Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We hope you all enjoyed a lovely time with your family and friends and came out the other side full of love and good food. We enjoyed a spectacular turkey from Whispering Breeze Farm with Bryan’s family in Bel Air.

As always, it’s back home and back to work, as we set about catching up on Quickbooks and cleaning up, and getting started on 2019 planning.We even made our first seed purchase for next year: ginger!

To ensure the highest quality product, we buy certified organic, disease-free, outdoor grown ginger from Hawaii to ship here in March. These experts have been doing it for 25 years and produce amazing quality seed for one of the most special and unique crops on the farm. And as a little early Christmas gift to ourselves, I also threw in some related Thai ornamental bulbs that I can’t wait to see blooming on the farm.

Tropical farm goals.

Reminder: New Pickup Location

A very important reminder: this week is the official beginning of the Winter CSA season. If you order between now and April, your share will be available at HEX Ferments in Belvedere Square between 1 and 7pm. No other pickup locations will be active for the winter.

Reminder: Pizza Party Time Change

Because of the snow last week, Well Crafted had to reschedule a large event they’re hosting to our pizza party night, Thursday November 29. There’s still room for us, we just need to make it a little earlier. Instead of the originally planned time, we WILL BE THERE FROM 5:30 TO 7:00 PM ON NOVEMBER 29. There will still be special snacks with Good Dog Farm produce, with the best beer and ‘za in Baltimore available for purchase. Come hungry!

Reminder: Teas and Herbs + Farm Swag

A reminder to try out the herbs and teas we’ve added to our store. This year, our friend and local food and flower maven Shelley White started her own herb farm in lovely Fork, MD (incidentally, right around the literal corner from where Bryan’s dad grew up). Hydes Hill Herbs is only the second dried herb farm in the state (Congrats, Shelley!), and we’re very excited to be able to offer her herbs and teas through our CSA. All products are grown using 100% organic practices, the teas are strictly herbal with no additives, and the culinary herbs pack so much more flavor than anything you’ll find outside your own garden. Give it a try, spice up your winter menu, support another beginning farmer, and never look back!

We’ve also added a new section for Good Dog Farm swag (currently magnets and stickers). Look for new wearable swag in the future! Happy Thanksgiving!

Bryan and parents at the Thanksgiving table.

no news is good news

Hi, everyone. I hope none of you were too put out by the unusually early snow. We got about 3 inches up here, and with ice on top of that. Maybe it’s helped on by having worked several years for a non-profit on the BCPS snow schedule, maybe it’s a reflection of having spent most of my 20s in the South or abroad, but personally I love a good snow day. They’re great enforced days off to relax by the fire, peruse seed catalogs, and pick up a new book (or one you started back in April…).

Of course, while the snow is lovely, the mud that comes after is an annoyance. It does seem we’ll have some good sun this week to dry us out, though. Really though, this time of year, we subscribe to a “no news is good news” policy. The plants that will serve us from now through March are either in the ground or harvested. No matter what happens weather-wise, so long as the farm looks roughly the same as it did when we come out on the other side, everything moves forward as planned. Very ready for all your Thanksgiving needs. And so on that note, here are some announcements.

IMPORTANT: Pizza Party Time Change!

There is news on the pizza party front, though. Because of the snow, Well Crafted had to reschedule a large event they’re hosting to our pizza party night, Thursday November 29. There’s still room for us, we just need to make it a little earlier. Instead of the originally planned time, we WILL BE THERE FROM 5:30 TO 7:00 PM ON NOVEMBER 29. There will still be special snacks with Good Dog Farm produce, with the best beer and ‘za in Baltimore available for purchase. Come hungry!

