Week 15- Two more to go!

Hi everyone,
Hope you all are having a good week so far.
Things are really feeling like fall at the farm. The hills are starting to color up, apples, pears and black walnuts are ready, and the summer birds are leaving as the winter birds start showing up.
This year I've been paying a lot more attention to all the butterflies we have around here. Lucky Moon is a great place to find them because they love all the flowers and the diversity of plant life on the farm. Right now I've been watching all the monarch butterflies getting what nectar they can from the asters and zinnias before heading south on their epic journey. It's incredible that such a delicate insect could fly all the way to Mexico!

In other news, we got all the pumpkins in today. There are plenty of great pie pumpkins to distribute in the CSA and some nice Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins for sale at the farm, if you're interested. If you've never used a cooking pumpkin before, check out my post from last November titled "Late Fall and a Bountiful Harvest." Also, there are some beautiful garlic braids as well as Lucky Moon Maple Syrup for sale. They make great presents (especially for that person who already has everything... I have a few of those in my family) or are nice additions to your own pantry. The syrup comes in pints for $10 or quarts for $16 and the garlic comes in large braids (10 bulbs) for $17 or small braids (7 bulbs) for $10.50. If you're interested, let me know or feel free to stop by the farm.

(Sue's look nicer than this picture, but it was the best I could find online...)

Here's what's in the bags this week:
Spinach
Yellow Onion
Hot Peppers
Green & Yellow Beans
"Keuka Gold" Potatoes
Tomatoes
Acorn Squash

Here's a quick spinach recipe:

Sauteed Spinach w/ Roasted Garlic, Sun-dried Tomatoes and Feta
Spinach (~10 oz)
3 T. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 cup onions, chopped
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 cup sherry (I read that apple juice can be used as a substitute)
1/4 cup lemon juice
5 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup feta
salt & pepper to taste
1) Over medium heat, saute garlic and onions in olive oil until golden brown, about 2 minutes.
2) Add sun dried tomatoes, then add sherry and lemon juice and reduce by a third (about 3 minutes)
3) Add butter, and toss until it melts, then add the spinach. Cover and stir occasionally until slightly wilted and warm (about 3 minutes). Add feta and cook until slightly melted. Add salt and pepper to taste.

And in case you still have that red cabbage from last week, here's a recipe from someone in the CSA that comes highly recommended!

Autumn Salad (serves 4)

4 tsp. olive oil

1 Tbsp. white wine vinegar

2 tsp. honey

1/4 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

3 medium sweet-tart apples (Braeburn, Empire), quartered and thinly sliced crosswise

1 1/2 c. thinly sliced red cabbage

1/3 c. crumbled mild blue cheese

1/4 c. thinly sliced red onion

1/4 c. coarsely chopped toasted walnuts

Whisk oil, vinegar, honey, salt and pepper in large bowl. add remaining ingredients, tossing to combine.

(from Prevention, October 2010)

Week 14- Last Day of Summer

So it's a sad day... the last day of summer. Sigh...
But fall is a great time of the year, too. Apples, pies, leaves turning colors, pumpkins and winter squash and that wonderful nip in the air- all things I really like.

Here's what's in your bags this week:
Salad Mix
Red Cabbage
Shallots
Green & Wax Beans
Delicata Winter Squash
Russet Potatoes (great for baking)
Carrots
Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes

A few people have asked me about cooking winter squash, and the general method is the same for all of them, though there are plenty of other ways to cook them if you care to do some investigating. I typically cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy parts and bake cut-side down in a greased baking dish at 350 until the rind can be pierced with a fork and the flesh is tender. Serving it with butter and salt is a great start, but feel free to look up some recipes for more ideas. Allrecipes.com is a very helpful website for finding more recipes than you could ever try.

It's very late, so I'm off to bed, but I'll try and get some recipes up this week, so check back in a day or so.
Thanks!
Sarah

Sep. 22nd
And here they are:
Balsamic Roasted Carrots
4-6 carrots, quartered lengthwise
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

1) Preheat oven to 450
2)In a roasting pan, combine the carrots, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Toss to coat. Roast for 20-25 minutes, tossing occasionally, until lightly caramelized and tender but still firm.

