What's in the box?  

medium share (it was dark when I took  the picture, weird lighting!)

• Winter Squash - Delicata, Sweet Dumpling, Acorn
• onions
• potatoes
• peppers
• garlic
• curly kale
• leeks - medium and large
• hakuri turnips - small
• scarlet turnips - medium and large
• cauliflower - medium
• parsley - medium 
• green storage cabbage (a few small shares got savoy cabbage)

Notes on the box.  

Winter Squash do not need to be refrigereated.  All the varities in the box this week have edible rinds, though the acorn squash rind may be a little tough.  

The leeks were mostly swallowed by weeds this season.  Sorry for the small harvest of them!  

The turnips will store longer with the tops removed.  The greens and the roots are edible.  

The cabbage  is a storage cabbage.  It is really wonderful for making saurkraut or other kimchi.  Or you can make soup or roast it.  Or you can let it roll to the back of your fridge where it will keep for a few months!

If you find yourself with peppers rolling around in your crisper, you can dice them up, put them in a freezer bag and freeze them.  They are good in soups and such later on. Or you can roast them and then freeze them.  

Cheese Shares.

This week we have Antares, the cow milk manchego.  Some of the wheels got rubbed with olive oil, safflower, calendula, and chamomile flowers.  Others didn't get the rub on the rind.  Both are really nice and have an edible rind.  This cheese has been one of our most popular at market so far.  It pairs well with sweet flavors like grapes, but also goes well with olives and nuts.  It's very herbal and has some sharpness especially if you eat the rind.  The wheels with the rub have fruity and floral flavors which aren't as pronounced as the wheels without.  

Recipes.

Caldo Verde

• 1/4cup olive oil
• 12 ounces chorizo sausage, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 onion, chopped fine
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• Salt and pepper
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 2 pounds potatoes (red or yellow), peeled and cut into 3/4-inch pieces
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups water
• 1 pound hearty greens of your choice (kale, collards, or cabbage), stemmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar

1. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add chorizo and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer chorizo to bowl and set aside. Reduce heat to medium and add onion, garlic, 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, and pepper flakes and season with pepper to taste. Cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent, 2 to 3 minutes. Add potatoes, broth, and water; increase heat to high and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, until potatoes are just tender, 8 to 10 minutes.

2. Transfer 3/4 cup solids and 3/4 cup broth to blender (or use an immersion blender to blend potatoes and broth until thickened). Add collard greens to pot and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in chorizo and continue to simmer until greens are tender, 8 to 10 minutes longer.

3. Add remaining 3 tablespoons oil to soup in blender and process until very smooth and homogeneous, about 1 minute. Remove pot from heat and stir pureed soup mixture and vinegar into soup. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve. 

Bell Pepper Salad

• 3 bell peppers, any colors, thinly sliced
• 1/2 onion, quartered and thinly sliced
• several salad or scarlet turnips, thinly sliced and halved
• turnip greens, chopped (optional)

whisk together dressing:

• 4 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp apple cider or red wine vinegar
• 1/2 Tbsp stone ground or dijon mustard
• salt and pepper to taste

mix dressing and veggies together and allow a few minutes for flavors to come together

Cauliflower and Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Goat Cheese

Smokey Balsamic Red Pepper Compote with fried eggs

Cabbage and Mushroom Galette with Horseradish Sauce

On the Farm.

It's raining again!   This has been by far the wettest August and September that we have ever experienced while farming.  These are normally the driest months, making harvest a lot easier than it's been.  It's also caused the quality of certain crops to be not as great as usual.  And the warmer weather is good for the growth of some crops, but others prefer cooler temps to size up or sweeten up.  Weird weather, but we are doing our best to cull out the bad produce and give you only the best of what we have.  

The Harvest Party is this weekend!  We will have pumpkins to bring home, cheese for tasting, pulled pork, farm tours, and a bonfire when it gets dark.  We will also have some sun art paper for a little art project and plenty of tractors to climb on and a big sand pile, too.  The forecast is looking beautiful and clear.  Hopefully this one won't end with a sudden thunder storm as the last few harvest parties have!  We will start the fun around 4 PM and eating around 6 PM.  We ask that you bring a side or dessert to share and you can bring your own favorite beverage.  Kids and guests are welcome, so feel free to bring your friends.  Unfortunately, our dogs don't like other dogs. Sorry!  No pets, please.  Let us know if you are planning on coming and how many people you'll be bringing.  

