So What Food System Will You Support?

By Farmer Richard

Towards the beginning of this CSA season, we were faced with the buyout of Whole Foods Market by Amazon.  Given we grow a significant amount of produce for Whole Foods Market, this buyout weighed heavy on our minds and left us wondering how this business decision may trickle down and directly impact our farm.  It also left us wondering what may happen to our food system in general as we as a society adapt to the changes in the market place.  We truly believe our future and the future of society is in the hands of the consumers.  Over the course of the season we have tried to report on a variety of  topics to impress upon our readers about how our food purchasing choices affect our health, our community, our downstream communities and more.  Our choices will sculpt our future food system and are based on and related to more than just the basic price of an item.  So what are the issues?

One of the most important issues that plays into the bigger picture view we are seeking is our health.  Choosing to eat more organic vegetables grown locally and in their season is one of the best ways to maximize the nutrition you get from your food as produce received directly from the farm typically is more fresh and thereby has retained more nutrients.  Vegetables grown in nutrient dense soils are especially high in antioxidants and other nutrients.  Just as you would seek out an experienced surgeon with lots of experience to perform a surgery, so it is with finding an experienced farmer to grow your vegetables!  For those who choose to include meat in their diets, choosing to eat only meat produced locally from pastured animals and grass-fed beef may be the healthiest choice.  Eating local and in season is also beneficial for community health.  When food is grown locally, there is an opportunity for any “extras” to go to a local food pantry, thereby opening up access to fresh, nutritious produce in communities that may otherwise have limited access or be unable to afford purchasing fresh food.  This year we donated over 30,000 pounds of fresh vegetables to our local food pantry that picks up weekly at our farm during the growing season. 

More and more people are choosing organic for health reasons including to minimize pesticide residues and to raise healthy children!  We applaud your choice.  But organic is available everywhere now.  Not just the co-ops and farmers markets, but almost every grocery chain including Wal-Mart.  Even convenience stores, ie in our area Kiwk Trip, now carry some organic products.  But is all organic the same?  Unfortunately, the answer is No!

Rooster keeping an eye on his hens!

Muscovy Duck with ducklings.

When I started as an organic farmer in 1973, there were very, very few organic customers.  Now something like 65% say they buy organic at least sometimes.  Organic now represents 10% of food purchases and some 10 billion dollars, enough of an impact on the market to attract the “big business” players.  That is good and yet a huge complicated “bad.”  Money, greed and politics all come into play in what once was our small scale arena of trust and integrity.  Now we have big business, “green washing,” “white wash and hog wash” politics and fraud infiltrating into the organic market place too!  Take eggs as an example.  We have a small flock of chickens in a mobile coop that are totally free range.  They scratch and forage in the pastures and are really healthy and happy birds.  Their eggs are fantastic!  Their yolks are not just yellow, but rich golden in color with the same rich flavor.  Our hens will raise new chicks in the spring to sustain our flock and continually be replacing birds that pass away from old age and the occasional bird that falls victim to predation.  Same with our flock of ducks.  They raise their own replacements, they live on the creek, they fly and only come home at dark to eat a little organic grain and then retire to their safe house that we secure them in for nighttime safety from predators.  We could expand our chicken flock to 400-500 birds housed in a mobile coop the size of a school bus and move them to new pasture every few days and produce those eggs with golden rich yolks, but we are not looking for a new business and with the labor involved, we would need to get $5-$6 per dozen for those wonderfully tasty and nutritious eggs.  How many of you would sign on to that?

So we went to our neighbors who raise organic eggs for a major co-op.  They have 2 chicken barns that hold 10,000 chickens in each and look very much like an industrial egg factory, but with some important distinctions.  They have no cages for laying hens and they give their birds 2.5 sq ft of space inside and provide a nice outdoor yard with shade and dirt to scratch.  Their egg yolks have a little color, but nothing like a totally free range bird.  They need to get $4.00/dozen eggs to survive.  They are lamenting that their co-op has lost market share because the new organic rules for pasture and outside access has again been delayed by large scale factory farm lobbyists who are also producing organic eggs.  While our neighbor is already in compliance with the new organic rules, the factory farm lobbyists want to stick with their 1.5 sq ft of space and little or no meaningful outdoor access.  Those eggs sell for $3.00/dozen at many, many supermarkets. 

So there is my example.  Beware of the sales promos that show young girls in a dress carrying fresh flowers with happy chickens or cows and a red barn in the background!  It is marketing PR, pure and simple and a certain amount of “hogwash.”  On the bright side, at least they are eating organic feed and not being fed antibiotics and/or hormones.  Organic is now “big business” and it is a difficult task for you the consumer to sort out the truth from the hogwash or chicken wash or green wash!

