CSA Farm Newsletter Week 13 (September 18-23, 2023)

Farm Newsletter Week 13

September 18-23, 2023    |    “A” Week

Cauliflower is showing up in your box this week.

What’s in the Box this Week?

CAULIFLOWER ~ To store: Wrap dry, unwashed cauliflower loosely in plastic and store it in the refrigerator. It will keep for up to a week. To prep: Remove the leaves (which you can eat like kale). Cut out the hard core. Serve raw on vegetable trays with a thick dip. To steam: cut off florets and steam for 5 minutes. Drizzle with butter and lemon juice. To roast: drizzle with olive oil and salt/pepper, bake at 450 degrees on a foil lined cookie sheet for 20 minutes, then sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top. To freeze: Blanch 2-4 minutes in boiling salt water. Soak in ice water bath for 4 minutes. Drain, let dry, and pack into Ziplock containers.

WHITE POTATOES, 1 QUART (Mile Creek Farm) ~ To store: Keep unwashed potatoes in a cool, dark, dry place, such as a loosely closed paper bag in a cupboard. They will keep for two weeks at room temperature. Light turns them green, and proximity to onions causes them to sprout. Don’t put them in the refrigerator, as low temperatures convert the starch to sugars. To prep: Scrub well and cut off any sprouts or green skin. Peeling is a matter of preference. In soups, the skins may separate from the flesh and float in the broth, but when baked, pan- fried or roasted, the skins acquire a crisp, crunchy texture. To cook: Boil potatoes in water for 20-30 minutes until tender. If desired, mash them. Use potatoes in soups, hash browns, and salads. Roast sliced or whole small potatoes with fresh herbs, salt, and olive oil at 400 degrees until tender, about 20 minutes. To freeze: Cool cooked or mashed potatoes and freeze them in a Ziplock bag.

SALSA PACK ~ This will include 6 red roma tomatoes, 4 tomatillos, 1 small garlic, 2 sweet onions, and 1 jalapeno.

TOMATILLO ~ You’ll find these tomatillos in your salsa pack. The tomatillo, or “husk tomato” is important in authentic Mexican cooking and is best known for its central role in salsa verde, or green sauce. To store: Store at room temperature with husks on, for 2 weeks. For longer-term storage, refrigerate in husks in a plastic bag. To prep: Remove husk before eating. Wash. Chop to desired size. To cook: Use tomatillos to make salsa verde with garlic, onion, hot chili pepper, lime juice, fresh cilantro, and salt. They are often roasted first. To freeze: Remove the husk and wash. Freeze whole in a Ziplock freezer bag.

Jose picks green beans for last week’s share.

RED TURNIPS ~ Turnips are a root vegetable, related to arugula and radishes, which are members of the mustard family. Large or old turnips can be unpleasantly “hot” if not cooked properly or combined with the proper vegetables (like potatoes), but younger turnips add great zip to dishes. They are best in the fall or spring, when they are small and sweet. To store: Remove the greens from the turnips and store in a plastic bag to use within 3 days. The turnip roots should be stored in a plastic bag in the crisper drawer of your fridge for up to a week. To prep: Cut off the green tops (which can be eaten as well). Wash and cut the white roots into wedges or slices. To cook: Serve raw with dip in a veggie tray. Or grate and add them to a salad. Turnips are delicious when roasted with other root vegetables (like carrot, potatoes, rutabaga, garlic). Add a turnip or two to your favorite mashed potato recipe. Or add them into soups and stews. To freeze: Blanch for 3 minutes in hot boiling water. Cool in ice water for 3 minutes, drain and pack into freezer containers or freezer bags.

RED ONIONS (QT) ~ To store: Red and yellow storage onions may be kept in any cool, dark, dry place with adequate air circulation for several months if they are cured. Do not store them next to potatoes. Fresh onion will need to be stored in a plastic bag in the fridge and use within 2 weeks. To prep: Peel the onion’s skin and cut off the roots and top. Save your papery onion skins in a bag in your freezer reserved for making vegetable stock. If you encounter a little rot in your onion, just cut away the bad sections. If there are a few black spots, rinse the whole onion in cool water and rub the spots off with your thumbs. To freeze: Cut or slice onions to desired size and place in freezer Ziplock bag. Remove all the air and seal. It helps to freeze them in 2-3 cup increments.