Potato, Red Onion (or shallot) Arugula and Brie Pizza
These aren't all from this week, but you might have things left over from previous weeks, and this recipe looked really good:
Pizza Dough
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups sliced (red) onions
salt & pepper
12 ounces potatoes, thinly sliced
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
6 oz Brie, thinly sliced
1 cup loosely packed Arugula leaves
1 med. red pepper (sweet), charred, peeled and finely chopped (cut pepper in half, seed it, place cut-side down on a baking sheet, and broil until the skin is charred black. Once it cools, the skin should peel off very easily)

1) Prepare your pizza dough, however you please, and preheat the oven to 500.
2) Saute the onions with the olive oil until crisp-tender, about 3-5 minutes
3) In a medium saucepan, blanch the potatoes in lightly salted boiling water until crisp-tender. Cool in cold water (w/ ice, if possible) to stop the cooking, drain.
4) Sprinkle the Parmesan over the pizza dough, layer the potatoes evenly on top, followed by the onions and the slices of Brie. Season with salt & pepper.
5) Bake the pizza for 12-15 minutes on the top rack. Scatter the Arugula and red pepper on top and serve immediately.
YUM!

Week 13... hopefully that's not too ominous

Hi everyone,
Well, the veggies are still going pretty strong despite the advance of more fall-like weather! We just picked three buckets full of new green beans this evening and harvested the first of the winter squash.
Here's what's in the bags this week:
Salad mix (baby swiss chard, baby spinach, beet greens and lettuce)
Red Onion
Sweet Peppers
Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes
Broccoli
Radishes
Beets (red and golden)
"Satina" Potatoes (yellow)
Spaghetti Squash
Eggplant- for full shares this week

We're hoping to keep going with the distribution for another 4 weeks, but that will be somewhat dependent on the weather.

Now that fall is getting going, I'm really starting to crave apples! Here in New York, we are right in the thick of prime apple country, and there are lots of great local places to buy delicious varieties of apples or pick your own. I just heard yesterday from someone in the CSA that there is a new organic (soon to be certified) apple orchard that just opened up in Jamesville, NY. Apples are a very tricky crop to grow to market standards using organic methods, so I'm very excited and interested to hear that there's one starting up right in our backyard! The orchard is called Adam's Acres and it's located on 7047 Sevier Rd, Jamesville, NY. Their website is: www.adamsacres.net
I'm hoping to make it out there this weekend because they're picking Honeycrisps right now and that ranks pretty high on my list of favorite apples.

It's great to have organic options, and I try and go for those whenever possible because I believe farming practices that refuse to use synthetic pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers are better for the environment and better for the health of the people who grow and eat the food. I also try and buy as much of my food locally as I can, too. Sometimes you can get both in the same product (organically & locally grown) but often you have to choose between an organic option, a local option and a (typically) cheaper option that's neither local nor organic. I certainly shop on a tight budget, so price does come into consideration. What it comes down to, in my opinion, is a balancing act. I hope that over time, organic and locally grown produce will become more common and more affordable in our grocery stores. Farmers' Markets are great ways to find both local and organic items, but I don't always have time to get there. In fact I rarely do because I work during the hours of the market in our town. But when and where I can, I try to get organic and local, or at least one of the two. Whether one is more important than the other probably depends on your priorities, but I think if you can try to choose one or the other more often than the "mainstream" option, it helps make a better food system more possible for our country.

Enough soap-boxing... Enjoy your veggies!
Sarah

Week 12 - First week of September

Hi everyone,
So I'm feeling pretty soggy- how about you? We've gotten drenched the last few days, which hasn't been good timing for the veggies. Many of the crops are winding down now, and dry weather helps keep them from going bad in the field. But so far things are alright. I just hope this doesn't become a trend for September. We need a beautiful Indian Summer! Maybe if we all collectively hope for good weather, it will make an impact. You never know... :>)

So due to the rain on Wednesday, we had to alter the shares slightly from Tuesday to Thursday.

"ailsa craig" onion

But here's what's in your bags:
Summer Squash- this is probably the last of it, or close to it
Cucumbers
"Ailsa Craig" onion
Hot Peppers (Chilipeno & Hungarian Hotwax for the small shares, 1 poblano and 2 chilipenos for the large shares)
"Augusta" potatoes
Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Edamame (aka Soy beans)- the easiest way to cook them is 1) rinse the pods 2) toss them in boiling water for a little less than 10 minutes, when the pods start to break open 3) shell, salt to taste, and serve! (you may want to reheat the beans after shelling them, in case they got cold)
-I'm new to Edamame, so if you have a prefered way of eating them, let me know!

Tuesday: Salad mix & Arugula
Thursday: Beet Greens (big bag)

edamame

I'll try to add some recipes to this later.
Hope you're all doing well and adjusting to your fall schedules!
Sarah VanNorstrand
for Lucky Moon Farm