CSA Week #12
- Corn
- Carrots
- Cauliflower
- Cipolinni onon
- Cucumber
- Tomatoes
- Lettuce
- Peppers
Some sites only:
- Eggplant
- Green beans
Special Announcements!
We are getting ready to send out our beef information for this year. We offer organic free-range grass-fed beef and if you are interested in receiving our information you can call Linda in the office or email [email protected] and she will be happy to get you on the mailing list. Please don’t respond here in the blog as your request will get noticed sooner if you contact the farm directly, thank you!
We are also having a Beef Open House on Saturday, September 7th. There will be hayride tours, leaving at 10:00am and 1:00pm, which will take you out to view our cows and answer any questions that you might have. We hope to see many of you there and if you know anyone who might be interested, spread the word!
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Hello and welcome to another week of food from the farm. For those of you on an academic schedule I hope you are all enjoying these last days of summer before school begins again. There is already a change in the air (and in the leaves too!) and the sun just doesn’t seem to hold quite the same intensity as it did weeks ago.
The boxes are looking as bountiful as ever, and you will all find beautiful peppers in your box this week, as well as some delicious sweet corn and an abundance of cauliflower! The peppers are sweet and some will be getting the red variety “Tollis” which I talked about in a previous box note, but some of you will be getting the orange variety that is either “Flamingo” or “Crème Brule” We hope you enjoy them!
You will also be receiving a red (purple) Cipolinni onion in your box. These onions are sweet and delicious. They are fresh so they should be stored in your refrigerator and will make a delicious addition to any stir-fry, soup, or pasta sauce. You can also enjoy them raw in a salad or sliced on a sandwich.
Recipes!
Cauliflower Quiche with Onion & Gruyere
This recipe was found in an archive of recipes the farm has kept over the many years we have been doing this. It looks like a good way to eat the cauliflower this week!
- One 9-10” pastry shell
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 2 medium onions, halved and thinly sliced
- Salt and pepper
- 1 ½ lbs. cauliflower, divided into large florets
- 3 eggs
- ½ cup milk
- 1 cup heavy cream
- Fresh grated nutmeg
- 1 cup grated Gruyere cheese
In medium skillet, melt butter over low heat. Add onions and pinch of salt and pepper, and cook, stir often, about 10 minutes, or until soft, not brown.
Meanwhile, in large saucepan of boiling salted water, cook cauliflower uncovered over high heat for 3 minutes. Remove gently to colander and rinse with cold water. Remove stalks and divide large florets into smaller ones.
In a bowl, whisk eggs with milk, cream, salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste.
Spoon onions into cooled shell. Arrange ring of cauliflower around the edge with the flower end facing outward, on the next row, rest the flower on the stem of the first row and continue filling the pastry shell with Cauliflower in this fashion until full. Sprinkle with ¾ cup of grated Gruyere cheese.
Return shell to baking sheet in oven and ladle the egg mixture slowly over the cauliflower and sprinkle with the rest of the cheese. Bake for 30 minutes at 350˚ or until puffed and set. Do not over bake or filling may separate. Let cool 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Cucumber Raita From the Moosewood Cookbook
- 1 medium cucumber
- 3 cups yogurt
- 1 tsp. cumin seeds
- 1 tsp. salt
- Dash of cayenne
1. Peel, seed and coarsely grate the cucumber.
2. Roast the whole cumin seeds in a heavy skillet, or under the broiler for about 5 minutes.
3. Grind them in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.
4. Combine everything and chill. Garnish with fresh mint leaves.
Here’s some other recipe ideas:
Simple Cauliflower Recipe from 101cookbooks.com
Roasted Tomato Bruschetta From NaturallyElla.com
Baked Cauliflower Bites from NaturallyElla.com
Yesterday I finally made it out into the fields! I wanted to capture for you a few moments from this weeks harvest so you could see the people harvesting your food, but also get a sense for what it is like out on the farm on a harvest day.
Jeremy is packing empty boxes out of the field, those are potatoes plants in the foreground.
This is Kat harvesting tomatoes. They put the yellow bins on carts and pull them along the tomato aisles as they harvest.
Maria is harvesting cherry tomatoes into a bucket that she will then pour into the pints you get in your boxes.
Jennifer is training Josh in the art of the eggplant harvest.
The eggplants are one of my favorite plants, they grow to be so beautiful, with their fuzzy leaves and stems and their stunning purple flowers. They do have spikes on them so it’s important to wear gloves!
Then there is the big corn harvest! The people who harvest the corn wear backpacks that they toss the harvested corn into. They fill their backpacks and then empty and count the corn into big wooden totes on the back of the harvest trucks. It is a fun job to venture into the tall corn planting, but those backpacks do get heavy!
This is Steve coming in with a backpack full of corn.
I hope you all have a wonderful week, and as you eat the vegetables in your box, imagine the beautiful fields they were grown in and the people who spend their days harvesting your food. We are honored to be bringing this bounty to you every week, thank you all for being a part of the farm.
-Sara