The same is true for vegetables, most of the big players now also do organic including Grimmway, the largest producer of vegetables in the world.  And frankly, they do have the resources to do a pretty good job!  We can’t forget about the home delivery meals and CSA style “look-a-likes” that claim to be helping support local farmers, but substitute cheaper conventional to help their bottom line with less than transparent disclosure.  Read the recent NY Times article about the local farmers left with crops in the field when the delivery service with their sophisticated software to offer “your choice” for “your box” suddenly goes into bankruptcy.  We experienced the same with Door to Door Organics, a home delivery company in Chicago that we grew for previously.

So what about the original, traditional CSA model where consumers, eaters, pledge/commit to support a farm and farmer for better or worse!?  That is the model that is suffering and experiencing decline across the nation.  Why is this? 

It requires a “two way street” and a little give and take between farmer and eater.  The farmer pledges to do their best job, given their experience or inexperience to provide a season of produce or meat, or eggs, etc for the supporting eater.  The CSA member agrees to learn to “eat out of the box” and eat seasonally.  The catch is that a real CSA commitment requires a very experienced farmer team who can grow a very wide variety of crops throughout the season in order to provide a balanced full box for a long season, 30 weeks in our case.  We refer to it as “graduate level” growing, not for beginners, and we are confident that we do the best job of any!  But the two way street?

Harvest Party at Harmony Valley Farm

We read and understand the requests to customize boxes, let us order just what we want.  We looked at the sophisticated software for individual boxes, the crew time to pack those boxes, and the chance of pickup mistakes that we are expected to remedy and those costs are huge!  We can do special orders to help you meet your needs, but for now we are pinning our hopes on our solid, members who have been able to make the transition to seasonal eating.  We hope these successful members will help us find those increasingly rare families that do cook and want to learn about new vegetables.  This is a necessary part of a successful CSA experience. In other words, rather than us transitioning to a personalized delivery service, we need to find those that will make the transition to seasonal eating.

I hesitate to say this, but here it is!  It is not just about “me,” “what I want now,” easy order, delivered to my door, now!  This may be the present climate and there are a world of companies preparing to meet that “me, now” mentality, but we are pinning our survival on a more traditional Community Supported Agriculture, where it is a two-way street of learning, new foods, etc.  Kids can come to the farm, even only once to experience picking all the strawberries they can eat or picking their own pumpkins.  We have seen, and many of you have experienced, the transformation that can come from that experience that changes lives forever.  That is our core, that is our wish.  In this day and age of “me first” please help us continue a historic connection to food and land, our land, your farm, we your farmers.

Farmer Richard and Chef Andrea

December 14, 2017 - This Week's Box Contents, Featuring Horseradish

Cooking With the Box

Well friends, here we are at the end of the season.  I’ve enjoyed sharing recipes and cooking ideas with you throughout the season and look forward to doing so again next year!  Lets see what delicious things we can make with this week’s box contents.

Lets start with this week’s featured vegetable, horseradish.  The Horseradish Sour Cream Dip (See below) is a nice dip to serve for holiday parties.  Make a platter with fresh vegetables or homemade vegetable chips.  Beet chips, butternut squash chips, even sweet potato chips!   If you have leftover dip, serve it with roast beef or salmon. 

Now that you’re well stocked with root vegetables, there are a lot of delicious dishes we can prepare.  Lets start with this recipe for Rustic Roasted Root Vegetable and Goat Cheese Tart.  This tart calls for parsnips, turnips, rutabagas and celery.  In place of the celery, use celeriac and feel free to substitute another root vegetable in place of any of these if you’d like.  Don’t have a rutabaga?  Substitute carrots.  This recipe for Rice Noodles with Stir-Fried Chicken,Turnips & Carrots will make good use of some of the carrots and turnips in this week’s box as well.

With the remainder of this week’s parsnips, consider making Parsnip Biscuits with Black Pepper and Honey.  Serve them for breakfast along with scrambled eggs and these Sweet Potato Maple Hash Browns.

Carrot Bacon picture from Purewow.com

Last week I stumbled across this recipe for Carrot Bacon.  There is no real bacon involved, rather this vegan preparation uses long strips of carrots that are seasoned with smoked paprika and baked to make a bacon-like strip.  You can munch on these as a snack or use them as a garnish for soup, grain dishes, etc.  If you have some larger carrots, those would be the ones to use for making Carrot Bacon.

Trying to figure out what to take to that New Year’s Eve party you were invited to?  How about Real Sour Cream & Onion Dip. You could serve it with Carrot Bacon!

Before we end the season, we need one more recipe for a seasonal take on pizza.  This recipe for Roasted Apple, Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Pizza uses white beans as the “sauce” base. 

Have a few sweet potatoes still hanging around?  Why not turn them into a dessert?!  Try this recipe for Deborah Madison’s Sweet Potato Flan.

