Week 14; September 25, 2014

What's in the box?  

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spinach (loose leaf)

pie pumpkin

red onions

cabbage

arugula

radishes

cauliflower

oregano

salad mix

green top carrots

bell peppers

vitamin green

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loose leaf spinach

green top carrots

bell peppers

radishes

arugula

purple onions

oregano

salad mix

Notes on the box...

Lots of leafys this week!  Be sure to remove the greens from the radishes and the carrots before storing.  You can eat radish tops and add them to the vitamin greens, arugula, or spinach when cooking if you like. 

The cabbage this week is a storage variety and will keep in your fridge for a long long long time.  It's great for cooking, but also good for fresh eating and great for kimchi. 

Pie pumpkins shouldn't be stored in your fridge.  They will sit on your counter easily until Halloween if you like to get into the spirit of the season (it's fall!) or you can eat it!  Cut pumpkin in half, remove seeds and stringy stuff in the middle, place cut side down on a lightly oiled baking dish (or you can add about a 1/4 inch of water to the bottom of the pan, and roast at 400 until the pumpkin skin looks browned and slightly puffy and you can easily stick a fork into the pumpkin.  Remove from oven, allow pumpkin to cool, and scoop out the tender mash and use in recipes that call for canned pumpkin, or squish into a freezer bag for later use.  Or mix with a little butter and cinnamon and honey or maple syrup for a really nice sweet treat.  Alternately, you can remove seeds, remove the skin from the pumpkin with a vegetable peeler or knife, and cut it into cubes for use in soups, stews, or roast veggies mix. 

Recipes...

[yumprint-recipe id='53'][yumprint-recipe id='52']Flourless Pumpkin Pie Muffins

Smitten Kitchen Cauliflower Slaw

Quinoa Cauliflower Patties

Skillet Poached eggs in Spinach

On the farm...

How about those colors??  They are really changing out here and we are loving the cool air and all that fall brings.  The season is winding down and the vegetables are sweetening up beautifully. 

Yes!  We still have Winter Shares available!  They are really more of a fall extension share.  4 more weeks following the last CSA delivery of the normal season.  They will go until the week before Thanksgiving.  If you are unable to sign up, just email us to let us know that you would like to sign up and we can add the share to your account.

Thanks so much to everyone who came out for the harvest party!  We had a really great time and were having so much fun that we forgot to take pictures (until the double rainbow showed up!)  We were talking about how amazing it has been to see kids that we first met when they were just little ones that are now towering above at least Rama's head!  And how we've had members that have been with us since the beginning and who have become friends by meeting at farm events over the years.  We invite everyone to become attached to Turnip Rock and to think of the farm as your own.  It's so great to see familiar faces and to meet members that we've had for several seasons and to meet new members and your friends and family.  Just like you want to know where your food comes from, it's so rewarding for us to know where the veggies we grow are going and who is enjoying them!  We are happy to be your farmers!  We hope everyone enjoyed themselves and will be able to make it out to the farm again. If you weren't able to make it to the farm this season, please know that if you are ever in the area, you are welcome to come by!  Give us a heads up and we will gladly show you around and maybe even share a snack or some lunch.  

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Sadie sampling carrots
Sadie sampling carrots
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A big hug from the sky! A double rainbow right over the barn after the harvest party rainstorm!
A big hug from the sky! A double rainbow right over the barn after the harvest party rainstorm!
Turnip Rock Farmer Comment
Week 13; September 18, 2014

What's in the box?  

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bell peppers

sage

pak choi

vitamin green

green top carrots

leeks

green beans

green top beets

broccoli

tomatoes and green tomatoes

onions

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onions

sage

pak choi

vitamin green

bell peppers

broccoli

green top carrots

tomatoes and green tomatoes

Notes on the box...  

Pak Choi is the same as bok choi and is perfect for stir fry.  We had a wonderful stir fry of onions, peppers, broccoli stems, green beans, and pak choi with scrambled eggs and ginger.  It was really wonderful and fast!  The key to good pak choi is to cook it briefly so that the stems stay crunchy and the greens aren't mushy.  We don't usually grow pak choi or bok choi, but it's Rama's favorite vegetable and we decided you should try it if you haven't ever had it before!  Let us know what you think!  Is this a happy addition or too "out there" of a vegetable for your taste?  

