February, Winter Newsletter #5
Dear Winter CSA Members,
It may not feel like it, but…spring is right around the corner! Yay!
The February box includes the following items: apples (Macoun, Cortland, Mutsu), pears (Bosc), rainbow carrots, parsnips, radishes (purple and white daikon, watermelon), beets (Forono, Red, or Golden), celeriac, potatoes (white, all-blue), onions (Blush pink, red cippolini), garlic, shallots, sweet potatoes, winter squash (Winter Sweet), popcorn, pea tendrils, and JAM!
If you are having trouble identifying any of the veggies in your box, please reference the blog. I have posted some pictures that I hope will be helpful. As always, if you are stumped in identifying something, or need recipe ideas, do not hesitate to contact us…text, email, phone.
Remember, correct storage is the key to using your Winter CSA share to its full potential. Please let us know if have storage questions or problems with your veggies.
This is the final box for Winter CSA 2017-18. We tried to slip in a few goodies not yet distributed this season. In the root veggie bag, you will find parsnips, they look like white carrots. These are super sweet and wonderful roasted, stewed, or pureed. In the same bag you will find radishes. Everyone should have both purple and white daikons, and watermelon radishes (whitish-green on outside, hot pink inside). These are all delicious…my favorite way to eat all the radishes is raw with either hummus or chevre…they are so crunchy and always hit the spot! The box contains celeriac, this is the very ugly brown softball sized veggie in your box. Take your paring knife and cut away the outside skin, underneath lies a white flesh with a delicate celery flavor. Celeriac is great in soups or mashed in with your potatoes. The squash variety this month is Winter Sweet. One of our best storage squashes, this type of kabocha is dry and sweet and wonderful for baking. For something green, we are handing out pea tendrils! These are sweet and mild and really do taste like spring! They should be eaten raw or just barely cooked, as they are very delicate. I love to add them to a hardy winter root salad or mix them into soft scrambled eggs with chevre at the very last moment of cooking…yum!
Curt and I both feel that 2017-18 was a very successful season and we hope that was conveyed to you through the Winter CSA share. Our CSA members are the backbone of our farm! You make it possible for us to “keep crazy and farm on”. You support local business, local economy, community, and local food….values that are so important and so essential to a fulfilled and responsible life. A big thank you to you, our wonderful CSA members. Which brings me to my next point…JAM!
You will be receiving jam in the February box. Every summer I freeze pounds and pounds of fruit, so that in the winter (when I actually have spare time), I can turn the fruit into jam. Hopefully you all enjoy the jam and it sweetens the last few weeks of winter for you. Thank you all for being part of the Still Life Farm Winter CSA!
Warm weather will be here before you know it and it will be time to think about Summer CSA…and tomatoes and peaches! Curt’s parents, Glenn and Genevieve Stillman of Stillman’s Farm, run a fabulous Summer CSA. To sign up, visit “www.stillmansfarm.com”.
Recipe Ideas:
Pear and Celery Root Slaw
1¼ cup mayonnaise
2 T cider vinegar
1 t sugar
½ t caraway seeds
¼ t salt
¼ t ground black pepper
2 slightly under ripe pears, julienned (about 4 cups)
1 small celery root, julienned (about 1 cup)
1 cup carrots, julienned
¼ cup thinly sliced red onion
Whisk together mayo, vinegar, sugar, caraway, S&P in a large bowl. Add pears, celery root, carrots, and onion and toss to coat. Serve at room temperature or chilled.
A few important tidbits to note:
Please return all of your empty boxes, either at Winter CSA pick-up or at any Still Life Farm/Stillman’s Farm farmers markets or CSA delivery location. We can also reuse the jam jars.
Find us at your local winter farmer’s markets:
Roslindale Winter Market, Saturdays, 10am-2pm, Jan-Mar, 30 Birch Street
Canal District Winter Market in Worcester, Saturdays, 9am-12noon, Nov-April, 38 Green Street
Sign up for Stillman’s Farm Summer CSA.
Be on the lookout for an email about early registration for next season’s Still Life Farm Winter CSA….we usually offer an early registration discount!
Keep in touch with us, we love to hear from CSA members! Thanks for a fabulous winter season! 😊
Love your food, Halley Terry Stillman
stilllifefarm 