Copper Moose Farm Newsletter

7/15/2009

2009-07-16T11:40:00.001-07:00

CSA Newsletter
July 14, 2009

The most widely grown GMO crop is Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybean, a soybean engineered to withstand being sprayed with Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide, Roundup. When farmers spray their herbicide-resistant crops, the weeds die but the crop survives. Getting plants to do this trick means fewer weeds for farmers and more sales of Roundup for Monsanto. As of August 2006, 89% of the soybeans, 65% of the cotton, and 36% of the corn planted in the United Stated were herbicide-resistant (HR). In the first nine years HR crops were planted, herbicide use increased dramatically. A study done by the former head of the Board of Agriculture for the National Academy of Sciences found that farmers who plated Roundup Ready soybeans used 2 to 5 times more herbicides than farmers who planted conventional soybeans.
Uncertain Peril, Claire Hope Cummings

The Harvest
¾# salad mix
½# spinach
¼# arugula
½# stir fry mix
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch scallions (Purple Bunching)
Garlic scapes
1 bunch mint
1 bunch lavender
Not everyone will get:
1 bunch beets
1 bunch turnips
Sweet pepper (Sweet Cal Wonder Orange Bell or Ace Bell)
Eggplant (Rosa Bianca)
2 oz basil

Carrots – Two varieties went out this week: Napoli (orange) and White Satin (pale yellow). White Satin is new for us this year and I am quite impressed. It is a very sweet and crunchy carrot, basically coreless and my new favorite!
These will store best in a plastic bag in the fridge.
Scallions (or bunching onions) – The variety this week is Deep Purple Bunching. These will store best in a plastic bag in the fridge.

Nutritional Tip and other random factoid
Carrots: The cultivation of carrots dates back thousands of years to cultures in Central Asia and the Middle East. They were also grown by ancient Greeks and Romans for medicinal uses. They became popular in Europe during the Renaissance, making their way to the US with the early settlers. Carrots were such a popular vegetable that they became the first vegetable to be canned for winter storage and sales in local markets in the US.

Carrots belong to the Umbelliferae family, along with parsnips, fennel, caraway, cumin, and dill. They are the richest source of the antioxidant, pro-vitamin A. This nutrient has been linked to cardiovascular health, cancer prevention, and healthy eyes. Fresh carrots are a great add to salads and stir-fry. They make a great snack and are easy to pickle.

The News
Our Pickling Class is this Saturday from 2-5 (the class will be taught by Becca Brenner of Park City Holistic Health). Come learn a fabulous way to store the summer harvest for later use. You must sign up ahead of time, and you must do it by Thursday. If we do not get enough people signed up we will have to cancel the class. The cost is $50 and you will go home with at least 2 jars of veggies you pickled, and the knowledge to pickle your way into winter! Email me if you would like to sign up.
The ducks have finally discovered that there is a creek flowing about 10.5 feet away from their pen. They disappeared on Lorin the other day, only to be found happily floating upstream. Who can blame them? I’m only surprised it took then so long. Unfortunately they don’t like to come home until just before dark…..and we do have lives around here….sometimes…..so Craig has been working on putting chicken wire around the chicken yard so no one can sneak out anymore. That’s the big news around here this week.

The Recipe
This comes from Becca, and can also be found on her blog (playfulnoshings.blogspot.com), along with many other recipes.
I found the recipe in one of my new favorite cookbooks, Chefs on the Farm by Shannon Borg and Lora Lea Misterly. We adjusted some of the ingredients and the presentation (they suggested serving it in a soup bowl, but I wanted to see all of the summer colors). The only extra ingredients we needed were some organic lasagna noodles, Utah's own White Wine, and homemade ricotta cheese.
This is a delightful, fresh summer dish. It is so easy to make and the white wine makes the dish a bit more festive.
Pasta with Beets, Stir Fry Mix, and Parsley
4 medium beets, trimmedUtah salt1/2 cup local unsalted butterBlack pepper2 shallots, minced2 cloves local garlic minced16 large stir fry mix leaves, leaves chopped, stems finely diced1/2 cup white wine12 pieces of uncooked lasagna pasta, cooked and cut into 4 inch squares1/2 cup homemade ricotta1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Place the beets in a shallow baking dish. Pour in water about halfway up the level of the beets, and add a sprinkling of salt. Cover. Put in the oven and roast until fork-tender, about 40 minutes. Remove and cool the beets in the dish until ready to handle, then peel, dice, and reserve.
3. Set some salted water to boil for the pasta. In a saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and add the reserved beets. Toss and heat just through, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Set cover askew and keep warm over low heat.
4. In a large sauté pan, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat. Cook the shallots, garlic, and chard stems until soft, about 3 minutes. add 2 more tablespoons of butter. After the butter melts, stir in the chard leaves and cook gently for about 3 minutes, or until soft. Season with salt, then stir in 2 more tablespoons of butter and the white wine. Cook the mixture for about 5 more minutes.
5. Meanwhile, cook the pasta for 3 to 4 minutes, until al dente. Drain and toss the pasta with the remaining butter.
6. Assemble the meal: Begin with a layer of the chard mixture, then lay a pasta square on the mixture and fill with more of the hard mixture, beets, and a sprinkle of ricotta. Continue stacking and top with chard, beets, and ricotta.

That’s it for this week. Hope you’ve had a fabulous one so far, and we’ll see you tomorrow between 8-6.
Daisy

7/07/2009

2009-07-11T11:38:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter
July 7, 2009

When Organic and conventional crops are contaminated with GMO’s, they have to be pulled up, burned, or sold as transgenic crops, which bring the lowest prices. Organic and conventional farmers now have to pay more for their seed to be certified GMO-free. They have to install elaborate systems of separation to keep the GMO’s out of their crops and bear the costs of testing – which can amount to $300 per test. And they lose export markets that shun GMO’s. The American Farm Bureau estimates that U.S. farmers loose $300 million a year because the European Union will not accept U.S. corn.
Uncertain Peril, Claire Hope Cummings

The Harvest
1# salad mix
¾# spinach
¼# arugula
Garlic scapes
1 bunch herbs (cilantro or dill)
1 bunch lavender
Not everyone will get the following:
1 bunch turnips (if you didn’t get them last week, you got ‘em this week)
1 bunch beets
Heirloom tomatoes (check the board)
U-Pick tomatoes (check the board)
2 oz basil
Edible flowers
Bell Pepper
Rosa Bianca Eggplant
Jalapeno pepper

Lavender – What joy lavender is! And so much you can do with it. As with all the herbs it is going to store best in a little bit of water on your counter, out of the sun. If you don’t want to use it right away hang it upside down and dry it for later use (whether that be for cooking or just for its scent throughout the house). Both of the recipes this week have to do with lavender, so I hope you have some fun with it.
Beets – I’m trying not to be too effusive here, but YEAH! It’s beet season! Lorin was just mentioning how effusive I was over the scapes also, but I can’t help it, I love it when new crops are ready. The best way to store the beets is to cut their tops off and store them both in a plastic bag in the fridge. Yes, the greens are edible also, and so very good for you. Steam or sauté the greens. My favorite way to prepare the beets themselves is to toss in a little oil (coconut is my favorite), herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme are my favorite), garlic (or garlic scapes), salt and pepper and roast for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Yumm.
We grow 3 varieties of beets here at Copper Moose Farm: Chioggia (the red ones), Red Ace (the purple ones), and Golden (the yellow ones).
U-Pick – The u-pick season is slowly starting. For right now there are not enough cherry tomatoes for everyone to pick every week, so I will put a list up on the white board. I will have the correct sized baggies in the greenhouse for you to grab for harvesting. Please use our baggies. All of the u-pick items are in the cold frame (the little greenhouse structure out in the field). There will be signs out there to help you figure it out in case we are not around. Please do read the signs, there are different varieties of cherry tomatoes out there, so you need to know what color means ripe for each variety.

The Nutritional Tip and other random factoids (from Becca)
Arugula: Arugula is a peppery, aromatic green that may look like other leafy greens, but is truly a cruciferous veggie. It is also known as rocket, roquette, and rucola. The use of arugula dates back to the first century, AD as a main ingredient in oils and aphrodisiac tinctures. Today, it is used mainly in Italian cooking as well as spring salad mixes (much like ours here at Copper Moose). Arugula is high in the immune boosting vitamins A and C and the minerals calcium and potassium. It is also high in phytonutrients, free-radical fighting compounds, which have been shown to aid in fighting several kinds of cancer.All of it's amazing nutrition-qualities aside, Arugula features well in pesto, fresh salads, and stir-fries.

The News
If you are a flower share member, it is official, the season has started. Unless something random happens, I will have a bouquet for you each week until it slows down again later in the season (September).
Yoga was beautiful last Thursday morning. Join us at 7 am Thursday mornings for yoga on the lawn with Becca, with baked treats and tea afterwards!

The Recipe
From the Gardener’s Community Cookbook:

Lavender Cream

1 cup heavy whipping cream pinch of salt
1 cup milk Blossoms from 10 sprigs of lavender
1/4 cup honey 4 extra large egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
1. Combine the cream, milk, honey, sugar, salt, and lavender in the top of a double boiler. Set over simmering water and cook, stirring occasionally, unti beginning to thicken, about 10 minutes.
2. Lightly beat the egg yolks in a bowl. Whisk in half the warm cream mixture. Whisk this mixture back into the double boiler. Continue cooking over the simmering water, stirring from time to time, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the spoon, about 10 minutes more.
3. Strain the cream mixture into a clean bowl. Cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally, and chill. Serve as a sauce for berries, chocolate cake, plain pound cake, or sponge cake. Or spoon into side bowls and accompany with cookies.

This one comes from the internet (I have made it, it’s great):
Lemon-Lavender Shortbread
· SERVINGS: MAKES ABOUT 1 1/2 DOZEN COOKIES
Ingredients
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon dried lavender blossoms, chopped
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions
In a medium bowl, mix the sugar with the chopped lavender and grated lemon zest. Using a handheld electric mixer, beat in the butter at moderate speed. At low speed, beat in the flour and salt until a soft dough forms. Transfer the dough to a sheet of wax paper and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Form the dough into a 4-inch log and chill for at least 45 minutes longer.
Preheat the oven to 350°. Slice the shortbread dough into 1/4-inch-thick rounds and place the rounds on ungreased baking sheets. Freeze the rounds for 10 minutes.
Bake the shortbread for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned. Transfer the baked shortbread to a wire rack to cool completely.
Make Ahead
The cookie-dough log can be frozen for up to 1 month. Thaw slightly before slicing. The baked shortbread can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

I just want to remind everyone that all of the recipes from past years are on our website. If you are looking for something to do with your beets, turnips, spinach, you name it – you can find a recipe on our website.