Tea Time + Herbs

And since it’s so clearly already curl-up-by-the-fire season, what better way than to embrace the change than with some delicious hot beverages and flavorful soups? This year, our friend and local food and flower maven Shelley White started her own herb farm in lovely Fork, MD (incidentally, right around the literal corner from where Bryan’s dad grew up). Just last month, Hydes Hill Herbs got their final approval through the Health Department to be only the second dried herb farm in the state (Congrats, Shelley!), and we’re very excited to be able to offer her herbs and teas through our CSA. All products are grown using 100% organic practices, the teas are strictly herbal with no additives, and the culinary herbs pack so much more flavor than anything you’ll find outside your own garden. Give it a try, spice up your winter menu, support another beginning farmer, and never look back!

Thanks and have a lovely holiday!

Bryan and Joanna

cold snap

Leaves at Lake Roland before the wind.

It got cold last night. And all the better for all of our greens. Some vegetables can’t survive frosts or temperatures below 32F, but many can. The reason freezing damages plants is that, unlike animals, vegetative cells have cell walls in addition to permeable membranes. Cell walls provide structure for the plant like bricks in a wall. When the water inside a plant cell freezes, it ruptures the cell wall, compromising the plant and making it wilt.

Many vegetables, especially greens, are capable of expanding their cells in the case of freezing but also use another mechanism to survive cold weather. Freezes trigger many vegetables to produce additional sugars (sometimes visible as darker, bluer, or redder leaf veins) in order to lower the freezing point of the solution inside their cells, often down to 27 or 28F.

Each subsequent freeze encourages the plants to produce more of these sugars, which are also responsible for the distinctive —sweet, nutty, spicy, bitter—of each unique vegetable. Colder means more flavorful. This is why local East Coast greens and roots will almost always be more flavorful than California or greenhouse grown greens from the store.

Delicious and colorful cold-sweetened salad.

enjoying mustard greens

My personal favorite has always been mustard greens, which we sometimes list individually, but always list as “Stir-Fry Mix.” If you’re new too mustards or have found them too spicy in the past, I highly encourage you to try par-boiling before you eat them. Simply bring a stock pot to a rolling boil and toss all the greens in for 1-2 minutes, until they shine iridescent but before the water has turned too green. Pour the pot through a colander to collect the greens, let them cool, chop or put in the food processor, and then use them in any recipe that calls for cooked greens like chipped spinach.

A household favorite is an onion-sweetened, garam masala spiced side like this. Or they’re great as the base for a classic cheesy greens casserole. Just sautee a couple onions and garlic in butter for 7 or 8 minutes in an oven proof pan, toss in about a pound’s worth of parboiled greens, with a 1/2 cup of broth, cover with 1 C of grated cheddar and Parmesan, then bake at 400F until the cheese is browned and gooey, about 20 minutes. Classic, artery-clogging Americana.

CSA MEMBER HAPPY HOUR NOVEMBER 29TH

Join us for a celebration! We're having a special happy hour for Good Dog Farm CSA members at Well Crafted Pizza (1700 W 41st St, Baltimore, MD 21211) on Thursday November 29th, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm. Well Crafted will be making us some special snacks from Good Dog Farm produce, and of course there's yummy beers from Union available for purchase. Please RSVP to this email by November 25th so that we know how much food to make. Can't wait to meet/see you all there! 

REMAINING BALANCE NEWS

And an important reminder: Starting the week of November 28th, our only pick up site will be HEX Ferments in Belvedere Square. So here's what you can do if you are currently picking up at a different site: 

Option A: Spend down your balance at your regular pick up site through November 21st

Option B: Spend down your balance over the winter picking up only at HEX Ferments.

Option C: Apply your remaining balance as a coupon to our main season share starting June 2019 when we will resume our regular pick up sites, plus a new site in Hampden at Prime Corner. Our ordering format will be slightly different next season, but you will still be able to customize your shares and pick up on a schedule that you determine. And the website will be easier to use too! 

Please let us know what you decide by Sunday November 18th. And feel free to let us know if you have any questions about the different options. If we do not hear from you by the 18th, we will save your balance as a coupon for the 2019 season.

Thanks everyone!

