2011 CSA Week 19

This season can have an insulating effect. Twice in the past week I have arrived at the farm to find it shrouded in morning fog and myself unable to see one side of the fields from the other. Once already we have revised our harvest-day start time to accommodate a later dawn, and before long we will have to do so again, each concession to the encroaching darkness kept to a minimum so that we are assured of beginning our workday in light that is still dim. The limitations imposed by day length and atmosphere are part of a progression toward the time of year when our fields will be frozen and still, but for now they hold us gently for only a part of most days, and their hold is brief: Mist dissipates as the day warms, and the midday sun, when not obscured by clouds, is surprisingly warm and bright.

That's the weather report for this week, although apropos of nothing I would like to record that last Thursday the heavy sky under which we worked all day and which twice opened to a violent rainfall was briefly perforated by sunshine in such a way that all things gray were brightened and steam rose from our wet fields and a fat, low rainbow spanned the farm. It would be nice to have a picture of such a moment, but instead we have a picture of this chicken that Joshua carved in our picnic table.

The share this week:

Red Russian Kale
Rainbow Chard
Dandelion Greens
Carrots
Eggplant
Sweet Peppers
Hot Peppers
Tomatillos
Red Onion
Cilantro
Sweet Potatoes
Broccoli

Notes About the Food:

* What better way to welcome October than with sweet potatoes? We are sad to count them among the crops whose production was diminished by the cool and wet conditions of recent months, especially after the superlative harvest of last year, but after digging them from a bed that had recently been underwater (and is now underwater again), we feel lucky to have any of the things at all. Sweet potatoes are best grown in sandy, well-drained soils--basically the opposite of what we have in most of our fields--and conditions for them cannot be too hot. Last season was hot and dry, and our forbearance in conditions that were sometimes unfavorable for humans was rewarded by impressively-sized sweet potatoes. This year our sweet potato plants were cold and wet, and their yield was uninspiring. Some are large, none are huge, and most of what we dug is small and shaped like twisted magic markers. Please be aware that some of what you receive will look scrappy, but please also be aware that all of it is good food. The thin potatoes are easily chopped and roasted, or steamed and mashed. Most recipes will recommend that you peel sweet potatoes (regular potatoes too), but when I know that the tubers have been grown in clean soil, without chemicals, I never do this, and it's a step I have elided in the following recipes, all of which are from The New York Times:

Sweet Potato Fries

4 medium sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch thick fries

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place the fries on an aluminum foil lined baking sheet. Drizzle with the olive oil, salt, garlic powder, and paprika. Mix well with your fingers and bake for about 45 minutes or till the fries are soft on the inside and crunchy and golden brown on the outside.

Coconut Oil Roasted Sweet Potatoes

1 1/2 tablespoons virgin coconut oil

1 3/4 pounds sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch chunks

2 teaspoons light brown sugar, packed

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Melt the coconut oil in a small saucepan over low heat.

In a large bowl, toss together potatoes, coconut oil, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Spread potatoes in an even layer on a large baking sheet. Roast, tossing occasionally, until soft and caramelized, about 1 hour.

This recipe is especially notable for the fact that nearly all of the ingredients are included in this week's CSA share. Unfortunately, we can't grow limes:

Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Black Beans and Chili Dressing

4 medium sweet potatoes (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 large onion, preferably red, chopped
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 to 2 tablespoons minced fresh hot chili, like jalapeno
1 clove garlic, peeled
Juice of 2 limes
2 cups cooked black beans, drained (canned are fine)
1 red or yellow bell pepper, seeded and finely diced
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Put sweet potatoes and onion on large baking sheet, drizzle with 2 tablespoons oil, toss to coat and spread out in single layer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast, turning occasionally, until potatoes begin to brown on corners and are just tender inside, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from oven; keep on pan until ready to mix with dressing.

Put chilies in a blender or mini food processor along with the garlic, lime juice, remaining olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Process until blended.

Put warm vegetables in a large bowl with beans and bell pepper; toss with dressing and cilantro. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Serve warm or at room temperature, or refrigerate for up to a day.

