What’s in the Box: Delicata winter squash, spaghetti winter squash, cherry tomato mix, yellow storage onion, red storage onion, italian red sweet pepper, Assorted sweet bell peppers, purple glazer garlic, dragons tongue beans, elegance braising/salad mix, red radish, and serrano chile pepper.
What’s going on at the farm: September is coming in with some warmth this week and reminding us all here that summer is not over. We had a very healthy rainfall on Saturday which made for a misty and slow market weekend but we needed the rainfall and this incoming heat for some of our late summer crops so really couldn’t ask for a better combination right now. Our beans will finally set heavier and faster with the heat and our sweet peppers and cherry tomatoes will love the rain and heat as well. Some new crops for you this week including delicata winter squash and spaghetti squash! They are both excellent roasted and or baked and served with some butter and brown sugar or maple syrup. These are the two squash varieties we have with a shorter shelf life of one to two month but they can be stored without refrigeration at room temperature. Plenty of sweet peppers pouring in as well and I expect we will be loading everyone up with these crisp sweet fruits again this week. Dragon’s tongue beans are in these colorful yellow and purple striped beans are very crisp and the purple streaks fade out when cooked, they are excellent raw or cooked and so tender that they tend to keep their crisp texture when cooked fairly well or at any stage of picking giving them a longer shelf life. Greens are back this week, we have a tasty blend of mixed greens tender enough to chop for salad or large enough for a light sauté green. The mix includes red mustards, green mustard, choi, mizuna, and leaf broccoli. Radishes are back again too, excellent for salad or roasting with squash, peppers, onion, garlic etc…. Storage onions are coming this week and as the varieties are changing here is the scoop on those. These onions you will notice are rounder, harder, and have brighter skins. They are more traditional onions with a long storage life and will keep until spring under the right conditions. Ideal conditions are room temp, dark, and dry with some air flow. I like to keep them on the table so they are ready for cooking but if you have an overflow just place them in a brown grocery bag and leave the bag open. The rest of the onions you will receive this year will be these storage types. Plenty more cherry tomatoes coming in right now too especially with this heat and rain. I made a roasted sauce with about 12 pints this week by rinsing them and roasting them down in a glass pan with chopped garlic and a little olive oil at 250 for about 6 hours. I pulled the pan and removed excess water at one point and then continued roasting. After they were all cooked down to a thick roasty consistency I pureed the mix in a food processor and jarred the sweet roast garlic tomato paste for use all week on things. Excellent on bruschetta, bagels, stuffed peppers, pasta, etc… Other farm work going on this week included tearing down all of our heirloom tomato vines and cleaning up the large greenhouse which we will be preparing for planting this week. Also mowed a lot of weeds around field borders this week and removed more mulch beds from the field and mowed the winter squash down and removing drip lines from finished and near finished crops. Until next week then, enjoy the veg and I’ll be seeing a lot of you at the drop sites!