Windy Clean Up

MAPLE SYRUP IN BOXES THIS WEEK

If you ordered maple syrup, it will be in your box this week! If you don’t order anything else, we’ll still send it for pick up this week. If you cannot pick up your syrup this week, please reply to this email and let us know. We’ll hold it for you for the following week!

In addition, we sent an email earlier this morning about your share options for the winter/summer 2019. Check your spam email folder if you did not receive it. There’s good stuff in there!

Greens growing in the high tunnels, cozy and sound

Windy Clean Up

Hi everyone! Well, we’re officially in clean up mode. This includes pulling our plastic mulch that covered the beds of our summer crops our of the soil so that we can plant cover crops. This will help to reduce weeds, add nutrients back into the soil, and reduce erosion during the winter months. Not the most glamorous task, but crucial to our soil health and in some way quite satisfying. We’re digging up the last of our sweet potatoes which will be ready in a few weeks once they’ve cured aka gotten super sweet! We’re starting to make plans for our crop plan and CSA for 2019, which feels exciting though a bit overwhelming. We have plenty of time to scheme for 2019 this winter in between packing winter CSA boxes, so we’re also trying to take a bit of a rest and enjoy time with friends and family.

Bryan with our friends Christy and Connor at Dylan’s Oyster Cellar’s “Beer for Farmers” event last Sunday

What We’re Eating

It was warm again for a minute there, but now that it’s back to fall weather, we’re right back to cozy food! We’re back into Shepherd’s Pie season, which is a family favorite in our household. We recommend using carrots and turnips in the filling, and of course, creamy yummy potatoes on top!

Shepherd’s Pie is one of those delicious foods that looks a bit wretched in photos, so I thought I’d just link to a recipe that’s similar to the one we make. Here’s on from The Food Network.

Paco admires a winter radish

CSA Member Happy Hour November 29th

Join us for a celebration! We're having a special happy hour for Good Dog Farm CSA members at Well Crafted Pizza (1700 W 41st St, Baltimore, MD 21211) on Thursday November 29th, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm. Well Crafted will be making us some special snacks from Good Dog Farm produce, and of course there's yummy beers from Union available for purchase. Please RSVP to this email by November 25th so that we know how much food to make. Can't wait to meet/see you all there! 

Thanks everyone!

Joanna & Bryan

family and friends

Hello, all. I’ll be keeping it short this week because we’re enjoying our veggies (and other foods, drinks, and company) with Joanna’s parents this week/ weekend.

A couple quick updates, we’ve relisted some additional potato varieties for the winter after our final dig, so you should dig in! We’ve also added our long storage squash, the Seminole pumpkin to the availability. If you like butternuts, give it a shot. It has a similar taste and texture but keeps months longer. There’s also classic purple top turnips up now, a favorite for mashing or roasting in our house (try cubing and glazing them with honey or maple syrup).

That’s it, and remember to sign up for your winter share!

Until net week,

Joanna’s mom and dad at Chez Hugo downtown, where you can find our produce and others given an absolutely royal treatment.

first frost

Red beets and purple carrots, straight from the field.

Hello, friends. We just enjoyed our first frost Thursday night, we’re starting to see some golds and reds on the trees, and we are so very ready to settle into fall. The frost finally wrapped up the season on any peppers we were still harvesting, and it signals that it’s really time to clean up from the rest of summer. Our roots and greens will be no worse for wear. We’re still harvesting some of our sweet potatoes and you should see those available in a week or two once they’ve cured.