CHERRY TOMATOES, MIXED COLORS (pint) ~ To store: We store our cherry tomatoes in the fridge for longer shelf life, but bring them to room temperature before eating. Wash well. Tomatoes can be frozen whole with the skin on. The skins will slide right off when they thaw. Simply pop the washed tomatoes whole into a Ziplock bag. Thawed tomatoes are appropriate only for cooking sauces, salsas, or purees.

RED GLOBE TOMATO (2) ~ The basic slicer tomato. Store these on the counter until ripe. Then transfer to the fridge to keep them from spoiling. Tomatoes can be frozen whole in a Ziplock bag with their skin on. These will have a lot of juice in them. They are great for canning whole tomatoes or making juice, FYI.

Last week’s CSA box was a beauty!

DELICATA WINTER SQUASH (2) ~  This winter squash is oblong and cream-colored with dark green stripes and flecks along its length. They are harvested in the fall months. To store: Store in a cool, dry, dark place at around 50 degrees, but make sure they do not freeze. Under the best conditions, they should keep for 3-4 months. And they get sweeter in storage as the starch converts to sugar. To prep: To bake, slice in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds, and place facedown on a cookie sheet. Add 1/2 inch of water to pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes until shells are soft and starting to collapse. Remove and fill with butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, seasoning or fillings. You can also just cut the squash into rounds and bake it. the skins of this squash are edible. To freeze: Simply cook squash and mash or puree it. Then pour it into ice cube trays or directly into Ziplocks and freeze.

SWEET CORN (6 ears), FINAL WEEK ~ (not organic, non-GMO, from David Bench Farms) ~ To store: Refrigerate sweet corn as soon as possible with husks on. The longer you wait to eat it, the more sugar will turn into starch, and the corn will lose its \ sweetness. To prep: You can eat corn raw or cook it in the husks. Shuck the cob by pulling the husks down the ear and snapping off the stem. The silks will fall off as you cook the corn. Rinse under cold water. If you see a green worm, just cut out the damaged section — the rest of the cob is still edible! To cut the kernels off the cob, stand the cob upright on its base and run a sharp knife from the tip of the ear down to the base. To cook: Steam corn in 1-2 inches of water for 6-10 minutes, or drop ears into boiling water for 3-6 minutes. Season with butter or salt. You can also grill corn in the husk — place the corn in its husk in water for 10 minutes — then place on grill for 15 minutes. To freeze: Blanch on the cob for 3-5 minutes, rinse under cold water, and drain. Cut off the kernels with a knife, and then pack it into airtight freezer containers.

LOTS OF DIFFERENT SWEET PEPPERS: RED SNACK SIZE SWEET PEPPERS (1 pint); ITALIAN RED/ORANGE FRY PEPPERS (4); POBLANOS (4) ~ To store: Refrigerate peppers unwashed in a sealed plastic bag in the crisper drawer for 1-2 weeks. To prep: Cut in half and remove the seeds from the inside. Slice, chop or mince. Try making stuffed peppers! (These can also be frozen). To freeze: Wash and dry peppers. Freeze whole or cut into bite-size pieces and place in Ziplock freezer bag, removing as much air as possible.

CUSTOMER PHOTO OF THE WEEK!

Cory Wolin prepared this beautiful succotash dish with Citizen Salmon scallops.

This week, I awarded Cory Wolin with the honor of our Customer Photo of the Week. Honestly, I could have given this prize to Cory every week — his stuff is always so unique and inspirational and beautiful. I felt like this dish was particularly accessible to the masses, as much as it was colorful and beautifully plated. I also loved how he highlights our partner fishery Citizen Salmon Alaska.

