Fresh Items:
Value-Added/Frozen Items:
- Roasted Vegetable Stock 1 Qt: water, onions, celery, carrots, parsley, thyme, rosemary, bay leaf, salt & pepper Couscous with apples, cranberries, and orzo
- Broccoli Cheese Soup 1 Qt: broccoli, vegetable stock, cheddar cheese, onions, cream, butter, flour, garlic, salt, white pepper (DON’T BOIL when reheating as cream could curdle!)
- Tomato Soup 1 Qt: tomatoes, vegetable stock, onions, carrots, celery, basil, olive oil, garlic, sugar, salt, pepper (This does NOT contain milk or cream. It may be made creamier by adding a little milk/cream, or a dollop of sour cream).
- Roasted Spaghetti Sauce 1 Qt: roasted tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, olive oil, basil, oregano, salt, pepper (I love to add 1 can of tomato paste to deepen the tomato flavor/color and add salt/pepper/garlic to taste. You can also add cooked hamburger &/or spicy pork sausage, red wine, fennel seeds, and italian seasoning for a lovely lasagna or spaghetti base.
- Zucchini 4 cups/1 Qt shredded zucchini: drain off water and use for baking breads, muffins, chocolate chip cookies
- Pickles 1 qt bag: cucumbers, onions, vinegar, water, salt, sugar, garlic, cayenne pepper, pickling spice
- Raspberries 1 pt (frozen): whole berries, keep frozen until you want to use them Raspberry Vanilla Smoothie
- Strawberry Sauce 1 pt: Suncrest Gardens strawberries, sugar, vanilla extract (Add a little to yogurt, smoothies, pour over pancakes or waffles, or put on ice cream.
- Raspberry Jam 1/2 pt: Suncrest Gardens raspberries, sugar, low-sugar pectin
Welcome to Suncrest Gardens WINTER CSA! This is our second season delivering winter shares to our membership which now consists of 22 families for the winter, more than double than we had last year. We are now using 6 freezers to store all of the frozen goods for the winter shares and I’m hoping to put in a walk-in freezer this year to alleviate the awkward digging and packing into these chest freezers.
The winter CSA was created from a personal desire to spread out the farm’s workload over the entire year (and to help lessen some of the work from our really busy summer months), and help our families extend their access to local foods nearly all year long. We are able to utilize our wood-fired oven and licensed kitchen to process the abundance of seasonal produce we see during the main harvest season and freeze them for use later in the year. I hate to see anything go to waste, especially after so much labor and love was poured into growing our vegetables. So planting a little extra cushion of vegetables for the CSA gives us some insurance for the regular harvest season as well as gives us bumper crops to process for off-season consumption.
The winter share items reflect what we tend to eat at our house during the winter, and I hope you enjoy them as well. There will be a variety of items in your box including raw storage vegetables, frozen soups, roasted vegetable stock, frozen vegetables and fruit, raspberry jamand eggs. I try to give something with tomatoes every delivery. I also try to make the boxes colorful and flavorful, like a giant vitamin pack bursting with nutrients from the summer sunshine!
Ingredients used to create the soups/stocks/frozen items are listed for each item in the weekly newsblog. Any stock base that was used in making the soups is MSG-Free, Gluten-Free and Vegetarian. Any soups that contain flour will be noted as such and would therefore contain gluten for anyone regulating their gluten intake.
I will have links to recipe ideas following several of the items in your box. You can either use an item as is, or use it as a base for inspiration. The soups may need salt/pepper to taste. I cook using salt for enhancing flavor, but try to keep the sodium levels low. Homemade items will generally have MUCH less sodium than processed items you buy premade at a store. Either use soups as they are or as a base for creating a hardier soup by adding meat and/or other veggies, as the base to a sauce for pasta, or for whatever you may dream up!
Another tip to remember is that the vegetable stocks are not just for creating soups. You can use it to replace water when making rice, risotto, or rehydrating orzo (see recipe link above for a great orzo pasta recipe). Some folks use it to steam their vegetables in place of olive oil or butter when sauteeing. It works wonderful to make a sauce after you make a simple roux out of butter/flour.
The frozen items and stock may go directly into your freezer. Or if you plan to use the items within a week (less days for the zucchini), they may go into your fridge.
The mixed salad greens are from our hoophouse. The salad mix is a hardy group of red and green winter loving lettuces that I selected for hardiness. They have impressed me for sure. The lettuce is covered with an interior plastic tent within the plastic hoophouse tunnel; however, there is no heat added to this tunnel. I only can harvest when temperatures are above freezing in the tunnel. Depending how the winter goes, it looks as if these plants will regenerate quickly from their surviving roots to give a us a really nice late winter/early spring crop.
If you have any questions, comments, concerns, please let Heather know.
2013 Winter CSA delivery dates:
- Jan 9th
- Jan 23rd
- Feb 6th
- Feb 20th
- March 6th
- March 20th…final Winter CSA delivery
Your Farmer,
Heather
Eat Well. Smile Often.