Storage Share, Nov 19/20, 2020

Farm News

We have enjoyed the mild weather! After frosts in early October, the warm weather has coaxed a few later crops to maturity. We have harvested endless rounds of cabbage, carrots and other roots.  Machinery breakdowns have been minimal!  That’s the worry at the back of our minds at this time of year.

We harvested your Romanesco cauliflower on a blue-sky day.  Ben shows off a beauty.

Next year’s garlic and green garlic are safely in the ground.

Our work days end after dark, but soon our field work will end.  There are still modest amounts of cabbage, Brussels sprouts and a bit of reluctant cauliflower to bring in by next week, then field work will be done for the year.  We’ll move inside for the winter, to wash and deliver all the carrots, cabbage, parsnips and other roots that we’ve stashed away.

Thank you so much for joining our farm this season.  We hope you stay safe and warm this winter, and that this big delivery brightens your winter meals.
Beth and Steve

Storage Share this week

Take one box labelled “A” and one box labelled “B”.

Things you need to know about your winter share

* Your delivery will consist of two different boxes, labeled “A” and “B”.  Take one “A” box and one “B” box.  The boxes contain different vegetables.
* Please pick up your boxes on the day of delivery, during the normal hours for your site.
* Outpost members, pick up your boxes on Friday.  This is the busiest weekend of the year for the Outpost staff, so they WILL NOT hold boxes past Friday, nor can they handle special requests.
* Bring extra bags this time.  The boxes will be lined with a plastic bag as usual, but this big share is too much weight for the bag.  Leave the boxes at your site, take the produce home in the liner bags plus your own bags/containers.

Veggie List and Storage Info (Storage share, Nov. 19/20, 2020)

We hope you enjoy this shipment of veggies.  Strategize to use them well, as some will last longer than others. 
* This is the most perishable vegetable: purple broccoli
* These are the next-most perishable: Brussels sprouts, leeks, Romanesco.  Keep an eye on your butternut, potatoes and sweet potatoes.  The last two are susceptible to drying out.  Expect the largest butternuts to last the longest.
* These will last the longest: beets, cabbage, carrots, celeriac, garlic, red & yellow onions, parsnips and shallots.

Box “A”
Everything in this box can be stored cool or at room temperature.  See notes below for more detail.

‘Autumn Frost’ pumpkin
Butternut squash
Sweet potatoes, mixed ‘Bayou Belle’ and ‘Covington’
(Combined squash & sweet potatoes weigh about 19 lb.)
Shallots, 1.25 lb
Garlic, 3 bulbs (in shallot bag)
Potatoes, russet, 5 lb
Potatoes, Satina, 5 lb

Box “B”
Refrigerate everything in this box, except the onions.

Beets, 3 lb
Brussels sprouts, 1.5 lb
Carrots, 6 lb total
….. orange ~4 lb
….. yellow & purple ~2 lb
Celeriac, 1
Green cabbage, 1 large
Leeks, ~2.5 lb
Onions, 5 lb total
….. red ‘Blush’
….. yellow
Parsnips, ~2 lb
Purple broccoli, 1 large head
Romanesco, 1 medium head (or maybe a purple cauliflower)

Autumn Frost winter squash

Shallots.  Yours are packed in a paper bag, with the garlic.

Top, ‘Blush’ red onion
Bottom, yellow onions

The ‘Blush’ onions are more pink than red, and excellent for long storage.

Autumn Frost winter squash – Store cool and dry.  60 F is ideal.
These beautiful frosted squash have both pumpkin and butternut squash breeding in them.  They cook and taste like an unusually good butternut, with rich, smooth texture.  They are quite nice.  The skin is elible.  The seed companies tell us that they store well, but I encourage you to eat your Autumn Frost within a month.  These are new for us, so we don’t really know if they store reliably.

Beets – Refrigerate in a bag or container.  Beets will store for two months or longer.

Brussels sprouts – Eat within 2 to 3 weeks.

Butternut winter squash –  Store your butternut in a cool, dry place.  60 F is ideal.  Do not put in a plastic bag.  Expect the largest butternuts to store the longest.  Inspect your squash frequently and cook promptly if you see any soft spots developing.  You can cook, mash and freeze the squash for future use.  I find that you can refrigerate cut raw squash for up to one week.  This runs counter to the accepted way to store squash, but is useful if you want to cook just half a squash.  Some of them are big!  Try microwaving your squash for one to two minutes before cutting or peeling.  This softens the squash and makes a large butternut easier to handle.

Cabbage – Refrigerate.

