2014 CSA Week 2

Aurora Scott greets Somerset CSA members with goodies and a smile!

Greetings fellow CSA members!

I know I'm excited for week 2 and the precious goodies awaiting us for pick up!
I'm still enjoying the beautiful strawberries from last week! So good!
Here are the items Ford and Amanda have for us this week with storage information, and ideas for recipes. Enjoy!
Nancy

In your share this week…

Item	How to store it	How long will it last?
Baby Tatsoi (Asian green)	washed & thoroughly dried or unwashed, in fridge, sealed in container or plastic bag	3-5 days
White cornmeal	Airtight container (such as a zipper seal bag) in the freezer	months
Strawberries	Unwashed in fridge	~2-5 days  (Surely you’ll eat them sooner!)
Mixed herbs: Oregano and Sage	Unwashed in fridge, in sealed bag or container	~1-2 weeks

Tatsoi has small, spoon-shaped, tender leaves that grow in a rosette atop thin, pale green stems. It’s dark, oval leaves and pale green stems are tender and edible and are excellent chopped and served raw in a salad or lightly sauteed.

Cornmeal can be used to coat your fresh fish before pan frying. I want to experiment dipping cauliflower florets and other veggies in this wonderful full texture meal and bake on a lightly sprayed cookie sheet for a healthy snack. I'll let you know how it comes out.

Strawberries - rinse and eat! Love them in organic vanilla yoghurt! Aren't they just beautiful! This photo was taken after I rinsed them. I feel so special eating them, as if Finley picked them just for me!

Herbs add so much flavor in any dish, and I love having them fresh again after using dried herbs all winter. Here's one I found that uses both the fresh oregano and sage. Sounds yummy! Who doesn't love meatloaf! If you don’t think you’ll have time to use the herbs while they are fresh, you can dry it for short term storage just by hanging it upside down in your kitchen.

Meatloaf with fresh sage and oregano

Recipe found at http://cah4el.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/meatloaf-with-fresh-sage-and-oregano/

2 lb. ground beef* (See note below about naturally raised ground beef available from Ford)
1/2 cup cooked brown rice (or white)
3/4 cup finely chopped onion (less if you like)
1/4 c chopped garlic (or as many cloves as you like)
15 -25 fresh sage leaves or more, chopped
30-60 fresh oregano leaves or more, chopped
1/4 cup hot sauce or tomato ketchup
2 eggs (cage free, if you ask the chickens)
Salt and Pepper

Feel free to substitute to personal taste and preference. Add the onions, garlic, chopped herbs, and 1/2 cup of cooked rice, to the ground beef and mix. (No instructions here. You know how it’s done. Ha! Messy!) Then add the two eggs and almost 1/4 cup of hot sauce or tomato ketchup. Also, salt and pepper to taste. Mix again.

After mixing, put the meat into a loaf pan. Bake in an oven at 350 degrees F for about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Check after an hour for doneness.

*Note: Ford will have ground beef for sale at the Laurel county farmers market on Saturdays and folks can also buy it at the farm or join their meat CSA if you'd like pastured beef/pork.  The meats are grown all naturally and grass fed. Sounds like a no brainer!

Welcome CSA members

Dear Friend,

Welcome to the 2014 Regular Season Farmshare with Sustainable Harvest Farm.  Thank you for becoming a member of our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

We take great pride in our farm and our products.  Our goal is to provide you with fresh, delicious, beautiful, high quality foods. We hope you enjoy eating in-season crops fresh from the farm this year and have fun trying new things.

Seasonal eating is an adventure. In each weekly, you will find familiar favorites along with new colors and flavors from foods you may never have prepared before. We’ll be with you all the way sending emails and blog updates with information and recipes, but in the meantime, we’d like to offer a few tips to help you through the adjustment period.  See below:

1.      ·Take a moment to assess your basket Compare the produce list for each week with the contents of your basket. When you get home, decide what needs to be eaten fairly soon and what can wait until later in the week. To the extent possible, plan a menu for the entire week.  A few minutes now will save you time later and will prevent the loss of any delicate, perishable items.   You can also count on us to give you updates on what keeps well and what doesn’t but don’t hesitate to send questions.

2.      ·Remember to wash your vegetables. We do not offer the produce ready to eat. Some items are rinsed and cooled before you get them, but this aids in removing dirt and reducing the field temperature – things we do to ensure better post-harvest quality.  Most produce lasts best when the rigorous washing happens just before it is eaten.

3.      Try to refrigerate as soon as possible. This is the number one way to keep everything fresh with a few exceptions like tomatoes, onions, potatoes and winter squashes that do just fine when stored in a cool, dark, dry location.

