Bok choi—a real stand-up vegetable. Photo by Jared Planz
│ Announcements │ This Week’s Share │ U-Pick │ Recipe │ Coming Soon │
Announcements:
There’s still some grassfed ground beef available. Grab some while you can! Available for pickup at Clagett Farm only. Anyone can purchase (including people who aren’t CSA shareholders).
$10/pound
$45 for 5 pounds
The perfect holiday gift that doesn’t require shipping from China. Who doesn’t love garlic?!
$8/pound for CSA shareholders
$12/pound for others
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is a founding member of the Million Acre Challenge. Our mission is to bring a million agricultural acres of Maryland farmland into regenerative soils management. This includes collecting data at Clagett Farm as part of a study of which farming practices are most effectively improving soil health. You’re helping this effort as one of our customers. Thank you! Soil health helps reduce the impacts of climate change, improves the nutrition of your food, and is the foundation of a rich, healthy ecosystem.
This Week’s Share:
Fresh, young ginger is almost too gorgeous to eat. Photo by Carrie Vaughn
Ginger
Butternut squash (Note that your butternut will improve in flavor over the next few months as long as it doesn’t develop a soft spot, so don’t be afraid to leave it on your counter for a while.)
Salad greens: Tokyo bekana, spicy mix, and arugula
Hakurei turnips
Bok choi, tat soi, and collards
Eggplant
Garlic
Peppers — green bells and ripe, sweet peppers
Optional chili peppers, okra and pink beauty radishes
U-Pick:
The U-Pick list has remained pretty consistent the last few weeks:
These Tobago Seasoning chilies look like traditional habaneros, but in fact they have no heat at all—just the flavors of a habanero. You can eat it whole without a single tear in your eye. Think of the practical joke potential! Photo by Carrie Vaughn
Hot (and not so hot) chili peppers
Basil (Genovese, Greek, Thai, Round Midnight, Lemon, and Tulsi)
Garlic chives
Lemon balm
Mint
Oregano
Parsley
Sage
Shiso
Sorrel
Thyme
Flowers (Zinnias, Gomphrena, Tithonia, and others)
Recipes:
Hakurei Turnips
I know, I know—some of you (many of you) think you dislike turnips. But the turnips this week are out-of-this-world juicy, crunchy, and sweet. Bring a paring knife to your pickup and plan to eat one on your way home. They’re that good!
Hakurei turnips. Photo by Clay Dunn and Zach Patton.
Try cutting 1/2-inch slices of hakurei and using them like crackers. Some topping ideas:
Cheddar and apple slices
Pesto, olives, and an oil-cured, sun-dried tomato
A dollop of smoky baba ganoush and a green herb as garnish
Slice the turnips thinly (use a mandolin if you have one) and make a salad with them alone or with the salad greens in your share. Or you can combine with thinly sliced apple and/or fennel.
Top with some toasted nuts (pecans, for example) and dress with a vinaigrette. You can make a great dressing by putting in the blender:
A chunk of ginger
A shallot
A clove of garlic
Some orange or orange juice or (my favorite for ease) a spoonful of OJ concentrate
Soy sauce
Rice vinegar
A bit of salad oil, such as grapeseed
The greens on our turnips are exceptional right now. Here’s a recipe where they cook quickly with some miso butter. Mmmmm…miso butter…
Here’s a recipe for a Japanese quick pickle called Asazuke. They recommend letting the turnips marinate for 1-3 hours.
This recipe replaces potatoes with roasted turnips in a “No-Potato Salad”.
If you don’t get around to eating them right away, remove the greens. The turnip roots can stay in the crisper drawer of your fridge for a long time, stretching your CSA veggies into the winter.
Coming Soon:
Salad greens are unstoppable! Yahoo, salad until the end!
We should get one more week of ginger.
One more week of winter squash, primarily butternut.
Bok choi and tat soi are luscious and will continue at least two more weeks.
We underestimated the Hakurei turnips, which will last several more weeks. Watermelon radishes weeks 22 and 23. Daikon radishes and purple-top turnips weeks 25 and 26.
Peppers, eggplant, chilies, and okra continue, albeit a little more slowly with these shorter days and cooler nights.
Heads of garlic will continue until November, when we’ll switch to giving out loose cloves.
Sweet potatoes expected week 23, probably through 26.
Thank you for Supporting our Farm!
CLAGETT FARM
Wednesdays, 3:00-7:00 P.M.
Saturdays, 1:00-4:00 P.M.
DUPONT CIRCLE DC
Wednesdays, 5:00-7:00 P.M.
ANNAPOLIS
Thursdays, 4:00-6:00 P.M.