Some boxes this week will contain escarole, while others will contain radicchio and/or cabbage.  If you receive escarole, consider making this recipe for Stewy White Beans with Escarole, Garlic and Sizzled Rosemary.  If you receive the radicchio, here’s a tasty recipe for Spaghetti with Radicchio & Ricotta.  Serve this on its own or add some sautéed shrimp.  Lastly, if you get cabbage in your box, check out this recipe for Roast Pork and Sweet Potatoes with Spicy Cabbage.  This recipe was recently shared by a member in our Facebook Group.

Picture of Quinoa Stuffed Squash from thekitchn.com

 Whether you receive Festival, Carnival or Sugar Dumpling Squash, you may use any of these varieties to make Quinoa Stuffed Squash.  This recipe includes dates and pistachios.  It can stand alone as a meal or you could serve these as a side dish with a pork chop or roasted chicken.

Lastly, here’s a different way to use celeriac.  I found this recipe for a vegetarian burger made with celeriac.  Check out this recipe for Celeriac Burgers. I bet they’d be good served with either the Horseradish Sour Cream Dip (see below) or the Real Onion Dip.

That brings us to the bottom of another CSA box and the conclusion of another CSA Season.  Thank you for joining us for a seasonal eating adventure this year.  I hope you have a wonderful winter and we look forward to growing for you again next year. Next year’s sign-up form will be available on our website very soon!

-Chef Andrea

Vegetable Feature:  Horseradish

Horseradish Whips

We’ve been growing horseradish for many years, however we don’t put it into CSA boxes every year.  Horseradish is a big wholesale crop for us.  It stores amazingly well and can maintain quality for months in storage allowing us to sell it throughout the winter.  You’ll find your horseradish in this week’s box packaged in a small ziplock bag.  We are sending you a 3 oz portion of horseradish whips.  You may be wondering “What is a horseradish whip?”  The whips are my favorite part to use because they really don’t need to be peeled!  A horseradish whip is a small, skinny piece of horseradish that was cut off the main root.  They are not appropriate for a standard wholesale pack, so we trim them off, but can’t bring ourselves to throw them away because they are perfectly fine to use and are actually easier to work with than the larger root pieces!  We also save pieces that are larger than whips but smaller than the big roots we sell.  Typically pieces that are about the diameter of your finger and 10-12 inches long are saved as seed pieces that we plant in the fall for the following year’s crop.

Horseradish is in the brassica family along with cabbage, Brussels sprouts, etc.  It is high in vitamin C as well as other nutrients and is used both in culinary ways as well as in medicinal applications.  Horseradish is very pungent.  It has isothiocyanates, a type of mustard oil, that are released into the air when the flesh of the horseradish root is cut. If you get a whiff of this oil, you may feel your eyes and nose burn a bit.  It’s a similar reaction as cutting into a strong onion.  When you are working with horseradish, do so in small batches and keep a window open for a little ventilation.  The compounds that give horseradish its pungent kick will volatilize into the air.  As such, horseradish is usually added to a recipe towards the end so as to preserve as much of the characteristic horseradish flavor as possible.  Vinegar also helps to stabilize horseradish.  If you’d like to have horseradish available to use in small quantities when you want some, I’d suggest making the prepared horseradish recipe featured in this week’s newsletter.  The addition of vinegar will stabilize the flavor and the horseradish will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator. 

Because the flavor of horseradish can be very strong and pungent, it is used mostly as a condiment or seasoning.  It pairs well with cream, sour cream, crème fraiche, cheese, etc.  Thus, it’s often mixed with one of these dairy products to make a nice cream sauce to serve on beef or fish.  You can also use horseradish to make cocktail sauce and it pairs nicely with beets, roasted root vegetables, beef, salmon, etc. 

Don’t feel like you have to be in a hurry to use the horseradish in this week’s box.  I mentioned previously that it stores very well.  Keep it in the ziplock bag and store it in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it.  If a little surface mold starts to form on the exterior, simply wipe or wash it away.  The root itself will most likely still be just fine to use.  Why is this?  Because horseradish has strong anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties so it rarely ever rots.  That’s also why it’s a healthy food to include in our diets!

Prepared Horseradish

Yield:  1—half pint jar

3 oz fresh horseradish whips

4 Tbsp distilled white vinegar

¼ tsp salt

Sugar, pinch

1. Cut the horseradish whips into chunks and place them in the food processor.  Pulse to grind.   It will be a bit dry, something like coconut.  Add the vinegar, salt and sugar. 
2. Have a clean and sterilized jar with a lid and canning ring available nearby.
3. Add the vinegar, salt and sugar.  Blend to combine well.
4. Pack the horseradish into the jar and refrigerate. 

Recipe adapted from The Kitchen Ecosystem by Eugenia Bone.