* We snuck broccoli into the share last Thursday, and this week we'll offer it to those of our members who pick up on Tuesday. Rarely do we split the week in such a way (it is always our goal to offer identical shares in a single week), but the broccoli was forming heads with timing that necessitated a mid-week harvest. It is full-on now, and without making promises I'll state that it is our hope to have enough broccoli for Tuesday and Thursday next week.

[Update: As much as we'd like to plan the entirety of our harvests in advance, it is really the plants that dictate when they should be picked and in what quantity. The broccoli is abundant; both pick-up days will receive broccoli this week, and we'll sneak it into an additional Tuesday share soon.]

Our optimism is based on the vigor of the broccoli plants in the field. You have probably seen them when you pick up your vegetables: They are the swath of green that is almost a muted teal where the strawberries were in the spring. The strawberries had been there for more than two years, and had received a generous application of compost during the off-season, which means the soil they occupied was untilled relative to other parts of the field, and very healthy. This likely is what accounts for the health of the broccoli. From a distance, most of the growth you're looking at is stems and leaves; the florets that we are accustomed to thinking of as broccoli are tucked amongst these other parts of the plant. It's the flowering part of the plant that we have been conditioned to eat--each tightly-balled floret will bloom yellow if left unharvested--but I hope you'll treat the entire plant as food. The stem can be chopped and cooked alongside the head, and the leaves can be prepared as you would any sturdy cooking green. We'll bunch the leaves and stems along with the florets, and in recipes--such as the following from The Washington Post--that call for only the florets, you should use the whole plant:

Broccoli, Ginger and Cashew Stir-Fry

3 tablespoons sesame oil
1 medium red onion, chopped
2 medium cloves garlic, finely chopped
2-inch piece peeled ginger root, minced (1 tablespoon)
1 medium red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and chopped
Florets from 1 head broccoli
1/4 raw or dry-roasted unsalted cashew pieces
1 tablespoon tamari soy sauce
Dash cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon Thai red or green curry paste (optional)

Heat a wok or skillet over medium heat. When it is quite hot, add the oil and swirl to coat the surface. Add the onion, garlic, ginger and red bell pepper; stir-fry for a few minutes, until the ingredients are fragrant yet still crisp. Use a slotted spoon to transfer them to a bowl.

Increase the heat to medium-high. Add the broccoli and stir-fry for 8 to 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to low; return the vegetable mixture to the wok or skillet and add the cashew pieces, tamari soy sauce, cayenne pepper, and Thai curry paste, if using. Stir to incorporate, then cover and cook undisturbed for 5 minutes.

Serve immediately.

CSA Week 21

The mornings are getting colder. The days are still warm by afternoon, but they begin with frost. We arrive at the farm by seven, before the sun is higher than the trees that surround our fields, and on the plants and on the bare soil of our empty planting beds there is a thin layer of white frost, a powdery crust that glistens cold. The morning light, when the sun does rise, is soft, and as the air warms steam is released from every cold surface. It wafts upward, illuminated, evaporation like the slow exhalation of a thing that has been still all night.

This morning was especially cold. We are accustomed to beginning our harvest with lettuce and other leafy greens that will wilt if left in the field until the day is hot, but this morning those things were frozen. They were stiff with rime and would break if we handled them, and so we harvested the crops for the CSA share in reverse order. By late morning the sun had burned through the clouds and the tender plants had softened and we were able to harvest last what we would usually harvest first.

The cold mornings are a challenge for people as well as for plants. As we harvest, our hands are in contact with moisture that is nearly frozen, and for all of us (and especially those of us who are tall and thin and whose extremities are particularly far from our heart) this results in fingers and hands that hurt in the cold. Last week my hands became sort of inoperable after half a morning in the mizuna and kale; I could no longer use my fingers as individuals, so I went to the barn and used my hands like shovels to pick up and count garlic and onions for the CSA share. Meanwhile the sun outlasted the mist and the generalized pain in my hands and feet ceased to register as a sort of nausea and the day continued to its warmer stages. We begin the work day in a cold that is bracing and end it in a warmth that is comforting. It's not a bad way to be.

