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Goldfinch Farm CSA
Goldfinch Farm Newsletters
| For Beth's Ramblings and Rants click here. |
Issue No. 7: Wks of September 1 & 8
GOLDFINCH FARM CSA NEWS
Farmers: Jon & Beth Weaver-Kreider * 252-3894
www.goldfinchfarm.com * screechowl@paonline.com
Celebrate the Coming of Autumn!
You are invited to the Annual
Goldfinch Farm POT LUCK
Sunday, September 20, 4:00 pm
Eating commences at 4:30 pm
Bring along:
* A tasty dish or two to share
* Place settings for your family
* Lawn Chairs or blankets
* Musical Instruments
Feel free to sit a spell under the poplar tree for some music-making. Bring along a song to share (people will join in as they can), or a
poem or story to tell.
Farm Notes
I know that the turning of the year is a gradual thing, with the nights lengthening ever so little each day as we spin from Summer Solstice
toward Autumn Equinox. So why am I surprised every year in late August or early September when I suddenly notice that the days are
shorter, the mornings cooler, the cicadas louder?
Why does it seem like a shock when the tomatoes begin to slow down? “Oh, no, they must be hitting a lull,” I say, and then Jon has to
remind me that it is, after all, late in the summer, and that schools are back in session, and the days are getting shorter as we race toward
Fall.
If all goes well in the tomato patches for the last part of the season, we should continue to have tomatoes for several weeks yet. For
now, production is slowing down a little. This is the signal that within a
few weeks we should begin to see a few more of the early fall crops-- lettuce, cabbage, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, and eventually, salad
mix, arugula, spinach, carrots and sweet potatoes.
For people whose schedules revolve around the turning of the school year, this period of edging into Autumn can feel like the farm
season will soon be at an end. Actually, we are only a couple weeks past our halfway point for the season, and we will continue until at
least the end of October, and hopefully a week or two into November.
Celery
In the next few weeks, you should see some celery appear in your share. Our celery is extremely flavorful, good for cooking and stews,
and for snacking for those who like a strong celery flavor.
Deborah Madison‘s Braised Celery, in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, suggests chopping the ribs into 3- or 4-inch lengths and
boiling them in a skillet in 3 cups of water with a Tbsp. of butter, a sliced onion, a sliced carrot and a little bit of salt. She bundles together
some parsley, thyme and a bay leaf to boil with the vegetables, then strains the liquid into a saucepan. Arrange the veggies on a plate.
Reduce the liquid to about ½ a cup, whisk in 2 Tbsp. of butter and pour over veggies. Sprinkle parsley and celery leaves over top. You can
eat as is or dust it with grated Parmesan or Gruyére and broil until the cheese melts before serving.
Potatoes
We grow about eight varieties of potato on the farm, out of the three thousand or so varieties of potatoes that exist (people only eat about
one hundred varieties any more).
If you ever buy non-organic potatoes, it is important to peel the skins because the chemicals tend to be absorbed more fully by the skin.
Unless you have trouble digesting potato skins, try leaving the skins of organic potatoes on when possible--Vitamins C and B complex,
calcium, iron, potassium--are located just under the skin.
Potatoes tend to store well for quite some time if kept in the right conditions (usually 4-15 weeks before they start to sprout). This is one
of the reasons we don’t usually wash the potatoes before we give them out: any wetness on stored potatoes can quickly turn to rot. Make
sure your potatoes are thoroughly dry, and keep them in a dark, cool, ventilated place. Don’t store them in plastic bags, which encourage
mold and rot.
Potato Idea File
Fried, roasted, baked, boiled: potatoes are versatile, providing a good starchy base for many meals. Fried potatoes or oven-baked fries
seem to get crispier on the outside if you boil them first.
Try baking scrubbed potatoes at 350 for an hour or so, until they’re soft through. Cut them in half, scoop out the soft insides, and mash
them with some butter, cream, and a little grated cheese. (If you’re feeling adventurous, sauté some onions and garlic and a little finely
minced sweet pepper and add it to the potato mash.) Stuff this mixture back into the shells and keep them warm in a 150-degree oven
until ready to serve. Sprinkle chives on top before serving.
The Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook by Dawn Rank and Phyllis Pellman Good has some great recipes for crockpot potatoes.
For mashed potatoes, cook and mash a couple pounds of potatoes, add a half package of cream cheese, a bit of sour cream, butter,
chopped onion and garlic, and salt and pepper. Combine it all, with a couple Tbsp. melted butter, in the slow cooker and cook for 5-6
hours on Low.
For Mustard Potatoes, cook and cool 6 medium potatoes. Grate them and place in a greased slow cooker. Sauté an onion in butter and
add a couple tsp. prepared mustard, some salt and pepper, about a ½ c. of milk and a ¼ lb. of grated cheese. Pour over potatoes, cover,
and cook on Low for three hours. Stir before serving.
You can bake potatoes in the slow cooker, too. Prick them with a fork, rub them with butter, and put them in the crock pot. Cook them on
Low for 6-10 hours or High for 3-5 hours.
Stuck for a recipe idea? Check out www.allrecipes.com.
Okra
We’ve been having some good harvests of okra this year. We grow three different varieties, a smooth green kind, a ribbed green variety,
and a purple variety. The okra plants get to be around seven feet tall with white, hibiscus-style blooms, and the pods grow so fast that if you
miss a medium pod on one day, a couple days later, it will make a good horn for your unicorn costume.
You can toss a couple chopped okra into soups or stews, use them to thicken your tomato sauce, or fry the pods whole in olive oil until
they’re nice and crispy. Or, slice them, dip in cornmeal (or egg and corn meal), and fry for breaded okra.
Fresh Soybeans
Sometime in the next couple of weeks, we will be harvesting the edamame, the fresh soybeans. These are a delicious end-of-summer
veggie that can be stripped out of their pods, then cooked with onions and tomatoes into a yummy side dish. Or boil them right in the pods
in heavily salted water for 5 minutes. Cool them slightly and serve as a snack or appetizer--just pop the beans right out of the pod into your
mouth.
Preservation
Wondering what to do with all those tomatoes, peppers, and beets? Katharine Fernback, our canning and preserving share worker, is
willing to can salsa, sauce and sweet pickled beets. You provide the produce from your share and canning jars, if you have them, and she
will do the cooking and canning for a fee of $1.50-2 a pint or $2.75-3.50 a quart. Please contact her at kathartisdesign@yahoo.com or 717
419 2177 if you are interested. She will also have a flyer available with more details.