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow between 8-6 - Daisy

6/30/2009

2009-07-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter
June 30th, 2009

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and depending upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
- Galileo

The Harvest
¾# salad mix
½ # baby spinach
Pac Choi
Herb bunch (dill, cilantro, oregano or chives)
2 oz basil
½# stir fry mix (if you didn’t get it last week you’re getting it this week)
Garlic Scapes (the long curly green bean looking things)
Not everyone will get:
1 bunch turnips
1# tomatoes
Jalapeno Pepper
Beans
Edible Flowers

Garlic Scapes – If you haven’t had these before boy are you in for a treat! You can use them any way you would use garlic. They are milder than a garlic clove would be, so if you are using it as a substitute for garlic you may need to use more. One of my favorite ways to cook garlic scapes is to cut them up to about the size of a green bean and then sauté in butter – that’s it! They are fabulous. You can use the entire scape, you may want to cut off the last two inches or so (the little flat end), just cause the shape and texture isn’t quite as pleasant as the rest of it.
Garlic Scapes will keep for a very long time in a sealed plastic bag in your fridge.
Garlic Scapes are a reproductive part of the garlic plant. Basically it’s the garlic flower, before it’s had time to mature. If we were to let it do its thing, it would form a ball on top that would be filled with little garlic pearls (not a technical name, it’s just what they look like). If a garlic pearl were planted, in two years you would get a small bulb of garlic. We snap these scapes off for two reasons: 1 – they are fabulous to eat. 2 – once we take the scape off the plant, the garlic focuses on it’s secondary reproductive part which is the bulb. Garlic plants that have had the scapes removed have larger bulbs at harvest time.
Enjoy!

Nutritional Tip (and other random factoids) From Becca this week:
Beans: The ancestor of most beans originated in Peru and spread throughout South and Central America by migrating Indian tribes. Beans were brought to Europe by Spanish and Portuguese traders in the 16th century and spread to North America by early settlers.

Most bean varieties are high in antioxidants, fiber, minerals, and protein. These nutrients act as anti-inflammatory and immune boosting compounds. They also help with cardiovascular and brain health. Beans are a great snack on their own, as well as delightful adds to salads, sautés, and casseroles.

The News
Don’t forget to join us for Yoga starting this Thursday. Class starts at 7 am out on our events lawn (just south of the greenhouse, in between the flower shed and the field). Bring a mat if you have one, otherwise Becca will have some extra’s here. It’s $15 for drop in. Then stay for some muffins and tea all made with CMF delights. Hope to see you here.
There will be extra bags of salad, pac choi, herb bunches, and flower bouquets available for sale tomorrow.
Don’t forget to bring you bags back.

The Recipe
Candied Turnips (off the web somewhere)
Ingredients
• 1 1/2 pound(s) turnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch wedges
• 1 teaspoon(s) salt
• 2 tablespoon(s) (1/4 stick) margarine or butter
• 1/3 cup(s) sugar
•
________________________________________
Directions
1. In 12-inch skillet, heat turnips with salt and enough water to cover to boiling over high heat. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 7 to 10 minutes, just until turnips are tender when pierced with knife. Drain. Wipe skillet dry.
2. In same skillet, melt margarine or butter over high heat. Add sugar and cook, stirring occasionally, until amber in color, about 2 minutes. Add turnips and cook, stirring frequently, 5 minutes or until well coated.

I candied my turnips last week, but couldn’t remember this recipe so I just cut the tips off, cut the greens off, made sure they were all around the same size (1” squares) and sautéed in butter and brown sugar at low heat for….10- 15 minutes (until they had softened). It worked quite well and was very tasty.

Pac Choi Egg Rolls with Sweet-and-Sour Dipping Sauce (From the Gardener’s Community Cookbook)
½ cup sweet-and-sour dipping sauce (recipe follows)
¾# pac choi, finely chopped, washed and patted or spun dry
3 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
1 large garlic clove (or 2 garlic scapes) minced
2 tbsp minced cilantro leaves
½ tbsp soy sauce
10 egg roll wrappers
veggie old for deep frying

Prepare the dipping sauce and set aside
Place the pac choi, spring onions, garlic, cilantro, and ginger in a bowl and toss to mix. Add the soy sauce and toss again. Set aside.
To form the egg rolls, place a wrapper on the counter. Spread about 2 tbsp of the greens mixture in the center. Rill up the wrapper, envelope style, and if necessary, seal the final fold with a little water to keep the envelope from springing open. Continue with the remaining wrappers until you have 10 egg rolls. Set aside.
Pour ¾ inch of oil into a wok or heavy skillet and heat until smoking. Place as many egg rolls in the wok as will fit without crowding and fry, turning once, until lightly browned and crispy, about 1 minute. Lift the rolls out of the oil and transfer to paper towels to drain. Continue with another batch until all the rolls are fried.
Serve right away, accompanied by the dipping sauce.

The rolls may be wrapped and set aside for up to several hours before deep-frying. Longer than that and they get soggy.
Sweet-and-Sour Dipping Sauce:
1 cup ketchup ½ tbsp ground ginger
1/3 cup (packed) dark brown sugar ½ tsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup granulated sugar pinch of ground nutmeg

Place all the ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly to prevent scorching.
Reduce the heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 15 minutes, until the consistency is slightly sticky and the spices no longer taste raw.
Remove and cool. Use right away or store, covered, in the fridge for up to 6 weeks!

That’s all for this week. See you tomorrow between 8-6, and if I miss you…have a fabulous 4th of July Holiday!
Daisy

6/23/09

2009-06-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter
June 23, 2009

On every stem, on every leaf,... and at the root of everything that grew, was a professional specialist in the shape of grub, caterpillar, aphis, or other expert, whose business it was to devour that particular part. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Harvest
¾# salad greens
2 oz basil
2.5 oz arugula
1 bunch herbs (dill or cilantro)
Not everyone will get the following, but you will get one of the following….
1# tomatoes (Cherokee Purple, Red Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, Double Rich, Striped German). Check the list on the white board to see if you get tomatoes this week.
Jalapeno pepper
1 bunch turnips
1 bunch radish
Bag of beans (purple and green)
½# Gwen’s Favorite Stir Fry Mix

Turnips - Ahh yes, turnip season is starting. I know some of you are dreaming of turnip chips right now! Me too, but these may be too small for turnip chips. These are baby turnips – we have a lovely recipe for them later in the letter. Both the greens and the roots are edible. The greens should be cooked before eaten…mostly because they are prickly. For storing you are going to want to cut the tops off the roots, store them both in plastic bags in the fridge.
Jalapeno Pepper – I just usually toss mine into the fridge, but I am sure that putting it in a plastic bag would help it keep longer.
Striped German Heirloom Tomato – This is my favorite! It is a large multicolored tomato, with an exciting citrusy flavor. It’s a great slicer as the red, orange and yellow colors are a show stopper. So, don’t wait for it to turn all red – it won’t. The red part is mostly on the bottom, with the top being yellow. Don’t confuse it for the Yellow Brandywine which will be all yellow with no red.
Stir Fry Mix – You may recognize some of the characters in the stir fry mix from your salad mix. The stir fry mix is made up of more mature Mustard Greens, Tatsoi, Kale, Swiss Chard, and Bulls Blood Beet Greens. We call it a stir fry mix because it will taste best lightly cooked. You can chop it up and throw it in at the very end of a stir fry (they only need a moment of cooking), or you can steam them for a couple minutes for a side dish, put them in a quiche, chop them up and add them to your cooking scrambled eggs, use in burritos or enchiladas…..you get the picture. The stir fry mix will have a slightly spicy flavor due to the Mustard Greens and the Tatsoi. Enjoy.

Nutrition Tip and other random factoids (from Becca this week)
Mustard Greens: Mustard Greens were originally grown in India over 5,000 years ago. They are packed full of phytonutrients like glucosionlates, antioxidants C and E, B vitamins, and minerals such as calcium and magnesium. These nutrients are associated with healthy lung and heart function, bone health, and soothing the nervous system. The high level of magnesium in mustard greens help to reduce stress and promote healthy sleep patterns. Mustard Greens are a great peppery add to salads, delight on their own in garlic, olive oil stir-fry, and mixed into bean and rice dishes.

The News
Yoga starts next Thursday (July 2nd). It’s hard to believe July is upon us already, but it is….and that means Becca’s yoga series starts (this is a class for all levels). Yoga will be every Thursday morning through August, 7-8am. Muffins and tea will be served afterwards. Bring a mat if you have one, if you don’t, there will be extra’s here. You can sign up for the full series by emailing me, or you can just drop in for classes when it works for your schedule.
Thursday mornings, 7-8 am, July 2nd through August 27thAll 9 Classes - $108 ($90 for Copper Moose Farm CSA members)Drop in - $15 per class
Hope to see you here. Dress in layers as it can be a bit chilly at 7 am….
Joy oh joy the sun is out! What a relief. We’ll be busy here this week trying to get back on schedule…..and so will the veggies probably. As I have mentioned before, the salad greens loved the rainy weather, but it seems that some other crops may have slowed down a bit. I expect we will see a huge growth explosion (all over the county) in the next week with the warm sunny weather.
If you got your greens in plastic bags this week…….it means you have all the cotton bags at your house…..which is not the goal. You should have one set and we should have one set.
There will be additional bags of salad greens available for sale in the fridge, along with some additional herbs. Help yourself – its self service as far as making your own change using the money jar which is on the tables near the sink. (3/4# salad greens $7.50, herb bunch $2).

The Recipes
The following 3 turnip related recipes come from Becca.
Roasted Turnips in Wine with Baked Brie and Goat Cheese
1 bunch turnips, cleaned, greens reserved for Turnip Greens Meal1 cup red wine 1/4 cup honey 2 Tablespoons butter Place turnips in saucepan; add remaining ingredients and enough water to barely cover. (You may also add other root vegetables: carrots, parsnips, etc.) Simmer until tender. Pour into baking dish and bake at 350 degrees 1/2 hour. Serve with baked brie, goat cheese, and fresh bread. 2-3 servings.
Baked Brie
1 large sheet of puff pastry dough or 1 tube of refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
1 round or wedge of Brie cheese (do not remove rind) Raspberry Jam, or other sweet jam Brown sugar 1/4 cup of maple syrup
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. On a stick-free cookie sheet, lay out the puff pastry or the crescent rolls flat; put brie round or wedge on top. Spread jam on brie, fold dough over top, cutting off excess dough. Drizzle maple syrup and place a handful of brown sugar on top. Bake at 350º for 25-30 minutes, pastry should be golden brown. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.Serve with crackers and apple slices.

