- Baby Carrots
- Buttercup Squash (from Vicki Westerhoff's farm in St. Anne, IL)
- Spinach
- Curly Parsley or Italian Parsley
- Mixed Lettuces
- Yellow Onions (from Steve Pincus' farm in Evansville, WI)
- Scarlet Turnips
- Garlic Bulb
- Beauty Heart Radishes
- Celeriac
Reminder: Next week is the final week of the CSA season. Next week we expect to have red cabbage, cranberries, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, spinach, kale and rutabaga.
Farm Journal
Tuesday 8 a.m.
Jeff, Tyler and I have just concluded our early-morning meeting during which we've hammered out the priorities for the day. Yesterday we finally finished the ongoing project of planting all of next year's garlic crop, so today we can focus on harvesting. The list for this morning includes spinach, lettuce, celeriac, and parsley. Our motto here at Sandhill Organics is pretty much identical to that of the good old US Postal Service--come rain or shine, hail, sleet, or snow--we get the job done! Or something like that. OK, so maybe it's more like, "Dang, it's raining again and we've still got more harvesting to do!"
I stand in the threshold of the packing shed, putting off for another minute or two what I know is going to be a long, wet, cold morning. Jeff buttons up his raincoat and tells me he's ready to go out and start the spinach harvest. Knowing there's no use putting off the inevitable, I jump on the golf cart with him and we head out to the spinach planting on the back side of the farm. Forty-five minutes into the job my boots are caked with at least 25 pounds of mud. My still-healing broken ankle is protesting, but I figure maybe this is good, farmer-style physical therapy.
Three hours later, soaked to the bone, we have finished the job and we return to the packing shed with mountains of beautiful spinach. This is the kind of spinach I love to cook with-- nice thick leaves with good sweet flavor. After lunch we'll work on washing and bagging. For now I greedily stuff several large handfuls of spinach in a bag and walk toward the house, looking forward to my reward--a nice hot shower and a lunch of pan-fried trout with sauteed spinach and garlic. Looks like it's turning out to be a pretty good day after all!
Have a great week. -Peg
Notes from the Farm Kitchen
Beauty Heart Radishes, also known as watermelon radishes, are rather plain-looking on the outside but beautiful on the inside. They got their name because of the brilliant pink color of the interior. Beauty hearts are in a class of radishes called storage radishes. They are meant to grow to a larger size than spring radishes without becoming woody or pithy. When stored in a plastic bag in the refrigerator they will keep for months. I use beauty heart radishes much like traditional spring radishes. They can be peeled and grated or sliced for use on sandwiches, in salads and on crudité platters.
Buttercup squash is similar to acorn squash only larger. It has a sweet flavor and delicate, firm texture. It can be stuffed, baked, boiled or roasted for use in soups, casseroles, pumpkin pie, or as a side dish. Recently we were introduced to a seasoning mix from The Spice House called Vulcan's Fire Salt, and we can't get enough of it. One of our favorite ways to use it is to sprinkle it on wedges of squash and then broil or roast the wedges in the oven. Buttercup is a perfect variety for this kind of thing. Don't worry if you can't eat the whole squash all at once. These days we keep a large squash in the fridge and just slice off wedges as we need them.
In my opinion, scarlet turnips are definitely one of the better-tasting turnip varieties. They are mild and sweet enough to eat raw when sliced or grated in salads. For a healthy snack, try slicing them thinly and serving them along with baby carrots and some low-fat dip. If you intend to store your turnips for more than 10 days, I recommend trimming off the stalk entirely and keeping them refrigerated in a plastic bag. That way they will keep for a month or longer.
This Week's Recipes
(a recipe from Cooking Light for a traditional Alsatian comfort food that is similar to a gratin)
Don't forget--if you are looking for more recipe ideas, you can search by key ingredient on our website, www.sandhillorganics.com
