Hi everyone!
Thank you all again for an amazing season! While we’re sad to be coming to an end, the shift is always a nice change pace but I’m sure I’ll be longing for Spring and fresh produce sooner than later. This newsletter is a little long, so here is a quick TLDR; tote return Wednesday November 19th 12-2p (reach out if another time works better), complete this survey for a free larder item at tote return, end-of-season potluck 11/15 12-3pm (location tbd) and recommendations for where to find local produce over the winter.
While this is the last share, we still want to see you all one more time to collect totes and containers. You’ve probably already heard this from us, but our tote bags are rescued via zero-waste spaces (facebook groups, eco-ship, etc.). Because of that, they aren’t particularly easy to replace so we appreciate your help making sure they find their way home at the end of the season. We’re looking forward to giving them some needed love over the winter so that they are ready to go for next season. We’ll plan to keep our same cadence and setup at Monochrome Tuesday November 11th with the regular reminders ahead of time.
We need your help! The seasonal nature of a CSA gifts us with the perfect opportunity to reflect, adjust, and plan for next year. We love to take full advantage of that, and feedback from you gives us perspectives that we don’t have. This survey shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes. If you complete the survey, when you return your last tote and containers we’ll have a gift for you. In the last couple of weeks we’ve been able to build up our pantry with pickled beets and begin fermenting cabbage for sauerkraut. We’re excited to share these items with you all as an incentive to both returning totes and sharing feedback.
Join CSA Club members in sharing some tasty food and celebrating the . Block your calendars for Saturday November 15th 12-3pm. We’re still working on the location, but we’re aiming for somewhere in the Logan Square/Wicker area. With the cooler temps, we’re looking for something indoors so breweries/taprooms are where are minds are at the moment. If you have any suggestions send them our way! We’ll send out more details as we get closer.
Hope you enjoy the share!
-Ben
Fall/Winter CSA
Home Delivered Local Produce
Winter Farmer’s Markets
Special requests
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We left the popcorn on the cob for the novelty of it. Just put a full cob into a large paper bag and use the popcorn setting on your microwave (3.5 oz, ~1.5 mins). Most of the popcorn will pop off the cob into the bag, but some will stay on the cob so you literally have popcorn on the cob. If you’d rather, you can always break the kernels off the cob and pop on the stove top like you otherwise would loose popcorn.
We had arugula in the shares back in May. It prefers cool weather which is why it’s making its return into the shares now. I’ve always found Nichols’ arugula to have a more intense pepperiness than what is typically sourced by restaurants or grocery stores. Its pretty fragile so prioritize using it up first. Similar to the radishes, if you find the taste to be too intense, don’t be afraid to give them a quick sautee and it will mild the arugula out.
We had a very radish-ful start to the season, but hopefully you all have had a long enough break to enjoy these. French breakfast radishes are my favorite variety, and my preferred way to eat them is the french way —raw with a healthy smear of butter. But if you don’t like the spiciness of radish or are trying to figure out a way to get through them quick, roast them! Roasted radish are simple, delicious, and a lot easier to eat a bowl of in a single sitting.
We’re pulling a little TV magic here. Cabbages came in the shares this week, but the problem we run into is that we receive one cabbage per a full share. The first time we received cabbages in the shares, we purchased extras so that we could give everyone whole cabbages (to the detriment of our food cost). Fortunately, a few weeks back we had cabbages in the shares again and dealt with the problem by keeping the cabbages to ferment into saurkraut. Now we’ll share that saurkraut with you all, and keep these cabbages to get another batch of saurkraut started.
Sunchokes are starchy tubers similar to potato and can be used similarly. Sunchokes are closely related to sunflower, and will often be call ‘Jerusalem artichokes’ for unclear reasons. Roasted sunchoke until tender is always nice. A favorite, but laborious, of mine is to make sunchoke chips to use as a gorgeous crunchy topping for a salad.
Goldrush are my favorite apples for a multitude of reasons. Goldrush apples are the state fruit of Illinois as of 2008 when a fourth-grade class from Woodlawn petition state legislature to adopt the fruit as a symbol of the state. Initially breed via a collaborative breeding program between University of Illinois, Purdue, and Rutgers, Goldrushs are crisp, tart, and sweet with a complex spice notes, like clove and allspice. My favorite thing about Goldrushes is how well they store. Their texture remains firm for several months with proper storage and from my experience, they even get sweeter with time.
We had Snowsweets back in the 9th share as well. They were the ones I recommended for charcuterie/cheese boards since they will keep a bright white once cut and have a savory buttery note. Nichols has noted that this has been on of their best apple crops ever, to the point that they are working to offload as much apples as possible heading into the winter. They’re running a sale through Thanksgiving of $40 per bushel. A bushel is a lot of apples, about 40-48lbs. For reference; half shares typically receive ~ 1lb, full shares ~2lbs. But if you want to try out making cider or apple sauce or have the space to store that much apples for the winter, this is a great opportunity. Or buy a bushel, take what you can manage and bring the rest to a food pantry where they would be well appreciated.
We have a treat from farmer Jarvi for this week. Last week was the last for harvesting at their Bronzeville plot at Legends Farm. The plot is rented by Windy City Harvest, the Chicago Botanical Garden’s urban agriculture apprenticeship program, and has to deal with the big problems plaguing urban agriculture; dependence on city water (it was turned off for the winter last week) and lack of land ownership (there is uncertainty whether the lease will be renewed each year so the growers must completely clear the space at the end of the season). Fortunately, Otter Oaks has secured land out in Woodstock, IL via the Conservations Fund’s Working Farms Fund. These pumpkins are the first of Otter Oaks’ many harvests to come from their Woodstock plot. Pie pumpkins can be used in any recipe that calls for pumpkin puree (pie, muffins, soup, sauce, etc.). This Serious Eats article does a great job explaining how to get from pumpkin to puree, which you could even freeze for later use.
Parsnips are in the same family as carrots and parsley. Before the introduction of potatoes from the New World, parsnips were an important staple crop in Europe with the variety grown today having been developed in the Middle Ages. Like potatoes or carrots, parsnips do well roasted. Peeling the skin can make them a little less bitter, but we usually don’t bother. Parsnip puree is another classic preparation.
A quick peek into the Gard Mo operations; we decided to cut these in order to fit them into quart delis for you all because we’ve run out of lids for the flats. We’ve found that flat lids are the most fragile of all the containers we use so we run out of them before the bottoms. Unfortunatly we can only purchase lids and bottoms together and 150ct at a time. A couple weeks ago we realized that we would be close on them, but decided to ride it rough rather than have a large excess of them at the end of the season. We’ve been able to make it work so far by immediately washing and sanitizing the lids when we get them back from you all but we’ve finally hit the wall on them this week.
