Views from the Drumlin

Crop Update and CSA Pickup 1/8/09

January is the slowest month of the year on the farm.  We have finalized the crop plan, our seed ordering is almost finished, and all the tractor implements have been stored safely indoors. While we are cherishing the relaxing days it doesn't mean nothing is going on here at the farm.

This week, we donated our old seeds (and seeds of crops we aren’t planting this season) to Gaining Ground, a farm in Concord that donates all of its produce to food pantries and meal programs. We are also hoping to donate seed to the gardening program at the Northeast Correctional Institute in West Concord, where inmates in a pre-release program grow their own veggies and run their own restaurant.

Our fourth winter CSA pick-up will be this Thursday and we are starting to plan the 2009 Summer CSA.  

See you on the farm,
Ellie
 

WINTER RECIPES:
January (aka Pink) Latkes

• Grate 2 large beets, 5 medium potatoes, 4 carrots, and 1 large onion in a mixing bowl.
• Beat 4 eggs and pour into veggies. 
• Add about ¾ cup flour, or enough to give the mixture some thickness. 
• Stir and add salt/pepper/chili powder to taste.
• Heat skillet on high with olive or vegetable oil.  Scoop out mixture and fry on both sides.  If latkes are not holding their shape, add more flour.
• Serve with sour cream or apple sauce.  (And watch out, if your sour cream is not organic, it may have high fructose corn syrup/starch as an ingredient!)

This is a recipe I created when I thought: “Oh my god, so much butternut squash!”

Butternut Squash Curry with Rice

1 large butternut squash
1 large onion
2 Tbsp. Minced garlic
2 Tbsp. Minced ginger
1 tsp. Cardamom
1 tsp. Coriander
3 Tbsp butter
1 tsp. Red curry paste
1 can coconut milk
2 Tbsp. Fish sauce
Lime
2 cups White or Brown Rice

• Halve, seed and roast one large butternut at 400 degrees, for about 40 minutes (or until you can stick a fork easily into it). 
• While squash is roasting, steam the rice and let it sit. 
• To prepare curry chop onion, ginger, and garlic. 
• Heat frying pan with butter, on med-high heat. Add onion and garlic and saute for five minutes. 
• Add ginger, red curry paste, cardamom, coriander, and salt to the pan.  Mix until onions are coated. 
• When squash is done, cut off skin, cube squash and mash half of it with a fork. 
• Add all of the squash to the pan, cook for a few minutes. 
• Add coconut milk, stir until mixed evenly with mashed squash. 
• Add fish sauce and lime juice to taste. 
• Serve curry over the rice. 

And a few more great ideas from Epicurious.com
Turnip Gratin
(You can also use rutabaga!)
Hearty Rutabaga, Turnip, and Carrot Soup

FOR CSA MEMBERS ONLY:

THIS WEEK’S CSA PICK-UP

• Carrots
• Celeriac
• Parsnips
• Potatoes
• Rutabaga
• Black Radish
• Butternut Squash
• Queensland Blue

Posted by Ellie Lobovits, farm apprentice

Food in the News and CSA Pickup 12/18

FOOD IN THE NEWS:

Below are a two links to recent articles on sustainable farming, food justice, and food security. These are issues that have always been important, but are just now gaining media attention.

Secretary of Food
New York Times, Dec 11, 2008 By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Michael Pollan's Open Letter to the Next Farmer-in-Chief
New York Times, October 10, 2008

The veggie of the week is daikon (which will be in CSA members' shares this week). Here are some great ways to enjoy this storage radish.

Raw:

• Daikon Chips: Peel daikon with carrot peeler (optional step). Cut into thin circular discs. Dip into ice water to make them curl. Serve on a plate with hummus or your favorite sour cream/ yogurt dip!

• Grated Daikon: Grate raw daikon with a cheese grater. Sprinkle over salad, miso soup, or tuna cooked Japanese style (raw on the inside, fried lightly on both sides in soy sauce).

• Check out a great recipe for pickled daikon

FOR CSA MEMBERS ONLY

I hope you are enjoying all of your veggies from the farm.  I fell in love with one of our vegetables last week- the red meat radish!  I ate it for the first time--sliced thinly, sautéed with olive oil, onions, and collard greens, and put over pasta.  Besides the fact that I was stunned by it’s bright red flesh (what a contrast to it’s dirty, white exterior),  I loved the sweet only slightly peppery flavor. Who knew storage radish could be so good?   Matt likes to shave off the thin white outer layer and only cook the red interior. If you do that the radish resembles tuna sashimi, purplish when cooked and perfectly tender.  

This week's share includes a new radish- daikon! Over the next four weeks we will be alternating daikon radish with black radish.   Daikon is a super-food!  It contains the active enzyme myrosinase that aids digestion, particularly of starchy foods.

