Week 8: Forgotten Alliums

Check out all this garlic we left to dry in a dark corner of our bar/barn last September! We completely forgot it was there. Now members get to eat it.

My camera can take spooky night vision pictures.

The winter radishes that showed up in the last share were intentionally held back to add some variety to the later winter shares, but holding back the garlic (and a few onions!) that will be included in the eighth and final share this week was entirely unintentional. Our allium harvest was more than a little disappointing this year, but we harvested what we could when the time came and set it all out to cure. Like the good optimists that we are, we then proceeded to harvest our more successful crops (like winter squash, carrots, rutabaga, cabbage...) and tried to put our failures out of our minds. Apparently we succeeded.

Along with the garlic and onions members will receive the following this week: Cabbage, Rutabaga, Onions, Carrots, Dry Beans, Fresh Rosemary, and Winter Squash.

The winter squash will be nutty delica and/or eastern rise. Both are kobocha or Japanese Pumpkin type squash with dense, sweet, relatively dry flesh. Both are good simply baked and eaten with a bit of butter, but they also lend themselves to more interesting preparations. Like Kabocha no Nimono or Kabocha Salad.

The majority of the dry beans that go out this week will be a type called Hutterite Soup Beans. These beans have a lovely smooth, almost waxy texture and a not-too-strong beany flavor. I like them in a very simple soup. Combine the soaked beans (I like to quick soak beans), some water or stock, dried greens (if you haven't used all of the dried greens you got in the 7th share, use 'em now), onion and a bit of chopped rutabaga or cabbage and simmer everything together until the beans are tender. Add salt at the end because cooking beans in salted water tends to make them tough. A bit of rosemary would be a lovely addition here.

I am sure that more than a few of you have a back log of rutabaga eyeing you in your fridge. I confess that, at times, I too am daunted by the baga. However, Scott has found a simple solution. About a week ago he picked up a rutabaga, washed and trimmed it, then slow roasted it whole in the oven. The result was a rutabaga with the texture of a baked sweet potato and a lot of delicious flavor. A few folks have asked me about recipes that hide the rutabaga flavor, this isn't one, but it does transform the flavor into something seriously yummy.

Slow Roasted Rutabaga with Maple Syrup

This recipe, with its maple syrupy goodness, is sweet and appealing. However, this is not the only way to use slow roasted rutabaga. Get creative!

• One whole rutabaga, washed and trimmed but not peeled
• Two Tablespoons butter
• One Tablespoon maple syrup
• A pinch ground nutmeg
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees

Place your whole, trimmed rutabaga directly on your oven rack and roast until tender, about two hours.

When done, the skin will be crisp and pulled away from the flesh,
which will have turned somewhat golden.

Let the rutabaga cool off a bit. In the meantime, melt the butter and maple syrup in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir in salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste.

Once it is cool enough to handle, pull the peel away from the flesh of the rutabaga and cut the flesh into thick slices.

Arrange the slices on a large plate and drizzle the maple butter over them.

Like this.

Deer Rammers Pie (I promise that isn't as weird as it sounds)

Another slow news week on the farming front. Though we do have an excellent reason.

CHRISTMAS, of course :)

This year's tree, pre cutting.
As you can see, we're big Charlie Brown fans.

This year's Christmas highlights included:

A ukelele,

a hatchet,

and this masterpiece. 

Also this delicious use for leftover mashed potatoes.
 It featured many of the goodies that are included
in this week's share.

The share will include carrots, potatoes, kohlrabi, sweet mama winter squash, cabbage, rutabaga, and dry beans.

The kohlrabi has (like everything in the share) been in storage since November. The outside looks a bit shriveled, but the inside is still good enough to enjoy raw with a sprinkle of salt and lime juice.

Sweet mama squash is the first of the real keeper squash to show up in the shares this winter. This one doesn't reach its most delicious until it has been in storage for a few months. Which means now. Sweet mama is dense and sweet, a good squash to cube and cook in a soup, stew, or casserole. 

The dry beans are finally making an appearance this week! Most members will receive marfax, which are a baking bean. You don't need to bake them, but the beans have the familiar flavor of baking type beans. I like to cook them on the stove (after soaking) with a maple syrup and chopped carrots. They have the sweetness of baked beans without the fuss. If you have a bit of bacon to brown in the pan before you cook them (and then crumble on top when the beans are done) so much the better.