Green tomatoes can be stored on your counter, shoulders down, until they turn ripe.  OR you can eat them green!  Fried green tomatoes, anyone?  A favorite end of Summer treat!

Recipes...  

[yumprint-recipe id='50'][yumprint-recipe id='51']Sweet Green Tomato Hand Pies

Fried Green Tomato with Bacon Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Green Tomato and Chipotle Mac and Cheese (make it extra yummy by adding some fried sage!)

Oven Friend Green Tomaotes

Roasted Green Beans with Creamy Dipping Sauce

Thai Style Steamed Fish with Pak Choi

Chicken Sausage Patties with Apple and Sage 

On the farm...

Reminder:  Harvest Party will be September 20th.  Come between 3 or 4 to look around the farm, climb on tractors, visit animals, and have a ride in the farm gator or go kart!  Dinner will be around 6 and we will provide burgers.  We ask that you bring a side to share.  Feel free to BYOB.  After dinner there will be a bonfire.  You are welcome to camp at the farm or check out some of the local campgrounds in Amery or Clear Lake.  RSVP to let us know if you plan on coming out!

And this event is happening the day before the harvest party:

AN EVENING OF MUSIC

with Chris Koza and Rogue Valley

$7

September 19, 7pm at Hungry Turtle Farm

410 125th Street | Amery, WI 54001

Known as one of the Twin Cities most dynamic live acts, Rogue Valley and lead singer/songwriter Chris Koza are an internationally-recognized band who perform regularly at top Twin Cities’ venues, festivals, and have extensively toured the US sharing stages with artists such as Lucinda Williams, The Jayhawks, and Nellie McKay among others. Their songs have been featured in television and film, most recently in Twentieth Century Fox’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Tickets Here!

Beautiful weather for harvest!  

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 A nice farm lunch with the recipes from last week

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 A visit from the local Future Farmers of America.  

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 This weekend was the Amery Fall Fest.  Our little town's fair and celebration.  We didn't get to enter the pie contest (but congrats to our good friends at Sleepy Root Farm who placed!)  We had some great ideas for a float for the parade next season, and we just might be joining the Amery Clown Club!  The biggest excitement for all of us was the preview opening of Farm Table Resturant that is going to be sourcing from the Hungry Turtle Co-op Farms and other local farmers.  We were able to enjoy a superb burger from Bull Brook Keep's beef on a brioche bun with home made heirloom tomato catsup.  The best burger we've had in a long time out here in rural Wisconsin!  We will let you know when the farm table will be open for regular business.   In the mean time, there are tickets for sale to a special Grand Opening Dinner.  It's gonna be a good one!  

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We still have Winter Shares available.  They are really more of a fall extension share.  4 more weeks following the last CSA delivery of the normal season.  They will go until the week before Thanksgiving.  If you are unable TO SIGN UP online, just email us to let us know that you would like to sign up and we can add the share to your account. 

Turnip Rock Farmer Comments
Week 12; September 11, 2014

What's in the box? 

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broccoli

peppers (sweet, bell, and hot)

savoy cabbage

leeks

tomatoes (slicers, heirlooms, and green)

potatoes (russets)

radishes

Vitamin Greens (use as you would mustard greens or bok choy)

thyme

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same as above, but no cabbage or radishes

Notes on the box...

Well, I guess we stand corrected on the "don't store your tomatoes in the refrigerator" stance.  This article has A LOT of information about storing tomatoes and when it's okay to put them in the fridge.  A little late in the season since this will likely be the end of tomatoes this year with these cold temps we are experiencing, but still good for future reference. In summary it basically says to leave tomatoes out unless they are perfectly ripe.  They can be stored in the fridge once perfectly ripe without much change in texture and flavor.  You can let them warm to room temperature before eating if you don't like cold tomatoes. 