Here is what's in the share this week:

Swiss Chard
Collard Greens
Dandelion Greens
Hot Peppers
Sweet Peppers
Carrots
Radicchio
Parsley
Delicata Squash
Sweet Potatoes
Onions
Garlic
You-Pick Tomatillos
You-Pick Husk Cherries

*The proliferation of root vegetables is appropriate for this time of year, and I find that on many cold nights I want nothing more for dinner than a roasted medley of the things. This week that includes the carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, and garlic, and if you have any parsnips from last week those could be added as well. I chop the vegetables into cubes; the onion I peel and quarter, and the garlic cloves I peel and add whole. Everything can be assembled in a pan, coated with olive oil and seasoned with salt + pepper and any fresh or dried herbs that you like. I roast the dish at 400 degrees for approximately 40 minutes (until the vegetables are soft enough that you'd want to eat them), stirring occasionally. The Delicata winter squash in the share this week and next week would also make a good addition--chop it into bite-sized pieces, leaving the skin on, and roast it with the rest. And keep root vegetables in mind, because next week we're hoping to offer a medley that will include carrots, turnips, and beets.

*It is also apple season, so if you find yourself with an excess of fresh apples, try this spoon bread that also includes sweet potatoes (and sage, if you are still looking for a use for last week's herb):

Sweet Potato, Apple, and Sage Spoon Bread

(Thanks to Erin Harvey for the recipe.)

1 1-pound sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
6 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 6-oz. Granny Smith apple, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch chunks
2 cups whole milk
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp chopped fresh sage
2 tsp coarse salt
1 cup white cornmeal
4 large eggs, separated
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Cook sweet potato in pot of boiling water until just tender, about 10 minutes. Drain; transfer to large bowl.

Melt 2 Tbsp butter in heavy medium skillet over medium heat. Add apple; saute until tender and golden, about 8 minutes. Add apple to sweet potato; mash together. Cool. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Preheat oven to 350. Bring milk, sugar, sage, and salt to boil in heavy medium saucepan. Reduce heat to medium-low; gradually whisk in cornmeal. Cook until cornmeal absorbs milk and pulls clean from bottom of pan, stirring constantly, about 5 minutes. Whisk in 3 Tbsp butter. Whisk yokes in large bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in cornmeal mixture. Whisk in baking powder. Mix sweet potato mixture into cornmeal mixture. Beat egg whites in medium bowl to medium-stiff peaks. Fold whites into warm cornmeal mixture.

Melt 1 Tbsp of butter in heavy large ovenproof skillet (preferably cast iron) over medium-high heat. Pour batter into skillet. Transfer skillet to oven; bake spoon bread until top is golden and puffed, about 1 hour. Serve warm.

*I am loath to include a photograph of myself in which neither Joshua nor anyone else farm-related is also pictured, but this week I am light on photographs and I am also loath to post an entry that is all text, and you can see how those scales tipped. You should focus on the carrots, they are prospering in the cold soil, and they have been fantastic in recent weeks.

CSA Week 20

Our work on the farm is a healthy mix of the tasks that are daily (tending the chickens, watering whatever plants are in the greenhouse), tasks that are recurring (sowing seeds, transplanting crops, harvesting, weeding), and tasks that are undertaken only once or twice a season. In this latter category are things such as harvesting and cleaning garlic, a job that occupied some afternoons in late July and was followed by our annual harvest and cleaning of the onions, and which will directly lead to the one afternoon this fall that we spend planting garlic. The sweet potato harvest was also a once-a-year job. Over the course of several days--many of them conveniently timed to coincide with the final September heat wave--Joshua and I and a few occasional volunteers dug by hand the entirety of the sweet potato crop. Prior to this season neither of us had extensive experience with sweet potatoes, so it was without expectation that we planted two beds of the things this spring, weeded them twice, and then watched as their vines spread low along the ground to the complete occlusion of the soil. And it turns out beneath that soil monster sweet potatoes had been growing. To dig them was laborious, but each potato was a happy discovery. I collected those that were shaped and sized like human organs, and I arranged them on a table in the greenhouse in an approximate human shape that included two lungs, a heart, stomach, liver, intestines, something I decided to call the duodenum, and some miscellany. I also dug a hummingbird and narwhal for our sweet potato zoo, and Joshua dug a potato exactly the size and shape of a duck. It was my intention to learn to control lightning and then bring these things to life (I commented that once animated and ambulatory the collection of sweet potato organs would be sort of gross, but a friend of the farm pointed out that no, they'd be sweet), but before I could do so we moved all of the potatoes to the barn, where they have been curing and awaiting distribution. Along with the other items we have arranged in that dry place (garlic, onions, winter squash) they will contribute heft to the remaining shares, a weighty once-a-year harvest that we'll offer alongside the greens and peppers and all that we pick on an ongoing basis.

