Posts in Winter Squash
Week 16; October 1, 2015

What's in the box?  

Medium Share

Medium Share

small share

small share

  • Winter Squash
  • Garlic
  • Red onions
  • Yukon Gold potatoes
  • bell peppers
  • carrots
  • radishes
  • brussel sprout tops
  • eggplant
  • cauliflower (medium and large)
  • arugula (medium and large)
  • broccoli (large)

Notes on the box.  

Winter Squash this week is a mix.  You will get delicata and either acorn (dark green with deep ribs), autumn crown (squat beige pumpkin type), pie pumpkin (looks like a small pumpkin), or spaghetti squash (oblong and bright yellow).  We didn't grow enough of any one of these squash for all boxes to get the same variety.  Winter Squash do not need to be stored in your fridge.  They store best at room temperature.

Remove the tops from the carrots and radishes before storing them.  They will keep longer with tops removed.

Potatoes should be stored in a dark dry area, but not in the fridge.   Same with Garlic and Onions.  

Brussel Sprout Tops can be used as you would kale, collards, spinach, or chard.  They are more tender than kale and cook more quickly and have a nice brussel sprout flavor.  Hopefully the sprouts size up in time for the last CSA box.  Or the Winter shares!  

Cheese Shares.  

We have a creamy Feta and the gouda type cheese again (that still hasn't been named).  The creamy Feta is perfect for making a feta dip or dressing to  serve with roasted veggies, to put on a burger, or to use as a spread.  

Feta Dip

1/2 to 1 cup Plain Greek Yogurt, 1/2 cup Feta Cheese, 1 small clove crushed garlic, fresh herbs (Rosemary, Oregano, and/or parsley work well),  2 Tbsp lemon juice, salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.  Put all ingredients in a bowl and whip together until well blended. Great on Pita chips, or with carrot, red peppers, cauliflower, and radish crudite.  

Recipes.  

Cauliflower Cake

Cheesy Hasselback Potato

Farmer Ben's Shredded Winter Squash Fritters

  • 2-3 cups shredded winter squash (you can use delicata, acorn, buttercup and none of these need to be peeled.  Just scoop out the seeds and shred on a box grater or your food processor)
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 1/2 Tablespoons minced fresh sage (or other fresh herb, optional)
  • oil for frying

Mix shredded squash, flour, eggs, and herbs together.  Heat enough oil to cover the bottom of a skillet.  Drop squash mixture by the spoonful into hot oil.  You may need to gently spread fritters out if your batter is very thick.  Fry until browned on each side (2-3 min per side).  Transfer fritters to plate lined with paper towels or pieces of paper bag to absorb excess oil.  Serve hot.  

On the Farm.

We had a really wonderful time at the Harvest Party!  So happy to see familiar faces and to meet long time members that we had never met and to meet new members, as well.  So many kids!  It was a blast.  If anyone has pictures from the party that they would like to share for the blog, sent them our way.  If you weren't able to make it to the party but are traveling through the area, please feel free to give us a call and come out to see the farm.  

We still have some Winter Shares left.  That's 4 additional weeks added to the end of the season.  Click here to sign up, but let us know if you have any trouble and we will be happy to add the Winter Share to your account.  

 

We put postcards about our friend Nancy's Fall/ Winter Herbal CSA share.  Her farm is called Red Clover Herbal Apothocary.  The CSA is  a one time delivery and if you sign up for one, we will deliver it to your dropsite with your CSA box.  She does a really wonderful job. Please consider a share with her!  Or you can find her at the Mid-Town Market on Saturdays.  



Winter Share week 2; November 6, 2014

What's in the box?  

20141106_134607
20141106_134607

Thanks to Chris and Cheyenne for the photo and the recipe this week!

Broccoli

Vitamin Green

Spinach

Potatoes

Beets

Carrots

Onions

Leeks

Brussel Sprouts

Winter Squash assortment

Salad Turnips

Dino Kale 

Recipes...  

[yumprint-recipe id='58'][yumprint-recipe id='57']Beet Caviar from 101 cookbooks 

Squash Toasts With Ricotta and Cider Vinegar from Smitten Kitchen

Spinach and Egg Pizzettes from Smitten Kitchen

Turkey Meatball Vegetable Soup (recipe calls for Arugula, but feel free to substitute Turnip Greens or Vitamin Greens)

 On the farm...

It's officially getting cold.  And it was raining during harvest.  But we didn't get any snow, yet!  We are scrambling to get things out of the fields before the ground freezes.  There's just Josh and Dana working on the farm right now, and they are really working hard to get the boxes to you!  We were grateful to have the help of a visitor and aspiring farmer, Ashley, on Wednesday.  Many hands make work light, and in the cold rain, the extra hands are even more appreciated.  Thanks Ashley!  

We have been reading through the Summer Share Surveys and are so pleased with the feedback.  We were really happy to hear that almost everyone really enjoyed the Vitamin Green and the Pak Choi!  We got some lovely compliments and the complaints were few and far between and mainly had to do with CSA not fitting in with people's lifestyle, which we understand.  We know that our most experienced home chefs and committed members sign up for Winter Shares, so we want to thank you for being that!  

We hope you are enjoying the sweetness of the greens and roots after they have been through some cold temperatures.  We will see what's left in the field for greens after this cold weather is with us for a solid week.  Hopefully everything is still in good shape, but even tastier!  Sorry we don't have pictures this week.  We've had some technical difficulties.  Please feel free to share any photos of you and meals you've made, if you like!  We love to include that on the blog!   

