Winter Week Five: Christmas Time is Here Again

The snow came!!!

It's 6:30 at night in December, so it is too dark for me to take a picture of it, but I bet you've all seen it by now anyway.

We were enjoying the fall weather, but it felt wrong. I'm glad the world is right now. I really do like to have a white Christmas.

For your share this week you can expect the following:

Half share: 1 lb Onions, 2 lbs Carrots, One Acorn Squash, One Squash Choice, Cabbage, Dry Beans (a baking variety).

Full share: All the half share items plus more Carrots, One Long Pie Pumpkin, Kohlrabi, Kale Chips, and Daikon Radishes.

I've braided together some of the smaller red onions we harvested this year into one pound braids.We're distributing them with this week's share as a sort of Christmas decoration. You can hang them up if you'd like to, just cut onions from the top down so the braids hold together while you use them up.

The change in weather has not only put me in the mood for Christmas. It's also put me in the mood for stew, which is what I made for the share recipe this week.

I used lamb because we trade vegetables for meat with one of our neighbors (which is the sweetest deal ever!) and usually get a lot of lamb, but you can feel free to swap in beef or venison if that is what you have on hand. This is a super simple stew, in which the vegetables play the starring role, so put in your favorites. I've written the recipe with the vegetables I used (many of which are, of course, in this week's share) but you can change it however you like. Other ideas include potatoes, sweet potatoes, daikon radishes, rutabaga, turnip, or mushrooms.

Stew for a Snowy Day

• 1 pound cubed stew meat (lamb, beef, or venison)
• 4 small onions (such as those in your braid) peeled and halved
• 2 Tablespoons flour
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 4 cups stock or water
• 1 storage kohlrabi, peeled really well and cut into one inch cubes
• 1 pound carrots, cut into large chunks
• 1 acorn squash, peeled and cut into one inch cubes

Place the meat, onions, flour, salt and pepper into a large pot over medium heat. Stir to coat the meat with flour.

Cook, stirring frequently, until the meat is lightly browned and the flour is toasted. Watch carefully, turning down the heat if needed, do that the flour doesn't burn.

When the meat is browned, add the stock and remaining chopped vegetables. Don't worry if your vegetables are not quite covered with liquid at this point, they will release a lot of liquid as they cook and cover themselves.

Bring the stew to a boil, turn down to low, cover, and simmer until everything is as tender as you'd like it to be. This will take at least an hour of simmering.

When the stew is done, put it in a bowl and pose with it.

Seda likes to be in the blog. She also likes to decorate the table
with tangerine stickers. 

Roasted Cabbage and Michael Phillips

Scott got to meet one of his farmer-heros yesterday, at the Northern Michigan Small Farm Conference. His name is Michael Phillips. He is an apple grower and he really is an inspiration.

We've had his book "The Apple Grower" for several years now. It's dense with information and real life farm experience. Scott purchased his more recent book "The Holistic Orchard" at the conference and got him to sign it.

Before I geek out farmer style too much, I'll throw up a link to his website (also the website of his wife, Nancy Phillips, a super awesome lady in her own right) and move on to the share description.

Here is the link to learn more about Michael and Nancy Phillips.

As for the share, it will include the following: Carrots, Rutabaga, Cabbage, Uncle Dave's Dakota Squash, Honey Bear Squash, Winter Radishes, and Dried Greens.

I thought very seriously about skipping the cabbage this week, especially because week six was rescheduled and I know that more than a few members are feeling buried in cabbage. I decided not to for a couple reasons. First, there is only one leafy green vegetable (at least only one that I know of--let me know if I've missed something) that can be boxed up in November, put in cold storage, and pulled out two and a half months later just as crisp and delicious as it was when it was packed up. That rocks. It needs to be embraced. It deserves to show up every week in the winter share. Also, I became part of a "What should we do with all this cabbage?" conversation with a couple members last week in which one of them mentioned that he likes to roast his cabbage much the way I roast Brussels sprouts. Why didn't I think of that? I had to run with it. (I did, you'll see the results below.)

