yesterday Matt went out with the root digger (see photo above) and lifted them out of the ground.
Andy (pictured above) and Nick followed behind and picked up the sunchokes by hand.
Our soils are pretty wet right now. The sunchokes, like all other vegetables we harvested this week, came out of the ground pretty darn muddy. Washing everything in preparation for packing your CSA shares this week has taken a little longer then it usually does.
As the crew harvested sunchokes yesterday, the girls played nearby in one of our carrot fields. (Who needs toys when there's all that dirt to play with?!) .
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This Week's Recipes:
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Next Week's Harvest (our best guess)... pie pumpkins, beets, celeriac, spinach, lettuce, bok choy, dill, brussels sprouts and white Japanese turnips.
