Week 7

Today, at pickup, everybody will receive snow cones!

No.

Well, this time of year, Andrea and I (Scott) go about blurging out all of our ideas for the future. We don't often find ourselves in the same spot very long for most of the year, and January is a time to consider what we've done well, and what we haven't. We've decided, after a couple of months for Andrea to get used to the idea, to formalize our management organization in a different way. As we started the farm and CSA, we naturally fell into doing the things that we were interested in, and good at. As our business grows, we've tried to separate out those things in a way that makes sense. All this adds up to Andrea quitting the CSA. She's been hanging on to aspects of organization, such as marketing and communication, but it's pulling her away from the direction she wants to go in with the wholesaling. She may occasionally write a blogpost this summer. Overall, though, the emailing and blog posting for the summer CSA and future seasons will be coming from me.

There will also be a bit more 'rules' for missed pickups moving forward, and we are going to change half shares to every week with an actual half share. These steps will make it easier for me to keep up with the numbers for pickups, as they won't be shifting up and down as dramatically as they have in the past. This doesn't mean I can't help out in the case of an emergency, or a pre-planned trip, but if you do forget a pickup, you will have the option of driving to Ontonagon on Thurs, Friday, or Saturday to get your produce, or forfeiting for the week.

Andrea's goals for the upcoming season are to produce as much dehydrated products as possible, so if you enjoy them, we hope you'll support us further by purchasing them from the Keweenaw Co-op and telling all of your friends to do the same. If you don't like them, we certainly appreciate feedback in order to improve our products.

Summer CSA produce will be much the same this year and pickups will remain mostly the same, Amber's Market on Sharon Ave in Houghton on Wed from 10 AM to 1 PM, and in Ontonagon on Wed at the old restaurant/new farm. We are going to eliminate the Ironwood pickup, as the number of members has been dwindling and we need to focus our goals. Also, we are going to have an on-farm self serve market instead of the Ontonagon 'Superior Farmer's Market' on Wednesday, and possibly Saturday.

We hope these changes will allow us to serve our community better, that's why we do what we do.

As always, if you have any questions, shoot us an email at Wintergreenfarm@hotmail.com

The share this week includes:

For half share members, carrots, 2 winter squash, dry beans, kale chips, cabbage, and onions
Full share receive also more carrots, more winter squash, dried cherry tomatoes, rutabaga.

As for recipes this week, I know there isn't any unknown vegetables, but I would recommend considering:

A baked bean recipe with the Marfax beans

Stuffed cabbage with a larger kraut cabbage

Chicken noodle soup with homemade egg noodles (so easy!) and pureed winter squash.

Winter Week Six: Super Smoothie

Happy New Year everyone! We celebrated with family visits and a touch of stomach flu. Viruses seem to get passed around whenever Seda sees her cousins.

We're feeling better now, thankfully, and hoping that you all had lovely New Year's celebrations with no vomiting :)

And now I'll start talking about food.

For half share members this week's share will include: two pounds Carrots, Rutabaga, Delicata OR Sweet Dumpling Squash, Acorn Squash, Cabbage, Onions, Flax Seed, Dried Greens, and Fruit and Flax Leathers.

Full share members will receive all the half share items plus: 2 additional pounds Carrots, 2 choice squash, Kale Chips, and Kohlrabi.

I am especially excited to be distributing Fruit and Flax Leathers this week. Everyone will receive two different kinds, blueberry and butternut. Both kinds have only three ingredients, apples, blueberry or squash puree, and flax seeds. Everything is grown in the Upper Peninsula.

Blueberry Fruit and Flax Leathers

The Fruit and Flax Leathers are one of our Wintergreen Foods products. We made our first few batches of them in the fall of 2014 and introduced them to the Ontonagon School vending machine, with great success. This year we've made quite a few more of them, and have been selling them through the Northwind and Keweenaw Co-ops in addition to school vending machines. If you are interested in getting them into your child's school, please let us know.

In 2014, the flax seed we used in the Fruit and Flax Leathers was grown by another Ontonagon farmer, but this year we grew it ourselves.

A small slice of the field of flax we enjoyed this summer.

And we harvested enough to include some in the winter shares. 

I have sort of a love/hate relationship with mass media food marketing. I don't like websites that claim certain foods are magical cure-all "super foods" because I know that nothing in life is that simple, but at the same time I understand that our farm business has been successful in part due to the national trend towards local foods--a trend which is not always that far removed from the websites touting "super foods". I also grow and sell some of the items that get labeled as super, like kale and, now, flax seeds. So, maybe I should just go with it ;)

Pro-biotic Super Food Smoothie with Flax Kale and Blueberries

• 2 cups plain Yogurt
• 1 Banana
• 1 cup Blueberries (either frozen or fresh is fine) 
• 1 Tablespoon Flax Seed
• A handful of fresh or dried greens

Combine all of the ingredients in a blender, food processor, or large container if you are going to use an immersion blender. 

Blend them up!

This recipe makes enough for at least two people to share.