CSA Week Thirteen

News from the field:

The beginning of the end? We are supposed to get our first frost tonight, and even though it is not supposed to be too cold, it is still the beginning of the end. The light has shifted, and the days are getting shorter. We even have some leaves changing here and there. It has also been dry dry dry at our place, which just gives the plants one more reason to not grow much. So we start the switch to more fall-like baskets, as we start harvesting pumpkins and winter squash and start them curing.

Note: We wrote this Tuesday night. It didn't end up frosting. Now it is actually hot -- 94 today. Its supposed to cool off tomorrow, but they're not predicting frost any time soon.

In the Basket:

Summer sweethearts: Tomatoes, sun golds, red pepper

Good greens: broccoli, lettuce

Brussel sprouts - Summer still in full swing, but the fall vegetables are starting to come on. Nana Alice, Peter’s mom, is visiting, and she cooked up some delicious brussel sprouts this way: steam them till bright green and not quite tender. Slice in half. You can do that part ahead of time. Then when you are ready to eat, cook some shallots or onions in butter, then add the brussel sprouts and heat it all up.

Onions - Five pounds of onions this week. There is a French Onion Soup recipe on the back, but if that does not interest you, these onions are cured and so will keep for a month or more.

Garlic - Also dried and cured like the onions. Roast the whole head it all now and spread on toast or use clove by clove in recipes over the next few weeks. Or if your herbs survived the frost, make up some pesto for the freezer.