Turnip Greens Meal
3 Tablespoons Olive Oil3 Garlic cloves, minced 1 cup shitake mushrooms, sliced (can find these fresh at Park Silly)1 Tablespoon Red Raspberry or cider vinegar 1 large red onion, sliced 1 can black beans 2 Tablespoons soy sauce 1 large potato, cubed (I would substitute a couple of the turnips...) cleaned greens from one bunch of turnips.
Put all ingredients in a large pot, in the order listed. Bring mixture to boiling point, stir, lower heat to simmer, cover and cook for 15 or 20 minutes, or until potato is tender. Serve with a chilled fruit and yogurt accompaniment.
This last one comes from our good friend Alayne (many of you will remember her from her hard work here at the farm the last two summers)! She is living it up in Chamonix France, tending a beautiful garden, and creating wonders in her kitchen. Thanks for the recipe Alayne – keep them coming!
Radish Leaf Pesto
- 2 large handfuls of good-looking radish leaves (could substitute turnip leaves I bet, if you don’t have enough radish leaves), stems removed- 30 grams (1 ounce) hard cheese, such as pecorino or parmesan, grated or shaved using a vegetable peeler- 30 grams (1 ounce) nuts, such as pistachios, almonds, or pinenuts (avoid walnuts, which make the end result too bitter in my opinion)- 1 clove garlic, germ removed, cut in four- a short ribbon of lemon zest cut thinly from an organic lemon with a vegetable peeler (optional)- 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to get the consistency you like- salt, pepper, ground chili pepperPut all the ingredients in a food processor or blender or mini-chopper, and process in short pulses until smooth. You will likely have to scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice. This produces a thick pesto; add more oil and pulse again to get the consistency you prefer. (This can also be done with a mortar and pestle; it's great for your karma and your triceps.)Taste, adjust the seasoning, and pack into an airtight container (I use a recycled glass jar). Use within a few days (it will keep longer if you pour a thin layer of oil on the surface) or freeze.

Hope you’re all out enjoying the gorgeous weather! See you tomorrow between 8-6. Daisy

6/16/2009

2009-06-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter
June 16, 2009

The damages of our present agriculture all come from the determination to use the life of the soil as if it were an extractable resource like coal, to use living things as if they were machines, to impose scientific (that is, laboratory) exactitude upon living complexities that are ultimately mysterious.
Wendell Berry in The Unsettling of America

Last week after pick-up day we found too many green tomatoes that had been picked lying in the beds……please make sure your kids know not to touch any of the plants in the greenhouse, and especially not to PICK anything in the greenhouse. Thanks.

The Harvest
¾# salad greens
½# spinach (cooking spinach)
Pac Choi
Herb Bunch
Not everyone will get:
1 bunch radish
2 oz basil
Edible flowers
1# Heirloom tomatoes (Cherokee Purple and Red Brandywine)
Beans – Blue Lake Bush Bean (green), Royal Burgundy (purple/red)

Pac Choi – Pac Choi is similar to boc choy – they are all actually just slightly different varieties of Chinese Cabbage. The two varieties you are getting today are Red Choi and Joy Choi. Your choi will store best in a plastic baggie (tied) in your fridge. Pac Choi is great in stir fries – use the whole thing, leaf and stem. The stems make a really nice, juicy addition to stir fries. You can also steam it whole and then serve as a side vegetable. Pac Choi can also be lightly brushed with olive oil and put on the grill for a moment. And then there is the good old stand-by of just chopping it up and adding it to your salad!
Red Brandywine – The original Red Brandywine was introduced in 1889. These large, rosy red fruit have an excellent flavor.
Beans – Normally these would be a u-pick item, and they will be once they are ready for harvest in the cold frame. The ones ready right now are in the greenhouse and they are a little more difficult to harvest, and the plants are more delicate. So, we’ll be harvesting these until more are ready in the cold frame. These will store well in a plastic baggie in the fridge (there’s a new one eh).

Nutritional Tip (and other random factoids): From Becca this week…..
BasilEven though Basil is now grown all over the world, it is native to India, Southeast Asia, and Northeast Africa. The word basil comes from the Greek word basilikohn, meaning royal, which gives us some understanding of how these cultures saw and used this aromatic herb. Basil is packed full of 80 health promoting nutrients. Recent research reveals that basil's flavonoids and volatile oils promote DNA protection and anti-bacterial properties.Some medicinal uses for basil are: rubbing fresh leaves on insect bites to relieve the pain and itch, an infusion of local honey and basil leaves to relieve cold/allergy symptoms, and an infusion of almond oil and basil leaves massaged into the body to relieve sore muscles.Basil is an important herb in Thai and Italian cooking, and is most often featured in pesto dishes, alongside olive oil, parmesan cheese, and pine nuts. Use it raw in a fresh caprese salad and enjoy the immune boosting qualities of this ancient gem.

News
Rain, rain, rain….that’s about all that’s been on my mind, and probably many of yours also. Things are doing pretty well out here, despite the routine down pours. We (those of us that work here, and the veggies that grow here) are looking forward to some nice sunny days though. Just give me a few weeks and I’ll be talking about the heat!
We are only slightly off schedule due to the wet conditions. I haven’t been able to get into the field with the tractor because the soil has been too wet. Working the soil when too wet does damage to the soil structure, which could take a year or more to recover. Because of that we have missed a sowing of salad greens, and are just a little off track on some transplanting. Not that big of a deal though, you won’t even notice…..and neither will I once I forget about it. It has made me realize though, how used to being “in control” of the water I am. I have spent all of my life in New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah….all states where you have to irrigate to grow. I turn the water on when it fits into my schedule….the only times it’s too wet to plant is when I have messed up. Ahhh, just another fabulous opportunity to learn about myself and practice acceptance of the things you can not change.
If you got any of your greens in a plastic bag this week that means you have two weeks worth of cotton bags at your house and we need them back!
Just a reminder to folks who like to put their greens into plastic bags here at the farm and always leave their cotton bags here - you need to bring in your own plastic bags for that – thanks.

The Recipe
Spinach, Feta and Herb Quiche (I made this one this weekend – tasty!). Ohh – you could put radish or basil is this too! The crust may make it seem intimidating, but go for it – it’s easier than it first looks!
Crust:
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
¼ tsp salt
8 tbsp (1 stick) butter, at room temp
2 to 2.5 tbsp water

Preheat oven to 425.
Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Cut in the butter and pulse several times until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Continue to pulse while adding the water 1 tbsp at a time until the dough adheres to itself when pinched.
Gather the dough into a ball and set the ball on a sheet of plastic wrap. Cover with another sheet of plastic wrap and roll the dough into an 11-13” circle. Remove the top sheet and turn the dough into a 10-12” tart or pie pan, pushing gently into the corners and up the sides. Place in the refrigerator to chill before baking, up to overnight. If chilling overnight, remove from the fridge 30 minutes before baking.
Note: the dough can also be mixed by hand. You will need slightly more water with this method.
After chilling for a bit, with a fork, prick all across the bottom of the crust and bake until beginning to puff up on the bottom, about 12 min.
Gently prick the bottom again to allow steam to escape. If the sides are beginning to collapse, press them up with the fork. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes more, until the crust is golden on the bottom and around the edges.
Remove and continue with the recipe, either right away of after the crust has cooled a bit but not longer than 1 or 2 hours and never chilled.
The Filling
6 oz spinach 2 tbsp olive oil
2 eggs 6 oz feta
1 cup milk salt and pepper to taste
.5 cup half and half 2 tbsp chopped herbs
2 cloves garlic 1 cup mushrooms
1 tomato (sliced)

Turn oven down to 400.
Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large sauté pan. Add garlic and mushrooms and sauté for a few minutes (until the mushrooms begin to soften). Add the spinach and quickly sauté – don’t over cook! Pull off heat and set aside
Whisk together the eggs, milk and half and half. Add chopped herbs, salt and pepper and feta cheese and mix.
Place spinach mixture in the pie crust. Next layer the tomato. Pour the egg mixture over the top.
Bake at 400 for 30-40 minutes, until puffed and set. Remove and let rest for 10 minutes

This one comes from Becca; another great recipe to use some herbs….and looks like a fun one to do with the kids.

Bread PretzelsI pulled out my dear old friend, The Joy of Cooking, for this one. Chop and add your fresh Copper Moose herbs to the flour, butter, salt, and sugar mix.
Combine in a mixer bowl:1 cup 105-115 degree water1 package active dry yeast
When dissolved, add and beat at least 3 minutes:1 ½ cups sifted organic flour2 tablespoons organic, local butter½ teaspoon local salt1 tablespoon organic sugar
Stir in:1 ¼ cups sifted all-purpose organic flour and as many chopped up herbs from Copper Moose Farm as you think sounds good and kneed until the dough loses its stickiness. Let rise in a covered greased bowl until doubled in bulk. Punch down and divide into 12 pieces for pretzels or 36 smaller pieces for sticks. With you palms, roll the 12 pretzel pieces into 18-inch lengths about pencil thickness, tapering the ends slightly. Loop into a twisted oval . Place on a greased baking sheet and let rise until almost doubled in bulk. Preheat oven to 475.
Have ready a boiling solution of :4 cups water5 teaspoons baking soda
Do not use an aluminum pan for this mixture. With a slotted spoon, carefully lower the pretzels into the water about 1 minute, or until they float to the top. Return them to the greased sheet.
Sprinkle with:Coarse saltBake until crispy and browned, about 12 minutes. They are best served at once, but will keep about on week in an airtight container.

That’s all for this week. Don’t forget to check the white board in the greenhouse for the tomato list and the flowers list. See you tomorrow between 8-6.
Daisy

6/09/2009

2009-06-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter
June 9, 2009

Since WWII, American farmers have increased their use of agricultural pesticides tenfold – to about one billion pounds (500,000 tons) per year, yet crop loss due to agricultural pests has doubled.
Dr. Arden Anderson, Science in Agriculture

The Harvest
¾# salad greens
*¼# arugula
½# spinach
*1 bunch herbs (tarragon, oregano, thyme, or mint)
2 oz basil (not everyone will get this week)
1 bunch radish (not everyone will get this week)
1 oz edible flowers (only a few people will get this each week, I’ll just be working my way down the list……)

* The arugula is probably going to be a little wet and muddy this week from all the rain, so make sure you give it a good wash and dry when you get it home

* If you find you keep getting the same herb bunch week after week feel free to swap out for another type of herb. There will usually be a box of extra herb bunches in the cooler for our “a la carte” customers. It will say “herb bunches $2” – swap your bunch out for another variety in that box if you would like. You can also buy additional herb bunches from that box!

This week there will also be additional bags of salad mix ($7.50), spinach ($5) and arugula ($4) in the cooler for sale.

