Share Notes Jan 2, 2021

Share Notes Jan 2, 2021

CSA Share Notes:

Welcome to your first harvest of the Winter season and the start of 2021! I hope you nourish your body all year long. Right now you’re off to a great start.

Our Spring 2021 season, delivering to ETX and the metroplex has just opened for registration, so if you have not yet signed up, you can reserve your spot here.

Now on to your vegetable line up:

  • Collard— Regular shares received a pretty bunch of sweet collards, perfect to cook in the new year to bring good luck. Slice them thin and cook with bacon, garlic, and onion and a bit of chicken stock and crushed red pepper flakes for a southern experience.
  • Kale— Large shares received Red Russian Kale, which turns a beautiful dark purply green in cold weather.  This crop can be cooked the same as above but is also great is all kinds of soup.
  • Spinach— Everyone received a very large bag of spinach, enough for multiple servings. It’ll be great in a veggie egg scramble, or a minestrone, or in our Spicy Sweet Potato Soup with Greens recipe.
  • Arugula—Another jumbo bag for everyone. Delicious in a fresh salad. We often do feta or parmesan, loads of toasted nuts like walnut, pecan, or pine nut, and some fresh apples, pears, or dried fruit. Simple and so good.
  • Broccoli— plenty for everyone.  This broccoli has been growing under super cold conditions which makes the sugars concentrate and the broccoli taste so, so good. Enjoy it roasted, steamed, grilled, or in a soup!
  • Turnips— Everyone received a mixed bunch of turnips. Roast them all up, or cook them up southern style, with a bunch of garlic and a slice of bacon. Many of the greens are already pretty nibbled on by bugs, so you might need to discard most of yours, but the high quality ones are tasty sauteed.
  • Sweet Potatoes— all shares received these.  We don’t grow the sweet potatoes (we just don’t have the space or equipment for a big sweet potato crop). These beauties are grown by Tony Philips, a great farmer just up the road from us here in Van.  While Tony doesn’t grow in full alignment with organic practices, we’ve got a hole handful of reasons why we love eating these locally grown sweet potatoes, even though they’re not organic: 1. the soil of Van Zandt County is so incredibly perfect for growing sweet potatoes, they are a breeze to grow without chemicals. Very few pests bother them, so very few chemicals ever get applied. 2. Whenever he has (in prior years, not this year. How great!) needed to use any products on the crop to combat pests, only the leaves of the growing plant are sprayed while the harvestable potatoes are safe underground with little to no contact with the products, and 3. Unlike your conventional grocery store potatoes that have anti-sprouting chemicals sprayed on them after the harvest is over (recently found to be quite serious hormone disruptors, specifically effecting they thyroid) Tony doesn’t apply anything to the potatoes post harvest, his team just sorts them for size and runs them through a quick rinse under plain, clean water to get the sandy soil off of them.  All of this makes us feel really good about enjoying these awesome quality, 100% ETX local potatoes, even though they are not organic. We hope you feel the same!

Veggie Storage tips:

Sever all roots from their greens so they don’t get rubbery.  Store all greens, roots, and broccoli sealed up in bags in the fridge. Sweet potatoes prefer to stay at room temp.  Everything will need a significant washing before cooking, but leave the dirt on until you’re ready to use them to prevent faster spoilage.

We’d love to hear stories and recipes of your culinary adventures this week. Send us a note or post a comment of how you’ve used your CSA share.

Your farmers,

Jess & Justin

Large

Large Share (top left to right): Red Russian kale, arugula, spinach, mixed turnip (2nd row) broccoli, and sweet potatoes.

Regular

Regular Share (top left to right):Collard, arugula, spinach, (2nd row) broccoli, sweet potatoes, and mixed turnip.