Week 5; July 7, 2022

What’s in the box?

zucchini
leaf lettuce
salad mix
green onions
salad turnips (large and medium)
cucumbers
green top carrots
red kale
garlic scapes
broccoli (large only)

Notes on the box.

Be sure to remove the tops from your carrots and your salad turnips for storage. The tops of the turnips are nice sauteed or can be chopped and added to salad.
Lettuce, Kale, and greens will keep best in a plastic bag in the fridge. Everything else should do fine in the crisper in your fridge.

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese.

This week we have our aged English style cheddar and fresh cheese curds. Cheese curds are part of the cheddar making process. The curds can be bagged up and enjoyed fresh, or pressed into a wheel or block of cheddar. The curds are difficult to get to knit back together, so some flaws near the rind are normal. There’s even a little wild blue that got in near some of the rinds that is quite delicious! Hope you enjoy both the fresh curds and the aged cheddar. Curds are a great snack and they are also tasty added to chili or veggie soup as a garnish. Curds will be squeaky again when they get to room temp. Squeaky curds are fresh curds! I will be including fresh curds in the shares again next week!

Recipes.

Braised Salad Turnips

French Grated Carrot Salad - with this recipe, you can add some of the carrot tops for the herbs

On the Farm.

Reminder: Saturday, July 17 from 10AM-4PM. We would love to see you here at the farm! We will be giving guided tours/ hay rides every hour on the hour. We will have burgers available and our farm store will be open with veggies, cheese, pork, and beef available for sale. So bring a cooler if you want to stock up! We have done the farm tour for the last several years, and we always really enjoy it. Hope to see you there, and be sure to let us know you are a CSA member so we can meet you!

We know some folks have been waiting patiently for our first meat share to be offered. so… the first meat shares will be in the store and they are ready for you to purchase shortly! The delivery dates are set. You will select one delivery date. This first meat delivery will be an approximately 30-35 pound box of pork. The box will include approximately 7 packs chops, 3 packs coppa steaks, 6 packs bacon, 6 pounds ground pork, 6 packs brats, 1 shoulder or loin roast, and 1 ham hock. Frozen, mixed cuts will arrive at your drop site and you will need to pick up your share as soon as you can since it’s frozen meat. I will send an email to everyone to let you know when the shares are available.
There will be another delivery that we will schedule near the end of the season that will include beef.

Next Week

beets
fennel
red cabbage?
romaine lettuce
broccoli?
green onions
zucchini
cucumbers

Turnip Rock FarmerComment
Week 4; June 30, 2022

What’s in the box?

dill
radishes
salad mix
leaf lettuce
zucchini
garlic scapes
carrots
cucumber - large and medium
romaine - large and medium
spinach - large and medium
kale - large

Notes on the box.

Be sure to remove the tops from the carrots and radishes before you store them!
Zucchini is here! Coming on strong and will be included in the box for the next several weeks.

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese.

This week is MoonShadow and MoonGlow! This is one of my favorite shares to send out. You get to see and taste the difference that what the cows are eating makes on the milk and the cheese! Our cows are 100% grass-fed, so that means they eat only hay (dry grass all winter) or fresh pasture. They don’t eat any grain. The MoonShadow was made at the beginning of the season, before pasture has come in and the cows are eating hay in early April of last year. The MoonGlow was made just a couple months later in early June, same recipe, but with the cows grazing on fresh pasture. Both cheeses are super yummy! But the MoonGlow is much more golden and with grassier flavors. We milk seasonally, so we don’t have much cheese made when cows are eating only hay as we dry them off during the Winter and start milking again in March and April. I think it’s really fun and educational to see the difference! Next week I’ll be sending cheese curds and our cheddar style cheese.

Recipes.

Carrot Top Pesto
Carrot Greens Chimichurri
Baked Parmesan Zucchini
Roasted Zucchini with Yogurt Dill Sauce
Carrot Halwa - Gajar Ka Halwa- Sweet Carrot Pudding

On the Farm.