Nutritional Tip (and other fun factoids)
Oregano is native to Europe, the Mediterranean region, and South and Central Asia. It is high in antioxidant activity due to a high content of phenolic acids and flavonoids. Oregano also demonstrates antimicrobial activity against food-borne pathogens such as Listeria monocytogens. Both of these characteristics make Oregano great for food health and food preservation.
In the Philippines Oregano is mostly used medicinally, for relieving children’s coughs. In a mild tea it has a soothing effect and aides in restful sleep. Used topically, Oregano is one of the best antiseptics because of its high thymol content.
Beyond all that, as I am sure you all know, Oregano is widely used in Italian and Greek cuisine.

Bee Talk
You got it! This is the section where Doug (our Bee Guy) will give you periodic updates on our bee hive. I’ll just turn it right over to Doug:
We’ve got Bees! This spring here at the farm we brought in a hive of about 6 thousand European “Carolina” honey bees, to help make the farm that much more self-sufficient and benefit not only the vegetable and flower crops but the surrounding flowers and fields. As this is the first year for the bees and us, the amount of honey harvested in the fall may be small if any. The bees need a fair amount to remain in the hive to eat over the winter. We are going to play it pretty safe this fall and leave quite a bit as we don’t know exactly how cold and long the winter will be and how it will impact the hive. The bees are genetically classified as “Carolina” and have been raised in the Baltic states of Eastern Europe for hundreds of years. We selected this type due to there ability to over winter in particularly cold regions well. They are very docile and are for the most part unconcerned about people or animals. They are actively gathering nectar and pollen, building honeycomb and raising the hundreds of new bees. The hive population is about 16-18 thousand as of early June. About two to four hundred new bees are born every day! Feel free to walk over and check out the hive the next time you visit the farm. It is on the west side of the green house. If you watch from the end of the wood chip path you should be able to see the girls coming and going. The hive front door is at the base of the hive boxes. As mentioned before the bees are very docile and will not even notice you are there so long as you stay clear of the front entrance “flight path”. There is an empty hive currently sitting near the gate entrance to the field you are welcome to open it up and see all of the parts up close and bee free. If you have questions about the hives or beekeeping pleas let me know. Thanks and cheers to a sweet summer season Doug (the beekeeper in training) cdfryer@yahoo.com

Here are a few photos of the bees:

This last photo is the one that Doug is referencing in the following sentences: “In one of the photos there is a cell on the honeycomb frame that looks like a small peanut. It is a queen cell. The bees may be in the process of replacing the current queen (like laying three or four hundred eggs ain't enough.. sheesh!).. This is apparently a normal thing based on the queen’s laying ability and age.

The News
Well, it’s been raining a lot as I am sure you’ve all noticed…..the greens are loving it and growing like weeds. The tomatoes in the greenhouse don’t seem to mind the cooler weather too much; we are starting to see some of the big heirloom tomatoes coloring up! We do seem to be having a bit of an aphid problem on the peppers and eggplant right now. We usually get some of that in the spring, and have good success treating it with Lady Bugs. The treatment seems to be taking a little longer this spring…. It seems the cooler weather is just perfect for the aphids….hence their proliferation. The good thing is that it doesn’t seem to be affecting fruit set at this point, so we have lots of fruit maturing on the peppers and eggplant.
The Lady Bugs are great at eating aphids, but their offspring are even better! The juvenile stage of the Lady Bug looks like this crazy little black and orange speckled dinosaur/alligator like thing. See if you can find any in the greenhouse! Leave them where they are though, they are hard at work.

The Recipe
This comes from Quail Hill Farm Cookbook.
Spinach Cottage Cheese Gratin
Preheat oven to 350. Oil an 8”X10” gratin dish. Cook 3 bunches of spinach with water still clinging to leaves in wide skillet until wilted. Press out and reserve liquid. Finely chop spinach. Beat 5 eggs with ½ cup chopped parsley, ½ tsp dill seeds, ½ tsp ground coriander, 1/2tsp salt and a little pepper. Add 2 cups small curd cottage cheese, spinach and reserve liquid. Bake for 45 minutes.

And this comes from Gardener’s Community Cookbook.
Arugula Lover’s Pesto
1 cup coarsely chopped arugula leaves
½ cup fresh parsley leaves
½ cup coarsely cut winter greens (such as Mizuna or giant red mustard)
½ cup walnut halves or pieces
2 to 4 garlic cloves, to taste
1 to jalapenos, stemmed, seeded and coarsely chopped, to taste
½ tsp salt
½ cup parmesan cheese
½ cup olive oil

Wash the arugula, parsley, and winter greens all together and let drip dry in a colander.
Pulverize the walnuts in a food processor. Add the remaining ingredients, including the still-moist greens, and process until minced as fine as possible. Use right away or store in the refrigerator for up to a week.

That’s all for this week, hope the kids are enjoying the beginning of their summer break!
Daisy

6/02/2009

2009-06-13T14:34:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter
June 2nd, 2009

A truly fertile soil is inwardly alive.
Rudolf Steiner

The Harvest
¾# salad mix
2 oz arugula
Basil (for those of you who did not get it last week)
1 bunch radish (not everyone will get this week)
1 bunch herbs (mint, thyme, or tarragon)
Edible Flowers

Let me introduce you to a little “friend” of mine. Some of you may remember this character from last year…..the Flea Beetle . Yup, this little guy is the one doing all the damage you see to your salad mix (the tiny holes). They like the spicier greens (mustard greens, Mizuna, arugula, Tatsoi). We cover all of those greens here at the farm with a light row cover to keep it hidden from them….but sometimes they still get in. I am going to call this ‘the spring of the flea beetle’; their damage is very wide spread right now…..we’re doing our best. I think I have mentioned before that farming is teaching me to share…..even when I don’t want to; this week it’s with the flea beetles.

Edible Flowers – I only send out a couple bags of these a week….so we’ll slowly get through the list…The best way to store these little beauties is floating in some water in a little bowl, either in your fridge or on the counter. Edible Flowers are great to use on salads, floating on the top of a chilled soup, as a gorgeous garnish for desserts…..and anything else that sounds good to you. Right now the flowers that we have are Pansies, Chamomile, and Nasturtiums. The Nasturtiums have a spicy flavor, the Chamomile tastes like….chamomile, and the Pansies are very subtle.
Last year Alayne put some Chamomile flowers into a scone batter and WOW, was it fabulous….subtle but wonderful.
Nasturtium
Pansy
Chamomile

Nutritional Tip (and other random factoids):
The radish was first domesticated in Europe in the Pre-Roman times. Radishes are actually packed with lots of good stuff – believe it or not! They are rich in ascorbic acid, folic acid, and potassium and are a good source of Vitamin B6, riboflavin, magnesium, copper, and calcium. So eat em’ up!

The News
The CSA Potluck Party is going to be Sunday August 30th from 5-8. Don’t miss it. It’s a great time here at the farm with all your fellow CSA members! We will provide the main dish and beverages, and you all bring one of your favorite vegetable dishes or desserts. We try to accommodate everyone with as many of the ingredients for their dish as we can. We’ll talk more about that later. But put it in your calendar now!
Compost – we are going to set up a compost bucket for you on Wednesdays. The only items I can accept are things that came from Copper Moose Farm. So…if you don’t eat your radish greens, put them in a container and bring them back the next week. Some of your greens are going bad, bring them back here….you peel your carrots, I’ll take that! You get the picture. I can not accept cooked food – even if it is from the farm. So, to re-cap, I can only accept compost items that came from Copper Moose Farm.
Thanks to all of you that made it to the CSA Prep Class – it was a great exchange of ideas! Some of you expressed interest in the juicers Dave was talking about – here is Dave Spealler’s contact information if anyone is interested in getting a good quality juicer: dave@cgiwest.com, 435-655-0058.
Along with the juicer talk came a great “keep you young” juice recipe from Debbie Sebek. Here it is:
Fresh Juice Drinks by Dr. Bernardo
Make Drink 1 – 3X’s / day
“Secret to Youth & Good Health” Juice
(Juice together items below)
Item Amount Details
1. Ginger Root ¼” Slice of
2. Daikon Radish ¼” Slice of Makes Alkaline
3. Asparagus 5 whole spears
4. Broccoli 1 Cup of
5. Beet ¼ - ½ of a
6. Granny Smith Apple - 1 whole
7. Pineapple ½” Slice of Fresh Take off skin
8. Carrot 1 whole
9. Cucumber 1/3 of a Cleansing
10. Cilantro Handful of Pulls metals out

IMPORTANT: MUST drink with a Straw w/in 20 min. of making
NOTE: Use organic ingredients whenever possible

The Recipe
These come from one of my favorite farm cookbooks, they’re from Smith and Hawken - “The Gardeners’ Community Cookbook” by Victoria Wise.

Radish and Chive Canapés
8 oz quality cream cheese, softened
1 tbsp butter, softened
½ to ¾ cup finely chopped radishes
½ cup chopped fresh chives
Salt
Pumpernickel triangles and/or small cocktail rye bread rounds
Thinly sliced radish rounds, watercress tips, and/or whole chives for garnish

In a medium bowl, beat together the cheese and butter until fluffy. Lightly squeeze the chopped radishes to press out extra moisture and add to the bowl. Add the chopeed chives and mix well. Season with salt to taste, cover, and refrigerate until firm but still spreadable, at least 1 hour to overnight.
When ready to serve, mound the cheese mixture on a serving platter. If using, arrange a ring of radish rounds, watercress tips, and whole chives around the cheese. Surround with a border of overlapping pumpernickel and rye bread slices around the edge of the platter and serve.
Note: If you don’t have enough chives to make half a cup, top the measure with minced green onion.

Herb-Marinated Feta Cheese
2/3 cup olive oil
1 heaping tsp green or red peppercorns
2 cloves garlic, slivered
2 tbsp shredded fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
2 tbsp fresh oregano leaves
3 bay leaves, preferably fresh
1/2 # feta cheese, cut into ¾ inch cubes

Place the oil, peppercorns, garlic, basil, thyme, oregano, and bay in a quart jar. Cap and shake well. Add the feta, taking care not to crumble it, cap again, and gently turn to mix. Let stand at room temp for several hours, turning the jar several times. Use right away or store, covered, in the fridge. Bring to room temp before serving. Keeps indefinitely.