The share this week:

Lettuce

Mizuna

Red Russian Kale

Swiss Chard

Heirloom Tomatoes

Sweet Peppers

Hot Peppers

Parsnips

Sweet Potatoes

Onions

Garlic

Sage

You-Pick Tomatillos

You-Pick Husk Cherries

*The parsnips have been in the ground for a long time. We sowed them in April, they germinated slowly, they survived (rather, most of them survived) a brush with the rototiller, and they have been growing ever since. That's six months in the ground, for those keeping track. I don't know what to tell you to do with the green leafy tops, although it will be obvious that those have grown to be as abundant as the root. Feed them to your rabbit, if you have a rabbit, or add them to your compost, if you have compost. Like carrot tops, they can probably be cooked as part of a vegetable stock and then discarded. As for the root, here are a few suggestions:

Pureed Roasted Parsnips

From Simply Recipes: "The easiest way to prepare parsnips is to slice them, steam them, and dress with butter and salt. However, to get the fullest, richest flavor from the parsnips, they should be roasted. The browning caramelizes the natural sugars in the parsnips. In this recipe we first roast the parsnips with some butter, then puree them with added water. It's quite simple, but if you've never had parsnips this way, you're in for a treat."

2 lbs parsnips, peeled and chopped

3 Tbsp butter, melted

1 1/2 cups water

1/8 tsp nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400. Peel parsnips and chop them.

2. Place chopped parsnips in a medium-sized bowl, add the melted butter, and stir to coat. Lay the parsnips on a roasting pan in a single layer. Roast in the heated oven 20-25 minutes, until lightly golden, turning the parsnips once halfway through the cooking.

3. Put the cooked parsnips into a blender or food processor. Add the water and pulse until pureed to the desired consistency. Add more water if necessary. Add nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste.

Or include the sweet potatoes in this version from Gourmet:

Sweet Potato and Parsnip Puree

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

4 parsnips, peeled and sliced 1/4-inch thick

3 Tbsp unsalted butter

1/4 cup whole milk

3 Tbsp packed light brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and parsnips and boil gently until tender, about 12 minutes. Drain well and transfer to a food processor. Add butter and puree until smooth. Add milk, brown sugar, and salt, and blend well. Season with pepper.

*Mizuna is in the share for the third and final time this season. It's part of a small arsenal of greens that we are offering this week (along with the lettuce, swiss chard, and red russian kale), all appropriate for the season. For tips and recipes concerning mizuna, scroll to week 15.

*This week's heirloom tomatoes will be the last. The plants have finally been felled by the season, but to this point they have thoroughly exceeded our expectations. (Our expectations, admittedly, were reserved--blight eliminated the tomato crop of most small-scale organic farmers in the northeast last year, and in light of that disaster we were reluctant to raise our hopes for this year.) The hot and dry conditions were favorable, and each week we were happily surprised by the number of healthy tomatoes we were able to harvest for the CSA. It's hard to believe that during the last week of August Joshua and I agreed that if we had tomatoes for one more week we would be happy. That was eight weeks ago, and the fact that we have been able to offer tomatoes through the middle of October has been one of our happiest accomplishments this season.