CSA Week 14

In your share week 14:

Potatoes
Radish
Turnip Greens
Kale
Basil
Salad Mix
(Some shares only) Tomatoes or Cherry Tomatoes

Full shares only:

Napa Cabbage or Cabbage
Zucchini or Cucumber

Market Schedule updates:

• Gleneden Harvest Market is now over!  Thanks for a great season.  CSA members can continue to pick up your shares inside of Eden Hall until the season ends November 9.
• Neskowin Farmers Market ends this Saturday, September 30.  CSA members will have to pick up their shares at the farm after this week.  I’ll contact you with more details.
• Tuesday Farm Stand continues 9 to 2 until Thanksgiving.
• Hospital Farm Stand now has extended hours!  11 to 2 into October (end date TBA)
• Find us at Neskowin Valley School’s Harvest Festival (and come hear Carolina sing in the afternoon):

September is almost over, and we have one more week of a full schedule before things begin to ease up for us.  I’m working to get as much of the field cover cropped before the end of the month and finish digging the potatoes.  Crewmember (and yoga teacher) Tanner decided to put in a full day of digging on Friday and pulled in over 500 pounds of our yellow finn storage potatoes.  That was a single day record for the farm, but there’s still just a few more to go.  This year we have more potatoes than ever before, so you’ll continue to see lots of them in your shares going forward!

We are also planning to harvest our winter squash soon, but they just aren’t quite ripe.  We have lots of beautiful squash sitting in the field, and I’m hoping we get at least a few more warm sunny days to sweeten them up.  They will continue to ripen more after harvesting, but it would be better to let them sweeten on the vine more before pulling them.  Looks like more rain coming next week, so maybe we’ll try to squeeze that in next Monday.

Instead, today you get double basil for another batch of pesto before it all goes moldy.  Usually our basil doesn’t last past September, and we are already starting to see more browning leaves and mold in the patch.  But there’s still loads of fresh green leaves, and I thought you might enjoy a little extra.

There are lots of greens in today’s share, with salad mix, kale, and some turnip greens.  This is one of our last rotations of baby turnips, and they were just too close together to size up the roots properly.  The greens, however, are perfect, so everyone gets turnip greens with tiny baby turnips on them!  I haven’t had good turnip greens in a while, and today I made my standard lunch of rice and steamed turnip greens, complete with the tiny roots.  They really are one of my favorite vegetables, delicious steamed, sauteed, or in soups or curries.  They are also one of the most nutrient dense veggies out there.  My rule of thumb is that anything you can do with spinach you can do with turnip greens: enjoy!

Turnip greens can also be fermented into kimchi, which is well timed since full shares have some of the largest heads of napa cabbage we’ve ever grown!  I’m not sure how they got this big, but some are about the size of my cat.  Fortunately, napa cabbage keeps well in the fridge and ferments well into kimchi.  We will hopefully have heads for half shares soon, but they are heading up unevenly and only part of the patch is ready to harvest.  I like to use napa cabbage for coleslaw, salad, stir fries, and tacos.  It’s more tender than green or red cabbage and I love it’s flavor and light, crunchy texture.  If you don’t plan to use the whole head at once, you can either peel off the outer leaves to use and leave the rest of the head in a bag (stores best this way), or you can chop through the whole head from the top (you may just have to trim the browned edges when you go to use more).  Make sure to eat the wide white ribs as well as the outer leafy part.

All of the summer fruits are slowing down, and we are trying to adjust our picking schedule to reflect that.  We still have tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini, but less of them and a little less often.  We will continue to include them in your shares, but you won’t be getting them every week any more.  However, this coincides with our market schedule slowing down, so the CSA gets more of what we do harvest going forward.  Fortunately, our tomatoes are in the greenhouses and so have more protection from rain and mold.  We still have lots of green fruit on the vine, so expect to see tomatoes at least into October.

Tacos of Napa Cabbage, Corn, and Tempeh Chorizo

Yes, you read that right. I prefer napa cabbage to the European style, and I think it makes a great filling for Mexican food. I also use this as an enchilada filling. Try it! Makes lots of tacos.

Tempeh Chorizo:

Crumble 6 oz tempeh into a bowl. Stir together with:

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

            2 cloves garlic

            1 Tbsp ground ancho chile (or add a bit of cayenne and double the paprika)

            1 tsp paprika

            ½ tsp dried oregano, preferably Mexican

            pinch each cinnamon, cloves and ground coriander

            salt and pepper

    2 Tbsp cider vinegar

Let sit at least 20 minutes.

Add to this mixture:

3 c chopped napa cabbage

            Kernels from 3 ears corn

            ½ bunch cilantro

Heat 2 Tbsp vegetable oil in a skillet. Add the mixture and stir and fry about 12 minutes, until the napa cabbage is tender and the tempeh browned. Add more oil if necessary. Serve with warm corn tortillas, a twist of lime, and your favorite salsa (salsa verde is especially good.) You can also add cheese, sweet peppers, and more fresh cilantro.

Spanish Potato, Chard, and Bean Soup

From Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian, this is an easy and nutritious soup. Particularly good served with good crusty bread. It also keeps well, it is a good one to double or triple the recipe and eat it all week.  Try it with turnip greens instead of the chard!

In a medium pot, heat 3 Tbsp olive oil over medium heat. Add:

2 small onions, diced

            1 garlic clove, chopped

            2 tsp chopped fresh oregano or ½ tsp dried

            3 medium potatoes, cut into bite-size pieces

            Salt and pepper

Sautee 7 or 8 minutes, until the onions are soft. Add

            1 bunch chard or turnip greens with stems, chopped

Sautee another couple of minutes until chard has wilted. Add:

3 c vegetable or chicken stock

            1 ½ c cooked (or 1 can) garbanzo or cannellini beans

Bring to a boil, cover, and turn down the heat. Simmer gently for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally and mashing some of the beans and potato chunks against the side of the pan.

Serve with a dribble of olive oil over each bowl.