Horseradish Sour Cream Dip

Yield:  2 cups

1 cup sour cream

¾ cup peeled, cored and minced Granny Smith apple

¼ cup lightly packed grated horseradish

2 Tbsp minced onion

2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

½ tsp kosher salt

¼ tsp freshlty ground pepper

¼ cup finely snipped fresh chives  (may substitute with 2-3 tbsp dried chives)

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sour cream, apple, horseradish, onion, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.  Using a rubber spatula, fold in the chives.
2. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour to allow the flavors to meld and the dip to thicken.  It can be prepared up to 1 day in advance.  Remove the refrigerator 10 minutes before serving.

This recipe was borrowed from Diane Morgan’s book, Roots.  This dip is excellent served with roasted beets, baked potatoes, toast crisps, or even just potato chips!

Follow-Up Report From Our Recent Letter to Members

by Farmer Richard

Just one of the beautiful mineral rich
fields in our secluded valley!

Several weeks ago I wrote a letter to you, our members, asking for your feedback on the future of our CSA and the direction we might take our program as we are coming up on a new year.  We have particular concern for the CSA portion of our business as our membership numbers have been declining since about 2010.  We had over 120 responses from members with many lengthy, well thought out responses and suggestions.  We also held two webinars that were very helpful.  What did we learn that could be helpful in reversing our downward sliding numbers?  Well, a lot!  Before I share some of the suggestions and thoughts we received, I want to clarify something from the letter that may have been misunderstood.  We are not in financial trouble and are not considering quitting CSA.  We have had some challenging weather events with crop losses, but we’ve worked hard to make up for some of the losses with this year’s fall crops and did have reserves to rely on.  We would like to build our CSA back to full capacity and are encouraged to do what we can to make that happen.  We have 100 acres of mineral-rich land, plus the experienced crew, the knowledge and the passion for producing nutrient dense, delicious, clean, safe food.  We have been able to keep the farm going by increasing wholesale sales when our CSA membership declined, but that market is not our first choice!  Yes, we get an occasional call or email from an appreciative burdock customer in Pennsylvania or Chicago, but what we have come to value greatly is the much more personal connection and interaction with our CSA members!  The many thank you notes, the pictures of a child eating vegetables as their first solid food, the Thank You notes and drawings from young and old ones that have visited the farm—this is your farm too and you are our best supporters.  You are what keeps us going when times are tough.  You are our community and you are what “Community Supported Agriculture” (CSA) is all about.  That is what we work for and we sincerely thank you for being a part of our farm.  While we are not able to respond personally to all of the great emails we received, be sure that we read each one and have noted your suggestions. 

So here are some of the thoughts and ideas we gleaned from members’ responses:

1. Overwhelming praise for “freshness, quality, variety, value and customer service!”  “You need to advertise that!” “People don’t know you!”
2.  Convenience:  CSA is a huge time saving convenience over “grocery store shopping” when the pick-up site is in their neighborhood, near to their home.  We were encouraged to do recruiting around existing sites.  Many neighborhoods have a Facebook group.  It may be most effective for a member of the neighborhood to chime in and inform their neighbors of the convenient opportunity to participate in CSA in their neighborhood.
3.  Work Place CSA Sites:  This is another way we may offer convenience and many employers offer incentives to “eat healthy” which, in the end, is a benefit to you, your employer and us!
4. Recruitment:  Our satisfied members are our best recruitment.  “Give us an extra box to give to a prospective member.”  Done, great idea!  Just ask and supply us with contact information for follow-up and there will be 2 boxes under your name at the next pick-up, one for you and one for the person you’re introducing to CSA.  Another idea that was suggested is to do a “Trial Share,” another great idea!  We can offer a 4 box trial, pick your weeks, give us a try and then decide on a longer commitment for the remainder of the season.
5. Easier sign-up and ordering—we have already committed to building a new website, being designed by a longtime business associate in our community.  It will be friendly to new mobile devices (no PDF documents) and we’re working towards being able to accept sign-ups online and also accept orders for our special produce plus offers online with multiple payment options.
6. More options for “Pack your own” boxes & produce plus.  Again, offering an easier way for members to take advantage of our special offers with easy online ordering and more offerings to help customize your experience and meet your needs.  For example, maybe we could put together some special offers before the holidays to allow you to stock up for holiday meals, guests, etc.  It was also suggested that we provide more options for simple preservation, ie salsa packs, etc.
7. More of a full meal option.  Perhaps there are more offerings we could include that would allow you to stock your pantries with high quality ingredients to use in making your meals.  Maybe we could have more opportunities to purchase maple syrup, Driftless sunflower oil, Marian Farms’ raisins & almonds or Frog Hollow Farm’s olive oil, we may even be able to make another batch of ramp cheddar cheese with Castle Rock Organic Dairy.  We have trialed and know many, many more of the best organic producers in the area and our community of producers we’ve met through our fruit share.  We are exploring the option of including an egg share with our neighbors who do a good job of producing organic eggs with nice, pasture, outdoor access. 
8. Changing the delivery day.  Our largest decrease in CSA members is in Madison.  We have long heard from some that they do not like Saturday delivery!  So, we are considering a weekday delivery, possibly Wednesday, which would also allow us to have business drop sites.  We have one good possibility.  Could you help us find other businesses that have the potential for 20 or more boxes?    How many members and coordinators would want to change to a weekday?  Lots of questions!!!