Carrots, orange.  Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  Will keep for several weeks.
Carrots, yellow & purple.  These varieties are pretty AND they taste good.  Refrigerate in the plastic bag.

Celeriac – Will store for months in your fridge.  Cut off chunks as needed.  Peel before using.  I find it easiest to cut the celeriac into flat slices, then peel.

Garlic –  Store at room temperature.

Green cabbage – Refrigerate.  These are big.  It’s OK to cut off chunks as needed.

Leeks.  Refrigerate. In general, leeks are not a long-storage crop.  You may need to strip off one or two outer leaves to freshen the leeks before you cook them.

Onions: Refrigerate or store in a cool, dark spot and protect from light.  Exposure to light stimulates sprouting.  

Parsnips (These look like large white carrots.) – Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  Parsnips will store for several months but will darken in color.  That is a harmless change.

Potatoes; russets and Satinas – Can be stored at room temperature or in a cool spot, but must be kept in the dark so they do not turn green.  A cloth or loose plastic bag draped over the paper bag will slow moisture loss, but do not close the plastic bag.  Both types will store longer if kept cool.  Around 40 – 50 F is ideal.  The potatoes were grown by the Igl family near Antigo.
Russets– We got the big ‘baking’ grade so you have nice bakers for Thanksgiving.  Excellent for baked or mashed potatoes.
Satinas– These are good all-purpose potatoes, everything from roasted to potato salad.  I really like this variety of yellow potato because they oven-roast so well and because they are less sweet than other yellow varieties such as Yukon Golds.

Purple broccoli – Refrigerate in a plastic bag or a container.  You should plan to use this soon, eg within one week. 

Romanesco cauliflower (beautiful chartreuse green, spiraled head) or purple cauliflower (dense purple head) – Refrigerate.  These should store well, eg for a few weeks.

Shallots (look like small red onions) – Good for salad dressing.  We’re still learning how to grow shallots and are thrilled to have a small bag for everyone!

Sweet potatoes – We’re sending a mix of two varieties, Covington (orange skins) and ‘Bayou Belle’ (purple skins).  Both have excellent flavor and sweetness.  Store at room temperature, no lower than 55 F, but 60+ F is better.  Keep them on your kitchen counter where it’s easy to keep an eye on them.  I like to keep ours in a paper bag so they don’t dehydrate.  Cook promptly if they start to soften.  The roots come in a wide ranges of sizes and all are good.

Recipe Ideas

Check out the winter issue of Edible Madison.  That’s our own recipe writer Lauren’s recipe on the cover!  Recipe is at ediblemadison.com/recipes/winter-kale-salad-with-roasted-brussels-cinnamon-citrus-vinaigrette .  

Thanksgiving Menus

For obvious reasons, the Thanksgiving recipes offered online are different this year, scaled back but worth bookmarking for winter meals.  Here are some interesting ones.

The Washington Post
The Post staff used the popular “sheet pan dinner” technique to craft whole holiday meals on one sheet pan, fine-tuning when to add each ingredient to the pan.  I appreciate that kind of finesse, and will be trying a few of the recipes this winter.  I don’t have a good track record with Hasselback potatoes (undercooked potatoes after hours in the oven) so I’m interested in their tricks in the Sheet Pan Chicken With Hasselback Potatoes and Brussels Sprouts recipe.

Smitten Kitchen
I love this cook!  She has an extensive list of Thanksgiving recipes from previous years.  Her newest Potato and Leek Gratin recipe looks good.  

Food52.com
Once again, the lively Food52.com site has outdone itself with an extensive Thanksgiving recipe collection.  They’ve named it “AutoMagic Thanksgiving Menu Maker“.  It’s organized by type of dish, e.g.
.  “Bright and Crunchy” and
.  “Roasted to Perfection”, etc.
I’ve extracted a few sauce ideas from the recipes.
– I like the horseradish vinaigrette in the Autumn Salad with Horseradish Vinaigrette recipe, and have been happily spooning it on roasted sweet potatoes.
– The spicy onions in Dan Kluger’s Roasted Butternut Squash with Spicy Onions recipe are very zippy.  They are quite strong, and I find they overpower roasted squash but are a good complement for mashed potatoes.

Local Thyme
Finally, remember that we can use Local Thyme recipes all winter.  Check them out for Thanksgiving ideas.

Extension Share, Nov. 5/6, 2020

The warm weather this week has been a gift.  Sure, it made our farm work easier and enjoyable.  More importantly, it protected poll workers and everyone standing in line to vote.  Here are a few photos from the week, if you need a distraction from the election.

