What's In Your Basket?

Buttercup Winter Squash
Savoy Cabbage
Purple Kohlrabi
Hakurei Turnips
Copra Onions
Head Lettuce
Rainbow Chard
Carrots

Produce Tips - How to Eat It, Cook It and Keep It!

Buttercup Winter Squash
Buttercup squash are in the Kabocha family, similar to the Sunshine squash we sent out a few weeks ago. It has a corky stem, leathery skin, and dry sweet flesh. They are notorious for the grey “button” on the bottom of the squash – some barely show a trace of it, but others have a large button that bulges out as much as three inches.

On Monday night I peeled and chopped a Buttercup and used it as the main ingredient in an improvised Thai Curry. It was a quick, easy dinner and the meatiness of the Buttercup was the perfect base for the curry.

Store your Buttercup on the counter, not in the fridge. It will keep for months if conditions are cool (about 50 degrees) and dry.

 
Savoy Cabbage
Savoy cabbage is like a cross between Napa cabbage and a regular cabbage: it has the round shape of a normal cabbage, but the frill and flair of a Napa. I tend to love savoy cabbage above all other varieties. It’s crisp, sweet, tender, and like its other cabbage cousins it stores well for a long time in the fridge.

A couple of recipes to help you enjoy your savoy, cooked or raw:
Buttered Cabbage
Carrot Cabbage Cumin Slaw

Purple Kohlrabi
If I could dress myself the color of these kohlrabis everyday, I would! Deep plum skins reveal a white heart – and if you remember kohlrabi from that spring Harvest Basket many moons ago, you’ll know that this is a vegetable that achieves that unusual balance of sweet, crunchy, tender, bizarre and beautiful.

Try it this time roasted with Butternut Squash, or sautéed with kale or chard.

Stores well – for weeks even – in the fridge in a plastic bag.

On the Farm…
This week is the lull before the storm. Next week, Week 25, is the last week of regular Harvest Basket deliveries. “But wait,” you’re saying, “I thought we were supposed to get 26 weeks of produce from Valley Flora….?”

It’s true, you are, which is why next week you’ll be getting a double share. Two baskets in one. In other words, a mother lode of food. We’re ending the season with a bang for a couple of reasons:

1. Lots of people are out of town for the Thanksgiving holiday and we don’t want them to miss out on the last week of produce.
2.  We want you to have your Thanksgiving share in advance of Thanksgiving so that you can plan your menu accordingly – and hopefully enjoy the most local, seasonal Thanksgiving feast you’ve ever had!
3. We’re excited to take the week of Thanksgiving OFF! Wahoo!

What this means is that next week’s share is going to be big, so bring extra bags/boxes to haul your goodies home in. There’s also a very good chance that all the food won’t fit in a single tote, so there may be a few items that get sent to your pick-up site in bulk, like winter squash. We will label the bulk stuff clearly with the share quantity you are to take. For instance, “4 Delicata per Harvest Basket,” or “1 Pumpkin per Harvest Basket.” Please be sure to read the signs carefully so that everyone gets their fair share.

We’ll also do our best to post a bunch of Thanksgiving-inspired recipes on the website, but you can help us by sharing some of your own favorites. Do you make a killer gravy or a have a seasonal stuffing recipe that calls for parsnips and celeriac? Post it on the Recipe Exchange!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because there is no other day of the year that is so unabashedly about eating. It’s a great time to celebrate good food, to be grateful for the abundance, and to share it with others. Thanks to a couple of our Harvest Basket members – Jo Rieber and Bill McArdle – we are sharing the farm’s abundance with a lot of families in need on the Southcoast, via the local food bank network. Jo and Bill helped connect the farm with food pantries in Port Orford and Langlois this Fall and now every week we donate a few hundred pounds of fresh food from the farm. Lettuce, cabbage, onions, potatoes, broccoli, carrots, beets, parsnips, and even Romanesco cauliflower have been finding their way to the food banks.

Once again, you and all our Harvest Basket members are to thank. Because of your commitment to the farm we’ve been able to extend our growing season later into the Fall and you’ve given us a reason to plant a lot of storage crops. Those crops are now not only ending up in your kitchen, but they are feeding other local families in need as well.

In so many ways, it takes a village. Thanks for being part of this one.