Share Notes Oct 14 & 16, 2021

Share Notes Oct 14 & 16, 2021

CSA Share Notes:

Here’s your vegetable line up:

  • Beans—A whole mess of ’em! Purple, dragons tongue, yellow, and green. Make a big, lovely fresh bean salad, or go fancy: lightly parboil and dress with lemon juice, olive oil, toasted pine nuts or other nuts or seeds, or even a little crumbled crispy bacon, or fried garlic slivers. A fabulous addition to a steak and potatoes night.
  • Radishes— Our quickest fall crop is ready first! These crunchy, lightly spicy roots are our heirloom French Breakfast variety with lovely pink tips. Great for snacking with lemon and salt, or sliced on avocado toast.
  • Okra— These are our two heirloom varieties.  A few tips:
    • This crop craves super high heat.  Grill it hot or roast in a hot (450ish) oven. The high heat cuts back on the mucilage (okra sliminess).
    • It spoils quickly. Eat them as soon as you can to make sure they’re fresh and tender. They don’t stay tender off the plant for more than 2 or 3 days so if you wait too long, the larger pods will start to be woody, and the tiniest pods may be starting to spoil, but they are all tender and perfect when picked and if eaten as fresh as possible.
    • It freezes great. You can chop and flash freeze flat on a tray for 1-2 hours, then into a bag to have okra this winter. Once frozen it’s best fried or used in gumbos and soups.
  • Green tomatoes —  ready to batter and fry them up this week along with your okra? Green tomato chutney is also wonderful and bright.
  • Eggplant— Everyone received the long slender Japanese type. Large shares also received a nice big Italian eggplant (either the Caliope heirloom or Italian Black Beauty) and Regular and Mini shares received the tiny and beautiful Fairytale Eggplant.  Dream up something Italian, or a curry, or as a side dish dressed with bonito/miso/soy sauce for wonderful umami flavor. If you’re new to cooking eggplant, see our cooking tips we shared last week.
  • Bell Peppers— Colorful and crisp, a few for everyone this week.
  • Italian Peppers— These are a thin-walled sweet pepper, that are fantastic with dips like hummus. They also roast wonderfully and are excellent in place of bell pepper in any cooked dish.  Find these on Sola Bread Co.’s Red Moon Pizza which they only offer seasonally.
  • Jalapenos— A nice handful for Large and regular shares. You never know if a jalapeno (or poblano) is going to be super hot or mild until you cut into it. We can usually tell by smell so we don’t burn our tongues testing the waters. If it smells hotter than you’d like to eat, remove the seeds and pith as that’s where much of the heat is stored.
  • Poblanos—A few for the Large shares. These are typically nice and spicy, and are great stuffed like the jalapenos, or chopped into an egg casserole or a batch of cornbread.

Veggie Storage tips:

All your eggplant, beans, radishes, peppers, and okra will keep longest stored in the fridge sealed up in produce bags. Remove radish roots from their tops to keep the roots from getting rubbery. Tomatoes do not want to be stored below 50 degrees or they turn mealy, so keep them at room temp or in the coolest area of your kitchen. Everything will need a thorough washing before cooking, but leave the dirt on until you’re ready to use them to prevent 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

Regular

 

Regular Share left to right: Sweet peppers, bell above Italian. Radishes above jalapeno, above green tomatoes. Fairytale eggplant above Japanese eggplant. Mixed beans above mixed okra.

Large

Large Share  left to right: Sweet peppers, bell, Italian.  Hot peppers, poblano above jalapeno above green tomatoes. Italian eggplant above Japanese eggplant. Mixed beans above radishes, above mixed okra.

Mini

Mini share: By columns, left to right: Sweet peppers, bell above Italian. Radishes above green tomatoes. Fairytale eggplant above Japanese eggplant. Mixed beans above mixed okra.