WEEK 13 ADD-ON SHARES: We are Week “A” 

Odd-numbered weeks of our CSA season (week 1,3,5) are called “A” weeks. And even-numbered weeks (week 2,4,6) are called “B” weeks. If you have any kind of non-veggie, bi-weekly share, you have been assigned to either “A” or “B” week for the season. If you get a cheese share, it always comes on Week “A.”

Fruit Share (not organic):

APPLE CIDER ~ 1/2 gallon. From Quarry Hill Orchard. Pasteurized. Store in fridge and drink within a week.

MCINTOSH APPLES ~ (via Quarry Hill Orchard) – Considered an all-purpose apple, McIntosh apples are good for eating and cooking. They are well known as a dessert apple that breaks down quickly and requires a shorter cook time than most others. When picked, McIntosh apples are sweet, juicy, and tart with a bit of spice to the flavor. Store them in a plastic bag in your crisper drawer of your fridge until use.

PEACHES ~ (via Quarry Hill Orchard) – these are the last of the season! Store these in a plastic bag in your crisper drawer of the fridge.

Ice Cream Flavor of the Week:

Mint Oreo from Knueven Creamery.Be sure to stop by their truck at each of the pickup sites to grab your milk and ice cream order.

Artisan Cheese Share:

Quark, Garlic Quark from Blue Jacket Creamery. Try using this like you would cream cheese for baking. I like to spread it on a piece of bread and toss some seasoning on top! This is a very popular cheese in Germany!

Gretna Grilin, Halloumi style cheese from Blue Jacket Creamery – This is a great melting cheese!

Cranberry Orange Chevre from MacKenzie Creamery.

Coffee Flavor of the Week:

Steel Magnolias: Maddie & Bella Coffee Company  (milk chocolate, cherry, cinnamon, women-owned)

Christine Zychowicz made this stew with collards. You have until Monday to enter the Chopped Challenge!

7-DAY CHOPPED CHALLENGE: Collard Comfort Foods

It’s our next CSA Challenge, and this one features a tricky ingredient: Collards.

How it works:

1. Create a “comfort food” dish that uses collards in some way. NOTE: It MUST be a “comfort food” AND use collards in order to qualify for judging!!
2. Take a photo of the finished product and post it by September 18th at 8 PM in the private Facebook group (or email it to me).
3. Hashtag it #collardchoppedchallenge so we can find your entry!
4. You can only enter this week’s challenge ONCE.

Now this challenge is different than others, because it’s actually ALSO our qualifying round for the “CHOPPED: SLF Edition” competition, happening at Cork and Knife Provisions on October 13th.

Four winners will be chosen from this week’s challenge, and they will face off for 2 rounds in our own rendition of the famous “CHOPPED” TV cooking show at Cork & Knife’s kitchen and dining room on October 13th. In each round, our contestants will have to create an appetizer, main, or dessert in 30 minutes, using the mystery ingredients provided at their station.

Don’t worry! SLF members will be invited to attend this ticketed event on October 13! Guests will watch the competition unfold, cheer on their favorite contestants, order bevs and snack on the light menu, and listen to the rounds of judging.

The winner of the Chopped Competition on October 13 receives the enviable title of “SLF Chopped Champion” as well as a sweet prize package.

If you think you’d be a great contestant for Chopped: SLF on October 13, then please submit an entry for the Collard Comfort Food Challenge by this next Monday, September 18!

NOTE: We will host a second Chopped Challenge in a few weeks to find our final 4 contestants! So if you don’t get chosen for this one, you can still have a chance to qualify later with a different contest.

(PS: If you don’t want to compete in the Chopped Competition, you can still participate in the Collard Challenge — just make sure you tell us in your post that you don’t want to be considered during judging).

Pedro and the crew harvest fennel for a large wholesale contract last week.

FARMER KURT’S FIELD NOTES

This week we’re featuring cauliflower in the box! I used to have a hard time growing these. The secret is timing the planting right and getting enough irrigation to them. The fertility program is also important for this crop. I hope you enjoy it. I should be able to give it to you one more time in the CSA box.