Other, less leafy, things are gracious keepers as well. The winter radishes that will show up in the shares this week are mostly purple daikon. Our winter radish harvest was a little smaller than we'd hoped this fall. They mostly drowned in all the late summer rains. Those that didn't drown were devoured by deer. Who knew? At least that was our only major deer loss this year. Anyway, we knew they would keep well so we hung on to a box of them to provide a little variety for the later winter shares. They are still sweet and hot. If you aren't sure what to do with them, check out this apple radish slaw recipe from 2013. If you don't like the heat they're also great cooked, which mellows them. Roasted, sauteed or braised with other root vegetables are good ways to go.

And, of course, a good way to keep green leafy things usable in the winter months is to dry them (did you see how I tied that all together there?). Members will receive a small package of dried mixed greens (mostly kale and chard) this week. They're not seasoned in any way, so they can be used in all sorts of recipes. I like to toss dried greens into scrambled eggs, spaghetti sauce, cheesy grits, or soup.

Which leaves me back at cabbage. Last week I suggested stuffed cabbage, which I hope you agree was a pretty yummy idea. It is also pretty time consuming. Roasting cabbage is definitely not time consuming.

Roasted Cabbage

• 1 medium head cabbage, cored and cut into wedges
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar (this is optional)
• sea salt
• pepper

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees

You probably noticed that I didn't include any quantities in the ingredient list. This is more of a drizzle and sprinkle kind of recipe. Exact quantities are not that important here.

Spread your cabbage chunks on a baking sheet and drizzle on olive oil and balsamic vinegar (if you want to use the vinegar) you need just enough olive oil to coat the cabbage. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper, then stir to make sure that everything is more or less evenly coating the cabbage.

Mine looked like this right before I put it in the oven.

Roast for 15 minutes, stirring the cabbage about halfway through. 

If you follow my directions you will have cabbage that is still crisp, cooked just enough to bring out it's sweetness and give it a roasty flavor.

It will look like this when it's done.

If you would like a more thoroughly cooked roasted cabbage, reduce the oven temperature to 350 and roast for 25 to 30 minutes.

 

Week 16: A Whole New Winter

Normally we come to the end of summer CSA season, exhausted and ready for a winter of relative rest before starting the whole thing over again.

But this year is different. We're still pretty tired, but we're also exhilarated. As we harvest and pack the final summer share for the season, we are also planning the first winter share.

Not to mention tucking tons of root vegetables into storage, determining how best to clean the 850 lbs of flax seed we just got in from a farmer down the road (who plans to supply us with around five tons next year!), and working out the packaging kinks as we roll out lightly processed products via Wintergreen Foods.

Dwayne Kolpack (of flaxseed fame) also grows sunflowers.
We stopped by a month or so ago for a flower photo shoot.

He hasn't been able to combine these yet, but we'll get some when he does :)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I skipped right past the details of this week's share, which will include: 5 pounds Carrots, 4 pounds Potatoes, 2 pounds Beets, 2 Honey Bear Acorn Squash, Cabbage, Leeks, 3 Gourds OR 2 Hooligan Pumpkins, Rutabaga OR Celeriac, and Pac Choi OR Hakurei.

These are Hooligans, if you were wondering. It's hard to tell from the photo,
but they're about the same size as the small gourds we grow. Also, they aren't
always this blurry. They have dry, mildly sweet flesh.

The share is much the same as last week, but this one has leeks. This year's leeks are a bit improved over last year's, though they are still on the small side. They taste great though. We grew them in sand and compost, so be sure to wash them well to remove all the grit. If you aren't sure what to do with them, try this soup. It's a recipe Scott invented way back in our farm intern days. It's on the this side, use less milk (down to four cups is fine) if you would like it a little thicker.

Squash Leek Soup

• Two honey bear acorn squash (or one larger sweet fleshed winter squash)
• 6 cups milk or cream
• 2 small or one medium leek
• 1 teaspoon salt
• a pinch nutmeg or curry powder

Halve the squash and scoop out the seeds. Bake at 400 degrees until the squash are very soft, about 35-45 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the milk over low heat in a large saucepan. Clean the leek thoroughly and slice it thinly (compost the tough upper portions of the leaves, the tender green parts are fine though). When the milk is not quite simmering, add the sliced leek. Let it cook, without simmering, until the leeks are tender, about 20 minutes.

When the squash and leeks are both tender, scoop the squash flesh into the leeks and milk. Add salt and nutmeg and puree the mixture until it is smooth.