Fall CSA #25

Good evening everybody!

And the Fall CSA begins! We would like to welcome some new members and of course thank those of you who have been around for quite a while! To be honest, I wish we could buy everything CSA style bread,meat, cheese, fruit! Last year, we started ordering in bottled, whole, unhomogenized milk (you know the stuff with the nice cream on top!) I guess it's the closest were going to get to raw milk which is what i would really like, anyway, knowing my milk is waiting for me every week is awesome! I guess I don't really like shopping much and hate for things that i depend on not being there.

So today, we embark this journey of Chez Nous Farms 2014 Fall baskets, we have more growing than ever before and i bet next year there will be even more...there such a learning curve when it comes to tackling something such as growing food and yes, we are finally getting there! This season will be filled with lots of greens which you will notice getting sweeter as temps gets colder- we also have carrots, turnips, beets, radishes- potato and onions in storage- once we plant our newly ordered garlic we should have the smaller pieces that we didn't plant to send out, there will also be hot sauce samples etc... Should be fun!

And by the way, our newsletter is usually posted Friday nights or if not Saturday morning at www.cheznousfarms.com under the newsletter tab.

In your basket this week:

-Chez Nous Mix ( getting bolder with mustards and cress in the mix..you can go bold with the dressing too!)

- Kale Mix

-Kohlrabi plus greens (the greens are delicious)

-Bok Choy

-Celery Leaves

-Peppers/Tomato mix


Juicing upgrade: Pea Shoots, Beet Greens and an extra salad mix

We still have some tomatoes... and I have begun to make some green tomato relish.   If you would like to try some green tomatoes- just give us a shout.

Bok Choy- Beautiful isn't it? For now we are harvesting "Cut and come again style".  This green is new to me and I am just learning how to cook with it.  I have seen many recipes online use whole baby bok choy but this stuff is the regular size.  I did cook it up one way that i enjoyed this week though:
I browned a good 1/4 of butter and added some garlic. I first fried the stems which were cut up into bite size pieces and then added the greens last.

I did find a really good link to cooking bok choy and plan on trying a few of the recipes: How to cook Bok Choy and recipes

And next is celery leaf we have been using a ton of this lately- in sandwiches, green juices, casseroles, soup/broth etc...  Today i made a delicious  salad dressing - it was a twist on one of my favorites called Mme Karolynn's Dressing (named after an old co-worker!) The recipe calls for celery salt and i used leaves and a small onion and pureed in my vitamix here's the link: My favorite dressings

Red Kitten Spinach 

Yukina Savoy found in your salad mix

Now that greens are taking a bigger spot in baskets...we are looking forward to some cooler (not cold!) weather if not it's a race to get them done before it gets hots out.

Our salad mix is ever changing and usually included every week.

Since we have added the chicken moat it's so easy to feed the chicken garden scraps all day long! They follow us around the farm lol! It was a relief to have them laying strong this week after the stress they suffered of being mixed together. Here you see our layers (red sex link-brown) and our meat birds ( white heritage chanteclers)

And last, if you could have spied on me the last two days you would have noticed me twitching a little more than usual! You see, I always feel things tickling me and think it's a bug and flick well, nothing, off. However, this time I heard a thump and omg it was a big hairy spider crawling on my neck, of all places! I did scoop this guy up on a stick and set him free! Ewww!

See you next week!