In the meantime, we do have a few new items this week, with red beets and rainbow carrot bunches, plus celery root and topped orange carrots. We’ve been waiting for all these fall favorites for over three months(!), and now it’s perfect timing. These roots and many other fall vegetables only taste better with each succeeding frost. A kiss of cold weather triggers these cold-hardy vegetables to begin producing extra sugars, thus lowering the freezing point of the water in their cells, and conveniently making them even more delicious. Last night, we got our fall on by enjoying by enjoying a one-pan roast of beets, carrots, and celery root with oranges and baked chicken thighs (recipe below). Tomorrow, we might even have our first fire of the season.

maple season

maple candy

Speaking of sweater weather, it doesn’t get much more autumnal then maple syrup season, and we’re very happy to again be joining in the semi-annual Baltimore bulk syrup order from Baer Bros, a small batch syrup producer in western PA. Get your order in by Monday, and we’ll place the order for you and pack it in your box when it arrives in a few weeks. For the uninitiated, “Amber” or Grade A is most likely what you’re used to, but we strongly urge you to give “Dark”'/ Grade B a try. It’s richer, maple-er, and thicker, and is a treat usually reserved for those in the northern maple states. Maple cream is pure syrup that has been further reduced to an apple-butter like spread, and maple candies are 100% syrup crystallized into a small leaf-shaped mold.

what we’re eating

ingredients

• 4 bone-in chicken thighs

• 2-3 garlic cloves, minched

• 1 tsp thyme, 1 tsp tarragon

• 1 tsp orange zest, plus 2 tsp

• salt and pepper

• 1 bunch rainbow carrots, washed, topped and halved lengthwise

• 1 bunch beets, peeled and sliced in half-inch rounds

• 1 bunch celery root, sliced in half inch rounds

• 1 pound yellow potatoes, washed and quartered

• 2T olive oil, plus 1

• 1 sweet orange, peeled (half-supremed) then sliced into rounds across the segments

• juice of 1 orange, 2T olive oil, plus 1

cook

1. Rinse and dry chicken thighs, pat with salt and pepper, 1 T garlic, herbs, and 1 tsp zest. Let sit uncovered in fridge for one hour.

2. Toss prepped vegetables in a bowl with 2 T oil, remaining zest, and garlic, then arrange on a sheet pan.

3. Arrange orange slices over the vegetables. Then place chicken thighs on top of that and drizzle everything with orange juice and remaining oil. Bake for 50 minutes at 350F. Let cool and serve!

Cool Temps

Our cute set up at Chilibrew last night

Cool Temps

This wet, humid week dissolved into fall temperatures, finally! We had a big week of selling fall produce by day and making chili by night. And our efforts paid off with a 3rd place trophy - Best Meat Chili - Judges’ Choice! It was a fun way to spread the word about our awesome produce and to get folks excited about chili peppers. And we’re headed toward more clean up, cover crop seeding, and garlic planting. Plus, we’ll start harvesting sweet potatoes the week, which we’re both excited about! Unfortunately we’ve had a bit of a tough year for sweet potatoes: lots of deer damage and water damage. But the ones who survived are bound to be delicious! We’ll harvest them, then let them cure so that their starches transform into sugars. Yum! Can’t wait. Once they’re ready, we’ll spill the beans on our delicious Sweet n’ Smoky vegetarian chili that got lots of love at Chilibrew last night!

A block of our cover crops looking bright and cheery

What We’re Eating

Butternut Lentil Salad

This salad is simple and delicious! Perfectly captures fall flavors and farm-y goodness.

From the awesome recipe blog The First Mess

dressing:
juice of 1 lemon (about 1/4 cup)
2 tbsp agave nectar
salt and pepper
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

salad:
1 small butternut squash, peeled
1 cup green lentils, picked through and rinsed
5-6 handfuls arugula
1/4-1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
salt and pepper

Cook the lentils: combine the rinsed lentils with 3 cups of water and a pinch of salt in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until lentils are just tender and most of the liquid is absorbed. Stir here and there while they’re cooking. Set aside when done.

Steam the squash: fill a large pot with an inch or two of water and bring to a boil. Cut the peeled squash in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and slice both halves into 1/2 inch slices crosswise. Place slices on a steamer basket and drop into the pot of boiling water. Cover and steam for about 15-20 minutes or until squash is tender, but still has a little toothsome quality.

Make the dressing: combine all dressing ingredients in a blender and blend on high until combined. Set aside. You could whisk them all together too.

