We’ve decided that our winter farm membership this year is about gratitude. It’s a simple ritual, and I learned it from friends I took a permaculture course with nearly a decade ago. At each dinner time meal we simply say what we are grateful for. It’s an act, said aloud, often can reset an evening from a hard farm day, or put life into perspective. We recommend this practice. This year, even though we are perhaps in the middle of a pandemic, we all have so much to be grateful for. We’ll see you today (after 3pm). Below is what we have in store for this week of winter eating. Gratitude is a necessity during these times. All that is required is for dive on in with us.
We realize that technically we are in fall still, not yet official winter, but it’s definitely winter-style farming here. Walking delicately across patches of snow and ice, dancing around the freezing temps to harvest greens, breaking out the work-lights to finish tasks as dark sets in so early. As a reminder: all of that is a part of the reason that the pick-up time for your shares starts at 3:00 pm today, and runs through the end of the day on Wednesday. Sabrina is harvesting your boc choi right now, and we’ll be working to pack your shares all morning and possibly into the afternoon. But at 3:00 or later, we are so excited to see you!
This week’s shares include: A large head (or a few small heads) of Boc choi, a bundle of Swiss Chard, a larger-than-market-sized bag of our mild winter salad mix (has lots of relatives of our spicy salad mix, but no heat!), a head or bag of cauliflower, carrots, beets, radishes, an onion, a Red Kuri or Lower Salmon River winter squash, and bag of French Fingerling potatoes. It also includes a small packet of bonus flavor: dried Thai chilies and dried Thai basil.
Our recommendation for the chili/ basil bag is to blend the two together in a food processor, blade-style coffee grinder, or mortar and pestle. Adding a teaspoon or two of salt tends to make it blend down into a fine powder even better. You can use this as a sprinkle on top of dishes like stir-fries or scrambled eggs to add heat and flavor to everyone’s separate tastes, or add it in the sauté or simmering stage if everyone at your table has a similar desired level of heat. We like flavor of the basil-chili combo, and also the way that adding the basil and salt dilutes the chili spice, so you have a little more control over how much heat you add, compared to straight chili flakes. Give it a whirl, we hope you like it too!
Eating ideas for the week
We see good potential this week for a nice stir-fry with the boc choi, cauliflower, carrots, onion, and flavor packet (with or without the magic peanut sauce); or use that same suite of ingredients in a brothy noodle soup.
For the winter squash: First don’t worry if you don’t get around to eating this this week, it can happily sit on your kitchen counter for some weeks. In fact, we are loading the first few weeks of the winter shares with some of our larger, bulkier squashes in order to open up storage space in our shop! If you dive into them this week, our favorite method of prep is the most simple: cut in half along the equator (if you have the lighter pink Salmon River Squash, the rind is quite hard, you may want to drop it on a firm floor first to open up a crack), scoop out the seeds, and bake it face-down at 350 or so until soft. Eat straight out of the skin with butter and salt or maple syrup. Or use it as the base for a meal-bowl; we topped some with curried lentils and wilted collard greens last night. Leftovers can be eaten for breakfast with yogurt, blended into a chili or soup, or baked in your favorite pumpkin pie recipe (secret: the best pumpkin pies are actually at least 1/2 winter squash).
For chard and kale, which you’ll hopefully see a few bundles of in the course of your winter share, our favorite method is again the simple way: sauté with garlic and your favorite oil or butter, a splash of balsamic vinegar at the end of cooking, and serve as a side or on top of your main dinner (pasta, scrambled eggs, squash, or soups).
The fingerling potatoes are excellent for roasting in 1-inch chunks, cooking whole under a pot roast, or making a delicately pink mashed potato dish (no need to peel). If roasting, we love doing a combination root roast with some beets, cauliflower, and carrots as well.