Please let us know if you have any questions.  For directions, you can search google maps for Turnip Rock Farm and we show up!  Remember that weekend traffic in Stillwater can be pretty bad, so you may want to take 94 over the river.

We want to say a big Thank You to our Peak Season members.  This is the last box of the peak season.  We hope that you have enjoyed your CSA experience with us!  We will let you know when we open sign-ups for next season, or you may sign up for our Winter Share, information is below.

If anyone wants to sign up for our season extention, please go ahead and sign up for a Winter Share.  It's listed as a Winter Share, but it's really more of a Fall share that extends the regular season for 4 more weeks after the last delivery of the regular season goes out.  Our Eat Like A Farmer members are already included, but we have space for others that would like to get 4 more deliveries of storage veggies, frost sweetened greens, and other Autumn treats.  We only offer one share size for this option, so you may want to find a friend to split with if you have a smaller household.  You can check out last seasons blog posts to get an idea of what you may get in your Winter Share.  We have also added the option to add on eggs and cheese along with the veggies. Contact us if you have any trouble with the sign up or any questions.

a beautiful bounty of bell peppers

way to pick up some squash!

Haley and the cauliflower

It is officially Autumn!  A nice warm start to it.  Dana, Ben, and Sam gathered apples from the wild apple trees that we have on the farm and pressed cider.  Photos by Dana.

cleaning up the barn from the onions and garlic curing

the sheep found some burrs!

Wild grapes

ben and the apple tree

wild apples

farm love!

What's in the box?  

medium share (potatoes not pictured)

• Braising mix
• bok choi
• sweet and bell peppers
• hot peppers
• onions
• tomatoes
• broccoli or cauliflower
• green top beets
• potatoes (large and medium)
• cantaloupe or musk melon

Some of our "eat like a farmer" members got nasturtiums.  They are edible floweres with a peppery flavor.   A perfect garnish for salads or to fancy up a plate.  If you didn't get them this week, hopefully next week if it's not raining at harvest time!  These are very limited and will only make it to the eat like a farmer share members.  

Notes on the box.

This is the last week for tomatoes.  We had another succession planted but tomatoes don't like the wet weather and we have had quite a lot of that lately.  Disease spread quickly and the second succession died.  It was a pretty good run anyway, we think.  We are sorry that we ran out of time before getting to pick the cherry tomatoes.  Next season!  

Cantaloupe may be under-ripe.  That moisture and the cool temps do not bode well for ripening in the field without going bad, so we made the call to send them your way even though they are aren't quite ready yet.  They should be stored on your counter, not in the fridge.  We are bummed that the flavor of the melons is underwhelming this season.  We are guessing it's because of the extreme amount of rain and cool temps are both things that don't lend well to sweetness and ripening of these crops which originate in desert climates.  When Michael Pollen was on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me; Paula Poundstone had this to say about cantaloupe "I try to teach my kids to eat healthy food, but you get a cantaloupe, and you don't know when it's going to come of age. You have no idea - that period between when it's like, hard as a rock to when it's smushy inside, is about 10 minutes...And sometimes you got to wake the kids in the middle of the night because the cantaloupe's ready."  Pretty spot on for this season!  Let them hangout on your counter until they smell like ripe cantaloupe and then have at it. Hope it goes well! We have about a 50% success rate here at the farm.  The sweetness and flavor will be better if they are eaten at room temp, not cold from the fridge.  

The greens of the beets are edible and nice on these bunches.   You can add the beet greens to the braising mix  for a big serving of greens.  The beets will store longer if you remove the greens from the beet roots.  Both should be stored in plastic bag in the fridge.  

Please check your peppers to see if they are spicy or sweet before cooking with them.  Slice off a tiny piece and taste.  The spicy peppers are hungarian hot wax or jalapeno. The hot wax peppers are generally smaller, smoother and taper to a shareper point than the sweet peppers.  They start as a lime green pepper and ripen to orange and then bright red.  They have only two lobes, where the sweet peppers have 3 or 4.  See the photos below

Cheese shares.