I moved a LOT of food these last two weeks. This is one of my wholesale windows that I have to hit every year. Although the CSA and online store funds about 60% of our annual income, we also rely on our wholesale accounts to make up the rest. The way we structure our business cash flow, the CSA basically gets us through August.(This is why we ask you to pay a 50% deposit up front when you renew, so we can pay the farm expenses in the first half of our year). After that point, the wholesale income takes over and gets us through the rest of the year.

That means, there are certain pockets of the year where my crew also has to buckle down and harvest a bunch of extra food. For example, last week, we moved an entire box truck full of pallets of melons, peppers, and tomatoes to the Ohio CAN program. We also moved a whole other truck of fennel.  I time these contracts so that they fall within a certain period in the CSA season, when I know I can manage them. You’ll also see us doing a lot of wholesale fulfillment the last weeks of October and into November, on the end of the season.

The crew picked a bunch of habanero peppers for a wholesale contract last week. Here they are washing them.

One of the crops I have for wholesale is fennel. I love this crop for wholesale because I get a good price for it, AND it’s really easy to harvest, so my labor expense is very low. Speaking of fennel, we are on the fence about whether to include it in the CSA box this season. Every year, I feel like I get feedback from many people that they don’t like it, end up throwing it away, etc. Right now, I’m leaning towards only offering it in the online store for a couple weeks — just for the few of you who really like the stuff. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

Our neighbor Josh blessed us this week by spreading more of his cow manure and our leaf mulch on next year’s tomato and pepper fields. We came home last night from dinner and found him working deep into the night! We barter for manure and help each other out. I’m so grateful. I keep telling Corinna, “Do you know how awesome this is that we get free manure for our fields AND that he spread it for me?!!” Unfortunately, it does have a ripe smell, and since he spread it right next to our driveway (on those fields), it’s a bit strong outside. I plan to disc it in before the Field to Table dinner this weekend. (Corinna has ordered me to do this! LOL). The only downside besides the smell is that Daisy (our dog) likes to go out and find these little pieces of manure and eat them. We call them “poop cakes.” And it’s pretty disgusting to see it happen. ‘Nuf said.

Neighbor Josh spreads manure on the future tomato fields.

I should be able to get the rest of the tomato canner orders out this coming week! The plants are starting to die back — especially my cherry tomatoes and heirlooms. I think this might be the last week you’ll see the cherries in your box. That wind storm a few weeks ago that knocked over my tomatoes really did a number on them — those 2 days they were lying on their side gave them major blight.

I’ve got electric in the pack shed at last! This week, I’m working on installing lights. But I feel less pressure, because worst case, I could stick my big plug-in light in the space and get the pack shed through the last hour of pack night. I figured out how to do it by watching a YouTube video! Probably saved myself a good chunk of money too. Today I head out to buy some more conduit.

This is what an ERC cutter looks like. You can see the plans it is cutting out.

Josiah and Jed have been building more airplanes and flying them around. Jed bought himself an “ERC Cutter.” This is a program-controlled machine (like a CNC machine) for foamboard. Now he can just upload the plans for his airplanes, stick a sheet of Dollar Store foamboard in the machine, and it cuts it out for him in under 10 minutes. It’s made the process of building machines a lot faster (and less expensive).

The boys took Noah and John out to the back forest near our house and hunted for paw-paws. They shook a few trees and loaded up with two buckets full of fruit! I think Noah is going to take it home and make beer or wine from it. My hope is that one day my own orchard will produce a nice crop (for us) of paw-paws.

Corinna is roasting sweet peppers on a sheet pan this weekend.

Corinna is roasting peppers in the kitchen today — in large quantities to freeze. It smells heavenly in there. Hope you’re storing up your extra produce for the winter months! As always, thanks for supporting us this year. I look forward to seeing some of you at our Field to Table dinner this Friday!