See you Thursday,

Ellie

This week’s pick-up:

• Beets

• Cabbage - last week

• Carrots

• Celeriac

• Parsnips

• Potatoes

• Butternut Squash

• Queensland Blue Squash (for full shares only) - last week

• Daikon Radish

• Turnips

--Posted by Ellie, Drumlin farm crops apprentice

Winter Recipes and CSA News

We hope that everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving. Hopefully some locally grown Drumlin Farm food was a part of your meal!  This year for the holiday I tried out stuffed blue hubbard squash and sour cream pumpkin pie –both were full of fresh farm goodness. 

Photo: Winter CSA work-share members harvest root vegetables in Boyce Field.  This is an opportunity for members to harvest the food they will eat during the winter.

Here are a few winter recipes that use the veggies we grow here on the farm:

Winter Kale and Roasted-Potato Winter Salad

Sherry Vinegar and Molasses Glazed Carrots

Celeriac Mash

I also have two cookbook recommendations.  Both of these cookbooks help you cook with vegetables that are in season and are great for CSA members who sometimes receive vegetables they have never cooked with before:

Farmer John's Cookbook

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone - Deborah Madison
One of the biggest complaints about joining a CSA is that members don’t know what to do with the vegetables. That’s simply because they have not read Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone yet. Deborah’s cookbook functions like a vegetable instruction manual or, as Amazon calls it, “a virtual book of culinary revelations.”

FOR CSA MEMBERS ONLY:

The bread share from B&R Artisan Breads will start NEXT pick-up, on Dec. 18th.  The share will cost $60, for a total of 6 pick-ups.  Each week the pick-up will include two types of bread, one basic loaf and one specialty loaf with ingredients like fruit, nuts, or spelt flour.

You will receive the sign-up form in your email.

CSA News and Crops Update

The height of the crops season has now passed and we are gearing up for our winter CSA.  The summer was an incredibly abundant time and our team of six apprentices, Matt the farm manager, and our two devoted volunteers Anne and Fred, worked incredibly hard to harvest all of those huge eggplant and heirloom tomatoes, prickly okra, majestic sunflowers, bright purple and yellow cauliflower, and the dozens of other fruits and veggies we grow here. 

In October, we harvested most of our winter veggies including: sweet potatoes, winter squash, beets, turnips, radish, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and celeriac, with the help of our CSA work share members.  They are now being stored in our root cellar, which we hope to have down to about 38 degrees soon!  All of this warm weather has slowed down the cooling process (i.e. the fan that blows cold air in), but it has also allowed us to continue harvesting late plantings of greens, bok choi, radish, cauliflower, and lettuce.  During the past couple of weeks we delivered these veggies to local stores and restaurants, in our awesome Drumlin Farm truck with a huge beet on its sides, so that people could continue eating local. It was so exciting to see people in Boston and Cambridge walking by the truck and reading the side- community-based farming in Lincoln?  To have a part in making local, sustainable, agriculture visible in the city is a great thing.     

At the farmers markets we have seen a big increase in WIC and Farmer's Markets Elder Coupons, both of which we accept just like cash.  This might just be one of the best government-supported programs ever- making organically grown vegetables accessible to everyone.   

This week we will be putting together next year's crop plan and harvesting storage cabbage, brussels sprouts, kale, collards and more (and more!) potatoes for our first CSA pick-up.

From the misty farm,

Ellie

Storing Winter Veggies:

For our Winter CSA members or for anyone interested in storing winter vegetables, click here- How to Store Winter Vegetables in a Typical Suburban Home.

Simple Cooking Methods for Storage Veggies:

Winter Squash

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Cut squash in half 
3.  Scoop out seeds and pulp (put in a bowl and save for roasting) 
4. Oil a baking tray and lightly oil inside and outside of squash halves (this seals in moisture and prevents cracking)
5.  Place squash upside down on the tray and bake until you can stick a fork easily into the flesh. 

Now for the seeds...
1. Wash pulp off of the seeds 
2.  Mix seeds with some olive oil and tamari 
3.  Spread out on a baking sheet so that the seeds are in a single layer
4.  Put in oven with the squash and roast until brown and crispy.

Brussels Sprouts- 

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Wash sprouts 
3. Slice in half 
4. Oil a baking tray and the sprouts 
5. Salt lightly and roast until brown 
They will be sweet and delicious!  Pan frying sprouts is also an easy way to prepare them.

"Thanksgiving-esque" Recipe:

Butternut Squash Soup:  Roast 2 butternut squash (follow directions above), one cubed celeriac root, one sliced carrot, and one sliced apple at 375 degrees.  Have fun with the amounts.  Puree all veggies and spice with fresh or dry sage, thyme, salt, and freshly ground pepper.  Alternately, spice with cinnamon and nutmeg.

Important Information For Our CSA Members Only:
Want to learn more about our CSA? Check here.

This week's pick-up:  Thursday, November 20, noon-5:00 pm

• See above for information on storing all the great veggies we'll be distributing.  Onions, garlic, pumpkins,and winter squash do great on a kitchen shelf or kitchen table, just as long as they are not in direct sunlight and are not stacked on top of each other.  If you let them breathe and keep them dry, they should do fine at room temp. If you want to store them for a long period of time, think COOL and DRY. 
• Please send me any of your favorite recipes and I may feature them in the newsletter!
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