CSA Newsletter: Week 25 of 28 from Valley Flora!

  • Red Beets
  • Red Cabbage: Big, heavy, and dense. This variety stores for a long time in refrigeration, so don't feel like you need to eat the whole thing in one night. Slice off what you need, put it back into the fridge in a plastic bag, and the next time you need red cabbage just shave off the discolored cut edge to reveal fresh cabbage below. 
  • Carrots
  • Celeriac: It's a balled-up hamster! It's a hairy meteorite! It's celery root! Maybe as foreign as a hunk of hirsute space rock to some of you, but this is a great winter vegetable that doubles as a softball! Imagine you took a stalk of celery, crossed it with parsley for flavor and gave it the heft of a potato: Voila, celeriac! What should you do with it? Soup! Latkes! Puree! Mash! Gratin! Here's a nice little collection of recipes to get you started: https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/15-best-celeriac-recipes-article
  • Leeks
  • Lettuce
  • Radicchio: They say that it takes 20 tries for a kid to learn to like a new food. If you're that kid and radicchio is that food, here's your second chance to love it, or even just like it a little bit, or OK, at least not spit it out this time. Remember these secrets to success if you're especially averse to bitter:
    • If using raw in salad:
      • Soak your torn/cut up radicchio in cold water for at least 10 minutes.
      • Pair with things salty and sweet: nuts, aged cheese, fresh or dried fruit, cured meats, zippy dressing.
    • Cook it! It's great in risotto and if you have a pressure cooker or instapot and a bag of arborio rice you can make dinner in about 6 minutes (busy farmer-mom trick #3,427).
  • Hakurei Turnips

Contrary to a decade of CSA tradition, we are giving you a little breather on winter squash this week. I interviewed a few members to ask how big the pile of squash on their counter was right now and it seemed sufficiently large across the interview sample to merit a week off. Next week we'll be back with some jumbo Delicata for your Thanksgiving feast. This week you can play catch up with that spaghetti squash that I know you haven't touched yet. (C'mon, what are you waiting for!? Spaghetti squash pizza crust! Recipes and photos abound here: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/photos/top-spaghetti-squash-recipes).

Thanksgiving Delivery Schedule Next Week (PLEASE READ!):

Since the beginning of Valley Flora time, we have observed a beloved, if somewhat masochistic, tradition: the week of Thanksgiving we squish our 6-day work week into three days and we deliver ALL Harvest Baskets to ALL pickup locations the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Why do we inflict this temporary insanity on ourselves? 

  1. So that all of you have your Thanksgiving veggies in time for Thanksgiving, and
  2. So that all of us can take a true break over the Thanksgiving holiday.

That means that if you are a Port Orford or Bandon member, your pickup will be on WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25th instead of Saturday, November 28th. There will be no pickup on Saturday, November 28th. Pickup hours will be the same as usual, but on Wednesday instead of Saturday.

For Farm and Coos Bay members, there is no change to the pickup schedule: Wednesday as usual, same time, same place.

Mark your calendars/set a reminder now to avoid any confusion! It should read: "PICK UP VF VEGGIES ON WEDNESDAY, NOV 25th!!!!" And just for safe measure - if you're a Bandon or PO member - maybe another one that says: "NO VF VEGGIE PICKUP ON SATURDAY, NOV 28th!!!!"

That should do the trick. I hope to be offline as much as possible next Thursday through Sunday and not troubleshooting pickup site SNAFUS, so set that reminder right now and commit to picking up your produce on Wednesday! 

Your Thanksgiving share will most likely include purple Brussels sprouts, Carrots, Celery, Rosemary, Shallots, Parsnips, Potatoes, Delicata Squash, and with any luck a head of lettuce.

Have a great week!

Zoë

Newsletter: