Weekly news from the farm!

Greetings Everyone,

This week in our news feed this article appeared about a new certification for farms called Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) standard.  This is exciting for us, because so many people want to buy into sustainably raised food, yet many people are unlike you and don’t know their farmer.  This new certification will provide a means for eaters in choosing to purchase sustainable food at the grocery store!!! We at MHO haven’t yet found the time to read the regulations, but we certainly believe we should be following standards for regenerative agriculture. We do feel that with the incorporation of animals into our production mix, we are able to build our soils using compost made from the farm.   This process is an ecological way in building our soil fertility by not having fertilizers shipped to the farm. As this certification becomes main stream, we hope that our grocery stores will seek out foods that are certified ROC so that you’ll be able to vote with your dollars for sustainably raised food when you aren’t buying directly from the farmer. 

We know from experience it is more expensive for the farmer to implement ROC production practices, so we’ve been asking ourselves if the consumer would pay a higher price for their food? In our wildest dreams, we can imagine that once the millennial generation are our legislators, they’ll implement policies that divert subsidies from farms producing commodity crops to vegetable farms using ROC farming practices. That way good healthy food would be more affordable to the less affluent all the while addressing climate change.

Here is a link to the online store to place your order.

Your Farmers (and cleaning staff),
Carl and Julie

NOTE: Your’re receiving this eNewsletter because you’ve either been a subscriber to MHO in the past OR if you’ve registered for our newsletters from our website.  Feel free to unsubscribe if you no longer wish to receive this eNewsletter!  All orders are due by 8 AM on Tuesday.  Pick-ups in Spring Creek are either Wednesday from 1pm – 8pm OR Friday from 8am – 8pm. 

A few cantaloupes are ripened for your shares!! We harvest these ripe, just when they slip from the vine, but they’re no guarantees of the flavor.   You may wish to leave these your counter top to further ripen, but keep an eye out because the melon can over ripen fairly quickly. Cantaloupe is normally eaten as a fresh fruit, as a salad, or as a dessert with ice cream or custard. Melon pieces wrapped in prosciutto are a familiar antipasto.  If you happen to get one that isn’t peak texture nor flavor, you can make cantaloupe mojitos, that are sure not to disappoint.

We’re harvesting delicata squash!  This is among our favorites when first harvested but they don’t store long! This squash is a winter squash so it has a hard skin. For a winter squash delicata has a fairly thin skin so it works very nice sliced and roasted or stuffed. This squash is excellent as a main entree when stuffed with wild rice, with kale and sausage, or with tomatoes, peppers and corn.  An easy “go to” side that works for almost all of our winter squash varieties is by either roasting or grilling them. This squash is tasty simply baked, and while many recipes suggest using sugar for basting the squash pulp, we feel winter squash is sweet enough that we normally baste with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. You might be interested in this simple recipe for slice and roasted squash rings because it highlights the flavor of the squash.

Above is our version of this Tex-Mex Stuffed Peppers.  We used fresh paste tomatoes because they’re flavorful, along with rice and ground beef (you can easily substitute beans), garlic, scallions and most certainly roasted peppers!  Because why not stuff peppers with peppers?  A opossum ate half of nearly all our sweet peppers, so naturally we stuffed the other half. 

This week’s Farmer’s Choice Share includes: (share contents are subject to change based on our actual harvest.)

We’re offer both a Farmer’s Choice Veggie (FCV) and Farmers’ Choice Veggie & Meat (FCVM) Share.  Items common in both shares are listed first, followed by items specific to the veggie share the finally the veggie/meat share. The Farmer’s Choice Veggie & Meat share normally has smaller portions of vegetables. )

• Tomatoes:  Mixed slicing and cherry tomatoes. The FCV share will have a larger portion size than the FCVM Share!
• French Filet Beans:  Mixed Purple, Yellow and Green beans! The FCV share will have a larger portion size than the FCVM Share! 
• Scallions:  These are amazing grilled!
• Carrots  Great for a salad! 
• Peppers: Fresh Italian Roasting:   This pepper is great stuffed with mashed potatoes!!! It is also amazing in a slaw salad.
• Potatoes: Mixed Fingerling:   Mix of Austrian Crescent, Magic Molly, and French Fingerling.   
• Cantaloupe  We ate the entire cantaloupe for Lunch! The FCV share will have a larger portion size than the FCVM Share! 
• Basil:  Thai which is great for soups, salads and spring rolls.
• Garlic:  Great for seasoning your meals!!! 

The following are included only in the veggie share:

• Winter Squash: Acorn:   Great for breakfast.  listed in the online store. Fabulous with the char removed and eaten as a snack!   

The following are included only in the meat share

• Beef: Ground (Hamburgers) Great for stuffing peppers!