So, these are the thoughts rolling around in our minds right now, but what can you do?  For starters, help us find new members that have the potential to learn and be successful with “seasonal eating.”  Perhaps you would be willing to mentor new members to help them make the transition to “eating out of the box.”  Perhaps you know of a business that might be interested in serving as a delivery site for their employees and possibly even opening it up to other non-employees.  Keep talking to us!  We appreciate your perspectives & ideas.  While we may not be able to do everything that is suggested, we want to explore different possibilities.  This is our business, but it’s a business with passion for helping families eat better and be healthy. 

Peak Season Vegetable share from 2017.

We realize that CSA is not for everyone, but our hope is that we can do a good job taking care of those individuals who do find it to be a good fit for their lifestyle and values.  Thanks again to everyone who took the time to send a response and share your thoughts.  We also appreciate those of you who took the time to talk to us in our webinars.  We appreciate your support and look forward to another year of CSA!  

November 30, 2017 - This Week's Box Contents, Featuring Storage Turnips

Cooking With The Box

We are coming up on the end of our delivery season, just two more boxes (including this week's box) before our winter break.  These last two boxes are packed full of wonderful winter vegetables, most of which will store just fine, so don’t feel pressured to eat through your box within the next two weeks. 

This week’s featured newsletter recipe, Apple & Turnip Quiche (see below), comes to us from The Birchwood Café in Minneapolis.  After discovering this recipe a year ago, it quickly became a winter favorite and I’ve made it multiple times.  It’s a great item to serve for breakfast, brunch or dinner.  It reheats very well.  It makes a great appetizer or light dinner option for holiday gatherings.  If you like quiche, you’ll like this recipe and it’s a great way to use turnips.

We’re pleased to have enough Brussels sprouts to include them in this week’s box.  Just before Thanksgiving Andrea Bemis posted this recipe for Charred Brussels Sprouts with Bacon & Dates.  Make this one while dates are readily available and enjoy the sweet, salty, smoky combo of this dish.  This would be a good side dish to serve with the Apple & Turnip Quiche.

Lets talk breakfast for a moment.  Winter is a pretty easy time to incorporate vegetables into breakfast.  A batch of Sweet Potato Morning Glory Muffins  is on my list for this week.  I’m also going to try Carrot Cake Oatmeal with Pecans.  An extra dose of beta carotene from these vegetables has got to equate to an awesome start to the day!

 There is quite a pile of sweet potatoes in this week’s box.  Definitely enough to make the muffins and have plenty remaining to make a batch of Chicken, Sweet Potato and Black Bean Stew.  Make a batch of cornbread or some rice to serve alongside and you have a simple dinner, likely with leftovers.  I also want to try this recipe for a Winter Panzanella with Maple Balsamic Vinaigrette.  Panzanella is typically made with tomatoes in the summer, but this winter version includes winter squash, sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts.  This salad would be great served with roasted chicken or grilled pork tenderloin.

While you have the oven on to make the Sweet Potato Morning Glory Muffins, you might as well make some Carrot Oatmeal Cookies.  We featured this in our newsletter last year.  These cookies are nice to have on hand for a sweet treat, but can also make a nice holiday cookie.  Their sweetness comes from the carrots and some maple syrup, so they are a nice alternative to some of the overly sweet Christmas cookies.

I love the versatility of carrots.  You can eat them in oatmeal for breakfast, have an afternoon snack with carrots in the form of a cookie, and still have enough remaining to make Baked Egg Rolls!  This recipe makes great use of this week’s cabbage and carrots.  It also calls for water chestnuts, but instead of using those canned ones just substitute diced sunchokes!  Sunchokes have the same crispy, crunchy texture as water chestnuts, making them a great stand in.  The author of this recipe also tells you how to freeze and reheat these eggrolls.  If you’re up to it, make a double batch so you can keep them in the freezer for one of those nights when you get home late and need a quick something to become dinner on the fly. 

After you’ve made the Apple & Turnip Quiche, there should still be some turnips remaining.  I’m going to make one of my favorite fall/winter recipes that sounds complicated by the name, but really is a nice, simple one-pan creation.  Pan Seared Pork Chops with Turnips, Apples & Cider Cream Sauce is delicious and makes a great dinner.  

