THE BEET: VOLUME 18; WEEK 22
FULL SHARE & GREEN HALF SHARE PICK UP TONIGHT
Pick up today: 5pm - 7:30pm at PS 56 on the corner of Gates and Downing
This Week's Share
Radicchio
Parsley
Lettuce
Spinach
Fennel
Ginger
Sweet potatoes
Red onions
Shallots
Kale
Carrots
This week’s delivery is the last of the season and wraps up our 20th year at Windflower Farm. We hope you have enjoyed your share of our farm’s production. Please drop us a line with your thoughts about the CSA season and what we might do differently in the years ahead (tedblomgren@gmail.com). Thank you for being with us. If you’ve enjoyed being a part of the CSA, please consider a winter share (more information can be found below).
Letter from Windflower Farm
Delivery #22, Week of November 4, 2019
What’s new on the farm?
As if on cue, our first snowfall and the first prolonged cold temperature of the fall are expected on Thursday, the day after our final field harvest. The Medina brothers, who have never been in snow, are excited for this first experience. For the rest of us, we are happy about the timing. It will be something of a race, but we believe we can get the fields cleaned up, most of the rest of the fall onions planted, and the fall-planted crops covered before the snow comes.
Old timers around here will tell you that your fields will be safe from erosion if you sow your cover crops before Thanksgiving. We are happy to report that we have managed to get all of our fields cover cropped, sowing two tons of rye seeds in the process. The earliest plantings are now thick with young rye plants, and the last have germinated and are filling in.
Winterizing the farm is underway. Jan’s to-do list is two pages long. Irrigation reels, pumps and pipes are being tucked into warm places. Doors and windows are being battened. Supplies we won’t need until the spring are being organized and placed in various barns. And storage vegetables are being washed, sorted, bagged or crated and tucked into coolers for the winter CSA season.
Jan, Nate and I are excited to be turning our attention to two winter projects: completing construction of a tiny house and building the next electric tractor. The tiny house is intended to be a home for short term visitors - the (mostly young) people who come to work on our farm for a month or two each summer. Let us know if you might like to work with us for some or all of the next farming season - we’d love to have you!. The electric tractor project is aimed at improving the design of a couple tractors that we have used here for the past several years. Our goal is to build a zero emissions machine that can be used to plant and weed vegetables.
On behalf of all of us at Windflower Farm, I’d like to thank you for being with us. Your purchase of our organic vegetable share is an investment that trickles throughout the Hudson Valley and beyond. It provides many of us with a decent living, it keeps our little place on earth productive and healthy, and it scatters your dollars through several local businesses that play important supporting roles in the broader sustainable agricultural community here. Special thanks go to the core group organizers at each of our CSA sites. They are a remarkable group of people for whose dedication to organic farming and community building we are forever grateful.
What’s a winter share?
Winter share signups are underway! The share will start on Saturday, November 23rd, giving you enough time to empty your refrigerators of any summer share leftovers. The season lasts a total of four months, and shares come just once a month, on the following four Saturdays - November 23, December 14, January 11, February 8. Each month, the winter share, which comes pre-packaged in a returnable box, will include a big bag of greens (about 2lb of spinach, kale or mustard greens from our unheated greenhouses), all kinds of storage vegetables (8lb or so of carrots, beets, red and yellow onions, celeriac, potatoes, winter squashes and more), about 4lb of apples and pears, and a locally made sweet treat (honey or jelly or apple cider). I hope you’ll decide to join us and keep our farm team gainfully employed during the winter! Follow this link to learn more and to sign up: https://windflowerfarm.wufoo.com/forms/m1xr27rk05nzoa8/
Wishing you a happy and healthy holiday season,
Ted, Jan and the Windflower Farm team
A note from the Core
Dear Clinton Hill CSA members,
As you know, tonight is the final distribution of the 2019 season. Thanks so much for joining us this season, for showing up for work shifts and cheerfully lifting heavy bins, for letting us admire your adorable children, for respecting our hosts at PS 56 and the Unison School, for expressing enthusiasm and asking good questions about your vegetables, fruit, eggs, and flowers.
The CSA wouldn't exist without you, and we're so happy with your contributions to our community. If you are interested in becoming more involved with the CSA, email us at information [at] clintonhillcsa [dot] org, as we do have a couple of openings in the core group.
We hope you'll consider signing up for Ted's winter share (see below), and we'll be in touch next spring about the 2020 summer season.
All our best wishes,
Clinton Hill CSA core group
End-of-season Survey
Please don't forget to complete our end of season survey. Printed surveys will be available at check-in tonight, or you can always complete it online here.
Thank you in advance for helping to fine-tune our CSA!
Winter Share...
Attention all members - now is the time to sign up for your winter shares.