Chance harvests your Brussels sprouts.

Washing sweet potatoes in short sleeves in November!  Billy and Kristen washed all our remaining sweets, some for this week’s delivery, some for the Storage shares. It’s fabulous to take care of this in warm weather, and not worry about chilling the delicate sweet potatoes.

Matt weighs your Brussels sprouts.

We will harvest carrots or parsnips every day this week, putting the roots into big wooden bins for winter storage.  We’ll continue harvesting roots through the weekend.  Next week, it’s time to bring in the rest of the leeks, cabbage, fennel, radishes and turnips.  The garlic planting is almost finished.  Right now, we are sprinting but should be able to wrap up the outdoor season by the end of next week.

Now you can go back to thinking about the election, if you wish.
Beth

Veggie List & Veggie Notes
Extension Share, Nov. 5/6, 2020

Sweet potatoes, ~3 lb
Savoy or green cabbage
Brussels sprouts, ~1 lb
Carrots, 2 lb
Parsnips, 1 & 2/3 lb
Yellow onion
‘Blush’ red onion
Jalapeno
Everyone gets two types of greens:
Greens #1: collards or green kale or red kale
Greens #2, bok choy or red bok choy or tatsoi or red napa cabbage

Sweet potatoes – Store at room temperature.  Sweet potatoes will suffer chilling injury in the fridge.  It’s OK to either store in a paper bag, or out on your kitchen counter.  Do not store in plastic.  Sweet potatoes will store for a long time.
This week, some folks get our ‘Covington’ variety, some get ‘Orleans’.  Both are orange-skinned, nicely shaped and with good flavor and sweetness.
– For best flavor, cook your sweet potatoes so they brown and caramelize.  We have a simple, favorite way to roast sweet potatoes.  We used to prepare sweet potato fries in the oven.  Now we just quarter the potatoes, rub with olive oil, dust with salt and place cut-side-down on a cookie sheet.  Roast in a 450 F oven without turning until soft.  The flavors will caramelize (like sweet potato fries) but preparation is simpler and the cooking time less exacting.  Slender sweet potato fries go from undercooked to overcooked in the blink of an eye.  Larger slices are less exacting, and therefore are easier.  Small sweet potatoes can be cut just in half.  Jumbos will need to be chopped into pieces.  Otherwise, they take a long time to cook.
– These sweet potatoes will need slightly longer cooking than ones from the supermarket, perhaps because they contain higher moisture so soon after harvest.
– Sweet potatoes are good at any size. We have cooked everything from tiny to jumbo and consistently find that all sizes taste good.

Savoy or green cabbage – Refrigerate.  If you plan to eat soon, you can store uncovered in your crisper drawer.  If you want to store for longer, cover with a plastic bag or cloth.
The savoy is crinkled, the green cabbage is smooth.  They can be used interchangeably in recipes.

Brussels sprouts – Refrigerate in the plastic bag.  Eat within two or three weeks.  They store well but the outer leaves will turn yellow.  Don’t let them get too wet in the fridge.

Carrots – Refrigerate in the plastic bag.

Parsnips (These look like large white carrots) – Those long, white roots are not carrots, they are parsnips. The two vegetables are related.  When cooked, parsnips are sweet and starchy.  For the best flavor, brown them to caramelize the sugars.  Here are a few ideas for parsnip preparation:
– Caramelize the parsnips by roasting them in a vegetable medley.
– Parsnip fries are delicious: cut like French fries, oil lightly, place on a cookie sheet and roast in a hot oven until brown and cooked through.
– Try substituting grated parsnips in a potato pancake recipe. They brown beautifully and are very tasty.
– Steve loves pan-fried parsnips with onions and garlic.

‘Blush’ red onion – Store at room temperature or in the fridge.  This onion is more pink than red when cooked or pickled but is very pretty.  I really like this variety.  They are great cooked and we find they store exceptionally well.  That shouldn’t be an issue when you have just one or two!

Jalapeno chile (Hot, maybe) – Eat soon.  These were the final harvest from under row covers, so they were exposed to cold nights and will not store long.  They’ll be good for about one week.

Greens #1 (collards or red kale or green kale) – All are in beautiful shape, surviving cold nights without trouble.
Greens #2 (bok choy or red bok choy or tatsoi or red napa cabbage) – By now, you know what to do with the various choys we grow.  The red napa cabbages are small, not too dense, and keeps its color when cooked.

The red napa makes very pretty kimchi.