Assemble: toss the lentils and arugula with 3/4 of the dressing. Season with salt and pepper.  Place this mixture onto your serving plate. Top with the cooked squash slices. Pour remaining dressing over top. Sprinkle the top with feta and serve.

Bryan with his trophy!

Have a great week everybody - stay cozy!

Joanna & Bryan

Clean Up Clean Up!

Can you spot Rosie?

Clean Up Clean Up!

We’re entering clean up mode here at Good Dog Farm. We’re taking down, pulling up, and bagging up all sorts of remnants from summer and early fall crops so that we can seed cover crops. Cover crops restore nutrients into our soil after we’ve grown crops in them for the year as well as preventing erosion throughout the winter. It’s also an important mental exercise to tie up this tough season with a bow and call it finished. We’re not quite there yet, as much as we’d like to be, but we’re happy to still be harvesting new crops like big bright radishes. We’ve also started planting some of our crops that will stay in the ground all winter, like shallots. Next up, garlic and elephant garlic. So, we’re plowing ahead with the seasonal end in sight, but with excitement in our hearts for a winter full of salad and beyond.

Beautiful purple daikon in the sun!

What We’re Eating

Potato Kale Cakes with Smoky Cashew Cream Sauce

All amazing flavors packed into cute little nuggets! If you’ve never had a cashew cream sauce, make this asap. It’s not just a dairy alternative, it’s rich in flavor and a perfect texture. Another delicious recipe from the fabulous Dishing Up the Dirt blog.

Makes about 10 lil cakes.

Smokey Cashew Cream Sauce

• 1 cup raw cashews-soaked in warm water for at least 30 minutes (optional--but will lend a smoother consistency)

• 2 Tablespoons tomato paste

• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast

• 1-2 teaspoons smoked paprika, more or less depending on preference

• 1/8-1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper + more to taste

• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

• 2 Tablespoons fresh lime juice

• 1 cup water + additional to thin if necessary

Potato Kale Cakes

• 1 1/2 pounds unpeeled russet potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes

• salt

• 1/4 cup almond flour

• 2 teaspoons garlic powder

• hefty pinch of salt and ground black pepper

• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

• 1/2 bunch of kale (about 2 cups) coarsely chopped

• hefty pinch of salt

• 4 tablespoons cooking fat (bacon grease or a high heat oil such as grapeseed or peanut oil), divided

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 300F.

2. Make the smokey cashew sauce by draining the cashews (if you pre-soaked them) and placing them in a high speed blender along with the rest of the ingredients and blending on high until completely smooth and creamy. About 2 minutes. Taste for seasonings, adjust if necessary and then set aside.

3. Place the potatoes in a medium pot and cover with cold salted water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until tender. Drain the potatoes well and then return to the pot. Heat the potatoes over medium heat for about 1 minute to dry out (this will help hold them together when frying). Mash the potatoes with a potato masher and set aside.

4. In a large bowl mix together the almond flour, garlic powder, salt, pepper, lightly beaten eggs and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Keep to the side.

5. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the kale and a hefty pinch of salt. Cook, tossing often, until slightly wilted, about 2 minutes. Remove the kale from the heat and stir into the wet mixture. Add the potatoes and mix until everything is well combined.

6. Shape the potato/kale mixture by 1/4 cupfuls into 1/2 inch thick patties and place on a rimmed baking sheet.

7. Heat the same skillet that you sautéed the kale in over medium high heat and add 2 tablespoons of your cooking fat of choice. Add the cakes and cook for about 3-4 minutes (or until crispy) carefully flip (the cakes can be delicate so be careful here) and then cook for about 2-3 minutes on the second side.

8. Place cooked patties on the rimmed baking sheet and keep warm in the oven. Repeat with the remaining batter and cooking fat.