Week 18; October 23, 2014. Final delivery of the season!

What's in the box? 

IMG_1720
IMG_1720

pak choi

carrots

broccoli

red onions

brussel sprouts

rainbow chard

parsley

winter squash

spinach

head lettuce

IMG_1725
IMG_1725

pak choi

head lettuce

winter squash

red onions

brussel sprouts

broccoli

parsley

carrots

Notes on the box...  

Brussel Sprouts are such a treat, but this season they matured a little late and unevenly.  We picked what was ready, but feel pretty disappointed that we weren't able to get more to you.  Good news for Winter Share folks who are fans of Brussel Sprouts, though.  Some of them got extra large size.  Trim off the stalk part and then cut them in half before cooking.  They all taste great! 

We are giving a medley of Winter Squash today.  Everyone got some combination that included pie pumpkins, black futsu squash, autumn crown pumpkin, delicata, acorn, red kuri, or butternut. Black Futsu is an heirloom and a personal favorite.  The skins are edible, so it's good for recipes where you remove the seeds then slice the squash into moons and roast the slices (see a few weeks ago when we had delicata squash). 

Pak Choi, again?  wow.  Three times was WAY more than we planned on giving this vegetable, but it loved the weather or something. It wouldn't stop growing!  Hopefully you have learned to love it!  It is wonderful chopped and added to stir fry or soup. 

The chard can be used as you would spinach.  I like to stretch the amount of spinach that I have by adding card to it.  Spinach/Chard Lasagna?  Yum!  

Recipes...  

 Green Juice  The recipe calls for cucumbers, but we've been adding apples to our juice. 

Winter Panzanella from Smitten Kitchen  uses winter squash and brussel sprouts

Moroccan Spiced Carrot Hummus

Brussel Sprout Salad with Apples and Candied Walnuts

Twice Baked Squash with Quinoa, Pecans, and Parmesan  Recipe calls for Butternut, but any squash would work well. 

On the farm...

Usually at week 18 we are all feeling relief that the season is wrapping up.  It takes a ton of thought, planning, timing, sacrifice, luck, energy, and work from all of us to get these boxes out to you during the growing season.  Our next season starts as soon as the deliveries end.  We are cleaning up the farm and getting things ready for the snow to fall, reading surveys, packing and delivering season extension shares, going over what we want to change, working on our budget for the remainder of the season and for next season, we move on to crop planning, equipment maintenance and repair...  There are still animals that need care every day.  We have to look for crew members for next season.  And this Winter there will be off farm jobs, as well. 

So at the end of the season we are usually dreaming about shrinking our CSA to 20 members, turning the barn into a haunted house, and starting a kitchey pumpkin patch.  But this season, with the warmer weather and sunshine, the best fall colors we've seen in a long time, great feedback from members, and the boxes wrapping up in a way that we are overall pretty happy with; we feel like saving the pumpkin patch for a retirement dream and are already feeling optimistic and looking forward to next season.  

Overall we feel good about this past season.  We had fewer of some crops than we had planned (melons, cucumbers, and winter squash)  and some crops did really well (lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower).  This is the nature of CSA farming, not everything goes according to crop plan. 

It's tough to keep the big picture in mind at times as to why we are doing this.  But our passion is good food raised responsibly going to a group of people who are hoping to change the world one meal at a time. But we know that those ideals are also as important as the value you get in the box. So we are always trying to give you both the ideal you signed up for, a healthy balanced farm and the value of what you bought into.

 If you enjoyed being a member of Turnip Rock, we would LOVE for you to stick with us!  When members return from year to year we are able to focus more on growing healthy food which we love to do, and less on marketing (which is honestly not a place where we excel).  If you love CSA,  we really hope that you will tell your friends and family. Word of mouth is the best advertising we can get and we need to get more people excited and educated about the importance of local food so that all the small farms can thrive and we can shift how our food system works, making it more sustainable and healthy for ourselves and our environment. 

Next season we will FINALLY be offering a cheese share!  We will be sending you information about adding it to your 2015 CSA share as soon as we get the odds and ends of our cheese room finished.  This may involve a crowd-funding effort, so keep an eye out for that. 

We are so grateful to have grown food for you and your families this season.  Please fill out the survey that we email to you and let us know about your experience.  We can't thank you enough for your support of a local, just, and responsible food system, and our little piece of the puzzle called Turnip Rock Farm ! 

IMG_1711
IMG_1711
IMG_1713
IMG_1713
IMG_1714
IMG_1714
IMG_1716
IMG_1716
IMG_1581
IMG_1581
IMG_1567
IMG_1567
IMG_1707
IMG_1707
IMG_1710
IMG_1710
IMG_1719
IMG_1719
IMG_1731
IMG_1731
IMG_1728
IMG_1728
IMG_1736
IMG_1736

And a big huge overwhelming THANK YOU to the 2014 farm crew who made it all come together.  Haley and Dana were with us full time and Sam worked with us again part time.  These guys are amazingly self motivated, smart, funny, and fast! They brought a great positive attitude to work and cared about the farm and the boxes in a very generous way.  Dana is sticking around to help us with the Winter Shares and Haley is headed to the city to keep up her work with food employment.  Sam is going adventuring and will be working on farms in warmer climates.  We hope to have all of them back with us in the future.  Big hugs guys!  We couldn't do it without you! 

Oh hey, Did we just get a shout out from the first lady?! 

Just kidding.  She doesn't know us.  Anyway...

Lots of love from the 2014 crew at TurntUp Rock Farm! 

IMG_1740
IMG_1740