RECIPES

Visit our 2020 Recipe Log or our 2019 Recipe Log or join our Facebook discussion group.

LOCAL THYME/ Cooking 101
Roasted Carrots and Parsnips
Honey Lemon Whipped Sweet Potatoes
Polentina Toscana

LOCAL THYME/ Cooking 202
Parsnip and Sweet Potato Bisque
Soy Glazed Sweet Potatoes and Carrots
Lightly Wilted Sweet and Tangy Cole Slaw

LOCAL THYME/ Quick & Easy Meal
Vegetable Biriyani

RECIPES FROM LAUREN

SWEET POTATO & BLACK BEAN TACOS WITH SLAW

Makes 18-24 tacos
Serves 6-8
Takes 1 hour

3 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 14-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
Corn tortillas, warmed
Sour cream, optional
Red or green salsa, optional

Pickled Blush Onion:
1 blush onion, halved and thinly sliced
3/4 cup white wine vinegar
3/4 cup water
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tablespoon salt

Slaw:
1/2 head cabbage, shredded or thinly sliced
2 carrots, shredded or cut into matchsticks
1 jalapeno, halved, seeded and thinly sliced
1 lime, juiced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. On a large baking sheet, toss sweet potatoes with olive oil and spices. Roast for 30-40 minutes, turning once during the baking process, until the sweet potatoes are browned on the edges and cooked through.
3. While those roast, prepare your pickled onions, place onions in a small bowl or pint-sized mason jar. Combine other ingredients in a small sauce pan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat then immediately pour over onions. Let sit at least 30 minutes. The onions will turn a more translucent shade of pink when they are ready.
4. Then prepare your slaw by combining all slaw ingredients in a large bowl and tossing together.
5. Serve tacos with roasted squash, black beans, pickled onion, slaw, sour cream and a salsa of your choosing.
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PASTA E FAGIOLI WITH BOK CHOY
Adapted from Half Baked Harvest

Serves 6
Takes 50 minutes

3 pieces raw bacon, diced, optional (sub 2 tablespoons olive oil or butter if not using)
1 head bok choy, divided
1 yellow onion, diced
3 carrots, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
15-ounce can or 1 pint crushed tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon rosemary
1/2 pound pasta of your choice (I love rotini or shells for this)
1 14-ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
Shredded parmesan, optional
Red pepper flakes, optional

1. In a large stock pot, cook bacon (if using) over medium heat until crisp. If not using bacon, warm oil.
2. Prepare bok choy by thoroughly washing and then removing leaves from stems. Roughly chop leaves and set them aside. Thinly sliced stems and add to pot along with onion, carrot, garlic, a pinch of salt and few grinds of fresh pepper. Saute for 10 minutes until veggies are softened.
3. Add in broth, tomatoes, bok choy leaves, thyme and rosemary. Season again with a couple pinches of salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, add in pasta, and cook for 15 minutes until greens are well wilted and pasta is cooked.
4. Stir in beans and paprika.
5. Serve warm with parmesan and a pinch or red pepper flakes.

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PARSNIP & BRUSSELS SPROUT HASH
Adapted from a New York Times recipe

Takes 45 minutes
Makes 4 servings

2 tablespoons oil
1 pound Brussels sprouts
1 teaspoon Kosher salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional
Generous freshly ground black pepper
2 parsnips, peeled and chopped
4 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 pound pork sausage, cooked
1 tablespoon dried sage

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Prep your Brussels sprouts by cutting them in half (quarter especially large ones; leave especially small ones whole). Toss with olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, generous amount of black pepper and red pepper flakes. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes or until nicely brown and crispy around the edges, turning occasionally for even browning.
3. Put parsnips in large oven-proof skillet. Cover with water. Heat over medium heat until simmering and then cook for 3 minutes. Drain and set aside.
4. Melt butter in same large skillet. Add onion along with remaining 1/2 teaspoons salt and more freshly ground black pepper. Cook for 5 minutes over medium-low heat until soft. Add cooked parsnips, pork sausage and sage. (Feel free to leave out the pork sausage if vegetarian or sub in seitan or tempeh instead).
5. Turn heat to medium-high and cook for 20 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes. The idea here is to brown the parsnips but not burn them. Your pan should be so hot that you can leave it for 2 minutes without stirring and when you come back, things will just be nicely browned on the bottom. If the parsnips or onions burn in 2 minutes, your pan is too hot. Turn it down and keep going– a little char is a-okay.
6. Toss hash with roasted Brussels sprouts before plating and serve with eggs.
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