~Your Farmer, Kurt

PS: (from Corinna… It’s Farmer Kurt’s birthday on Tuesday September 19! Be sure you say Happy Birthday to him at the pickup site, or drop him a 4-pack of cool brewskys or Ale-8!)

Every week, we donate LOTS of produce to the Toledo University Church. Here’s a picture of their loaded car!

WEEK 13 ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. The Field to Table Dinner is THIS Friday, September 22, at 6 PM is now sold out. ​View the menu here.​ There will not be “tickets” for this event. You’ll simply check in and find your seats. If you have purchased this dinner, look for an email from Cork and Knife Provisions this week with details on when to arrive, what to wear, what to bring, etc. Don’t forget to BYO wine and glasses, and maybe a jacket in case it gets chilly.
2. Save the Date! Our Farm’s “Chopped! SLF Edition” Cooking Competition will take place at Cork and Knife’s beautiful location in Toledo, on October 13th. Our contestants for this competition will be chosen from this week’s Collards Comfort Foods Challenge. We’ll sell tickets to the live event, where you can watch our finalists duke it out for the coveted prize of “SLF Chopped Champion.” Details will follow in next week’s newsletter on how to order tickets for this event. It will be limited to 50-60 people, so keep that in mind!!
3. You can now pre-order Canning tomatoes (30 lb for $30) from the farm. To place your pre-order, FILL OUT THIS GOOGLE FORM. If you cannot fill it out, then email me your order. Tell me how many boxes you want and what type (Roma or Globe), and what your pickup site is. I’ll send out an email a few days before your pickup to let you know they are coming. .Payment is expected at the time of pickup.You can choose from these two tomato canner products:
   1. ROMA TOMATOES — you’ll get 30 lbs of these classic, oval-shaped, paste tomatoes. These are best used for sauce and salsa, since they have a lower water content. Price: $30
   2. GLOBE TOMATOES – you’ll get 30 lbs. of the classic round tomato. These are best used for canning whole tomatoes. This will be enough to can 8 quarts (or 16 pints) in your canner. Price: $30
   3. GOLDEN ROMA TOMATOES — you’ll get 30 lbs. of the orange roma tomatoes. These are priced a bit higher at $35.
4. You can order additional items from the Shared Legacy Farms online store. Our store link is super easy to remember: www.sharedlegacyfarms.com/store. Just be sure to select the right pickup site that coincides with your pickup location. If the pickup option is greyed out or not available, it means you missed the window to order. You need to place your order 36 hours before your site. We harvest the product on Monday and Wednesday mornings — early. This week, the store will have: sweet corn (by the bushel, or half dozen, not organic); dandelion greens, cauliflower (40), chard, Asian pears, plums, yellow potatoes, celery, delicata squash, kohlrabi, shishito peppers (10 count); red beets, gold beets, red turnips, red sweet snacking peppers; poblano (4-pack); ground cherries; green tomatoes; banana peppers (hot or sweet); maple syrup, Rowdy Rider sauces (sweet bourbon glaze, and BBQ sauce); extra flower bouquets, Tuscan Olive Oil

WEEK 13 CSA RECIPES

Members: You can download these recipes as a PDF here.    These recipes are designed to inspire you to use your box this week! Please check inside our private Facebook group to find your fellow members sharing ideas for what to make with their box! Share a photo and you might be featured in next week’s newsletter!

Chicken Fajita Freezer Meal

15 minute Cauliflower and Corn Skillet

Easy Cauliflower Bell Pepper Stir Fry

Stuffed Italian Frying Peppers

Roasted Delicata Squash Salad with Warm Pickled Onion Dressing

Delicata Squash Egg Bake

Creamy Potato Salad with Lemon and Fresh Herbs

Pickled Hakuri Turnips

Spanish Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

Thai Turkey Meatballs with Coconut Broth and Noodles

Pickled Cherry Tomatoes 

Crockpot Tomato Sauce 

Crispy Corn Fritters 

Hearty Corn Chowder 

Autumn Apple Chicken