Fall CSA # 7 2013

Fall CSA # 7

Hello everybody!

We're done a little early today! We hope you enjoyed your carrots and potatoes last week! We really didn't have much of those so we saved them for our CSA members as well as a little for ourselves... There will be more carrots but we are waiting for a little frost before we harvest them because it sweetens them up!  

In this weeks baskets:

1 bag of Chez Nous Mix
1 bag of Flower Sprouts
garlic
1 bag of Pea or Sunflower Shoots
Hakurei and Scarlet Queen Turnips ( can be cooked or eaten raw-leaves are also edible)
Peppers
Winter Squash

Flower Sprouts

You have already received some Flower Sprout Tops and this week we are sending out the actual sprouts.  These are suited to all green recipes and especially Brussels Sprouts recipes.  Our usual way of cooking them are to drop them in boiling salted water or stem them just until a fork easily goes into the stalk.  You will notice they smell quite cabagey cooking and turn the water purple (so take note if you are adding to soup!) but they are delicious and a green kids usually like!

Last week we went out for my birthday dinner and I was delighted to have my meal come garnished with Pea Shoots. A little while later, the table beside us was served and each person removed their pea shoots! It was hard to contain myself! I wanted to tell them your supposed to eat that! Pea Shoots and Sunflower Shoots are a new addition to our farm, they grow well, don't take much space and are highly nutritious!  Up to now we have mostly been enjoying them raw, in salads,omelettes, in sandwiches and in juices or smoothies but there are still many more options to try ... check out the recipes on this site! 
http://www.peashoots.com/peashoots-recipes.htm

I also enjoyed a wonderful winter squash soup as part of my meal.  I have had and made many winter squash soups but this one had my attention, it was really quite plain but delicious.  I made some this week and think i got it perfectly! Squash soup is really quite easy.  All you need to do is cook your squash-cut it in two and scoop out the seeds.  Rub with butter or oil and roast until cooked.  Once cooled remove flesh and it's ready to use for soup, breads or pie. For soup, brown a little onions and garlic (or use roasted garlic which can be made when you are roasting squash) add chicken broth and squash then some milk or cream a nice amount of cinnamon, some nutmeg and salt.  Puree and eat!

Red Kuri Squash (orange) Butternut (peanut), Acorn and Luxury Pie Pumpkin below. 

Here's two other recipes i use every year when i have Winter Squash I posted this last year:
http://www.cheznousfarms.com/2012/09/csa-18-and-our-busy-busy-week.html

Today we harvested all the sweet peppers. They are still green but starting to blush with a little color most will ripen when they come in but you can use them green also! We are smoking some Jalapeno's, Paprika peppers and Poblano's today. Can't wait to see how they turn out.

For those interested here's some items in your lettuce mix this week: top to bottom-left to right. Curly Endive, Spinach, Kales, Arugula, Napa piece, mustards, turnip leaf, asian greens, lettuce, sunflower green, pea shoot, radish green, herbs-lemon basil, parsley and fennel

Thanks and see you next week!

Shirley and Rick