Chili & Lime Sunchoke Salsa
served with Salmon!

With this week’s bag of beets, I am going to make these Beet Patties with Tzatziki.  While tzatziki usually contains cucumbers, make it with small diced beauty heart radishes instead!  Serve these patties with Chili-Roasted Sunchokes or skip the tzatziki entirely and serve them with Chili & Lime Sunchoke Salsa.  Both recipes were featured in previous newsletters. 

Most of this week’s beauty heart radishes are going towards making this beautiful Radish Salad with Orange & Goat Cheese. You can use any kind of citrus to make this salad, so if you don’t have oranges but have grapefruit (in this week’s fruit share), use those instead!  Pair this colorful salad with A Pizza in the Roman Way for a simple, yet satisfying meal.  This pizza recipe was featured in our newsletter earlier this year.  It’s very simple and is basically pizza dough covered with delicious caramelized onions! 

I came across this recipe for Onion-Beer Dip, an Edible Madison featured recipe for this fall.  They recommend serving it with vegetable chips, so why not use this week’s celeriac to make these Celeriac Chips to eat with this dip!  Eat it as a snack or take it to a holiday party for a different take on the traditional “chips & dip.” 

I told you there were a lot of vegetables in this week’s box!  What shall we do with those stunning Festival Squash?  This week the NY Times featured Melissa Clark’s recipe for Sweet & Spicy Roasted Tofu and Squash.  Melissa recommends serving it with rice, but it can stand alone for a vegetarian dinner option as well.

I think that just about brings us to the bottom of this week’s box.  I’ll see you back here next week for our final Cooking With the Box for the season! 

Vegetable Feature: Storage Turnips

Scarlet Turnips

Gold turnips

Nature has a way of giving us what we need in its appropriate season.  As we move into the winter months here in the Midwest we no longer have the luxury of eating vegetables freshly harvested from the field.  Rather, for those who choose to embrace a seasonal, local way of eating, we turn to root crops and other vegetables that will store well through the winter months.  Feel free to take your time eating through the last two boxes of the season.  There’s no rush….most items will store well for several weeks if not months.  This week we’re going to turn our attention to the humble storage turnip. 

Storage turnips are much different from the tender, mild baby white salad turnips we grow in the spring and early fall.  Storage turnips are denser, have a stronger flavor and will keep for months in cold storage.  We grow three different colors of storage turnips including the classic and familiar purple top turnips, golden turnips (in your box this week), and sweet scarlet turnips. Purple top turnips have the strongest turnip flavor while golden and sweet scarlet turnips are more mild.  Golden & sweet scarlet turnips are our two preferred varieties, which is why we’ve chosen them for your last two boxes of the season!

Turnips are sometimes a challenging vegetable for CSA members to embrace.  I’ve heard longtime members say “I can conquer everything in the box, but those late season turnips are a challenge for me!”  Perhaps you have memories of strong-flavored, overcooked, unpleasant turnips lingering in your mind or just find the unfamiliarity of a turnip intimidating.  I hope you’ll approach turnips with an open mind this year as they have a lot of great qualities and a wide variety of uses.  If you’re still learning how to use and appreciate turnips, use them in recipes where they are combined with other ingredients as opposed to being cooked on their own. 

Turnips are often paired with bacon, ham, apples, cheese, cider, cream, garlic, mushrooms, onions, potatoes, and lemon as well as other root vegetables.  They make a delicious addition to winter soups, stews, and pot pies.  They may be used in root vegetable gratins, winter stir-fries, fried rice, etc.  While turnips may seldom be the star ingredient, they provide more of a background flavor that, if missing, will leave your eater wondering what’s different!  This week’s recipe for Apple & Turnip Quiche is excellent and I encourage you to try it.  It’s a well-balanced dish where the richness of the eggs and dairy along with the sweetness of the apples balance the turnip flavor.  As with all vegetables in the brassicas family, heed my warning to not overcook them!  The sulfur compounds in turnips and other brassicas can be very overpowering if you overcook them, which is why some people may have bad memories of turnips!

Turnips should be stored in a plastic bag or container in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator.  I seldom peel turnips, however if you find their flavor to be more pungent than your liking, peeling may help decrease some of the characteristic turnip bite.  Also, with extended time in storage you may find some turnips may develop some browning due to oxidation or some surface scarring, which is sometimes a reason to peel the turnip.  The defect is often only on the surface and the rest of the turnip is totally usable.  If your turnips start to dehydrate a little bit in storage, either rehydrate them in a bowl of cold water in the refrigerator or cut them up and put them in a stew or soup.