I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow - Daisy

5/26/2009

2009-06-13T14:32:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter
May 26th, 2009

As George Watson pointed out in his book, Nutrition and Your Mind, the nutritional integrity of an individual’s diet determines the integrity of that person’s thinking and emotional stability. When farmers regenerate the soil, they recondition the food chain. This, in turn, improves the nutritional integrity of society, thereby enhancing people’s thinking and emotional stability. No drug, psychiatric counseling, rehabilitation program, welfare check, educational system, or legislative mandate can ever have such an all-encompassing influence.
Dr. Arden Anderson, Science in Agriculture

We are so excited to be starting the CSA this early! A week earlier than last year and 3 weeks earlier than 2007!! As I mentioned last week, these first few boxes will be mostly herbs and greens as we wait for more vegetables to come into season. I hope you enjoy the freshies!
If you still owe for the organic cotton bags, which are yours, please plan on bringing that money tomorrow ($25 per membership). I will send out invoices this afternoon for those of you that do still owe. Any outstanding balances will show up on this invoice…..no time like the present!

The Harvest
¾# Salad Mix
¼# arugula
1 bunch herbs (Chives, Tarragon, or Mint)
1 bulb garlic
**2 oz basil (not everyone will get this week)

**When I have items ready to harvest, but not enough of it for the entire CSA, I harvest it and send it out to as many members as I can. The following week I will send it to members who have not yet received it, and so on. You’ve got to trust me on this one….I keep very good records on this, and I promise you that when the season is over, everyone will have received the same amount as everyone else. Those of you splitting shares, if you are alternating weeks, you may feel that I keep shorting you on an item, but you have to remember that I do not take into account split shares…I treat that box as one share. So if you feel you haven’t been getting something that you have seen on the harvest list……talk to your splitting partner.

Salad Mix – The mix this week is different than you will see in the future. This is a mix of baby spinach and our piquant mix. Usually our salad mix is a mix of lettuces and our piquant mix, but the lettuce is growing a little sluggishly right now….so we’re using the spinach instead.
Here are the cast of characters in the piquant mix:
Bull’s Blood Beet Greens
Rainbow Swiss Chard
Red Russian Kale
Giant Red Mustard
Early Mizuna
Tatsoi

We double wash the salad greens here at the farm, in plain culinary water. Our sinks and the surfaces in the packing area are always cleaned with disinfectant, but no disinfectant is put in the water that washes the greens. You may want to take it a step further and wash them at your home – it is up to you. If you do wash again, make sure you dry them VERY WELL. If the greens are kept too wet in the fridge, the will go bad MUCH more quickly.
The salad mix is packaged in your new organic cotton bags – to keep the salad the freshest I think you are going to need to place the cotton bag in a plastic bag and then into the fridge. These are new to all of us, so tell me how it’s going and what you’re finding out.
YOU NEED TO BRING THESE BAGS BACK WITH YOU NEXT WEEK. There will be a box for you to drop them in when you come to get your veggies.

Arugula – We do not wash the arugula. It is just too delicate for our big salad spinner….so it’s up to you to wash this beauty. If you do not already own a salad spinner….it’s time to buy one. As with any of the greens that you wash, make sure it is well dried before you store it in the fridge in a plastic bag.

Herbs – All the herb bunches will store best in a glass with a little water in it, on your counter or in the fridge. Just like a mini bouquet of flowers! If you know you will not use the herbs, but want them for later use (winter), simply hang them upside down from the rubber band, away from direct heat. Once they are dry and crumbly you can put them in a little container or plastic bag for storage. Herbs that dry well are: tarragon, dill, sage, thyme, and oregano.

Basil – My new theory is that the basil is going to store the best with their stems in a little water on your counter. I have had some on my counter since Saturday and it still looks brand new. You can also try a plastic bag (not completely closed as the basil needs to breath) either on the counter or in the fridge.

Garlic – you guessed it…this is saved from last year. Some of it may be sprouting a bit – no better evidence that you are eating something alive! Now that’s gotta be good for you! Garlic should not be stored in the fridge. It will not be in your boxes either (as they are in the walk-in-cooler), it will be available on the counter for you to grab – don’t forget it!

Nutritional Tip (and other random factoids)
As I am sure you all know, spinach is very high in calcium and iron…but did you know that your body does not absorb the iron very well unless it is eaten with vitamin C? Yup, it’s true, so squeeze a little fresh lemon on your salad to help your body get the most out of that spinach.
It is most likely that spinach was first domesticated in Nepal. The Muslims, who conquered that area, helped to spread it to other areas in the Muslim world. By the 11th Century it was a common plant throughout the Muslim World.

The News
Beginning of the season – yippee! I will be around the building all day tomorrow to say hi and get everyone oriented. Lorin Tedeschi will be working here full time this summer; you’ll hopefully meet her tomorrow, and be seeing a lot of her for the rest of the season.
After tomorrow’s pick-up we will not be sticking as close to the building on Wednesdays, so if you come to get your veggies some week, and you don’t see either Lorin or I, that’s fine – grab your veggies, say hi to the chickens, enjoy the view, marvel at the beauty of a working farm, and hopefully we’ll see you next time!
Ramirez the Rooster – yup, he’s still around, and he’s still a meanie! Please no kids in the chicken yard. Ramirez means business, so it’s best to “appreciate” him from our side of the fence (to date, he has not bothered jumping the fence). None of the other chickens are any danger at all, and are most likely to mob the fence hoping to get fed when you wander over to it. Feel free to bring them stale bread any time you want, they will adore you for it!

The Recipe
This week’s recipes come from Kelly Epstein, a new member of Copper Moose Farm CSA and Co-Owner of DISH, a catering business located here in Park City.

Here are two options to dress your early season greens, using the garlic and fresh herbs from your basket. Any herbs work equally well in either recipe. Our favorites for the creamy herb dressing are chives and tarragon. For the basic vinaigrette, basil works particularly well but any herb will be great.

Creamy Herb Dressing
3 tablespoons 1/2 & 1/2
1 1/2 tablespoons sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon agave nectar
1 teaspoon hot water
1/2-1 tablespoon minced fresh herb, packed
salt and pepper to taste

In blender, mix 1/2 & 1/2, sour cream, lemon juice and agave nectar. Add hot water to desired consistency. Stir in fresh herbs. Season with salt and pepper.

Basic Herb Vinaigrette

4 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 small clove garlic, minced
1/2 tablespoon maple syrup
3 tablespoons fresh herbs of choice
1 teaspoon hot water

In blender mix all ingredients except water, salt and pepper. Blend to combine. Add hot water to desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper.

That seems like more than enough info for one week… see you tomorrow between 8-6.
Daisy

10-14-2008

2008-10-20T09:30:00.001-07:00

CSA Newsletter
October 14th, 2008

There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder. ~Alfred Austin

Week 19! Wow, the last week, another season under our belt….ok, our 2nd season under our belt. Hope you all feel as good about the season as we do. I’m impressed we got 19 weeks after the spring we had – that’s 2 more weeks than last year’s CSA! I have so enjoyed getting to know those of you I didn’t already know, and seeing old friends again. It’s going to be sad without Wednesday social day around here…….. Thank you so much for your smiling faces, recipes, suggestions, support, and shared passion for responsibly grown food. I look forward to seeing you all out on the slopes/skate track/trails this winter, and back out here come spring time!
I want to send out a huge THANK YOU to our in-kind-members this year – you all helped out soooo much, could not have done it without you! I hope to work with you again next year.

The Harvest
~1# salad greens
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch herbs (cilantro or dill)
1 bunch radish (for those of you who did not get them last week)
3 oz basil (with this week’s basil I have made it even for everyone)
Sun Flower Seeds
Copper Moose Farm 2008 Potluck Cookbook (1 per membership)
* If you forgot your onion twist last week, I still have them – get them this week.

Sunflower Seeds – These seeds come from our Zebulon sunflowers this year. They were the dwarf variety that was in the ore cart planters and the whiskey barrel planters at the greenhouse door. They have an amazing geometrical pattern in their bright green center. Because they are dwarf they are great for borders or planter boxes. They will get to be 28-36” tall and are an early bloomer.
I would recommend holding on to these until the spring, then pop them in the ground or a planter after danger of frost has passed (June 15th up here). Water them well until they have germinated.

Copper Moose Farm 2008 Potluck Cookbook – They’re done! Well, most of them are done. Due to a printing error, I do not have 50 ready. So, if there are none left when you get here, there will be a piece of paper for you to write your name down on – as soon as the rest of the cookbooks are done I will send you an email and you can swing by and pick yours up. Sorry for the inconvenience. Also – we will be printing extra’s, they will make great gifts! If you are interested in buying a couple, we sure would love the help in making these possible! I will have a sheet out for those of you who would like to buy a couple extra’s – put your name down and how many you would like. It would be great if you could pay for them up-front, but if not, we can bill you.
Thanks again to Kim Denkers for designing and compiling these – they look fantastic! And thanks to all of you for contributing your recipes!

The News
Lots of opportunities to stay connected to the farm this winter!
We will be having our Holiday Flower Party again this year. I will send out an email when we have all the details sussed out. Hope to see you for that.
We plan on selling eggs this winter - I will send out an email when the details are together on that one also.
Keep your eyes peeled in February for our invite letter to join the 2009 CSA. I will hold your spot for 2 weeks after I send that email out, after that, I will open up your spot to someone on our waitlist. So don’t dally, if you want to join again for next year send in the form and payment as soon as you get that email in February.

The Recipe
Carrots with Lemon (from Quail Hill Farm Cookbook)
Peel about 4-5 carrots, juice a lemon and set the juice aside. Toss the carrots with Kosher salt a little water and olive oil into a heavy frying pan and cook covered for a bit. Uncover, add some more oil, and turn up the heat to caramelize the carrots. At the very end, when the carrots are done, add the lemon juice and let it thicken in the oil.

Well, that’s a wrap! Look forward to seeing you tomorrow….for the last pick-up. Thanks again for a great season.
Daisy

10-7-2008

2008-10-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter
October 7, 2008

In order to live off a garden, you practically have to live in it. ~Frank McKinney Hubbard

Wednesdays are the pick-up day…..please come get your boxes on Wednesday between 8-6. Thank you.

Hello all. Well, this week was supposed to be our last……but……..the harvest is still bountiful, so how about we do another week? (I’m going to assume you all just said yes). One more week – October 15th will be our official end. If for some reason you do not want a box on October 15th, please email me and let me know that. Otherwise, I will plan on packing boxes for you all – ready for your pick-up on October 15th.

The Harvest
1# salad greens
½# baby spinach
¼# arugula
1 bunch carrots
Handful of garlic cloves
Onions
1 bunch radish (half of you will get them this week, half next week)
1 bunch herbs
3 0z basil (half of you will get this week, half next week)
U-pick cherry tomatoes

Garlic Cloves – There will be two baskets of garlic cloves (I broke apart the bulbs and selected the best cloves to keep for seed – there is nothing wrong with these cloves, they just weren’t the most outstanding). So, take a handful of cloves.
Onions - The onions are not completely cured, so I have twisted them together and tied them with twine for easy hanging. If you plan on storing these onions for any length of time, please hang these in a warm, dry, sunny spot until the necks are completely dry.
If you plan on eating them fresh – then just go right for it.