Now it's time to explain the title of the post. You know shepherds pie, made with lamb? The recipe for this week is basically a shepherds pie, except that it is made with venison. Normally that would be called a hunters pie or simply a shepherds pie by people who don't feel the need to rename a recipe just because they changed the type of meat in it (those people are crazy). However, our freezer is full of venison that we accidentally hunted, with our van, which is a Dodge Ram. So this pie is a deer rammers pie. And now you know.

Of course, you can use whatever meat you'd like to in this recipe. Just be sure to rename it accordingly. 

Deer Rammers Pie

• About 3 cups leftover mashed potatoes (we always put cream cheese in our mashed potatoes--you should try it)
• olive oil
• 1 pound ground venison or other meat of your choosing
• 1 onion, diced
• Two cups root vegetables such as carrots, rutabaga, or kohlrabi, chopped into bite size pieces
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 2 tablespoons milk
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat a little bit of olive oil in a cast iron skillet (or other over proof skillet) over low/medium heat.

Add the onion, ground meat, and root vegetables. Cook, stirring frequently, until the meat is just browned. 

Don't eat it yet. It gets better.

Add salt, pepper and flour and stir well. Stir in the milk and cook, stirring constantly, until the milk and flour have taken on a creamy consistancy. You won't see a lot of liquid in the pan, but it should look deliciously oozy throughout. If it doesn't, stir in another tablespoon or so of milk.

Remove the skillet from the heat and spread the still cold mashed potatoes over the top of the meat, like you're frosting a layer cake.

Bake at 350 degrees for thirty minutes. Broil for an additional five minutes (or so--always watch closely when you are broiling to avoid burning) for a golden brown crust.

Early Winter

I don't need to tell any of you guys that winter came early this year. I'm sure you've noticed all on your own.

It's kind of hard to miss.

This photo was taken this morning out front of the
Northwinds Co-op in Ironwood.

Incidentally, if you have concerns about municipal snow removal in the U.P. as we head into this daunting winter, you might want to consider signing the petition at the link below. It was started by Eva Smith-Fergason, a long time Wintergreen Farm CSA member and the manager of the Northwinds Co-op. She is trying to get the challenge of snow removal in the U.P. on the political radar before it becomes insurmountable this season.

 Click here to sign the petition regarding snow removal in Ironwood and get some attention for the issue of snow removal in the U.P.

You wouldn't think it, but this snow actually has a silver lining for the vegetables. We were unable to get every single carrot we grew this year harvested before the season shifted (though we do have a generous ton in storage). We had a feeling that would happen, so we'd made a deal with one of the hay farmers in the area to deliver a few round bales this fall so that we could mulch them. Carrots keep very well in the ground over the winter, as long as their shoulders are insulated so they don't freeze. Unfortunately, the fields were too wet this fall for our hay farmer friend to make his delivery. There was a bit of hand wringing on our part as we tried to figure out how to mulch the carrots before the temperatures dipped low enough to damage them.

Then this happened.

Carrots tucked under several inches of nature's best winter insulator.

And we breathed a massive sigh of relief.

Your carrots will be safe all winter long :)

After getting a lot of feedback from you (thanks everyone!) about the first winter share, I believe you're all happy to hear that the carrots aren't going anywhere. I think you'll also be mostly happy to hear that we are reducing the carrots this week from 5 to 3 pounds and increasing the quantity of onions we distribute.

The full share includes: Brussels sprouts, 3 pounds carrots, 3 pound onions, 4 pounds potatoes, 2 honey bear acorn squash, 1 delicata squash, 1 sweet dumpling squash, two heads of garlic and rutabaga.

Happy Squashgiving :)

If you want to try a squash recipe that doesn't involve roasting as the first step, I suggest trying it with the delicata. As in this recipe. Though to be honest, I would never put marinara on delicata squash. That sounds wrong.

Roasted Rutabaga Fries sound right though. I would and have made them, and you should too. Even if you receive one of the massive bagas this week, it will disappear quickly if you use it to make fries.

Roasted Rutabaga Fries 

If you wanted more traditional fries you could break out the peanut oil and deep fry the rutabaga, but that sounds complicated and messy to me. These roasted fries are easy and delicious.

• 1 rutabaga, peeled of any tough skin and cut into quarter inch strips
• olive oil
• salt
• seasoning of your choosing (I used dried oregano and lemon peel for this batch, other good bets are cumin, garlic, or curry powder)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Toss the rutabaga pieces until they are evenly coated with olive oil and seasonings,

 Spread the rutabaga out in a single layer on a baking sheet. Roast at 400 degrees, stirring occasionally, until the rutabaga begins to brown, about 15-20 minutes.

Like this.