We hope you’ll choose to embrace turnips this year and try some new and different ways to prepare them.  In addition to this week’s newsletter recipe, there are several more delicious and creative turnip recipes on our website including Pan Seared Pork Chops with Turnips, Apples & Cider Cream Sauce and Roasted Turnip Ganoush.  

Apple Turnip Quiche

Yield:  6 to 8 servings

“Sweet, tart apple makes a nice foil to turnip’s sharper edge in this wintery quiche.  Sometimes we use celery root instead of turnip, and rutabaga works nicely as well.”

Basic Pastry Crust

1 ⅓ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp sugar

½ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

3 oz cold cream cheese, cut into pieces

2 to 3 Tbsp ice water

Quiche Filling

1 ½ cups small diced apple (peeled & cored)

2 cups small diced turnip

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

5 large eggs

½ cup heavy cream

1 ½ cups whole milk

¼ tsp salt

⅛ tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 tsp fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried thyme

1 cup shredded Gruyere cheese

1. First, prepare the pastry crust.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and sugar.  Cut the butter and cream cheese into the flour mixture to make coarse crumbs.  Stir in just enough ice water to bring the mixture together.  Gather the dough into a ball, wrap it in parchment paper, and chill it in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes before rolling it out. (Note:  This step may be done a day or two in advance.)
2. Preheat the oven to 425°F.  Roll out the pastry dough and fit it into a deep 9-inch pie pan.  Line the crust with parchment paper, and weight it with pie weights or dried beans to keep the crust from forming an air bubble.  Parbake the crust for about 12 minutes.  Remove from the oven and set the crust aside.
3. In a medium bowl, toss the apples and turnips with the oil and spread them out on a baking sheet.  Roast, shaking the pan occasionally, until the apples are soften and the turnips just begin to brown, about 10 to 15 minutes.  Set the apples and turnips aside.
4. Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F.  In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, milk, salt, pepper, and thyme, and stir in ½ cup of the cheese.  Stir in the apples and turnips.  Place the prebaked crust on a baking sheet and carefully pour the filling into the crust.  Top with the remaining ½ cup of cheese.  Carefully transfer the baking sheet to the oven.  Bake the quiche until the filling is just set but still moist, about 40 minutes.  The quiche should jiggle a little in the middle.  Let the quiche cool on a rack before cutting it.  Serve at room temperature.

Chef Andrea’s Notes:  This is my favorite recipe in The Birchwood Café Cookbook by Tracy Singleton and Marshall Paulsen.  This recipe represents what The Birchwood Café in Minneapolis, MN does best---cook seasonally with what’s available at that time in the Midwest.  In the intro to this recipe they also recommend making this recipe with celeriac or rutabaga in place of turnip.

This has become one of my staple winter recipes.  Sometimes I make it as written, but I’ve also prepared it with a few of my own adaptations.

• Add crumbled cooked bacon to the egg and milk mixture. 
• Layer 8 ounces of browned ground pork in the bottom of the pastry crust before pouring the filling on top. 
• In place of Gruyere cheese I’ve used Gouda, cheddar, or a combination of one of these mixed with some smoked cheddar.  

Carrots & People: What Really Matters?

By Andrea Yoder

Andrea motoring around the cooler!

Waste…it’s hard to face, for some, yet in my day to day work it is inevitable.  Yes, I’m the one scrounging through the bin of vegetable waste and trimmings on the wash line trying to save every last vegetable with thoughts like these rolling through my mind:  Why are there so many carrots being discarded?  These look just fine!  This crew is being too picky….and then I pick them up and realize the crew is doing just fine.  The vegetable may look fine on one side, but was discarded because maybe it had a split, a small bad spot, was shaped funny, maybe slightly discolored, too short, too fat…the list goes on.  Throughout the year, but especially during fall/winter root crop season, my days are filled with tracking inventories—How many bins of carrots do we have?  How many more do we estimate we’ll be able to harvest?  Where will we store them?  How many do we need to reserve for CSA boxes?  Who will buy the extras?  Do we have enough or do we need more?  Along with tracking inventories, I do a lot of forecasting, anticipating what we’ll need for CSA boxes, reading the minds of our buyers to anticipate the items and quantities they might buy between October and the end of December.  Of course, in the midst of inventories, forecasting, packing CSA and wholesale boxes, I’m tracking yields.  This lot of carrots is only yielding 500# per bin instead of the usual 650#....why is that?  Wet harvest day and we brought in a lot of mud?  Too many forked carrots that have to be discarded?  Too many splits? 

Bin of 'funny' carrots.

