CSA Week Sixteen

News from the field:

It is hard to believe, but it is now the middle of the end. It isn’t quite the beginning of the end anymore, but more like the middle. Foliage season is upon us, we have had a killing frost that thinned the vegetable herd, and now we have only this week and two more of the CSA left! The warm spell early this week doesn’t change much for us. The days are getting shorter and the nights longer, and that means the plants don’t grow as fast. So we will squeeze what we can out of these last few weeks, and then it is already time to think about next year.

Announcements:

Our annual basket amnesty is in operation – we need those baskets back when you get a chance! We started the season with over 100, and we only have about 20 on hand right now. Please bring back any baskets you may have – no questions asked!!

Also, we have jack-o-lantern pumpkins and pie pumpkins and lots of gourds for your foliage displays. See us at market or stop by the house. The pumpkins are out in the front yard, serve yourself style.

In the Basket:

Fall salad – Spinach and romaine lettuce can stand up to the cool evenings. And we still have a few tomatoes from the greenhouse.

Broccoli raab – This is a spicy Italian green that we love. There’s a recipe on the back to eat it with pasta, or you can skip the pasta in the recipe and eat it as a side green. If you go looking for other recipe ideas, know that there are a lot of other names (and spellings) for this green: rapini, rabe, cime di rapa, etc. There was an interesting looking recipe on the blog Chocolate and Zucchini for Broccoli and Cornmeal Upside Down Cake, which one commenter said would be good with raab, but I haven’t tried it yet. If you do, let me know what you think!

Onions and garlic – This is the time of year we start stocking you up to help get you through those barren CSA-less weeks ahead. But we don’t want to overwhelm you yet, so just two pounds of onions and two heads of garlic this week.

Red potatoes and parsley – The red norlands are best boiled. Peter makes them with a little butter and mustard and some chopped up parsley.