Week 8: A little Ecology with your Potatoes

Once upon a time, Scott and I went to college. Me for botany and Scott for fisheries and wildlife. (I think back to school season is making me nostalgic.)

We met in an ecology class at Michigan State, which ties into the thing I wanted to share with you all this week. This thing:

While enjoying this week's share (which includes Chard, Purple Beans, Peas (the second planting is producing), New Potatoes, Rutabaga, Summer Squash, Mini-Cabbage, Cucumber, Fresh Herbs, Lettuce and Tomatoes) please consider the above video.

As sustainable farmers, we try to grow your food in a way that works with and maintains the feedback loops of the environment around us. For example, we encourage predatory insect populations instead of simply killing every pest on our farm with broad spectrum insecticides. That's why you generally see a few bug holes in your leafy greens. If we killed off all the pests, the predators would have nothing to eat. And we love the predators.

Especially ground beetles, which are very prolific this year.

Another thing we give a lot of thought to is, of course, soil health. Especially the organic components of our soil, or the humus that was mentioned in the video. Of course, a large portion of the plants that we grow on our farm are eaten. They don't get a chance to rot in our fields and become humus. That's why compost is such an important component of sustainable farming. Compost heals the feedback loop that was disrupted when we (or our customers) stepped in and ate the vegetables we grew. Synthetic fertilizers make plants grow, but only by further disrupting the feedback loop that builds healthy soil and healthy plants.

(On a related note, Scott and I get kind of irked when people describe unharvested vegetables as food waste. There is certainly an amount of economic waste involved, but the nutrients in the vegetables go back to the soil--entirely unwasted. Food that ends up in landfills is a different story.)

If you have read this far, thanks for following me along my educational tangent. I hope you found it helpful. Now back to the potatoes, and rutabaga.

I know a few of you have been wondering what you should do with your rutabaga. I have been waiting for this week so I could give you my favorite answer: Mash it up with potatoes. It couldn't be simpler.

New potatoes are coming at you this week.

I feel like I've been kinda big on the unrecipes this year, but it's been a very busy season, what with growing more than twice the acreage we've grown before and everything.

That half acre of storage carrots we planted is coming along nicely!

I am comforting myself with the knowledge that all of our members have a lot of busy days too, so hopefully you appreciate the quick simple recipes as much as the more intricate ones.

Mashed Rutabaga and Potatoes

I remember when I was little my mom only made mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. It was a slow process that involved peeling potatoes and boiling them whole until they were tender. I don't do it that way. The way I do it is as fast and easy as making pasta.

• 1 large rutabaga (about a pound) trimmed and cubed

Like this.

• 1 pound potatoes (new or otherwise) diced to about the same size as the rutabaga pieces
• salt to taste
• butter to taste (I used about half a stick)
• milk to taste (I used about half a cup)

Boil the diced rutabaga and potatoes until they are tender, about 15 minutes. Drain the rutabaga and potatoes, then return them to the pot you cooked them in. Add salt, butter, and milk, then mash away. I like to use an old fashioned potato masher for the coarse texture and ease of clean-up, but a rotary mixer makes a creamier texture that many people prefer. 

Pair them with the meat of your choice.

We went with sliders. They work in our repurposed diner.

Week 6: Pseudo Fall

It's August 11th and I know that by the time distribution is done for week six it will most likely be in the 80's again, but for now it is chilly and grey.

A chilly and grey day is a great day to transplant fall kale.
Great for the kale, not so much for the farmers.

Also, we have rutabaga in the shares this week. Cold grey weather + fantastic rutabaga = fall as far as I'm concerned. I'm just going to go with it.

In addition to rutabaga, the week 6 share will include mini cabbage, snow peas, parsley, scallions, tomatoes or eggplant or peppers, broccoli or cauliflower or kohlrabi, kale or chard and fennel.

Did I mention the rutabaga is fantastic?

And gorgeous.

It's a variety we have grown for a few years now, called gillfeather turnip. Even though it is called a turnip, right there in its name, it is a rutabaga. They're not actually the same thing.

And this rutabaga has a backstory. Apparently the grower that developed it back in the early 1900's, John Gilfeather, knew that he had something good, and he didn't want other growers to be able to compete with him. All these year's later Gilfeather's variety still outshines other rutabaga. It's even a slow food ark of taste vegetable. Here is what the slow food folks have to say about it:

The Gilfeather is an egg-shaped, rough-skinned root, but unlike its cousins, it has a mild taste that becomes sweet and a creamy white color after the first frost. While the hardy Gilfeather turnip does well in nearly any climate, this touch of frost contributes to its unusual taste and texture. Developed and named after John Gilfeather from Wardsboro, Vermont, this turnip is one of the state’s unique contributions to cold weather agriculture. Mr. Gilfeather carefully guarded his stock to ensure that no one else could propagate the vegetable. However, some seeds slipped by and a few folks have continued to grow the Gilfeather Turnip after Mr. Gilfeather died.