Earlier this week as I was motoring around the cooler on my forklift pulling bins for the crews to wash, carrots was the subject matter that laid heavy on my mind occupying my brain space.  The pallet of ‘funny carrots’ (the name we lovingly give to odd-shaped carrots) is getting pretty big.  Where are they going?  Will I ever find a buyer for them?  We’re generating more than the food pantry can take, perhaps I should just compost them.  But they’re good carrots!!!  They’re sweet, delicious, and well—they’re interesting and have character!  In the course of washing tons (literally) of carrots, we have to face the sobering fact that they are not all perfect.  Despite the fact that they are perfectly wholesome, delicious, sweet carrots, they are considered of lesser quality and value in the marketplace!  I can’t say I like this reality, but it’s not a bias I can change singlehandedly.  Of course, our goal is to maximize yields and get a favorable return on the crop.  But what do you do when no one wants these less than perfect carrots?  Are they truly worthless?  Who decided the “perfect” carrot is long & straight?

You know, carrots and people have more in common than any of us may ever have taken the time to reflect on.  Carrots, just like people, come in a rainbow of colors…yes, there are more colors of carrots than just orange.  We grow beautiful bright orange carrots, but we also grow some stunning dark purple varieties as well as bright, golden yellow carrots, red carrots and even white carrots!  Carrot seed is produced all around the world, with some seed coming from Oregon state in the US while other seed is produced in France and even South Africa to name just a few locations.  But when someone looks at a carrot or takes a bite of it, does it really matter where that carrot came from originally or what color it is?  I might choose to use purple carrots for roasting and orange carrots to make a soup because these are the preparations where each color will shine the most, but aside from that the color of the carrot doesn’t matter as long as it’s a delicious tasting carrot!   

In the vegetable industry, there is a classification system for sorting vegetables.  Straight carrots are sorted as “number 1,” carrots that are slightly less than perfect end up labeled as “number 2,” really crazy looking carrots are called “number 3,” etc and with each class ranking the value of the carrot decreases.  The reality is that every crop of carrots is different and the perfect, straight, number 1 carrots may only be a small percentage of some crops.  Of course these perfect carrots are what every buyer and customer wants, they’re obviously more desirable and more valuable…is that true?  And those less than perfect carrots that are left behind?  What are we supposed to do with all of those?  Does an imperfection in the shape of how a carrot grew make the carrot bitter or somehow inedible?  In my experience these carrots taste just as good as the straight ones, we just haven’t grown to the point as a society where we can willingly accept and embrace their uniqueness.  Yet every carrot has a purpose and in the hands of the right person, that carrot can realize its purpose. 

'Funny' Shaped vegetaables are beautiful in their own way!

As with carrots, so with people.  We’re not all “perfect,” but we all have purpose and value.  Is it fair to toss aside those people/carrots that aren’t perfect and deem them “less valuable” than the others?  Perhaps they require a little more care and attention to trim them up and make them usable, but if you make a pot of delicious carrot soup, when its done you won’t know if it was made from a straight, perfect carrot or a funny shaped carrot.  If it was a good tasting carrot, that is the characteristic that will leave the lasting impact.  Those funny shaped carrots demonstrate the harsh realities of life in a field.  Sometimes you hit a rock or a hard spot in life that might set you back.  You can give up, wither and fade away, or you can push through and overcome the obstacle.  In the case of a carrot with a funny shape, that doesn’t represent an inferior carrot, the shape demonstrates the fact that this is a carrot that came up against adversity and continued to push through, determined to grow and make something of itself.  Carrots can’t get up and choose to relocate to a different field.  They have to do the best they can with what they have.  This year our carrots had some trying times---first it was too dry, then it was too wet.  Yes, all these life events played a role in shaping their final outcome, just as we too are shaped by our life experiences.  Just because we may look or seem a little different than someone else doesn’t mean we’re less valuable.  Yes, funny carrots require a little more time and attention to trim and clean them, but on the inside they are still sweet and delicious!  Funny and broken carrots that might be tossed to the side, discarded and ignored, may be the most valuable carrots to some.  A farmer might snatch them up…. “Hey I’ll take these.  They’ll be a great source of nutrition for my animals.”  Or another farmer might want them to work into his compost pile to create compost to put on the field to feed another year’s crop.  A chef might spot them and say, “Oh, let me toss these in my stockpot.  They’ll add depth of flavor and a special sweetness to this stock!” 

And so it is with people.  We all have our own purpose in life and while some may seem to have a more glorious purpose than others, at the end of the day it takes all of us to make this world work.    Let us not be too quick to judge, but rather lets embrace the diversity and uniqueness of each person/carrot while focusing on the positive qualities that really matter, offering a little extra time and patience to work with them, and allowing them to become the something beautiful, sweet and valuable that they were meant to be.

No, I never really thought a carrot could teach me anything about life, but there are some important parallels we can embrace.  With open minds, hearts and appetites, I hope we can all move forward into this season of Thanksgiving and a new year with a heart of gratitude and acceptance for all the people of this world and all the carrots of the fields.  Happy Thanksgiving.