9. Serve the cakes with the smokey cashew sauce and enjoy!

Sign Up for your Winter CSA Share

Claim your share in our winter season CSA! Our CSA runs year-round using the same format, except when we take off most of the month of May, while we are frantically planting and waiting for our Spring crops to come in. We do our best to offer salad greens, lettuce, onions, garlic, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, and eggs all winter, and we will have winter squash, potatoes, radishes, and kohlrabi along as they keep—usually into February. The official start of our new season is November 28, the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. Your existing funds will roll over into the new season, and as always, you can add additional funds at any time.

However, we do ask that if you are planning to continue enjoying our vegetables throughout the winter, that you let us know by putting down a $25 deposit (or purchasing any size winter share) before November 1st. This is very important because (a) it lets us know if we need to recruit additional members for the winter season, (b) it helps us gauge interest at our various pickup locations, and (c) it’s important for operating online ordering on the Small Farm Central platform. Instructions for signing up for the winter season are below. Thanks!

Thanks everyone, have a great week!

Joanna and Bryan

personal daze

The upside of the extra wet weather is that we’ve got our hoop houses in excellent shape.

On an outcropping under the “King and Queen’s Seat.”

Hello, friends. We hope all is well with you. It’s actually been so wet on the farm lately that we’ve run out of things to do. Or, at least after weeding our forthcoming salad greens again, we’ve run out of things we can do until it dries out some more. So yesterday we decided to pack up the dogs and go for a nice hike at nearby Rocks State Park in Harford County. Deer Creek was higher than it’s been since at least Hurricane Floyd. Baloo looked old climbing the rocks. Joanna is still scared of heights. And Rosie looked entirely too confident for her own good. The views were spectacular as ever though. Add to that a clear forecast likely to start drying out the fields, and we’re doing out best to beat the late season blues.

what we’re eating

We eat a lot of chili, especially this time of year. In fact, we’ll even be entering Baltimore Chilibrew XII in a couple of weeks. Everyone seems to have an opinion on chili. For the record, in our household, chili is made with beans or meat, but never both; we do include tomatoes, specifically roasted tomatoes; and while Wendy’s chili may be served with cheese, we prefer ours with sour cream. That said, what all chili needs is chiles. The more varieties, the better for achieving a deeper and more complex flavor. Our “mole” pepper mix is perfect for this, especially when first roasted for 4-6 hours at 225F. You then either blend them together with garlic and onions (or shallots) and water until smooth, or freeze them just as they are for use later.

On a different but equally autumnal note, we’ll be trying out something totally new this week: a raw butternut squash salad. While this might sound like some next level Mr. Autumn Man masochism, we have it on good authority that it’s shockingly good, especially if dressed up with ginger, dried fruit, and nuts. The key, as with any off-beat salads is to make sure you get the squash as thin and delicate as possible. Mark Bittman marinates his in acid to tenderize, while Joshua McFadden prefers to just toss in brown butter and go. Here’s the recipe we’ll be following:

Ingredients

not just for soup and pie any more

• ½ C yellow raisins

• 1 T fresh ginger, grated or minced

• ¼ C white wine vinegar

• 1 lb hard squash, peeled, and shredded into thin slices with peeler

• 1 shallot, thinly sliced

• 1/2 tsp chile pepper, minced

• salt and pepper

• ¼ cup brown butter

• 3 T olive oil

• 1 T dried mint (or 1/4 C fresh)

• 1 C toasted walnuts

• 2-3 leaves sage (optional)

Soak raisins in vinegar while you shave the squash into slices. Mix the squash, vinegar, shallots, chile, salt and black pepper in a large bowl. Separately, brown butter in a pan with sage (optional).

Pour warm brown butter over bowl. Add olive oil, mint, and pecans, toss, and serve immediately.

Let us know what you think and happy eating!

Eating at the Equinox

Happy fall, everyone! We’ve been enjoying some truly beautiful days to be outside of late. We hope you too have found opportunities to enjoy the weather. There’s still plenty of harvesting to do around here, and there are still new crops popping up in your choices. There’s still 2 weeks until we dig sweet potatoes, and you should also be seeing Napa cabbage, rainbow carrots, fennel, and watermelon radishes grace your plate before season’s end.