Sweet and creamy may not be what jumps to mind when you hear rutabaga, but gilfeather turnips really are both. 

Even when they are as gnarly looking as this one.

I just cooked that scary looking rutabaga for dinner tonight. In the form of rutabaga au gratin. The texture could best be described as silky.

Rutabaga Au Gratin

1 medium or half a large rutabaga

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon flour

1 cup milk

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 bunch scallions, sliced

1/2 bunch parsley, minced (stick the parsley stems in your freezer for stock!!!)

1 small fennel bulb, sliced (save the leafy fronds for something else--I recommend making syrup out of them)

3-4 Chard or Kale leaves, sliced thinly (I like the chard, it brings another flavor to the dish)

1 cup grated cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

• Bring a pot of lightly salted water to the boil.
• Toss together the sliced scallions, parsley, fennel and chard or kale, set aside.
• Peel your rutabaga as much as you deem necessary and slice it into pieces approximately 1/4 inch thick.

I only remove the "hairy" parts I can't scrub all the dirt out of and any especially
thick hunks of skin. It works well for me. (I'm on a minor quest to convince people
that peeling root vegetables is almost always unnecessary.)

• Boil your rutabaga slices for about three minutes. Drain and set aside. This makes their texture extra silky without leaching out too much flavor.
• Melt one tablespoon butter over low/medium heat. Stir in flour and nutmeg to make a paste (you're making a roux). Stir until the flour/butter mixture is just starting to turn golden.
• Remove the roux from the heat and stir in one cup of milk. Stir your heart out until you can't see any lumps.
• Return the pan to low/medium heat and stir until it has thickened slightly. If you aren't sure whether it has thickened or not, taste it. When it is ready, you won't notice a starchy flour taste anymore.
• Once the sauce is thickened, taste it for salt and paper. Then swirl the bottom of a small casserole dish with some of the sauce.
• Add a layer of rutabaga, then a layer of chard/kale and whatnot, then a layer of grated cheese.

If you are like me and have a bunch of old restaurant equipment on hand,
things will look like this now. 

• Continue layering sauce, rutabaga, veggies, and cheese until you run out of ingredients. End with cheese.
• Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes.

Eat it up when it looks like this.

Greens, eggs, and ham

Actually greens, eggs, and bacon, but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Greens and bacon go well together.

It is still solidly greens season at Wintergreen Farm, though (as I always find myself saying this time of year) many non-greens are on the horizon.

For example, squash

However, until the non-greens mature, we are happily harvesting greens, greens, hakurei, and more greens :)

This week's share will include: Braising Mix, Baby Pac Choi, Kohlrabi, Parsley, Chard or Kale, Hakurei, Lettuce, and Fresh Herbs. All of these things are good with bacon.

A couple of this week's items will be new to new members, namely the Pac Choi and the Hakurei. 

Baby pac choi in the field. We'll pick out the weeds for you.

Baby pac choi can be used very similarly to the braising mix, cooked in a stir fry (scroll to the bottom of this post from the 2011 season for my beef and pac choi stir fry recipe), or eaten raw. I'm told it's good dipped in ranch.

I think hakurei might be my favorite root vegetable. As least until the
main crop carrots are ready.

Hakurei are also called salad turnips. They're more like a radish than a turnip and really they are better than both. They can be eaten raw or cooked, either way be sure to toss in the greens as well. If you want some detailed suggestions for preparing hakurei, I suggest the pinterest board.

And now, back to bacon. Greens and bacon (or salt pork) really do go well together. And pairing them is a great way to convince reluctant family members of the goodness of greens. It's also a super fast and simple way to cook up greens. 

Greens, Eggs, and Bacon

We harvested the first rutabaga of 2014 today, just to see how things were coming along (they're coming along deliciously, if you're wondering) and I actually used some of the leaves from that in this recipe, rather than the kale or kohlrabi leaves listed below. Since I had bacon going, I poured off a little of the fat from my bacon pan into a separate pan and sauteed the rutabaga (which I had cubed) in it until it was tender and golden. The same could be done with your kohlrabi, if you're into that sort of thing.