4.      Find recipes that fit your lifestyle. From traditional foods of Appalachia to a variety of light, fresh dishes, our newsletters will offer recipe ideas for selected produce each week. We also have a host of resources in our home-cooking arsenal if you need them.  …also, please consider sharing any of your favorite recipes so that we may spread the word among the CSA community and brag on your cooking skills!!

The 16-week CSA season revolves around the months of the year that vegetables flourish in southeastern Kentucky. The first shares of the season include winter storage crops from the previous season like sweet potatoes and dried beans along with fresh spring greens, tender onions, and tomatoes from the greenhouse.  When temperatures rise in the summer, you’ll begin to enjoy field tomatoes, corn, beans, melons & summer squashes.  You can expect the season to wind down with fall greens, root crops and winter squashes. This is the typical production cycle.  We all know, however, that Mother Nature & her team of critters may intervene at any time and cause one crop to flourish while another disappears.  (We have groundhogs and rabbits that LOVE our organic lettuces.)  Thank you for partnering with us in the adventures, risks, and rewards of local, sustainable agriculture and allowing us to serve you by doing what we really love.

2014 CSA Share Week 1

Greetings! I know you are as excited as I am to begin receiving the amazing bounty from our friends at Sustainable Harvest Farm! As the Waterstrats expand on family members with the birth of twin boys in December, they are also as diligent as ever in continuing to provide the best quality and variety of food for us to enjoy. And, they have been very busy! To help out a bit, you'll be hearing from me, Nancy Phelps, a colleague and fellow CSA member, in these weekly blogs. I will share how I enjoy the bounty with recipes and such, but feel free to join in, since my mantra is "when in doubt, throw everything in a giant wok pan and stir fry!"  I'm a one pan wonder, so it'll be fun experimenting with the amazing variety the Waterstrats produce and share. Amanda and Ford helped this week getting started with the blog, so here is what's in store for week 1! I can't wait to receive mine! Enjoy!

In your share this week…

Item	How to store it	How long will it last?
Shell peas	Cool, dry, dark place	months
White cornmeal	Airtight container (such as a zipper seal bag) in the freezer	months
Strawberries	Unwashed in fridge	~2-5 days  (Surely you’ll eat them sooner!)
Oregano	Unwashed in fridge, in sealed bag or container	~1-2 weeks

Strawberry Cornmeal Muffins
-slightly adapted from Eating Out Loud

For 12 regular muffins or 24 mini-muffins
1 cup white cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ to ¾ cup granulated sugar, plus a little more for sprinkling on top
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
¼ cup oil
1 cup whole milk or buttermilk
1 cup chopped strawberries

Preheat oven to 400^oF and grease muffin cups or line with cupcake liners.

Sift together dry ingredients, then form a well in the middle of the mixture and add the egg, oil and milk.  Stir thoroughly with a whisk or spoon until just combined.  Fold in strawberries and pour into muffin cups, about ¾ full.  Sprinkle a bit of sugar on top.

For regular muffins bake for 20 minutes, for mini muffins, bake 12-15 minutes.  Cool, remove from muffin tins and enjoy.  They are best warm with just a bit of butter.  Yum!!

 

Holiday Meals with Local Beef and Pork

Would you like to make Local Free Range meats part of your special holiday meals? We’d be delighted to provide fresh delicious Bacon, Sausage, Ribs and Grass Fed Ground beef for your Special Holiday Meals.

·         1 Pound Smoked Bacon Packs @ 7 dollars per pack

·         1 Pound Smoked Breakfast Sausage @ 5 dollars per pack

·         Country Style Pork Ribs @ 4.50  per pound

·         1 Pound Grass Fed Ground Beef @ 4.50  per pack

*Can be delivered or picked up at our home in London.  Please email us and we will arrange delivery/pickup of your treats.

2013 CSA Week 22

Item	How to Store it	How long will it last?
Beets & Turnips Saturday only	Washed or unwashed in fridge	Several weeks
Broccoli Thursday only	Washed or unwashed in fridge	1-2 weeks
Kale Saturday only	washed & thoroughly dried (my preference) or unwashed, in fridge, sealed in container or plastic bag	1-2 weeks
Kohlrabi Saturday only	Unwashed in fridge	2-3 months
Lettuce Saturday only	washed & thoroughly dried (my preference) or unwashed, in fridge, sealed in container or plastic bag	~1-2 weeks
Onions Thursday only	room temperature, in a ventilated container, in a cool, dry, dark area	Several weeks
Sweet Corn Saturday only	shucked (my preference) or with husks on in the coldest part of your fridge (usually the bottom vegetable crisper)	Enjoy as soon as possible –much sweeter fresh than when stored
Sweet Potatoes	room temperature, in a ventilated container, in a cool, dry, dark area	Several weeks
Tatsoi & Bok Choy	washed & thoroughly dried (my preference) or unwashed, in fridge, sealed in container or plastic bag	~2 weeks
Tomatoes Thursday only	Room temp	~1 week
Yellow squash, or zucchini Thursday only	Unwashed in fridge	1-2 weeks