Becca’s Nutritional Tip
(This one comes from me this week, not Becca…after getting Becca’s great tips these past weeks, it will be obvious to you all that I am not the one with a PhD in nutrition..)
Radishes are high in vitamin C, and rich in minerals such as sulfur, iron and iodine. If you forgot about them in the fridge for a little too long, just soak them in ice water to help crisp them up a bit.

The News
Big stuff going on around here these days: we’ve put the sod in for our “event” area, Craig is masterfully working at erecting the new cold frame, most of the beds have been worked in the greenhouse, most of the beds outside are ready for winter, and one of the ducks has a terrible limp.

The Recipe
Courtesy of Martha Stewart this week

French Onion Soup
Ingredients
Serves 6
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 pounds yellow onions, sliced 1/4-inch into half circles
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup dry sherry
• 3 cups Homemade Beef Stock
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme or 3/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 small French baguette, sliced crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces
• 8 ounces Gruyere cheese, grated on the large holes of a box grater (about 3 cups)

Directions
1. Melt butter in a large Dutch oven or heavy pot on medium-low heat. Add onions. Spread them out in as thin a layer as possible. Sprinkle with sugar, and cook, stirring just as needed to keep onions from sticking, until they are melting and soft, golden brown, and beginning to caramelize, about 1 hour.
2. Sprinkle flour over onions, and stir to coat. Add sherry, stock, and thyme, and bring to a simmer. Cook, partially covered, for about 30 minutes, to allow the flavors to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Meanwhile, lightly toast bread under a broiler; set aside. Ladle hot soup into six ovenproof bowls. Arrange the bowls on a baking pan. Place 1 or 2 slices of toasted bread over each bowl of soup. Sprinkle 1/2 cup grated cheese over bread in each bowl, and place under the broiler until cheese is melted and crusty brown around the edges. Watch carefully that bread doesn't burn. Serve immediately.

That’s all for this week – I’ll see you tomorrow between 8-6.
Daisy

9-30-2008

2008-10-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter
September 30th, 2008

In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death.
~Sam Llewelyn

Hello, hope you are enjoying this gorgeous fall as much as we are! The weather has been perfect for getting the outside beds ready for winter and pulling in the last of the harvest. Next week (October 8th) will be our last CSA distribution.

The Harvest
Salad mix
¾# baby spinach
¼# arugula
Onions (Rossa Di Milano and Valencia)
Cabbage (Red Integro or Copenhagen Market)
Small Sugar Pumpkin
U-pick cherry tomatoes
1 bunch herbs (cilantro, dill, mint, tarragon, or chives)

Onions – This is just a taster of what you will get next week. Rossa Di Milano and Valencia are storage onions. I pulled them last week – so the onions you are getting this week have not fully cured – that means that they will not keep as long as cured storage onions. They will keep just fine for a week or two, but they probably shouldn’t be stored for a month. These onions should not be kept in the fridge, but in a cool/dry location.
Rossa Di Milano is a mildly hot midsized Italian variety. It is an excellent keeper.
Valencia is a Utah strain of Yellow Sweet Spanish onion – mild flavor and good storage life.

Small Sugar Pumpkin – This strain dates back to the 1800’s. It has high quality, string-less, thick, sweet flesh that makes delicious pies. Not all of them are orange right now…..the season wasn’t quite long enough for them to ripen on the vine. If you get one that’s partially green, put it in a sunny location (outside is fine) and I think…….it will finish coloring up. I wouldn’t bother cooking with it until it is orange.
Anyway, the pumkins will be outside on the table – please take one.

Becca’s Nutritional Tip
Pumpkins are a great source of calcium, fiber, iron, and zinc – all nutrients that are important for strong immunity. But don’t forget about those pumpkin seeds! Pumpkin seeds are abundant in protease inhibitors which fight intestinal viruses. Also, the oil in the pumpkin seeds helps to fight inflammation. So whether using a pumpkin for baking, soup, or decoration, make sure to bake the seeds and enjoy throughout the week as a healthy snack.

The News
Thank you to all of you who sent in your survey – I appreciate all the feedback.
As you may have noticed, the newsletter has gotten a bit more colorful. Let me know what you think. I am trying to highlight first time vegetables and important information for those of you who like to skim the newsletters. Is it too much?

The Recipe

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds Recipe
INGREDIENTS
• One medium sized pumpkin
• Salt
• Olive oil
METHOD
1 Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut open the pumpkin and use a strong metal spoon to scoop out the insides. Separate the seeds from the stringy core. Rinse the seeds.
2 In a small saucepan, add the seeds to water, about 2 cups of water to every half cup of seeds. Add a tablespoon of salt for every cup of water. Bring to a boil. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and drain.
3 Spread about a tablespoon of olive oil over the bottom of a roasting pan. Spread the seeds out over the roasting pan, all in one layer. Bake on the top rack for 20 minutes or until the seeds begin to brown. When browned to your satisfaction, remove from the oven and let the pan cool on a rack. Let the seeds cool all the way down before eating. Either crack to remove the inner seed (a lot of work and in my opinion, unnecessary) or eat whole.
**I like to also add a little cayenne pepper (just a little) to my toasted pumpkin seeds.

Tempting Pumpkin Pie
Flaky Pastry:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon butter
2 to 3 tablespoons cold water
Filling:
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
15 ounces pumpkin
1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk
Mix flour and salt in medium bowl. Cut in shortening, using pastry blender or crisscrossing 2 knives, until particles are size of small peas. Sprinkle with cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing with fork until all flour is moistened and pastry almost leaves side of bowl (1 to 2 teaspoons more water can be added if necessary).
Gather pastry into a ball. Shape into flattened round on lightly floured surface. Roll pastry, using floured rolling pin, into circle 2 inches larger than upside-down pie plate, 9 x 1-1/4 inches. Fold pastry into fourths; place in pie plate. Unfold and ease into plate, pressing firmly against bottom and side.
Trim overhanging edge of pastry even with plate. Cut scraps of rolled pastry with tiny cookie cutter. Sprinkle cutouts with sugar; press on pastry edge.
Heat oven to 425 F.
Beat eggs slightly in medium bowl with wire whisk or hand beater. Beat in remaining ingredients.
To prevent spilling, place pastry-lined pie plate on oven rack. Pour filling into pie plate. Bake 15 minutes.
Reduce oven temperature to 350 F. Bake about 45 minutes longer or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 30 minutes. Refrigerate about 4 hours or until chilled. Immediately refrigerate any remaining pie after serving.
Note:
The cutouts that top the filling are baked on a cookie sheet while the oven is at 425°F. It will take just a few minutes for them to bake golden brown. Let cool. Once pie has baked and cooled, top with baked pastry.
Preparing Filling
Wash your pumpkin to remove any dirt. Using a large chef's knife, cut the pumpkin into 6 or 8 wedges, depending on the size of the pumpkin.
The easiest way to remove the seeds, and pulp is to use a filleting knife along the inside of the wedges.
With a little practice, this will leave little or no scraping needed.
Arrange the pumpkin wedges in a large roasting or sheet pan and bake, uncovered, for one hour at 325 F, and two more hours at 300 F.
The meat should be tender all throughout, and not watery under the dry skin that formed. Turn off the oven and leave the door cracked for ventilation. Let the pumpkin cool and continue to dry for several more hours.
Remove the skin and any exceptionally dry or leathery parts, and puree thoroughly.
Please note that most of the dry surface of the meat is still sufficiently tender to be used, but probably not the stem corners. Because the pulp is so dry, it will take several minutes with the food processor, and a number of stirs and scrapes, before the pulp liquefies enough to turn over by itself and puree properly. Once it does this, a good minute or more of pureeing will result in a wonderfully smooth, pumpkin paste. Store in an air-tight container and keep in the refrigerator.
The pumpkin puree is now ready for use.

Spicy Pumpkin Soup Recipe
INGREDIENTS
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
Pinch ground cayenne pepper (optional)
6 cups of chopped roasted pumpkin*
5 cups of chicken broth (or vegetable broth for vegetarian option)
2 cups of milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
METHOD
1 Melt butter in a 4-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 4 minutes. Add spices and stir for a minute more.
2 Add pumpkin and 5 cups of chicken broth; blend well. Bring to a boil and reduce heat, simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.
3 Transfer soup, in batches, to a blender or food processor. Cover tightly and blend until smooth. Return soup to saucepan.
4 With the soup on low heat, add brown sugar and mix. Slowly add milk while stirring to incorporate. Add cream. Adjust seasonings to taste. If a little too spicy, add more cream to cool it down. You might want to add a teaspoon of salt.
Serve in individual bowls. Sprinkle the top of each with toasted pumpkin seeds.
Serves 8.
*To make pumpkin purée, cut a sugar pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, lie face down on a tin-foil lined baking pan. Bake at 350°F until soft, about 45 min to an hour. Cool, scoop out the flesh. Freeze whatever you don't use for future use.

Well, that’s all for this week. I’ll see you tomorrow!
Daisy

9-23-2008

2008-10-08T10:31:00.002-07:00

CSA Newsletter
September 23rd, 2008

Agriculture cannot be an industrial process any more than music can be. It must be understood differently from stamping metal into that shape or mixing these chemicals and reagents to create that compound. The major workers – the soil microorganisms, the fungi, the mineral particles, the sun, the air, the water – are all parts of a system, and it is not just the employment of any one of them, but the coordination of the whole that achieves success.
Eliot Coleman from The New Organic Grower

The Harvest
1# salad mix
¼# arugula
1 bunch carrots
2# Potatoes
1 bunch herbs
Green Tomatoes
¾# Garlic
Not everyone will get:
Eggplant
Squash
Basil
Beets

Potatoes – La Ratte Fingerling potatoes. Prized by French Chefs as a top quality fingerling potato; long uniform tubers, yellow flesh with firm waxy texture and a nice nutty flavor, holds together very well. Especially good for potato salad or as a boiled potato. If you are a little overwhelmed with potatoes right now, remember: store them in a cool, dry, DARK place and they will keep for weeks and weeks.
Green Tomatoes – Now these truly are green tomatoes….not ripe. Yep, you got it, getting ready to pull the plants out. So, you will find a recipe at the bottom of the letter for fried green tomatoes and some relish. You can also put them in a paper bag and let them ripen.
Garlic – This week’s variety is Wild Rocambole. Fiery when eaten raw, yet with a very deep, rich, strong flavor. Considered one of the most flavorful garlic varieties. Yes, you are getting a lot of garlic right now, but remember: store it in a cool, dry, dark place and it will keep for months!