We’ve also added a “mole” mix of 6 Mexican chile peppers to make a mole sauce or to roast for a homemade chili paste.

I love the flavors of fall, but I especially enjoy the way the flavors and textures deepen and become richer as the weather cools. Our cool and tender French breakfast radishes have finished, but we have just added our stubby purple daikons, whose hearty flavor and spicy zing really adds something in cooler months, especially when roasted. You might also notice that our salad mix grows a bit more robust and diverse each week as new mustards, Asian cabbages, and lettuces become available, adding new flavors and textures to the mix. One of the best moments of fall, though, is harvesting young ginger, as we did this week. Ginger is a tropical perennial that grows and propagates itself via large starchy rhizomes, not unlike bamboo or sweet potatoes. The hardy, thick-skinned stuff we get at the store is older growth, which if planted will sprout new eyes that make fresh, tender offshoots with tall palm-like leaves. Our climate is not suitable to growing ginger perennially. However, high tunnels give us just enough time to produce these fresh, uncured “hands” of young ginger. Even while harvesting, its aroma is intoxicating, and it adds a wonderfully unique touch to basically anything you might cook this time of year. It pairs especially well with the rich flavors of winter squash or baked apples, or is great as the star of the show in pickles or a very quick lo-mein. Young ginger is much less fibrous than storage ginger, so cook for as little time as possible to best enjoy it. It only lasts one week to 10 days, but it can be quick-pickled with the “Six Seasons” recipe we shared in the spring.

What we’re eating

Other than putting ginger in everything, we’re in salad and winter squash bliss around here. Last night, Joanna made a squash risotto recipe to die for. Follow a standard recipe like this, with a couple tweaks:

• Add in half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes with the onion and oil for a touch of heat.

• Grating the squash instead of cubing adds an incredibly rich, buttery consistency to the whole finished dish.

• Instead of discarding them, add the scooped out guts of the squash, plus an extra cup of grated squash, to your simmering stock for added flavor (don’t add this squash back into the risotto, though).

• Stir in a half teaspoon of grated young ginger with the Parmesan for an extra zip.

• Make enough for leftovers, and then turn them into arancini!

Another revelation was this caper-raisin-anchovy salad dressing shown below. It’s certainly not an intuitive blend, but the mix of sweetness and umami is a perfect companion to the hearty, ragged greens we’re getting while day-time temps are still in the 70s and 80s. Try it with a kale salad, mesclun, or kohlrabi.

Again, from Joshua McFadden’s excellent “Six Seasons.”

Winter season

We mentioned last week that we are now opening up winter season CSA sign-ups. Our CSA runs year-round using the same format, except when we take off most of the month of May, while we are frantically planting and waiting for our Spring crops to come in. We do our best to offer salad greens, lettuce, onions, garlic, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, and eggs all winter, and we will have winter squash, potatoes, radishes, and kohlrabi along as they keep—usually into February. The official start of our new season is November 28, the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. Your existing funds will roll over into the new season, and as always, you can add additional funds at any time.

However, we do ask that if you are planning to continue enjoying our vegetables throughout the winter, that you let us know by putting down a $25 deposit (or purchasing any size winter share) before November 1st. This is very important because (a) it lets us know if we need to recruit additional members for the winter season, (b) it helps us gauge interest at our various pickup locations, and (c) it’s important for operating online ordering on the Small Farm Central platform. Instructions for signing up for the winter season are below. Thanks!

Sign Up

From the Member Login screen, select the “Sign up for 2018 Winter” option. If you don’t see that option, click “Sign Up Now!” on the left-hand side of the screen.

Select a size

If you are low on funds and want to add more, select on of the normal sizes listed. If you have plenty of funds or plan to purchase more later, just select the “Deposit” size at the bottom.

Pickup

Select your pickup location here.

Users

If everything has worked properly, you should see your name(s) listed here. If you do, click through the rest of the sign up process and pay. If you do not see your name, please contact us.