Early this delivery morning we got a call that our yearlings had gotten out and taken a walk to our neighbors who are about a mile away. Early morning cow wrangling and walking cows home down the road is an exciting way to start the day!

Last week was lots of weeding getting done. Josh says everything is looking great!

We remind you that you can come out and visit on July 16 as part of the Co-op Farm Tour. We will have food, tours, and fun times! Hope to see you!

Next Week

Turnip Rock FarmerComment
Week 3; June 23, 2022

What’s in the box?

Salad Mix
Salad Turnips
Romaine
Leaf Lettuce
Pac choi
Radishes
cucumber
garlic scapes - large and medium
Cilantro - large and medium shares
Spinach - large and medium shares
Green Onion - large
Napa - large

Notes on the box.

The first cucumbers of the season! More will be coming in grater quantities, but for now we are so happy to enjoy these cooling beauties with our salad or just salted on their own.
Salad and lettuce and greens! They keep coming. It’s early season still, so the greens are what we are eating the most of. Our favorite way to liven up salads is by adding fresh chopped herbs. So pinch off some leaves from your herb pots and mix them in for a treat.
Garlic Scapes - This is the flower stem that garlic bulbs send up as they grow! We remove them to help the plant put more energy into the bulb so we get bigger garlic, but the scapes are edible, too! They can be used anywhere you’d use garlic, but it’s not as pungent and can be eaten fresh or used the same as a green onion (it will just give things a garlic-y flavor.
Salad Turnips - The tops should be removed before you store them so that the turnips stay nice and crisp. Not like regular storage turnips. These are also called Hakuri Turnips. They are tender and sweet and can be eaten raw, or they are nice sauteed or roasted. The greens are edible, too!

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese.

This week is fresh, whole milk ricotta and Deneb, our gouda style cheese. The ricotta is great eaten on some good bread with a sprinkle of salt, pepper, and a drizzle of good olive oil. Or it’s great added to fresh cooked pasta with fresh spinach that will wilt from the heat of the pasta, chopped garlic scapes, and a squeeze of fresh lemon added. Or you can go sweet with it and drizzle it with honey and toasted nuts.
The Deneb is perfect for snacking. My favorite way to eat our aged cheeses is just to cut off some slices and eat them with a favorite drink while making dinner or visting.

Recipes.

Spinach Ricotta Lemon Pasta

Farmer’s Favorite Dip
To make our favorite dip: Take some fresh herbs (dill, parsley, cilantro all work great) then some green onions and or garlic scapes, and the radish tops and mince finely or pulse in a food processor. Mix into sour cream or greek yogurt, add salt and pepper to taste. It’s an easy one to riff on and create your own masterpiece!

Sauteed Salad Turnips and Greens
Remove green tops from turnips, chop, and set aside. Quarter the turnips. Melt some butter in a pan. Add some chopped up garlic scapes and the quartered turnips. When turnips are fork tender and lightly carmelized, add the tops to wilt (you can add your radish tops as well!). Season with salt and pepper to taste. Simple, easy, and delicious!

On the Farm.

We had a hot one! We try our best to take things easy when the weather gets too hot. Harvest happens early in the day. The best jobs on hot days are washing veggies in cold water in the shade of the packing shed. But the crew still managed to get potatoes replanted (our first round unfortunately rotted in the ground during the cold, cloudy, and wet spring). After that we headed out for a swim and some much needed relief. We hope you all are staying cool! Salad makes the best dinners on hot days!

Do you want to come and visit the farm and see where your food is coming from? We would love to have you visit on July 16 as part of the Coop Farm Tour! Mark your calendar! We will be giving guided tours every hour on the hour as well as self guided tours whenever you like. We will be grilling burgers or brats, have the farm store open for you to pick up some groceries, and we would love to meet you! Check out the Coop Farm Tour website to see the other farms that are also open and for more information. Also, if you come, make sure to let us know that you are a CSA member!

Next Week

Turnip Rock FarmerComment