Storage share (Nov. 20/21, 2014)

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. Don’t count on picking up late or the next day. It will be very cold during the deliveries and the produce will freeze overnight at the unheated sites.
* Outpost members, please get your boxes on Friday.  Do not ask the Outpost staff to hold your boxes until Saturday; this is their busiest weekend of the year.
* Members at outdoor sites, please carefully put the blankets back on the boxes.  That keeps everyone’s produce in good shape.

Veggie List and Storage Info (Storage share, 11/20 and 11/21/14)

We hope you enjoy this shipment of veggies!  Strategize to use them well, as some will last longer than others.
* These vegetables are the most perishable: fennel, kale.
* These are the next-most perishable: Brussels sprouts, cabbage, leeks and onions.  Keep an eye on your butternut, potatoes and sweet potatoes.  The last two are susceptible to drying out.
* These will last the longest: Beauty Heart radish, beets, carrots, celeriac, garlic, parsnips and rutabaga.

Box “A”

Beauty Heart winter radish, 1.5 lb
Beets, 3 lb
Brussels sprouts, 1.1 lb
Carrots, 6 lb mixed colors
(orange 4 lb, yellow 1 lb, purple 1 lb)
Celeriac
Fennel, 1
Kale, 1 bunch
Leeks, 3 lb
Parsnips, 3 lb
Rutabaga, 1.5 lb
Savoy cabbage

Box “B”

Butternut squashes, 12 – 13 lb
Sweet potatoes, 7 lb
Russet potatoes (or mixed russets & reds), 5 lb
Yellow potatoes, 5  lb
Onions, 5 lb
Garlic, 4

Beauty Heart radishes (round, white with pale green shoulders and bright pink interior) – Refrigerate.  The interior color is lovely.  Slice thinly and add to salads, cook lightly in mixed vegetable medleys or cut into matchsticks and add to pasta salads.  We enjoy grated carrot and Beauty Heart salads all winter.
Beets – Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  Beets will store for two months or longer.
Brussels sprouts – Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  Eat soon.
Cabbage – Refrigerate.  Cut off chunks as needed.
Carrots, orange.  Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  Will keep for several weeks.
Carrots, yellow and purple.  These varieties are pretty AND they taste good. The purple carrots will turn your tongue green. That will get the kids interested.
Celeriac – Will store for months in your fridge.  Cut off chunks as needed.
Garlic.  Can be stored at room temperature.
Leeks.  Refrigerate and eat within three weeks.  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: Store in a cool, dark spot or refrigerate.  Protect from light.  Exposure to light stimulates sprouting.  Refrigerate if you expect to hold for more than one month.
Parsnips (These look like rough white carrots.) – Refrigerate in a plastic bag.  Parsnips will store for two months but will darken in color.
Potatoes:  Can be stored at room temperature or in a cool spot, but must be kept in the dark so they do not turn green.  They will store longer if kept cool.  Around 40 – 50 F is ideal. I find these potatoes from Chad Malek are unusually thin-skinned.  This is great for cooking, but means they lose moisture quickly.  Keep them in the paper bag, then cover the bag with a cloth or a loose plastic bag to their moisture loss.
Rutabaga (round root, cream-colored with purple shoulders) – Cover and refrigerate.  Will store for several months.
Sweet potatoes – These are the Covington variety, and have developed excellent flavor and sweetness.  Store at room temperature, no lower than 55 F.  Keep them on your kitchen counter where it’s easy to keep an eye on them.  Cook promptly if they start to soften.  The roots come in a wide ranges of sizes and all are good.
Winter squash –  You will receive three to six squash, depending on size.  They are a mix of varieties: Metro, Waltham, JWS.  Store winter squash in a cool, dry place.  50 F is ideal.  Do not put in a plastic bag.  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 at one time.  Try microwaving your squash for one to two minutes before cutting or peeling.  This softens the squash and makes large butternuts easier to handle.

What are you cooking for Thanksgiving?

We are creatures of habit when it comes to Thanksgiving.  Here are our plans so far: brined roast heritage turkey from Matt Smith at Blue Valley Gardens (Beth), Brussels sprouts with garlic-mustard vinaigrette (Steve), roasted sweet potatoes with garlicky yogurt dip (see below, Sophie), glazed butternut squash (Beth), crunchy carrot-Beauty Heart salad with sesame-seed dressing (Steve), homemade applesauce (Ari), cranberry sauce (friends), and apple pie (Sophie).  I’d like to add a raw kale salad, if I can get our neighbor to give us her recipe.  We love celebrating Thanksgiving and the end of harvest season!

Menu Ideas

There are so many great Thanksgiving recipes and menus online right now.  Many include veggies that you will receive in this delivery.  Here is a list of the recipe sites I rely on.  Each site has lots of recipes which feature vegetables.  Search any of these sites if you are stumped about what to do with your storage veggies.
* I enjoy the Food52.com site.  They have posted an entire section on Thanksgiving, including  13 dishes for feeding vegetarians on Thanksgiving.  I look forward to trying their recipe for Variegated Spiced Latkes, which combines potatoes, parsnips and sweet potatoes.
* The New York Times as a brand-new iPad app called Cooking.  It is good!  They post appealing recipes and recipe collections every day.  For example, we recently made Spicy Pan-Fried Noodles with the last of our scallions and peppers and it was excellent.  In my opinion, Melissa Clark is the best NYT food writer.  She’s practical and her dishes are always flavorful.  Mark Bittman and Martha Rose Shulman are other favorites.  The app and recipes appear to be free to the public, but I think you need to be a NYT subscriber to save recipes.
* Smitten Kitchen has posted new Pinterest boards for both Thanksgiving, Savory and Thanksgiving, Sweet.
* The Kitchn.  I found this site after wandering over from their Apartment therapy home-design site.  Good recipes.
* 101cookbooks.  Always has good vegetarian recipes.  The author has not posted this year’s collection of Thanksgiving recipes yet but I keep checking!
* Finally, remember that we have access to the entire catalog of Local Thyme recipes all winter.  Check them out for Thanksgiving ideas.

Garlicky Yogurt Dip

This dip is great with everything.  We enjoy it with roasted sweet potatoes or winter squash, raw carrot sticks, or lamb meatballs.  When short on time, I make the basic dip, but it is especially nice with any fresh herb.  I’ve prepared this with several olive oils but like it best with Spectrum organic extra virgin olive oil because it is fragrant and not bitter.

Basic ingredients:
1 medium clove garlic
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp paprika

Optional additions:
Lemon juice
Any finely-minced herb: parsley, cilantro, mint.  Start with 1 tsp.
Finely minced chives OR 1 small scallion, finely minced

1.  Grate the garlic clove into a bowl or a wide-mouthed pint jar.  Add the olive oil.  Stir and let sit for 5 minutes for the garlic to diffuse into the oil.
2.  Mix in the yogurt, 1/4 cup at a time.  Stir vigorously.  Taste after you’ve added 1/2 cup, so you can recognize how well the yogurt and olive oil taste together.
3.  Add the salt, paprika and any optional additions and stir well.
4.  Evaluate the flavor.  Add more olive oil and/or salt if the flavor is not ‘umami’ enough.