CSA Share Notes:

Welcome to the start of our Mini Winter CSA! We’re serving 30 families this winter, a small group compared to our Spring, Summer, and Fall CSAs, and we are so thrilled to feed you guys, and nourish your families. 

Our greenhouse is packed with the most beautiful crops for you, and – we can hardly believe it- lots of crops actually survived the 10 degree freeze we had 2 weeks ago! So here we are with beautiful, nutrient packed food, ready for your kitchen. We’ve got loose plans to harvest every 3ish weeks for you from now until the Spring CSA kicks off sometime in Mid-April, but we don’t know for sure what the garden will do so stay flexible.

An insider’s tip to help you enjoy our winter CSA to the utmost: Go with the flow. Winter growing is so unpredictable. How much sunshine will the plants get this time of year?  Will we have any other massive winter storms?  What we are pulling off here at Red Moon Farm is tricky, even in good growing conditions, but in the winter, even harder. So you might get 2 big harvests between now and April, or perhaps you’ll get 5. You’re just coming alongside us for the ride.

Here’s this week’s vegetable line-up:

• Spinach – So sweet this time of year.  It will be delicious cooked into any veggie dish you’re preparing, or fantastic in a side salad.
• Arugula – Peppery and delicious. We like a good arugula salad with fruit, cheese, and toasted nuts along with a creamy balsamic. Lately I’ve been making caesar salads with arugula, smoked salmon, and home made sourdough croutons -just packed with delicious flavor. No boring salads around here!
• Broccoli – sweet and delicious. The stems are my favorite!
• Cauliflower – This crop is so difficult to grow, but we did have some success this year! Use this crop up quickly as the shelflife is fairly short. It freezes well if you know you can’t get to it right away,
• Watermelon Radish – Just 1-2 per share. Pale green, unassuming exteriors with gorgeous hot-pink centers. These are so beautiful inside. 
• Cabbage – Large and regular shares both shares received flat Tendersweet cabbage, and large shares received an additional Alcosa- a savoy leaved cabbage, sweet and tiny. These are perfect for a slaw.  Our cabbage this week was turned into an incredible asian salad with a gingery dressing, lots of cilantro, watermelon radishes, and roasted Korean pulled pork. On a cold day the prior week, it was stewed in a dutch oven with tons of grassfed butter with carrots, onion, and smoked german sausages from the Country Meat Market (our favorite!)
• Radish – Everyone received easter egg radishes. They’re flavorful crunchy, and just a bit sweet. This time of year they’re so mild and wonderful. The greens are tender enough you can use them in a salad or mix them in with other greens for cooking, or save them in the freezer for the next time you make a batch of broth or stock.
• Kale – We’ve got gorgeous leafy greens this week. Curly for the large shares. All the greens have increased their sugar content to protect themselves from frost damage, and boy has it made the leaves extra delicious! Check out our roasted squash and kale salad, as well as kale pesto potato salad,  but options abound online.
• Collard – This crop went to the Regular shares this week. Here’s the southern way to prepare them: Chop up the greens into one inch ribbons, dice a small onion, mince some garlic, and chop up a couple strips of bacon.  Cook the bacon, onion, garlic and a pinch of optional red pepper flakes together for a bit, till bacon is cooked, but not crispy.  Toss in the ribboned greens and add a few splashes of chicken stock. Cook till the greens are nice and tender. Salt and eat as is, or add a bit of hot sauce, or hot-pepper-vinegar. So that’s the proper southern way to do it, but it also works really well in any recipe that calls for Kale, too. Just sub it in, you won’t be disappointed.

Below is an item we’re sharing with you today that was not grown by Red Moon Farm:

• Sweet Potatoes from Tony Philips, Grand Saline, TX. We’ve got a wonderful sweet potato producer just a couple of miles from Red Moon Farm, Tony Phillips. He’s been in Sweet Potato cultivation for decades and uses no synthetic herbicides or pesticides. Additionally, he never uses post-harvest growth-inhibitors (endocrine disruptors) which you’ll find in regular grocery store tubers.

Veggie Storage tips:

• Everything wants to be washed well before cooking, but keep the dirt on till then, to prevent faster spoilage.
• Sever all roots from their tops -this keeps the roots from turning rubbery- and either discard the greens or save them for your braising pot or next batch of home-made stock.
• Leafy greens, cabbages, broccoli, bunched root crops, etc. want to be stored fairly dry and sealed up in a container/bag in the fridge.
• Sweet potatoes should be stored at room temperature.

We’d love to hear stories and recipes of your culinary adventures this week. Tag us on Instagram or Facebook, showing us how you’ve used your CSA share.

Your farmers, Jess & Justin

Regular Share

 

Today’s Regular Share: Left to Rt (top row): spinach, arugula, collards, broccoli (2nd row) cauliflower, cabbage, watermelon radish, radishes, and sweet potatoes across the bottom

 

Large Share

Today’s Large Share: Left to Rt (top row): spinach, arugula, curly kale, broccoli (2nd row) cauliflower, cabbages, watermelon radishes, radishes, and sweet potatoes across the bottom