Share Notes Oct. 31 2024

Share Notes Oct. 31 2024

CSA Share Notes:

Happy Halloween! More cool season crops are coming ready and we’re here for it! Turnip greens this week means turnips are nearly ready. A few of our baby lettuce heads for the Mini shares means that our full crop of head lettuce is coming soon.  (If we can continue to fight the battle against the hungry deer. They’re nothing if not persistent)

We’re in the thick of fall salad season.  All these leafy greens (kale, collards, arugula, spinach, Asian spring mix, head lettuce) have stored nutrients from the sun and the soil in their leaf tissue to pack your cells with vitamins as we enter the darkness of winter.  This is the CSA challenge: To get the field’s abundance at this particular moment into your bellies while we’ve got it, my friends! And this is all nature’s plan for you to be deeply nourished with the vitamin rich leafy greens as we head into the season’s change. So EAT IT UP! Salads for lunch, side salads with dinner, jumbo salads as your main course, all packed with delicious toppings, and nourishing fats, of course!

A few salad protein ideas to get you started:

  • Asian peanut chicken (add mandarins, slivered almonds, cilantro, green onions)
  • Mediterranean meatballs (add feta, cucumber and a yogurt dressing)
  • Spicy ground beef, or fajita meat to create a burrito bowl spin-off
  • Grilled shrimp or salmon with a white wine and parm dressing

Here’s your vegetable line-up:

  • Radish – Regular and Mini shares each received a beautiful bunch of radishes
  • Arugula – For the Large and Mini shares this week.  This peppery green is fantastic in a fresh salad with nuts, fruit, and good cheese. I like pear/walnut/parmesan, or apple/pecan/chevre. Definitely toss in some sliced radishes!
  • Spinach – Regular shares this week. Vibrant, and full of vitamins. I like mine cooked in soups and stews or sauteed into my morning veggie egg scramble.
  • Spicy Spring Mix –  Everyone is getting to try our colorful, flavorful Asian spring mix. Lots of frilly mizuna, mustard, napa cabbage. It’s great as a braising green, or in a fresh salad. It could even turn into a kimchee if you like to ferment!
  • Turnip Greens – Large shares only. These would be great cooked along with your Asian Spring Mix if you want to pair them together. My method is the southern-way: Chop an onion, a bit of garlic, 1 or 2 bacon slices, and sautee until veggies are translucent and bacon is cooked tender. Next toss in coarse-chopped greens and cook till delicious. Top with tobasco, or pepper vinegar, or red chili flakes and dig in. Perfect alongside a pork chop and baked sweet potato!
  • Kale – Large shares received Lacinato kale. Regular shares received Red Russian, and Mini shares received Winterbor curly kale. We’ve gotten into the habit of tossing a big handful of chopped leafy greens onto just about every dinner meal, making it so easy to incorporate more leafy greens into our diet. This method of simply adding a handful works great on a chili, soup, taco salad or burrito bowl, pot of ham and peas, etc. Not getting through all your kale/collards fast enough?  They freeze WONDERFULLY. Simply rough-chop and toss in a gallon ziploc and freeze. We use them up all year this way.
  • Bell Peppers/ Italian peppers — Everyone is receiving just a couple of peppers. They are nearly done for the season!
  • Red Moon Farm Lettuce – We’ve got Red Moon Farm-grown head lettuces for the Large shares and the Mini shares today. Large shares received a red summer crisp called Cherokee, and Mini shares received a Green Forrest Romaine.
  • Stout Creek Lettuce – The regular shares and the Large shares also received a petite head of lettuce from our friends who grow very similarly to us up near Sulphur Spring, TX. Large shares received a pretty red oak leaf lettuce, and regulars received a beautiful green butter lettuce.  We should have lots more lettuce coming from our own farm in another couple of weeks if we can keep the deer pressure down!
  • Tony Philips Sweet Potatoes — Our friend and neighbor Tony Philips grows the regions best sweet potatoes, just a couple of miles from Red Moon Farm. These are fantastic, sweet, with a long storage life. Enjoy them on the regular. You’ll get lots more throughout the fall!
    • A few notes about Tony’s Practices: He is not aiming to be organic, so some years the above-ground parts of the plants have non-organic products used on them, however, the roots never have anything applied to them.
    • Usual standard practice in commercial sweet potato production is to use sprout-inhibitors on the crop post-harvest, and these chemical compounds are known to be extremely harmful to the thyroid and other hormonal systems in the human body.** (It’s why, when we can’t get them from a local grower and have to rely on a grocery store some parts of the year, our family chooses to only buy organic root crops) Well, Lucky us: Tony Philips never, ever uses sprout-inhibitors. His potatoes simply get a clean water bath to rinse the ETX sand off of them, so we eat them with confidence.

Veggie Storage tips:

  • Everything wants to be washed well before cooking, but keep the dirt on till then, to prevent faster spoilage.
  • Sweet potatoes prefer room temperature, dry conditions.
  • Peppers, radishes, and all the leafy greens want to be in your fridge. Seal them up in a bag or container to retain moisture for longest storage life.

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

 

Regular Share top left to right: Red Russian kale, Italian and Bell peppers, Stout Creek butter lettuce, Spinach, (2nd row) radishes, Asian spring mix, sweet potatoes

Large Share

 

Large Share top left to right: Lacinato kale, Bell and Italian peppers, 1 Stout Creek Farm oak leaf lettuce, and 1 Red Moon Farm Red summer crisp lettuce, turnip greens, (2nd row) arugula, Asian spring mix, and sweet potatoes

Mini Share

 

Mini Share top left to right: Winterbor kale, peppers, Green Forrest lettuce, arugula, radishes, Spring Mix, and Sweet potatoes.