Ricotta this week and a youngish Asiago style of cheese.  Some members got wedges from smaller wheels that are drier and others got wedges from a lager wheel with a more elastic texture.  This cheese was made in the Spring when the cows were on the Rye grass.  It is about 5 months old, which is still young for a grana style of cheese.  There are a lot of flavors going on in this one!    The rind of this cheese can be cut off and saved to use in a soup stock or to enhance the flavor of sauces.  Here's more about how to do that.  This cheese isn't named yet.  We are waiting to see which cheeses we like the most so that we can focus on perfecting them.  The names for cheeses that we are coming up with are generally related to the night sky and the constillations that your farmer/cheese maker, Rama, sees when she goes out at 4 AM to the aging room, or to cut and wrap cheese, or to make cheese.  A lot of cheese work gets done while kids are asleep and fieldwork is waiting.  Walking from the house to the make room or the aging cave, the night sky is observed and the constillations or stars that are prominent suggest that cheeses should be named after them. Let us know when a cheese stands out to you as one that you like.  We get a lot of feedback at the farmers market and we would love to hear more from our CSA members as well.  

The ricotta looks like a tub of butter.  Gotta love that 100% grass-fed cows milk!  

Recipes.

Beet and Ricotta Terrine with Arugula Salad looks like quite an undertaking.  But maybe worth it if you have time for a project!

Grape, Avocado, and Arugula Salad

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Bisque

 On the farm.   

It's raining a lot!  And the forecast has some cooler temps, so we are pulling things out of the field as quickly as we can.  We have (literal) tons of potatoes to dig, but have not had any dry days to get it done.  We have been sad to see a beautiful stand of spinach wilt and die in the low spots of the field as it drowns in rain.  This seems to be the norm for the fall for the last few seasons.  We are trying to get potatoes out and winter squash harvested.  They will do better out of the field than in the field at this point.  We could really use a week without torrential downpours.  Think dry thoughts for us, please!  

We are so grateful to our crew for allowing us to get off the farm this past weekend to head to a wedding in Iowa.  It's the first weekend since early May that we have gotten to spend together as a family.  We listened to podcasts about farming on the car ride down and gleaned a lot of great information.  Then we had a great time at a water park and got to spend time with family.  We saw some beautiful sunsets and some really amazing spiders that we had never seen before.  It was fun and so valuable to be able to spend some time together.  

When we got back it was time for Otto to begin his first year of school!  We know that some of our members remember pictures of him still in the belly.  How amazing to be able to share the progress of our family and family farm with our CSA members.  The community part of CSA feels very real as we share these milestones and we see yours as well.  We are full of awe and gratitude.

And then we saw some red and yellow leaves on the trees.  We aren't quite ready for it, but it seems that fall is coming anyway!  Don't worry, though.  There's still 4 weeks left of the regular CSA season.  We are looking forward to more broccoli, cabbage, Winter squash, leeks, carrots, and frost sweetened greens.  Soups and roasted veggies.  Yum yum yum.  We also have 4 weeks after the regular CSA ends for our optional season extention share.  Lots of storage veggies to look forward to for those that don't want to stop eating local foods just yet.  We will provide more information about the season extention in the coming weeks.  

Don't forget that we will be having our harvest party on September 26! We really hope that you can make it out.

bunching braising mix

beautiful and delicious braising mix

Otto is practicing making bunches.  

Tooya and the crew

The gang's all here!  Whitman comes to say hello.  

Nasturtiums for our "eat like a farmer" members

long hops

any brewers out there?  come get some hops!  They are the longest ones we've ever seen!

beauty and the beast in the flower garden

the moon, stars, and barn making their own constellation 

What's in the box? 

medium share

Same in small shares, but lesser amounts

• salad mix
• green beans
• broccoli or cauliflower
• summer squash
• zucchini
• cucumbers
• green top carrots
• sweet onions
• kale
• basil
• heirloom tomatoes
• bell peppers

Notes on the box... 

We wash the Salad Mix, but suggest you give it another wash before eating just to be sure it's 100% dirt free.

Some of the Cucumbers may be a little large.  We culled out the largest ones (they were growing faster than we could pick them!), but there were some on the large size that still tasted wonderful.  Though you may want to scoop out the seeds if you find them unappealing.  The easiest way to do this is to cut them in half lengthwise and run a spoon down the center making a cucumber boat.  Easy.  There are quite a few this week.  We have been putting them on sandwiches, making cucumber water (just put some slices into your water and put it in the fridge for a few hours until it's nice and cold and so refreshing), making refrigerator pickles, adding them to every salad, enjoying them sliced in the morning with our eggs, and eating them whole fora  quick snack.  We really love them around here! 