Ingredients:

     8 ounces thick cut bacon

     1/3 pound braising mix (the amount in your share) chopped into bite sized pieces

     5 kale or kohlrabi leaves (or rutabaga leaves if you've got them), also chopped

     8 eggs

     salt and pepper to taste

Cook the bacon until it is crisp in a large frying pan. Remove the bacon from the pan and allow it to cool slightly.

While the bacon is cooling, turn the heat on your pan (the one that't still full of sizzling bacon grease) down to low and toss in your chopped greens. Watch out as you do this, the hot grease will splatter. Especially if there is a lot of water clinging to your greens.

Stir them a bit until they have wilted and turned bright green. Make eight little "nests" in the greens and crack an egg into each one. Crumble your cooled bacon and sprinkle it over the top of the greens and eggs. It should look something like this:

 

Place a lid over the pan and cook until the eggs are set to your liking. It took about 15 minutes for me. At which point my food looked like this:

Sprinkle a bit of salt and/or pepper on the eggs at this point if you like.

It looked like this on my plate. There are three eggs hiding under
that pile of greens. The cubes are the rutabaga I mentioned above.
Potatoes would be almost as good.

Week 16: 2013 CSA Season Comes to a Close

Fall is here.

Note Scott's hunter orange cap. A sure sign of fall.

It's finally official because we had our first real frost last night. Just in time for the final fall harvest of the 2013 CSA season! The weather actually lined up with our activities for once this year :)

This final harvest is turning out to be a bit of a whirlwind for us. We've shifted the pick-up so that we will be able to attend a family wedding this Friday (thank you once again for letting us make this change!!), which means we need to have shares ready for all seventy five members this Wednesday, rather than spreading the harvest between Wednesday and Saturday pick-ups as we usually would. So, we've attempted to spread the harvest between three days.

We did take time out yesterday to catch this seventeen and a half inch brown trout though:

This was totally all Scott. I had nothing to do with catching this fish.
I was downstream, most likely disentangling my line from something.

Today we got started on the root vegetables.

We got through carrots (you each get three pounds this week)

And about half of the beets (you get one pound this week)

The beets gave us some trouble this year. Remember way back in the spring when it was very wet? That happened just after we planted the beets, in an ever so slightly low area of the garden. Long story short, we have smaller than normal beets this year. So a pound of beets is actually several beets, but they are little. We had hoped to have 2 or 3 pounds for everyone. Enough to make it worth breaking out the canner. If you are determined to have pickled beets, this is the recipe we use: http://www.pickyourown.org/pickledbeets.htm. At least you won't have to chop them up!

In addition to carrots and beets, everyone can expect to receive: Tomatoes, Scallions, Onion, Celeriac, Gold Ball Turnips or Winter Radishes, Daikon, Brussels Sprouts, Winter Squash, Rutabaga or Cabbage, Kale or Chard, Fall Salad Mix, and Parsley or Sorrel or Basil.

If you don't know or have forgotten, be sure to roast your Brussels Sprouts. Drizzle them with a little olive oil and chopped garlic (and balsamic vinegar if you are fancy) before roasting them in a single layer at 400 degrees until they are just starting to brown. Roasting makes Brussels Sprouts delicious. Boiling them does not.

You should also try mashing your root vegetables.

Root Vegetable Puree

A simple and delicious fall side dish. If you remove all of the greens and keep the veggies in your crisper (or another cold, high humidity environment), all of the items that go into this dish will easily keep until Thanksgiving, though this recipe only makes enough to serve four. Throw in some potatoes (boil them with the other veggies) or roasted squash if you want to bulk it up. Also, drink a bit of the cooking liquid. It's tasty. Seda tasted some from my glass and said "Mama, did you make a special vegetable tea?" before requesting a glass of her own.

• One large or two small Rutabaga, peeled and chopped roughly
• Two large Carrots, peeled and chopped roughly
• Three very small (or one large) Celeriac, peeled and chopped roughly
• Salt
• Butter (about a tablespoon)
• A handful of Celeriac leaves, if you still have them, chopped

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the vegetables (but not the celeriac leaves) and boil until they are all tender enough to easily pierce with a fork. Do not over boil or you will have a mushy, watery, mess. It shouldn't take more than 20 minutes.

Remove the vegetables from the cooking water. Reserve the water for another use (special vegetable tea...soup stock). You will want a small amount of the cooking liquid for the next step.

Puree the vegetables with your favorite pureeing device (by now you all know how much I enjoy my immersion blender), adding a bit of the cooking liquid if needed to make a smooth puree.

While it is still hot, stir in butter and a handful of chopped celeriac leaves.

Before you stir, it will look like this. Assuming it is dark out and your
kitchen is not well lit.