CSA Week 22 – The Last Week of the Season

This was the last week of the 2015 Gorman Produce Farm CSA. I took an extra bag because I anticipated a lot of food. I’m glad I did.

The main part of the share included:

• 2 kinds of lettuce
• Broccoli
• 3 watermelon radishes
• Pac choi
• Tatsoi
• 4 beets
• 2 bunches of turnips with greens
• 4 garlic
• Honey
• Parsley
• Chard
• Radicchio 

The 6 pounds of sweet potatoes and 1/2 pound of spinach did not fit into the picture!

The overage table was pretty full to and we were not limited to one or two items. I got carrots (with tops still attached), Brussel sprouts, bell peppers, and snacking peppers.

When I got home I had a lot of processing to do:

• The sweet potatoes are cured so will keep outside the refrigerator but they had gotten wet (rainy day) so I spread them on a big tray to dry.
• I cut the tops off the carrots and copped them up with the parsley…the pulp is on a tray drying.
• The turnip tops are cleaned, cut into pieces and in the freezer for use in winter soups.
• The Brussel sprouts are cut from the stalk and clean – ready to roast or toss into a stir fry.
• The Pac choi, Tatsoi and Chard leaves are in a bag – clean and ready to easily cut up. The stems are collected into a small bin; I’ve discovered that I like to cook the stems a bit more than the leaves so it is convenient to have them together rather than still attached to the leaves.

The crispers are full…the 3 bins I have for the overflow of veggies are full too. I’m focused on eating the ones most in danger of spoiling first!

CSA Week 20

Our CSA ends at the end of October. Right now we are almost overwhelmed with fall veggies. I still have a lot left from last week and there was another very full bag for week 20:

Several kinds of peppers: bell and snack (I got double snack peppers by trading away my hot peppers).

Turnips. There were two kinds to choose from (red and white). I got one of each by trading away my eggplant for one of them. The turnip greens are a lot to eat before they go limp.

I’ve already made chips with the bunch of kale.

The broccoli and a few sweet potatoes were shredded with some turnips and watermelon radish left from previous weeks. It makes a complete meal when combined with dried soy nuts…and cooks quickly when added to stir fry. Of course I still have sweet potatoes to last for quite a while after the CSA officially ends.

I chose the red leaf lettuce rather than all green. I like the color variety. The arugula and pale green cabbage is enough ‘green’ for salads.

I picked up a bunch of mizzuna from the overage table.

My focus for meals over the next week is to eat the veggies that will spoil most easily….and save the ones that will last a week of more in the crisper.

CSA Week 19

The week 19 share from the Gorman Produce Farm CSA was a full bag again this week. It was as large as last week (and I still have a few items in the refrigerator from last week…and I’m drying shredded radish leaves for use in soups through the winter).

In this week there is red leaf lettuce, arugula, chard (I chose the chard with the magenta stems), turnips (all white), red cabbage, bell peppers, banana peppers, 2 pounds of sweet potatoes, tatsoi, pac choi (traded my hot peppers for this), 1 pound of tomatoes, mustard greens, kohlrabi. I’m already thinking about making slaw of raw sweet potato, turnips, kohlrabi, and a watermelon radish from last week’s share. I’m enjoying the shredder attachment on my food processor!

I couldn’t resist including a close up of a chard leaf with this post. The color combination adds to the appeal of this vegetable in both salads and stir fries!

CSA Week 18

The share seemed huge this week. Maybe it is just typical of fall or the farmer bulking up this share just in case Hurricane Joaquin cases some flooding of the farm before next Wednesday.

The watermelon radishes are 3 to 4 times bigger than last year. I traded the eggplant for another 3 so I have a total of 6. One has already been shredded and it added both flavor and color in a slaw with ingredients from last week: broccoli and kohlrabi.

There was another bunch of beets. I’ll be making more fruit beety with the beets even with half the previous batch still in the freezer. That still leaves the leaves. I’ll be focusing on eating them while they are fresh either in salad or stir fry.

There are a lot of ‘greens’ right now: arugula, watermelon radish leaves, lettuce, and mizzuna (two bunches since I traded hot peppers). The freshness of the leaves means that they will last a bit longer in the bins I have for the refrigerator….as long as we don’t lose power when the storm comes through early in the week.

There were bell peppers and snack peppers still this week.

I was thrilled to get another sweet dumpling squash – yum!

The heaviest single item of the day was 3 pounds of sweet potatoes. I’m glad the squash and the sweet potatoes don’t need to be refrigerated.

I picked rosemary as my herb choice…it’s already drying.

We got 2 items from the overage table; I got 1 pound of roma tomatoes and some scallions.

My refrigerator feels very full!

CSA Week 14

When I returned home….the whole week 13 share was waiting. My husband had not even cut the watermelon! I managed to eat a few tomatoes, some peppers and half the watermelon before I picked up week 14! I was glad that I still had room in the freezer for the larger tomatoes.

I celebrated that sweet potato leaves were included in this share. I like the so much I traded the okra for a second bundle….and there was lettuce too. There will be lots of good salads this next week. I made tomato soup for the first meal after I picked up the week 14 share…using some of the tomatoes, peppers, sweet potato leaves, and oregano.

Another celebration in this share: honey. It was well timed to sooth my linger sore throat (along with lemon in hot tea).

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 15, 2015

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Is Modern living leading to a ‘hidden epidemic’ of neurological disease? - A study that compared 21 countries between 1989 and 2010 found that dementias are starting a decade earlier than they used to in adults. In the US, neurological deaths in males 75 years old and over have nearly trebled…gone up five-fold for females in the same age range. The rapid increase points to environmental influences. Scary.