Please remember to remove the tops from your carrots for the best storage.  If you don't get to it right away and find your carrots a little bendy, you can try soaking them in cold water for a half hour to see if they crisp up again. 

Sweet onions are sweet and mild.  They are good for fresh eating on burgers and in salads.  They are not cured (dried for long term storage) so you should keep them in your refrigerator.

  Bell peppers are here!  Hooray!  They will be coming weekly and as they ripen we will send red and yellow ones.  You can expect to see them until frost, so add them to your stir fry and with abandon!

It's the first of the Heirloom tomatoes!!  They will be coming on heavier and you will get more soon.  The first ones are so special and loved.  Best eaten all on their own with maybe a little salt to let the flavor shine.  Don't put tomatoes in the fridge unless you plan on cooking them. The cold makes the texture mealy and can lessen the flavor, too.  Store tomatoes at room temperature on their shoulders (that's stem end facing down). 

Recipes 

From members Charles and Shannon, a suggestion for what to do with your cabbage if you still have some from last week.  They said it's really good! Worlds Best Braised Green Cabbage

Ben's Everything Easy Salad

Ben took all the produce that was sitting on the counter and made a beautiful salad out of it.  So Summery and tasty.  Finely chopped broccoli or cauliflower would be nice in it as well.  You could serve it with your salad mix, too. 

• zuchinni or summer squash, diced
• bell pepper, diced
• basil, cut into thin strips
• sweet onion tops, cut into thin strips
• carrots, grated
• tomato, diced
• dress with balsamic vinegar and olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

I will ill be testing this Meatless Greens Meatballs recipe this weekend using kale and carrot tops!  Wish me luck! 

  Zuchinni Pizza Crust  requires pizza stone

  Chilled Cucumber and Herb Soup 

Refrigerator Pickled Green Beans

Spicy Refrigerator Pickled Summer Squash and Zucchini
 Last season I was making pickles and had some leftover brine.  I sliced up some zucchini and summer squash and pickled them.  They were wonderful! 

Refrigerator Bread and Butter Pickles
 For all those cucumbers!

Cheese Share

This week we have Antares (the cows milk Manchego) again.  It was made in a different wheel size for this batch.   I like this cheese on a fresh vegetable sandwich piled high with cukes, tomato, lettuce, and bell pepper.  I also like it on pizza and on its own for a snack.  Note that some of the wheels weighed less and so some people got a smaller wedge than others.  I tried to group the smaller wedges by drop site and made a note of who got smaller wedges so that I can give bigger ones later on.  Don't want anyone to miss out on cheese! 

You may have also seen on facebook or instagram the picture of the fresh mozzarella that I pulled for the farmers market.  It was well liked and I want to deliver it to the cheese shares, but I need to figure out how to get it delivered to you without the brine spilling everywhere or the mozzarella getting squished!  I also need a lot more practice at pulling so that I can make it more quickly without so many that don't pass quality control...  Keep your fingers crossed, or if you can't hold out, come to the Linden Hills Farmer's market where we will have the fresh mozzarella in limited quantities off and on in the coming weeks.

On the farm...

We harvested a beautiful crop of garlic this week.  It's curing in the barn and we will start adding heads to your box when it dries and gets cleaned up.  YAY! 

Ahhhh...  This time of year is so nice!  Everything is coming ripe and looking beautiful and vibrant.  Not many pests have found us and we've been getting enough rain.  There's still too much to do to stay on top of all the weeds, but we are happy to have a nice abundance to put in your boxes!  We hope that you are enjoying everything and making your way through the veggies before the next weeks delivery arrives. 

I have to say, seeing pictures on Instagram of the meals that you make with the veggies that we have grown is one of the best treats we get!  We are so grateful for all the feedback we are getting from our members. Here's a look at some of the lovely pictures of some truly yummy looking food that you all shared with us.  Please keep it coming!  It's really fun and motivating for your farmers to know about these amazing meals that you are putting love into for yourselves, your families, and your friends!  THANK YOU! 

And now the pictures from the farm...

bee pollinating squash flower

Shaq harvesting squash... just kidding, that's just Josh in a Shaq jersey ;) 

bringing in the harvest

Farm fun!  Kelsie trying out Otto's trike

Dana washing salad mix

happy farmer!

grow little melon, GROW!  coming your way in about a month

pizza Friday on the farm

Next Week

• cukes
• summer squash and zuchinni
• tomatoes
• bell peppers
• sweet onions
• carrots
• celery?
• new potatoes??