The sign-up link is here:
https://windflowerfarm.wufoo.com/forms/m1xr27rk05nzoa8/
For those who haven't done a winter share before, delivery is at 345 Waverly Ave. in Clinton Hill, once a month for four months starting in November. The dates and more information are on the sign-up form. Delivery consists of a bounteous box of root vegetables, greens, and fruit, and sometimes extra treats like jam or cider. There is also an option to sign up for Davis Farm eggs and even a maple share. Ted runs the share himself, so no need to sign up for work shifts. We hope to see you there!
... and Cheese Share!
Our friends at Crown Finish Caves, who are longtime CHCSA members, are offering a cheese share this winter!
Sign up information is here: www.crownfinishcaves.com
Those of you who were members last summer may remember that they offered their wonderful cheese for sale on site. This share will consist of either one or two pounds of cheese, once a month for four months. Pickup is in Crown Heights.
Sweet Potato Recipes
Wondering what to do with all those sweet potatoes? Our core group has some suggestions!
Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup
Ruth recommends this recipe, via Smitten Kitchen
Ingredients
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 10- to 11-ounce fully cooked smoked Portuguese linguica sausage or chorizo sausage, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices (Spanish chorizo can be substituted)
2 medium onions, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 pounds red-skinned sweet potatoes (yams; about 2 large), peeled, quartered lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
1 pound white-skinned potatoes, peeled, halved lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
6 cups low-salt chicken broth
1 9-ounce bag fresh spinach
Method
Heat 2 tablespoons oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add sausage; cook until brown, stirring often, about 8 minutes. Transfer sausage to paper towels to drain. (I poured off some of the oil in the pot at this point, but the original recipe doesn’t think this is needed.) Add onions and garlic to pot and cook until translucent, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Add all potatoes and cook until beginning to soften, stirring often, about 12 minutes. Add broth; bring to boil, scraping up browned bits. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until potatoes are soft, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes. Using potato masher, mash some of potatoes in pot. Add browned sausage to soup. Stir in spinach and simmer just until wilted, about 5 minutes. Stir in remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Season with salt and pepper. Divide among bowls and serve.
Other options to consider: Kielbasa instead of chorizo/linguica, adding a can or two of drained white beans or using more spinach. I love spinach wilted in soups and could have used even more.
Sweet Potato Slab Pie
Here's the base recipe for the sweet potato pie Ben made for the Halloween pot luck!
via New South Table
Ingredients
For the pie crust:
3 cups all purpose flour
½ cup shortening (cold)
1 stick butter cubed (cold)
2 tbls sugar
2 tsp white vinegar
6 tbls ice cold water (a little more or less, depending on consistency)
Pie filling
4 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
1 stick melted butter
2 tablespoons flour
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups sugar
Crumble
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
Dash of salt
1 stick room temperature butter
3/4 cup oats
Method
Start by making the crust:
Using a pastry blender or food processor, combine the dry ingredients with the butter and shortening by cutting the cold butter and shortening into the flour and sugar until you have pea size pieces scattered throughout the mixture.
Add the vinegar, then start adding the water one tablespoon at a time and slightly stirring with a fork in between. Try not to over mix or knead this or the dough will become tough. Be gentle when you stir.
Once all the water has been added, use a fork to continue mixing together.
You want this mixture to be a little sticky and the consistency of play dough with small clumps.
If it is too dry and there is a lot of flour not mixed in, just add a little more ice water one tablespoon at a time until you have the desired consistency.
Turn the mixture out of the bowl onto wax paper or parchment paper and use your hands to mold together to form a large ball.
Use a rolling pin to begin rolling out the dough. Using wax paper or parchment paper will help prevent the dough from sticking to your work surface. If you don’t have paper, just flour the surface well and make sure it stays nicely floured during the entire process to prevent sticking.
Roll the dough out into a rectangular shape that is large enough to fit the jelly roll pan.
Spray the jelly roll pan with non-stick cooking spray.
Pick up the pie crust using the edges of the wax paper and flip it over as you position it on the pan.
Once the pie crust is in place, gently peel away the paper and press the crust down onto the pan. Ensure all the edges are covered. If the crust breaks, just piece together to cover the bottom and sides of the pan.
Set aside.
For the pie filling:
Combine all ingredients using a mixer.
Pour on top of the pie crust and smooth out well.
For the crumble:
Combine all the dry ingredients and toss well in a bowl.
Using your hands, take a few slices of the room temperature butter and rub into the dry ingredients. Continue adding all the butter. Keep rubbing until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
This should stick together in small clumps.
Sprinkle on top of the pie making sure you go all the way to the edges.
Bake on 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until the crust is done, the pie filling has set and the top is slightly brown.
Cool to room temperature before cutting into squares and serving.