A single image captures how the American house has changed over 400 years - The link at the bottom of the article will take you to the full poster. I like history themes that go way beyond what I learned in school (which seemed to be mostly about conflicts and wars).

Deer Management Solutions: It Takes a Village - We have way too many deer in our area. Fortunately I have not been involved in a collision with one….but I see deer grazing near the roads and the occasional carcass from a collision at the roadsides. Our trees and bushes show evidence of deer browsing…we see deer in our backyard. Very few buds on the day lilies survived to become flowers!

Mapping how the United States generates its electricity - Lots of graphics. The first bar chart shows that there is still a lot of coal used for power generation. It accounts for more than 15% of the generating capacity in 15 states. In my home state (Maryland), coal is used for 44% of the capacity.

Global Risks - Richard Watson posts some thought provoking graphics. The subtitle on this one is ‘How would you like your apocalypse?’

Great plains agricultural greenhouse gas emissions could be eliminated - adoption of best management practices (no-tillage agriculture and slow release fertilizer, for example) can substantially mitigate agricultural greenhouse gas fluxes. The challenge is to overcome the cultural and economic barriers (higher cost of slow release fertilizer, new equipment/training required to convert to no-tillage agriculture) to best practices..

A Self-Taught Artist Paints the Rain Forest by Memory and The plants cultivated by the people from the center in the Colombian Amazon - Beautiful and informative work. The second link is for the free eBook. The text is in Spanish…but the drawings are the reason to download it.

Web-based patient-centered toolkit helps improve patient-provider communication - It seems like this is something that should already be in place in most hospitals although I know firsthand that it wasn’t a few years ago when I had a critically ill parent. It is frustrating that it is taking so long for health care organizations to apply data and technology in a way that keeps the focus on care for the patient….and consistent with patient (or their proxy) interaction re that care.

Astronauts Will Eat Space Lettuce for the First Time Next Week - This article is a little dated….they’ve eaten the greens already.

Artist Quits Day Job to Pursue Passion for Beautifully Quilled Paper Art - I like the spiral shape and this art form is all about spiral shapes with colored paper. 

CSA Week 9

Hurray! The share this week included a small watermelon! I had a choice between yellow and red….and chose a yellow.

There were also two kinds of peppers (bell and snack), two kinds of tomatoes (cherry and heirloom), two ‘onions’: chives and purple, purple skinned small potatoes that were still wet from a rain a few hours before our pickup time. I had a choice between lettuce, eggplant or okra and I chose lettuce. And I chose leeks from the overage table.

I envision all kinds of good meals this week…the ones I am thinking of right away are:

Large salads with lettuce, tomato, pepper, chives (edamame or peanuts for protein to make it a meal)

Hash browns made with shredded potatoes (leaving on the purple skins), onion, and bell pepper

Eggs with chives or leek

Stir fry with leek, pepper  and mushrooms (the last ingredient from the grocery store)

CSA Week 7

I have a lot of veggies to eat over the next week - most of the week 5 and 6 share left when I picked up week 7 share. There are going to be two full meals each day that are heavy on veggies (salad or stir fry are my favorite generic recipes to use lots of veggies fast)!

The veggies in the week 7 share include lettuce, leeks, zucchini, cucumbers and onions. There was a choice between carrots, beets, okra, eggplant, or cherry tomatoes; I chose the tomatoes even though I know in a few weeks I’ll probably be overwhelmed by tomatoes and be looking for ways to preserve them to use after the season.

I was also allowed a pick from the overage table and I couldn’t resist picking up a small purple cabbage; I like the additional color it adds to salads.

CSA Week 5

The remnants of the week 4 Gorman Farms CSA share traveled from Maryland to Texas in an ice chest (a two day road trip). The only portions left are a few carrots and a cucumber!

It has been hot and wet in Maryland recently so the veggies are abundant…and the CSA share is full of variety:

• Leafy greens like lettuce, kale, collard greens, kohlrabi greens, carrots tops, cabbage
• Roots like carrots, kohlrabi, onions and garlic
• Cool cucumbers.

The only downside is that I am in Texas and my husband picked up our share this week. How much will still be good by the time I get home.

CSA Week 2

The week 1 produce I got from the Gorman Farm CSA was almost used up by the end of the week. A few garlic scapes and part of the lettuce was all that was left by the time I went to pick up the week 2 veggies! I have become a huge fan of spinach salads (so much so that I didn’t cook any of the spinach in last week’s share). I like it with fruit and marmalade/olive oil dressing. This past week I combined spinach with:

• Strawberries and carrots
• Apple and peanuts and savoy cabbage
• Apple and almonds

Now for week 2 - Yum! The medium share this week included: Chard, Kale, Lettuce, Scallions and Spinach. I see salads, kale chips, and stir fries in my future! I used most of the kale for chips ---- made right after I picked up the new share to help clear the crisper a little.

CSA Week 1

Hurray for the first week of the Gorman Farm CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) yesterday! We had ‘special’ distributions of strawberries and lettuce the past few weeks but this was the first week of the normal variety of veggies. I have a medium share this year just as I did in 2014 and am looking forward to the fresh veggies every week.

This time of year - there are lots of shades of green except for the strawberries! I put them in the middle in the picture below. Going clockwise from just above the strawberries, there is 1/2 pound of spinach stuffed into a plastic bag, collard greens held together with a rubber band, lettuce, 1/2 pound of garlic scapes, tatsoi and pac choi. I already had a wonderful stir fry seasoned with garlic scapes and some of the other veggies.

A few days ago I was talking to my daughter about what we would miss the most if we moved from where we live now (she in Arizona and me in Maryland) and we agreed that our CSAs would be high on the list.