Vitamin Greens can be treated as you would mustard greens or bok choy.  They are similar in texture, but the flavor is not as spicy as mustards and it's much sweeter and milder than most greens.  The stems cook down easily, too.  It may be hard to find recipes for vitamin greens, but look up mustard greens or you can use the recipes we've provided this week.  They may need an extra rinse before cooking.  The name sounds very healthy, and they are (as are most other greens) but don't let the healthy sounding name keep you from eating them.  They could just as easily be called "delicious greens" as vitamin greens. 

The radishes are super tender and yummy and great for a buttered bread and radish sandwich sprinkled with a little salt.  The greens can be cooked along with your vitamin greens.  remove the greens from the radishes to prevent the radishes from going soft.  both should be stored in a plastic bag in your crisper. 

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We harvested peppers and this season with these cold temps, we are sad that there won't be too many red and orange ripe ones.  They are fine green, but we hope you got a few red ones this season.  We put hot peppers and sweet red peppers in the box this week.  The hungarian hot wax turn from a lime green to an orange to a bright red.  The sweet roasting peppers turn from a dark green to a rich deep red.  The other main way to tell them apart is the shape.  The sweet peppers are generally 3 lobed and blocky at the top while the hot peppers are two lobed and narrower.  Here's pictures to help.  Also you can slice the peppers and give a little taste to see if you are dealing with a hot pepper or a sweet pepper.  And really it's not too big a deal since we've found the hot peppers to be quite mild this season. 

Recipes...

[yumprint-recipe id='48'][yumprint-recipe id='49']Lentil Stew with Mustard Greens and Sausage

On the farm...

Whoa!  Some sustained cold temperatures coming.  The transition out of summer is not very smooth this year.  More just a sudden smothering of summer by the blanket of a cold front.  It's earlier than we had hoped for, but we have lots of fall crops growing in the fields, and the temperatures should get a little more seasonal after the front passes. 

We still have Winter Shares available.  They are really more of a fall extension share.  4 more weeks following the last CSA delivery of the normal season.  They will go until the week before Thanksgiving.  If you are unable to sign up, just email us to let us know that you would like to sign up and we can add the share to your account. 

Reminder:  Harvest Party will be September 20th.  Come between 3 or 4 to look around the farm, climb on tractors, visit animals, and have a ride in the farm gator or go kart!  There will be pumpkins to bring home and hopefully some music!  Dinner will be around 6 and we will provide burgers.  We ask that you bring a side to share.  Feel free to BYOB.  After dinner there will be a bonfire.  You are welcome to camp at the farm or check out some of the local campgrounds in Amery or Clear Lake.  Let us know if you plan on coming out!

We are getting really excited that the Amery Food Hub is really coming along.  The Farm Table restaurant will be having a soft opening this weekend for the Amery Fall Festival.  Several farmers and their crews from the Hungry Turtle Farmers' Co-op got together to do some painting of the space.  It's super exciting to see all of this coming together and it's always nice to be in the company of fellow farmers, foodies, and good food advocates in our community. 

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We have been pushing to get all of the tender crops in before the temperatures dip.  A sad and early so long to our Summer crops.  Hopefully the cold temperatures don't stick around for too long! 

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Packing day was cold and rainy this week.  Lots of sweaters and rain gear.  And there was a scramble in the flower garden to bring in as many bouquets as we could to save some color!  There's a bouquet in every room of the house to enjoy as we come in from the cold to sip hot tea and eat SOUP!  Remember this is the day before our Harvest Party.  Come dance with your farmers!

AN EVENING OF MUSIC with Chris Koza and Rogue Valley $7 September 19, 7pm at Hungry Turtle Farm 410 125th Street | Amery, WI 54001 Known as one of the Twin Cities most dynamic live acts, Rogue Valley and lead singer/songwriter Chris Koza are an internationally-recognized band who perform regularly at top Twin Cities’ venues, festivals, and have extensively toured the US sharing stages with artists such as Lucinda Williams, The Jayhawks, and Nellie McKay among others. Their songs have been featured in television and film, most recently in Twentieth Century Fox’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. SIGN UP HERE!

Turnip Rock FarmerComment