For information about our CSA Program at the farm, click HERE

For information about our Market CSA Program at the Westside Community Market, click HERE

Our memberships usually fill up soon after the CSA Open House in Madison, which takes place this year on Sunday, March 18.  Reserve your spot today!

“To brine or not to brine.”  This is one hot debate in turkey culture.  Brining is a process of soaking the turkey in a salted water bath (sometimes with sugar and additional spices) for a few hours or up to several days before cooking.  The idea is that the brine infuses the turkey with moisture and seasoning to keep the bird juicy and flavorful throughout its cooking.  For a beautiful primer on brining, print out this Cook’s Illustrated Guide for brining turkeys, chickens, pork, etc.  I have done both a spiced brine and a simple salt brine.  I loved the simple one, but our crowd had mixed reviews of the spiced brine–it does change the flavor of the turkey.  Delicious, but a bit less traditional.

A salt rub instead of a brine.  This is an intermediate step you can take to enhance the flavor of the turkey, and it gives you a beautiful golden, crispy skin (a personal favorite part).  There’s also something about massaging your bird in a salt rub that is very calming and I think Julia Child would approve (She once said of rubbing butter all over a chicken’s skin that, not only does it add flavor, it pleases the chicken!).  Check out this salt method from Bon Appetit.

Some other tips.  Still others say not to brine or salt a heritage bird because the flavor takes care of itself.  I tend to agree with that, but like to hedge my bets (as a novice cook) by protecting the breast by rubbing butter beneath the skin, or laying strips of bacon on the breast (Plan to chop and add this to your Brussels sprouts, spinach salad, or other side dish later!).  Check out a few other quick tips from Saveur.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!  Need some new ideas for the leftovers?  Mark Bittman’s got them!  Check out his NY Times article.

 Everyone has their own food traditions, and Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday because it’s ALL about food!  I love the Thanksgiving meal, and since beginning the farm I’ve loved providing nearly everything to the meal I share with family.  Two of our heritage turkeys will travel to Ohio with us, as well as a trunkload of sweet potatoes, spinach, potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, and squash.   By this week you should have a nice little stockpile of veggies for your holiday cooking.  Add to that a turkey or ham from the farm and you;ll have a farm-raised holiday meal too! 

If you’re new to Brussels sprouts and want a foolproof preparation, try the one below (bacon is my favorite spice!).  Also below is a great recipe to have on hand when you’ve baked your large Blue Moon ham and have some left over–a perfect comfort food!  Enjoy!

This Week’s Recipes:

This week you’ll receive a supply of shallots to carry into the winter.  These small, rich onion-family vegetables will keep well into the winter, so no rush.  Peel and toss a few in a with a beef roast, and quarter some into a pan of roasted veggies.  I think their flavor it at its peak after a long, slow roast… 

Celeriac also makes an appearance this week, a bulbous root that has the flavor and uses of celery but the texture and storability of a root vegetable.  They look a bit intimidating on the outside, but once the outer skin is peeled back, it ressembles a potato or a turnip.  Celeriac is great in almost any soup or stew where you would use celery.  We left ours in the ground longer this year to see if they would grow a bit more–no luck!  They are much smaller that usual, to the relief of some (like my husband–he’s not a fan…)  Cold, cold temperatures await us Wednesday night, so enjoy the greens!  I’m not sure if they will survive into next week in the field.

This Week’s Recipes:

As Thanksgiving approaches, we still have turkeys available for reservation.  The remaining turkey we have to offer are smaller in size–8 to 12 lbs.   They will be available for pick-up the week and weekend before Thanksgiving.  Just email Kristen (bluemooncommunityfarm@yahoo.com) to reserve yours.

Check out our newly-compiled guide for storing your winter vegetables all in one document!  Winter Veggie Guide

A few brand new items are in the share this week–Buttercup Squash, Rutabaga and Cipollini Onions.  Buttercup is a great roasting squash with a rich orange flesh.  Its rind is very hard, which makes it store very well for 1-2 months, but makes it hard to cut and certainly is not edible.  As with most squash, a simple roasting method is to cut the squash in half, remove the seeds, and place face down in a baking dish with a bit of water in the bottom.  Roast at 350 degrees until the squash is soft.  Once roasted, the flesh can be used in any squash soup or pumpkin bread recipe. 

Rutabaga is a popular addition to the root veggie catalog–it’s sweeter and milder than a turnip but more nutritious and less starchy than a potato.  I love to throw some diced rutabaga into most winter soups or in root veggie recipes such as the Harvest Meatloaf below.

Cipollini onions–a unique Italian variety–are the candy of the onion world!  Save these for a beef or pork roast, and add to a collection of root vegetables for roasting.  As they roast they carmelize and grow tremendously sweet.  Use them whole or quartered, as slicing is difficult given their shape.  Enjoy!

*Brought to us from West Star Farm in Cottage Grove.

Veggie News:  You’ll notice when you load up your share this week that the Late Fall Share is a bit larger than your summer share.  We include lots of storable veggies along with more perishable items so that you can accumulate a stockpile of vegetables with which to head into winter.  If your storage is limited, consider making some soups to freeze or creating a new storage area.  For instance, a cooler outside your house may suffice for storing roots until the temperatures drop into the 20′s.  Below are storage tips for this week’s veggies.

Spinach—store in plastic in the fridge 1 wk

Salad Greens–same as spinach

Kale—same as spinach (I like to tear it off the stem for more efficient storage)

Garlic—store at room temp in paper bag or on the counter

Onions–same as garlic

Carrots—store in plastic in the fridge

Turnips—same as carrots

Kohlrabi–same as carrots

Butternut Squash—room temp

Brussels sprouts—store in plastic in the fridge

Potatoes—cool room temp in paper bag or box; fridge in plastic bag.

Daikon Radishes—same as carrots

Leeks–store in plastic in fridge.  For easier storage cut off the green leafy tips.

Cabbage–store in plastic in the fridge

This Week’s Recipes:

Aside from the harvest and sale of vegetables, this late fall and winter bring an assortment of projects and annual tasks:  Time to clean up the fields, collect and store irrigation equipment, harvest our remaining root vegetables for storage, begin farm projects such as barn and greenhouse repair, clean and organize tools, inventory seeds, update bookkeeping and plan end-of-year purchases, and update crop plans for next season.  By late January I will be ordering seeds, hiring workers, and preparing to plant the first hoophouse crops of 2012–It’s right around the corner!  Winter is still a time of much-needed rest (it gets dark at 5pm after all!), but I do  love the flow of one season into the next, and the opportunity to do this work as my only occupation beginning this year.  

In The News: I was thrilled to read a well-deserved nod to our CSA members and B & B owners, Craig and Cathy Wrobel, in the New York Times this week!  Check it out HERE, and check out their beautiful B & B, The Parsonage in McFarland.