Hi from the farm! September is a big month for a lot of us: back to school, back from summer vacations (sigh), new classes, and the likes. Here on the farm it’s the month of reckoning, so to speak. It’s impossible to tell how the year has been until around this time, when some of the crops that have been growing all season, like squash and cabbage, are ready to harvest. Cool, crisp nights are actually a bonus to some crops like carrots and other root crops, which become sweeter after the frost. All the sugars from the plants move into the root as the leaves begin to wither. Sometime in October your bunched beets may have to turn into loose beets, but for now, we haven’t seen much frost.
It was an exciting week on the farm. A small army of amazing volunteers came from Intact Insurance in Ajax, where we have many awesome customers all under one roof. They tried their hand at everything from eggplant-picking, to carrot-bunching (messiest job!), to ground cherry picking and clamshelling, to even packing the boxes. We tackled things I wouldn’t have attempted alone- those things like the tomatillos that needed to be picked but I wondered when I would have the time. So a huge THANK YOU for the encouragement, help and great attitudes you all brought us this week! Sadly, I was too busy to take photographs. Terrible!
For your lunch boxes this week we have some lovely celery, peppers, carrots and peas, lettuce for some tasty wraps and salads, cantaloupe, and some very packable ground cherries for the whole shares. May I recommend if you have not already started, make your own hummus dip. It’s 100 percent better than store-bought, economical and so healthy. Just mix drained chickpeas, a couple tbsp. olive oil, a couple tbsp. lemon juice, garlic to taste, salt and pepper to taste and blend. Add a little water to allow it to blend. Try using roasted eggplant (whole shares) in the place of chickpeas for baba ghanouj.
This week’s list:
Half
-carrots
-golden beets
-sugar snap or snow peas
-romaine lettuce
-red leaf lettuce
-red swiss chard (add beet leaves to make this go further)
-butternut squash (bake and drizzle with butter, use with beets and carrots for roast veggies, make soup, or use as a base for sauces- yum!)
-cantaloupe
-celery
-green peppers (next week I think we’ll have coloured peppers!!!!)
Whole
-carrots
-golden beets
-sugar snap or snow peas
-romaine lettuce
-red leaf lettuce
-red swiss chard (add beet leaves to make this go further)
-butternut squash (bake and drizzle with butter, use with beets and carrots for roast veggies, make soup, or use as a base for sauces- yum!)
-cantaloupe
-celery
-green peppers (next week I think we’ll have coloured peppers!!!!)
-ground cherries
-tomatillos
-red cabbage
-radishes
-eggplant
-collard greens
-fennel
This weeks recipe once again comes from Melissa’s blog-her recipes always look amazing and use all sorts of healthy goodies that we usually have in our boxes. I’m sharing her Stuffed Delicata Squash recipe 🙂
If you end up making it please share photos-I think I will save this one for thanksgiving for the family-always trying to figure out new ways to get healthy mixes into our large family get togethers. I know without a doubt mine will not be as pretty as Melissa’s but some of our farm share members must be good cooks-so post your pictures of whatever it is that you make if it comes out well so we can all try it out too 🙂
http://mywholefoodlife.com/2013/12/09/stuffed-delicata-squash/