*This is a week full of lasts….this is the last time you will get: carrots, potatoes, beets, squash, and eggplant.
Things you have to look forward to next week are: storage onions, more baby spinach! And…aren’t the greens good right now? They really like this cool weather.

Becca’s Nutritional Tip
The ancient Greeks fed carrots to their horses to help improve the animal’s respiration. They also would prescribe carrot juice for indigestion, skin problems, and as an aphrodisiac. We now know that carrots are loaded with the phytonutrient carotenoid, which is a powerful antioxidant. While most vegetables lose some of their nutrients when cooked, carrots double their amount of carotenoids and other phytonutrients when cooked. So steam and sauté away!

The News
You will see some changes in the greenhouse this week. We are starting to pull some of the crops out to get ready for winter crops. The soil in some of the beds has settled quite a bit over the last year and a half, so we are bringing in more topsoil to fill them up again. A few chickens have been fenced in the newly empty beds to do some insect clean-up. I plan on leaving these beds empty for a week or two, and then get cover crops into them. I also plan on growing some garlic in the greenhouse this winter. All alliums are helpful in deterring insects. Most alliums (onions, garlic, shallots) are so aromatic that they confuse insects, make it so that the insects can’t find the food they were in here looking for.
There is one more crop out there that you haven’t gotten yet…..and have to look forward to: all of the storage onions (Valencia and Rossa Di Milano) are still in the field. I am ready to harvest them, but need the soil to dry out just a little first. You can look forward to those next week!

The Recipe
Fried Green Tomatoes

1 large egg veggie oil or shortening for frying
½ cup milk 3 large firm green tomatoes – sliced 1/8 to 1/4
½ cup cornmeal inch thick
¼ cup all-purpose flour salt

1. Mix the egg and milk together in a small bowl. In another bowl, combine the cornmeal and flour.
2. Heat about ½ inch oil or shortening in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Dip each tomato slice in the egg-milk mixture, then in the cornmeal-flour mixture. Place as many slices as will fit without crowding in the skillet and fry, not too fast, until brown on both sides, 3-4 minutes all together.
3. Transfer to a serving platter, sprinkle with salt to taste, and serve right away.

Green Tomato Relish…if you’re into canning..
* I grabbed this from the web and was able to change the desired serving outcome so that you had enough tomatoes to make a batch. So…..you are not going to get 12 pint jars out of this amount as it says in the directions
INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
• 6 large green tomatoes
• 3/4 red bell peppers, halved and seeded
• 3/4 green bell peppers, halved and seeded
• 3 large onions
• 2-1/4 teaspoons celery seed
• 2-1/4 teaspoons mustard seed
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1-1/4 cups white sugar
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• Add to Recipe Box
• Add to Shopping List
• Add a Personal Note
DIRECTIONS
This recipe's Ingredients were scaled to yield a new amount. The directions below still refer to the original recipe yield of 12 pints.
1. In a grinder or food processor, coarsely grind tomatoes, red bell peppers, green bell peppers, and onions. (You may need to do this in batches.) Line a large colander with cheesecloth, place in sink or in a large bowl, and pour in tomato mixture to drain for 1 hour.
2. In a large, non-aluminum stockpot, combine tomato mixture, celery seed, mustard seed, salt, sugar, and vinegar. Bring to a boil and simmer over low heat 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
3. Sterilize enough jars and lids to hold relish (12 one-pint jars, or 6 one-quart jars). Pack relish into sterilized jars, making sure there are no spaces or air pockets. Fill jars all the way to top. Screw on lids.
4. Place a rack in the bottom of a large stockpot and fill halfway with boiling water. Carefully lower jars into pot using a holder. Leave a 2 inch space between jars. Pour in more boiling water if necessary, until tops of jars are covered by 2 inches of water. Bring water to a full boil, then cover and process for 30 minutes.
5. Remove jars from pot and place on cloth-covered or wood surface, several inches apart, until cool. Once cool, press top of each lid with finger, ensuring that seal is tight (lid does not move up or down at all). Relish can be stored for up to a year.

That’s all for this week, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow - Daisy

9-16-2008

2008-10-08T10:31:00.001-07:00

CSA Newsletter
September 16, 2008

Recent polls throughout the Midwest report that the primary concern of farmers these days is corporate concentration. If there is any one thing that brings the myth and the reality of the heartland into sharp contrast, it's the increasingly small number of players at the top and the increasingly dire straits of farmers at the bottom. Agribusiness is now controlled by a handful of agrochemical/seed/pharmaceutical companies. They are highly integrated and interrelated, meaning that just a few companies own or control the seed, farm inputs, shipping and transportation, mills and processing.
Claire Hope Cummings, Uncertain Peril

I chose this quote because of a trip we took last week to see a very large farm in Arkansas (14,000 acres). Wowzers! On so many levels! One of the Wowzers had to do with what is happening/has happened to the farm communities in this country. These towns are decaying....There are people there with no work because all of the farm land is run by just a few families. Very few human beings are needed to run the very large machines that do all the seeding, spraying, tilling and harvesting. The few families running these farms feel lucky (for the most part) to still be in the business - it's hard with this global economy. To survive they have had to become VERY large. I learned a lot. I learned about a part of my country that I had not been to before. I personally experienced (for the first time) one of the other ways to grow food, the way most of our country grows food. I learned that large, conventional growers (at least the guys I talked to) can't imagine the stress of running a market farm with many, many different crops; just as I can't imagine the stress of running a 14,000 acre farm with just 4 crops. I learned, again and again, the power of an open mind. I learned that one man working that farm won't walk into his rice fields because he "had to poison that field 10 times this year".......

The Harvest
¾# salad mix
6 oz baby spinach
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch leeks
¾# garlic (Georgian Crystal or Metechi)
2# potatoes (German Butterball)
1 bunch herbs
Bell Peppers (Purple Beauty)
Not everyone will get the following:
¼# arugula
3 oz basil
Cucumber
1.5# heirloom tomatoes
Eggplant
1 bunch beets

Georgian Crystal Garlic – Georgian Crystal is a Porcelain variety originating in the Republic of Georgia, between the Black Sea and the Aral Sea. The Porcelains are known for their rich flavor, very large cloves, and good storage. This variety should keep well into March if stored correctly. The Porcelain varieties are also considered superior medicinal garlic.

German Butterball Potato – This potato is a great choice for roasting, frying, and mashed (hmmm, that just about covers it!). With its russeted skin and buttery yellow flesh it is a great all-purpose potato. It stores well to boot!

Bell Peppers – this is the end, my friends, the end of the bell peppers for this season. So…….some of them are small and definitely not to their full flavor. But, I’m sending them out anyway, do with them what you wish.

Becca’s Nutritional Tip
When Napoleon’s ships blockaded Europe in the 19th century, preventing regular sugar can shipments, a commercial sweetener was made from beets. This naturally sweet vegetable is high in iron, potassium, niacin, copper, and vitamin C. Beet greens are rich in vitamin A, iron, and calcium. To create a sweet, colorful, and nutritious twist to dinner add grated beets over potato and vegetable dishes. A fresh juice of carrot, beet, and parsley is a healthy choice for breakfast or a great mid-day snack.

Dark leafy greens, such as spinach, kale, and beet greens are some of the richest sources of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. (The greener and fresher they are, the more nutrient dense they will be). One cup of cooked kale has only fifty calories, several grams of protein, 3 grams of fiber, and hardly any fat. This cup of kale is also loaded with calcium, magnesium, potassium, and vitamin C. Dishes that call for leafy greens should not be cooked for long and are best prepared just before eating them. Steaming with just a bit of water or olive oil is a quick and healthy method for cooking these nutritious powerhouses. Also adding them to soups, where the nutrients are absorbed into the stocks are also a nutritious cooking method.

The News
I’d like say goodbye and give a big thanks to my friend Alayne for a great season……for the last two seasons actually! It’s been great working together! I have really appreciated her calm energy, speedy hands, and devotion and attention to the health and happiness of all living things on this farm. She is off for some well deserved R&R in Europe. We will miss her!

If you haven’t done so yet, please send in your recipe from your potluck dish. Kim Denkers has offered to put our little cookbook together for this year. Yeah Kim! We would love to get this out soon…..so send in your recipe!

Survey!! At the bottom of this email (and in attachment form) you will find the survey. Please help us be better at what we do by filling it out and sending it back to me, in whatever format you want. Email is great, but if you would rather drop it off anonymously, then just put it on my desk tomorrow. Thank you, thank you, and thank you.

The Recipe
Creamed Carrots (why not!)
Taken from Smith and Hawken Gardener’s Community Cookbook

1 stick melted butter
2 pounds carrots, julienned
4 medium onions
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsely
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
¾ cup ½&1/2

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine butter, carrots, onions, parsely, salt and pepper and ½ cup of the half-and-half in a 13x9 inch baking dish. Toss to mix well.

Pour the remaining half-and-half over the top and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the carrots are tender and the cream is thickened almost to curdling.

That’s it for this week. Hope you are having a great one.
Daisy
Survey ‘08

Have we met our goals this year? What were your goals for this season? Please fill out the survey below and get it back to me. Your input is so valuable to us. We want to know what you liked, what you adored, and what was not enjoyed as much. It helps me decide what to grow next year, and alerts me to adjustments that need to be made in our CSA program.

2008 CSA Survey
1) Here is a list of the veggies we grew this year. What were your 3 favorites, and your 3 least favorites?
Salad greens arugula pac choi cabbage
Spinach radish turnips beets
Carrots onions scallions leeks
Broccoli potatoes garlic heirloom tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes eggplant cucumbers bell peppers
Hot peppers basil herbs (cilantro, dill, tarragon, chives, mint, sage, lavender, oregano) edible flowers mature greens (swiss chard, mustard greens, stir fry mix, kale)

2) What veggies did you not get enough of?

3) What veggies did you get too many of?

4) What was the best part of your CSA experience?

5) What was your least favorite part of your CSA experience?

6) Did you enjoy the newsletters? Any suggestions?

7) Are there any veggies that we don’t currently grow that you would like to have?

8) Would you like to have the option to choose a salad mix that is simpler, i.e. – less flavor and texture?

9) Flower share members – what did you think of the flower season? Any feedback?

10) Anything else?

