This was our final pick-up of the year. We received 1 butternut squash, 1 bag of red onions, 2 beefsteak tomatoes (not quite ripe), 1 basket of red-skinned potatoes, 1 bag of sweet potatoes, 1 head of broccoli, 1 basket of beets, and 1 bowl of kale (not pictured here… aside from the leaf or two that G. and J. ate on the spot, we fed the rest as a farewell-’til-next-year meal to the sheep and goats).
I think the color of these vegetables really shows how the growing season has wound down. They are dull, and look ready to hunker down for a long winter. I was thrilled to get the patch of green from the broccoli, though. I will continue cooking several beets each week, and keeping them in the fridge to add to salads. Otherwise, roasting is the thing: squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yes even the broccoli.
I’m thinking of trying to make Onion Jam with the pounds of onions we have from the past several weeks. It would be a great make-ahead side dish (condiment?) for Thanksgiving.
Arugula is not my favorite green, but I do aim to eat everything I get from my farm share. There is almost always a preparation that makes a ho-hum vegetable into something closer to palatable. Several readers told me they love arugula raw in a salad, but that route is not for me. Since I also had a lot of potatoes from my CSA, I thought this light potato salad — Potato Salad with Yogurt, Arugula, and Dill — would be a good accompaniment to a dinner of soup.
J. doesn’t like mayo, so I adjusted the recipe by using a 6 oz. contained of non-fat Greek yogurt plus 2 Tbsp. of apple cider vinegar to thin it out and add some acid. I also used green onions instead of shallots. The combination of yogurt and dill screams “tzatziki!” to me, so I think this side dish would be a nice addition to a Greek-flavored chicken (lots of oregano and lemon) or just to round out a meal of a Greek salad.
The flavor is surprising, because your brain expects mayo when you see a creamy potato salad. But the taste is far from that traditional dish; it’s very springy and light, and super-tangy. We liked it well enough to finish leftovers, but it is probably not a dish I’d repeat. Still, if you like dill and yogurt, you’ll probably like this easy, fat-free dish.
This is our penultimate share of the season. We received 1 butternut squash, 1 big bag of onions, 1 small bag of sweet potatoes, 1 basket of white potatoes, 1 small head of broccoli, 1 bunch of broccoli rabe, 1 small head of arugula (not pictured here, because we fed it to the goats!), 1 quart of beets, and 1 quart of beefsteak tomatoes.
We also received the second half of our beef share, which included 2 packages of ground beef, 1 rib steak, 1 sirloin steak, and a big soup bone:
This was our first year trying out a beef share, and I was very happy with it. I like the idea of getting meat from well-treated cows on the same farm from which we get our vegetables. We paid $115 up front for 18-20 lbs. of humanely-raised, grass fed beef over what should have been four deliveries (but wound up being three), so it was never overwhelming.
J. and I are looking forward to making a huge pot of onion soup. We’ll make a beef broth with with the soup bone, and then try to make a huge dent in our supply of onions. With today’s rainy weather and forecast of flurries, a big vat of soup sounds like just what we need.
Last week I missed our pick-up completely. It was an unusually busy afternoon, and by the time I realized I wasn’t going to be able to get over to the pick-up site, it was too late to ask someone to get our share for me. I was bummed, but I suppose missing just one week out of the season is not too bad a record.
This week, Roxbury Farm let us know that the season would need to end a few weeks early; a result of Irene’s wrath:
The farm season is drawing to a close much more quickly than most years. At this point in the season our barn, cooler, and greenhouse are usually full of produce stored for winter deliveries. Not so this year. This means that the week of Oct. 31-Nov. 4 will be our last week of deliveries for the 2011 season. The last three deliveries are cancelled. We are sorry to do so but we lost the 50,000-60,000 lbs of produce we would need for those shares. To make any deliveries at all, we are using the winter share vegetables as supplement which results in a rather unusual choice of vegetables in your share.
I think Roxbury made a lot of smart decisions about how to handle the effects of that storm. Although the make up of the share has been different than in previous years, I still feel we’ve received substantial amounts of produce each week. The beets have been plentiful and super-sweet; and due to a late frost we’re still getting tomatoes.
This week we received a bag of onions, 1 butternut squash, a bag of sweet potatoes, “as much as you want” beets without greens, 1 quart of white potatoes, 4 beefsteak tomatoes, 1 bunch of turnips with greens, 1 bowl of arugula, and 1 bowl of mustard greens.
Neither J. nor I are big fans or arugula, so if you have suggestions on how to use it I’m open to them. I usually make Pasta with Lentils, Tomatoes, & Arugula but I’m a little tired of that recipe and we haven’t been eating as much pasta as we once did. Ditto on the mustard greens. Help me out?
I'm Dara, the Chick in the Kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two school-aged boys and husband. Feeding my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Read more about me and CITK, and keep in touch:
Want to Try
Moroccan Chicken Tajine: I recently had a chicken tajine dish at Fig & Olive in Scarsdale, and wanted to recreate something similar at home. This is an Ina Garten recipe, and she never fails me.
I'm Dara, the Chick in the Kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two school-aged boys and husband. Feeding my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Read more 
Want to Try Archives