Tips for storing and enjoying the produce in your weekly share can be found below:

We hope you’ve enjoyed this year of adventures in local food.  It’s been our great pleasure to serve you and we hope you’ll allow us to do it again in 2014.

The last week of the CSA arrived just in time for you to enjoy a bounty of fall greens including broccoli, lettuce, kale, tatsoi & bok choy.  A few late plantings of summer crops like tomatoes, yellow squash and zucchini, and sweet corn have also made it to week 22, so we send those to you as well hoping you’ll remember the flavors of summer from Sustainable Harvest Farm well into the long winter months.

Folks receiving shares on Thursday this week may enjoy combining broccoli with fall greens and onions for a savory stir fry or a big vegetable stew with sweet potatoes

Saturday shares are filled with all of the ingredients you might want for a hearty fall salad topped with roasted root vegetables, corn, and sweet potato fries.  There are many combinations.

Here are a few fall recipes you might enjoy…

Roasted Sweet Potato Soup from the Roasted Root

Oven Roasted Broccoli from the FoodNetwork

Sweet Potato and Tatsoi Soup from Food Loves Writing

Chicken & Bok Choy Stir Fry from Real Simple ( can substitute chopped bok choy for baby bok choy in this recipe)

2013 CSA Week 21

From our farm to your table this week…

Item	How to Store it	How long will it last?
Acorn squash	Room temperature	Several months
Apples regular & robust shares only	In fridge	Several weeks
Green Beans	green beans: unwashed in fridge	green beans: 3-4 days
Sweet Potatoes	room temperature, in a ventilated container, in a cool, dry, dark area	Several weeks
Tatsoi & Bok Choy	washed & thoroughly dried (my preference) or unwashed, in fridge, sealed in container or plastic bag	~2 weeks
Yellow squash, or zucchini mini shares only	Unwashed in fridge	1-2 weeks

Tips for enjoying the produce in your weekly share can be found below:

Green & orange are my two favorite fall food colors, and this week you’ll find plenty of each!  Here are some ideas for making the most of your flavorful fall greens like Bok choy and tatsoi in combination with hearty orange vegetables like sweet potatoes and acorn squash.    Tatsoi, sweet potato, feta & walnut salad     4 -5 cups tatsoi, washed, & shredded      3-4 small or 2 medium sweet potatoes      1-2 Tbsp olive oil      ½ tsp chili powder      ½ tsp salt      1 cup walnuts, toasted      1/3 cup crumbled feta      Salad dressing options – balsamic vinaigrette, or      creamy oil & vinegar are our favorites for this      salad.                                     Preheat oven to 400oF. Prepare tatsoi and set aside. Wash peel, and chop sweet potatoes into thin, French fry-size strips.  Toss with oil, chili powder, & salt and roast at 400oF for 30 minutes, turning once half-way through baking. Prepare individual servings of salad by dividing tatsoi among 3-5 serving dishes, top with warm sweet potato “fries”, toasted walnuts & feta. Top with your favorite tangy salad dressing and enjoy!

Cl

Bok Choy Apple Salad     1 large head bok choy      2 large or 4 small apples (sweet & crunchy are best)      1/2 cup sliced almonds      ½ cup raisins      1/4 cup olive oil      1/4 cup cider vinegar      2 tablespoons soy sauce      1-2 Tablespoons sugar                              Rinse bok choy and separate stems.  Clean thoroughly – dirt likes to hide out down at the bottom of those long white stems!  Layer the leaves in stems in one tall stack then chop off the stems and dice them into ¼ thick pieces.  Roll the leaves up tightly into a log shape and slice into fine ribbons.                 Toss chopped bok choy with remaining dry ingredients except sugar.                 Combine remaining ingredients and whisk vigorously.  Pour over salad, stir and enjoy!                 This will last 3-5 days in the fridge.

 African-Inspired Sweet Potato Black Bean Burgers

Click on the link above and try this recipe from the Fat-Free Vegan kitchen to make your own healthy veggie burgers right at home!