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Thursday, November 6, 2014

Parsnips, Black Radishes, Gift Box time approaches



 Hello from the farm, 
Your farmers are pleased as parsnips about the parsnip harvest this week. These sweet roots are close kin to carrots and are wonderful in a roasted veggie dinner or roasted with a beef roast.  They were shoveled from the ground with great care. Enjoy!  A few years ago we made turnip and parsnip sauerkraut and found it to be quite good. 


We are also harvesting black radishes. Black Radish Russian-style First peel the black skin off. In a bowl, grate the radishes, chop or mince green scallion, grate a carrot and dice fresh cucumber...mix together with sour cream.  If you want more of a spicy tang, use less carrot and cucumber.  If it's too spicy then use more carrot and cucumber. Use as a salad or eat on crackers. --adapted from chowhound.chow.com 


Despite the predictions for a doozy of a cold snowy winter, this fall has been pretty mild: witness the sunflower's persistence and the landscape banana plants not being zinged yet.  

Next week we'll unveil the rest of our bag of tricks as we bring in the remaining crops whose maturity coincides with the very end of the season.  We're not telling...

We got to try some of the Estonian pickled pumpkin recipe this week. Delicious!  Thank you shareholders Rein and Virginia for sharing it with us. 

 
We are getting ready to make and sell gift boxes for Christmas.  Local yummy contents include apple butter, PB pretzels, College Coffee Roasters coffee and Wilbur Buds.
Small Box 18.95
Large Box 24.95 (adds a half-pound coffee bag and pear butter)  

Surveys and the end of the harvest season
Please take a few minutes to fill out a farm survey.  We will have them available on the sign in table during these final weeks.  Your feedback will help us to grow and improve the farm for next year. Our final harvest is scheduled for November 13, 14 and 15.


 Suggestions for the harvest:

Parsnip: we're pulling out all the stops now as winter approaches. Looks a good parsnip harvest!  Great roasted with beef or in a root crop bake, as in roasted sweet potato, potato, parsnip and onion in the oven 
Funky Black Radishes: these iconic winter-loving radishes make a great salad.  See the recipe at the top of the page if you missed it. 
Napa Cabbage:  great for making Kimchee and Asian coleslaw.
Long Island Cheese squash: along with butternut squash this is one of the best tasting and best keeping winter squash and has been our favorite here at the farm for many seasons. 
Bok Choi: this Asian cabbage shines in a Japanese or Chinese stir fry, great with soy sauce, sesame oil, peanuts, garlic, garlic, ginger.  Well-suited to peanut butter sauce and/or chicken dishes.
Popcorn: homemade popcorn from our fields is just the thing for cool fall evenings.  Everyone seems to have a slightly different technique for popping popcorn but here is what works for me:
-shell the popcorn by rubbing two ears together. 
-winnow the chaff out by pouring from one pan to another in the breeze outside. (optional, the chaff doesn't seem to hurt anything)
--store in sealed container in the freezer until ready to use. 
-heat oil in a pan to cover the bottom generously
-throw in a test kernel or two
-when they pop, pour enough popcorn in to cover the bottom of the pan plus a little more, stir well to coat with oil, put lid over top of pan, allowing steam to escape, and keep shaking on high heat until popping slows considerably. Remove from heat, salt and eat! 
Pumpkin: Do you have a pumpkin lurking?   Yes, they edible, especially the tasty seeds when roasted in the oven with some oil or butter.  The pumpkin is not nearly as tasty as butternut squash, which is what is really contained in a can of so-called "pumpkin" from the store. They can also make great soup--either sweet spiced soup or curried. 
Butternut Squash: one of the very best winter squash for flavor and long keeping! Roast in the oven in halves, you can also roast the seeds as per pumpkin seeds.

Hakurei turnips: aka salad turnips.  The tasty turnips from Japan are sweet, mild, and best eaten raw.  Yum. You'll soon be a surprised turnip enthusiast!
Scarlet Queen Turnip: stunning color, can be eaten fresh or cooked, as in potato and turnips mashed. 

Indian corn/ornamental corn: this makes incredibly good and fresh cornmeal for use in cornbread, cornmeal pancakes, waffles and more!  Allow to dry a few weeks, then shell it, bring kernels to the farm and grind in our grinder. Store cornmeal in freezer if not using immediately.  
Winter squash:  firm winter squash are great for baking, "pumpkin" pie, faux spaghetti noodles in the case of spaghetti squash or halved and baked in the oven with butter and maple syrup and/or brown sugar.  The acorn and delicata squash we are harvesting now are not types intended for long storage. Use within a week or two for best results.  (The Long Island Cheese squash and butternuts that will be harvested later on are the best keepers, which is why they are at the tail end of things). 

Goodbyes:
Tomatoes, eggplants and peppers are just about finished. We still are getting some peppers and tomatoes--pretty wild for almost November!  
 Thank you to Elizabeth, Law Reh, Butch, and  all of the farmers who worked together to make a great harvest last week. 

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