This week you’ll find in your share:
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Peppers
Broccoli
Beets (cylindrical)
Arugula or Spicy Mix
Scallions (green onions)
Cherry Tomatoes
Next week you might find in your share:
• Spinach
• Beets
• Lettuce
• Potatoes
• Peppers
• Garlic
• Winter Squash?
From Your Farmers…
The cool down continues, and warm savory flavors are going into the share bags. Get the oven ready to heat the house just enough.
Next Tuesday evening is looking pretty chilly, meaning next week will likely be the last of peppers and ripe tomatoes. Green tomatoes will be in the shares for following weeks. But, to stay moving along with the season…
Pop the tops off of those beets, lock the roots in the fridge for another day, and drop the greens right into the frying pan. While vibrant, the beet and the green won’t hold long together, as they do different jobs in the plant world, and will basically dry each other out. Beet greens generally need used quickly, but the roots, stored in an airtight container, will last weeks or months in the fridge. But why wait? Shred them on top of your arugula or spicy greens mix, top with a vinaigrette dressing, and have a sweet treat.
Potatoes: Most of you are receiving a fingerling variety of potato. While smaller, they are indeed delicious. Take advantage of their small size in that less cutting is required for cooking. Some of them are starting to get a bit soft, but use them sooner than later and they’ll be fine.
Scallions: Basically a tiny onion. The white flesh is the most desired, but the green is great too. Treat the green like a chive (think potato topper here).
Food For Thought : Instant Society – will it lose its teeth?
We swallow and become products of our environment. Figuratively and physically. Instant messaging, recordings, and we become conditioned to them. Air conditioning. Instant foods: Chips. Crackers. Canned goods. Another conditioning. While producing these ‘foods’ sucks the lifeblood from our Mother Earth, we enjoy only their end. Let’s chew on that concept for a moment, for we do not when eating these foods. Bite and swallow is more like it.
While I love the Earth, its seasons and processes, I am a product of the instant society that I have helped create. I learn that while I can take the time to cook , sitting down to a meal that requires chewing is a difficult task for me. Patience, and presence in the moment is required to enjoy a meal of foods that require chewing. Examples: meat or cooked greens. My instant habits just want to swallow and get on with it.
How, what to do? Practice what we’ve lost. Maybe try eating with our eyes closed. Be still. Feel the jaws move. The pressure against the teeth. How perfectly our tongues fit in our own mouths. Hear it.
Cooking doesn’t have to take much time. But we may find eating may be a great use of the time we have.
-Gabriel
Recipe : No Time for Cooking Curry
Quick cooking wit from Whitney
Welcome to your 23rd bag of beautiful obligation. We’ve heard throughout the season that the veggie shares are gorgeous! wonderful! and hefty. We get it: those vegetables stare at you from inside of the refrigerator all week, begging to be transformed into a healthy meal but you have no time. Alas, an edible solution. Use this recipe as a guide to get the bulk of your veggies out of the fridge and onto your plate. Roast the roots and use them throughout the week as a meal by adding rice, meat, or beans.
Being an adventurous eater, I picked up a jar of “simmer sauce,” also known as curry or korma in the international foods isle at Schnucks earlier this week. It turned out to be a golden colored, richly flavored time saver. Take a walk down that same isle and you’ll find jars of sauces abound: soy sauce, peanut sauce (we made this at the last CSA dinner), and multitude of curries. If you’re watching your sodium intake or have a food allergy, don’t despair, there are sauces for you, too, in that same isle labeled as such. Don’t be afraid to grab a random sauce and read the label for details about taste and recipe suggestions as well. It will save you some time in the end. The same root veggies can make an Asian or Indian inspired dish on the fly, just add sauce.
Suggested Ingredients:
You’ll find a few of these items in your share over the next few weeks. Use just what you have or feel free to add your other favorite roots to the mix.
-potatoes (sweet or otherwise)
-beets (greens separate)
-radish
-turnips (greens separate)
-carrots
-celery
-roughly chopped garlic
-onion
-greens*
*if adding greens, which I recommend, chop and drop in the dish with the root veggies. Hearty greens like mustards should go into the oven in the beginning with the veggies. Softer green like arugula and elegance mix should be added in the last ten minutes of cooking to wilt down.
Instructions:
-Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
-Cut all of the roots into similar bite sized pieces. I’m not a fine chopper myself, larger cubes will do.
-Put all the vegetables and any desired herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano, etc…) in a large baking dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, drizzle generously with olive oil, and toss to coat.
-Place the baking dish in the oven and cook until tender and golden brown, about 45 minutes. During this time, I like to cook up some rice (use the instructions on the box) and read a magazine in the toasty kitchen.
-When the veggies are soft (poke with a fork), take some out to save for later in the week or just add your simmer sauce directly to the baking dish, stir in the rice, and let it sit for a few minutes until the sauce is warm. Feel free to pop the dish back into the oven to get it piping hot.
CAASTLC's Seeds of Hope Farm 