Weekly News from the farm!

Greetings Everyone,

Many of you may be planning for the Thanksgiving Holiday and trying to figure what you’ll be serving for friends and family.  Lucky us, our accommodations are fully booked!!! We’re not sure about you, but our news feed has been filled with recipes for some unique Thanksgiving Dishes.  We can certainly understand why this recipe for Creamed Kale is a modern day “Green Bean Casserole”, because after Jack Frost kissed our kale with sweet icicles, it sweetens up our greens so they are the most flavorful of the season.  Apparently because the Green Bean Casserole has gone out of style, perhaps because it is the Northerner’s who are dictating what’s popular this Thanksgiving, while Green Beans might be in season in the deep south, Kale is in season everywhere else.   We’ve been serving a salad such as this kale and cranberry slaw for several Thanksgiving meals which can be easily made vegan by omitting the feta cheese.   Another favorite of ours is roasted butternut squash because it needs no marshmallows or sugar for complete deliciousness.  Last year CSA Member Elaine Schein turned us on to Butternut Squash Hasselback style, that is gorgeous and tasty.

Please let us know what you’re planning for this holiday so that we can share with our subscribers!!!

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!

CSA Shareholders: You can access our online store using this link, if using a desktop you will log in by clicking the icon of the person in the top right hand side of the web page, if you are using a phone click on the menu icon and choose the login option. All orders need to be placed by Tuesday at 8 AM so that we will know what to harvest for your share! Please return your boxes because we re-use them.  Orders will be ready each Wednesday after 8 AM. 

We’re digging and washing carrots!! We weren’t able to get them out of the ground before the temperatures dropped to 14 degrees for a couple days, so their tops froze, which means we’re cutting the tops off them.  Carrots that are farm fresh, and organically grown, are sweet and delicious! These roots are rich in beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in the liver. Vitamin A is transformed in the retina, to rhodopsin, a purple pigment necessary for night vision. We normally just cut them up and eat them in slaw, but we also enjoy them roasted. While carrots are sweet enough for our taste buds, on occasion will have candied carrots or carrot muffins..  We have rocky fields, so don’t expect perfectly sized carrots in these bunches! Should you receive carrots with tops, you will need to remove them so your carrots keep in the refrigerator without going soft. Don’t throw your tops away, because here are reicpes that use the tops.

Daikon Radishes are finally here!!!  These aren’t as sweet or tender as normal, and you’ll find them without their tops because of the cold weather we’ve been experiencing.  This white radish with green shoulders, is a Korean daikon, which is typically sweeter than those cultivated in Japan. We’ve tried growing quite a few varieties of the Japanese daikon radishes which don’t seem to grow well in our soils. For those avoiding gluten, these are a great substitute for noodles and radish noodles can be used in Chicken Pad Thai.  These radishes are delicious raw in salads, roasted or you might be interested in trying it in a slaw substituting peppers for carrots if you prefer that.  Another favorite of ours is Spring Rolls where most any vegetable can go into these delicious wraps.  They can be mashed with potatoes for a gratin which can be made vegan in substituting New Balance or oil for butter and nutritional yeast for the cheese.   If you haven’t yet pickled radishes, be sure to give it a try because it is great use for tougher radishes and makes a fine topping for tacos!

The Hakurei Turnips are still sweet!!!We’re cutting the tops off these as well due to the damage from our cold weather. We did have our root crops protected underneath floating row cover but the temperatures dropped so low that their tops were frost damaged.

We’re pleased to have a 5 gallon fermentation crock full of sauerkraut for our winter stash.  If purchasing cabbage, you can simply ferment your cabbage in a quart jar. 

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

We’re offering both a Farmer’s Choice Veggie and Farmers’ Choice Veggie & Meat 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. )

• Lettuce: Red Oakleaf So awesome for salads or burgers!!! 
• Cabbage: Napa Such an awesome green for a salad!!! We frequently use either this or kale in fried rice. The Napa cabbage will hold in your refrigerator until next week so don’t worry about eating it this week.
• Bulb Fennel:  Fabulous in slaw with Napa Cabbage or roasted with potatoes!!!  We’re cutting the tops off because they are wilted since we harvested these before the cold weather.
• Carrots:  These are amazing raw in salads or roasted!!! We’re selling them without the tops because we’ve had very cold weather that has killed the tops.
• Radishes – Daikon:  These are amazing roasted or raw in salads!!!
• Turnips- Hakurei:  These are amazing roasted with radishes or raw in salads!!!
• Garlic: We can’t live without this and add it to every meal!!!
• Hot Peppers:  A couple serrano peppers for seasoning your meals!!!
• Spaghetti Squash: Spaghetti is a versatile winter squash and won’t store as long as butternut so eat them up in the next couple weeks!  These will hold until next week if you’re unable to eat the entire share this week.

The following are included only in the veggie share:

• Potatoes: Mixed Fingerlings.  We’re including a mixture of French, Austrian Crescent and Magic Molly.
• Kale: Green Curly: This has become our favorite kale with climate change because it holds it’s flavor and it stays tender.  Our guests voted this Kale #1 for kale chips during their stay.
• Butternut Squash: Great roasted Hasselback style for Thanksgiving!!! These will store well in to the winter.

The following are included only in the meat share

• Ground Beef: Maybe for meatloaf the day before Thanksgiving!!! You can make meatloaf ahead and save it for thanksgiving!

We’ve been blessed to have our accommodations booked the past several weekends.  We absolutely love sharing the farm with children, who we thought might just be bored on the farm, but it is incredibly good for them to be outdoors roaming vast open spaces and visiting with animals.  Sir Bud is having the best time of his life being a friendly “pet” and we’re fortunate that he is a bit older and pretty clam around children.  Above Izzie, who is adorable riding Sir Bud. 

Argus definitely enjoys the attention and is super calm and friendly around kids, which is great, especially since he is so much bigger than almost all the children who’ve been staying with us lately.

It’s been fun having our chicken brooding pen right at the barn so that guests and handle the chickens.  While Izzie was a bit too young for holding the chicks, she certainly enjoyed petting them.  We have since moved the chickens up to the chicken coop where the fox has a den.  We normally don’t let our chickens free range until they all are roosting, which they haven’t yet learned how to do, but then we’re going to invest in electric poultry netting so they can hopefully co-exist with the fox.

We always love stocking our guests frig with seasonal farm fresh goodies, and love that many of our guests have been purchasing additional food for both homemade meals during their stay and to take home.  Above is a meal that Izzie’s parents made using all the fixings from MHO.