9-9-2008

2008-10-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all of you that came to the potluck. Your dishes were all beautiful and delicious! And to those of you who didn’t make it – we hope to see you at next year’s CSA Potluck!
If you did bring a dish to the potluck, could you please email me the recipe? There has been an outcry for a little Copper Moose Farm CSA Potluck ’08 recipe folder…..so I’d love to put that together and send one home with each of you before the season is over.
Since not everyone was able to make it, and because this is very important stuff, I wanted to go over a few things we talked about at the Potluck regarding next year.
First off, I plan on this year’s CSA running at least through September. When I know exactly which week will be our last, I will let you know.
Our policy for signing up for the next year’s CSA will be the same as last year: I will send out an email around the end of February inviting you all to join again. Once you get that invite email, you need to send in the form and payment if you want to be members again. The membership prices will remain the same for next year. Two weeks after I have sent the invite letter to you, I will extend it to our waitlist folks, if there are any spaces available. In a nutshell – I will hold your spot for 2 weeks after I send the invite letter, if you have not returned the form and payment at that point, I will fill your spot.
The CSA is going to stay the same size as it was this year = 50 families. We would like to perfect our system with the size it is.
We are going to add a small hoop house to our farm system. The hoop house will be 50 feet long, and a couple beds wide. It’s going to be moveable so we can slide it down the beds it covers – basically giving us the flexibility of two greenhouses in one. Part of the space inside the hoop house is going to be dedicated to more of our favorite cherry tomatoes! The rest of it will go to a variety of other crops.
I have heard a lot of concern this year over heirloom tomatoes, and I would like to address some of them. Heirloom tomatoes have been bred for their superior flavor. You don’t find them all over the grocery store for a few reasons: they don’t ship well due to delicate skins, the plants themselves are susceptible to most diseases and therefore are hard to grow, and they are low yielders in comparison with other tomato varieties. Growing them in a greenhouse adds to the concern over disease and pest problems. We don’t have many of the natural pest predators and cleansers here in the greenhouse that are present outside (birds, the sun, the frosts..). The growing season is not long enough up here at 7,000 ft to grow them outside – so our heirloom tomatoes must be grown in the greenhouse.
With all of that said, the point is that they are not really suited for this climate, and we are really fortunate to have them, and have them as early in the season as we did (all due to this amazing building). Tomatoes, especially heirlooms, are a big treat up here. Next year, the hoop house is not going to GREATLY change the amount of heirlooms you receive throughout the season. You will not be getting tomatoes every week next year, just like this year. I want you to be happy with your CSA experience, so if not getting tomatoes every week or every other week is ruining it for you, then maybe this isn’t the gig for you…..sad as it is to say that.
We have to harvest the tomatoes twice a week. They do not keep on the vine, nor do they keep off the vine. Once harvested, I need to send those tomatoes out, whether to you or to restaurants or a market. We harvest all the ripe tomatoes on Wednesday morning to distribute to you all. Then we must harvest them again on the weekend. This year we were taking them to the Park Silly Sunday Market – inviting you to come pick some up there, and selling them to the public. This is one of our outlets for crops that must be harvested twice a week (mostly flowers and tomatoes). When CSA members did come get tomatoes at the market, I recorded that, so that all members will get approximately the same amount of tomatoes throughout the season.
The greenhouse is obviously our most limited growing space. The peppers, eggplant, cucumbers and tomatoes must be grown in a greenhouse up here to be productive. Because of that we can not grow enough for every member to get every item each week. Next year, getting a cucumber, heirloom tomatoes, pepper or eggplant every couple weeks will continue.
We are a CSA; our goal is to provide you with a wonderful variety of vegetables and fruits that can be grown sustainably in this bioregion. Our goal is to possibly expose you to new vegetables, or new varieties of old favorites. Our goal is to help you find ways to prepare vegetables you have never eaten before, and maybe in the process you realize that you do like….turnips, or arugula, or eggplant (for example). Our goal is to keep your fridge full of some of your everyday favorite veggies. Our goal is to connect you with the people growing your food and the land it is being grown on. Our goal is to provide you and your family with the opportunity to see the weekly changes on this farm. The CSA is the life blood of this farm, and we put you first whenever possible.
But we are not only a CSA. Copper Moose Farm also sells produce to restaurants, caterers, and markets. We need to do that to make this business sustainable.
Next week I am going to send out a survey for you to fill out. Your input is incredibly valuable to us, we want to make this CSA the best it can be and we can only do that with your help. Thank you, in advance, for your input.

A garden is never so good as it will be next year
– Thomas Cooper

The Harvest
1# salad mix
Cabbage
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch leeks
Gold Coin onion
2# potatoes (Russet Nugget)
Fish peppers
Not everyone will get the following:
1.5# heirloom tomatoes
Cucumber
Eggplant
Sweet peppers (Sweet Cal Wonder Bell, Purple Beauty)
¼# arugula
3 oz basil
2 oz Shiso
Squash

Squash – The squash was damaged by the frosts last week, even under a heavy cover. It’s still hanging on, but the production has dropped way down. Bummer.
Potatoes – Russet Nugget this week! Russet Nugget was released by Colorado State University in 1988. This variety is excellent for French fries and baking. Russet Nugget is going to be the best variety this year for long term storage…..if you can hold off.

9-2-2008

2008-10-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter
September 2nd, 2008

I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error. ~Sara Stein, My Weeds, 1988

The Harvest
1# salad mix
Carrot bunch
Beet bunch
Leek bunch
2# All Red Potatoes
Hot pepper (Fish)
Herb bunch
Cabbage or Arugula (what ever you didn’t get last week)
½# Swiss Chard or Kale (mature, meant for cooking)
Gold Coin Onion
Garlic (Purple Metechi)
Not everyone will get the following:
Basil
1.5# Heirloom tomatoes
Cucumber
Eggplant
Sweet pepper (Purple Beauty)
Squash

Garlic – the first of the garlic! Yeah! Garlic will be out near the sinks along with the potatoes and tomatoes – should not be stored in the fridge. All of our garlic this year (and last) are Hard Neck varieties. I think you will find the flavor superior. Hard Neck garlic does not store as well as Soft Neck garlic, which is why most varieties at the grocery store are Soft Neck. Having said that, I keep the Hard Neck at my house good until at least March or April. Garlic just needs a cool, dry, dark spot for good storage (garage or basement perhaps).
You will notice the beautiful purple striping on the skin of this garlic. Purple Metechi is a Purple Stripe variety. Metechi is listed in the Seeds of Diversity Canada catalogue of heritage varieties as endangered and hard to find. I got the original seed for this garlic 3 years ago from Johnny at Ranui Gardens. Now I save enough garlic each year to re-plant for the coming season.
Purple Stripe varieties do well as baked garlic……and just about anything else you could think to do with it. Enjoy.

All Red Potatoes – a.k.a Cranberry Red. This potato has red skin with delicate pale pink flesh. Low Starch content makes it a good boiling potato for salads or any dish that requires potatoes to retain their shape.

The News
This is the 14th week of the 2008 CSA. We promised you 16-20 weeks of great food, and we’re definitely going to make that. I think we’ll be able to keep going for around 4 more weeks.
Got a pretty hard frost last night, lost some of the flowers, but everything else fared pretty well under covers. We are looking at another one tonight. But man! are the days gorgeous or what? And what about that 2 inches of rain!
We slaughtered 2 of the roosters on Saturday. Russell Taylor, the fella we are getting the Steers from, came up and helped us out. You’ve got it – he did the head chopping off part…..we did the plucking. Anyway, we had 2 too many roosters, and they were causing havoc in the flock, so they had to go……into the oven! I thought I was prepared, but really, I wasn’t. I went to bed that night remembering the little dance the biggest rooster used to do for the ladies……
Anyway, Ramirez is the one remaining rooster. He’s a nice guy, kind of funny looking, but we like him.
Speaking of the chickens – they moved over to our neck of the woods this weekend – don’t forget to check them out when you’re here tomorrow. They are being kept in a little yard right now, to give them time to get used to their new hood, but in a couple days we’ll start letting them free range again.

CSA POTLUCK – we are looking forward to seeing you here this Saturday at 5 for the CSA potluck. It will all be outside, so don’t forget to bring a warm layer. If any of you have not RSVP’d yet, but you’d like to come – just let me or Alayne know tomorrow.

Becca’s Nutritional Tip
Garlic, leeks, onions, shallots, and chives are part of the allium family. They have a long standing in history as therapeutic foods used to treat high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, worms, and the common cold. They have also been considered helpful in boasting immunity and destroying certain viruses and bacteria. Throughout history they have been referred to as the “poor man’s” antibiotic. Blended garlic, shallots, and chives make a healthy base for sautés, soups, and sauces. (To avoid the “tearing” when chopping members of the allium family, hold a piece of moist bread between the lips. The fumes seek moisture, and will find the bread before your eyes.)

The Recipe
Classic Potato Salad (from the Gardener’s Community Cookbook)
Serves 4-6
1 medium thinly sliced
Apple Cider Vinegar
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh basil leaves
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh summer savory leaves
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh marjoram leaves
1 cup mayonnaise
4 medium potatoes, cooked and cooled
2 hard-cooked eggs, coarsely chopped
Salt and pepper

1. Place the onion in a small bowl and add vinegar to cover. Set aside
2. 2. Mix together the basil, savory, marjoram, and mayonnaise in a medium bowl. Set aside
3. Slice or dice the potatoes, and place them, with the eggs, in a large bowl. Salt and pepper to taste. Drain the onions, squeeze out the extra liquid, and add them to the bowl with the potatoes. Stir in the mayonnaise mixture and serve right away or refrigerate for up to overnight.

That’s all for this week, see you tomorrow.
Daisy

8-26-2008

2008-10-08T10:26:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter
August 26th, 2008

"Heirlooms" are open-pollinated cultivated varieties which were once commonly grown. There is no consensus as to how old a plant variety must be to be called "Heirloom", though the term was first used to describe seeds in the 1940's. Generally, heirlooms are considered to be those that are not hybrids nor used in commercial production.
"Open-Pollinated" seeds are non-hybrid plants produced by crossing two parents from the same variety and whose pollination occurs in uncontrolled conditions, via bees, birds, wind or other natural agents. The resulting seeds produce plants just like the parents'.
“Hybrids" are produced by successfully cross-pollinating parent plants that are genetically different, usually from parents of the same species. Deliberately creating hybrids requires controlling the pollination, usually by hand. All resulting seeds carry the same traits, but seeds from the second generation do not breed true. Hybrids usually show increased vigor and disease resistance, but decrease biodiversity and are not suitable for seed saving.
Hybrids should not be confused with genetically engineered (GE) seeds, as hybrids are achieved through standard plant breeding techniques which can be performed by the home gardener. There are many standard hybrids, especially in squash and cucumbers, which hybridize very easily if there is more than one variety being grown.

The Harvest
Salad mix
1 bunch King Richard Leeks
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch beets
Gold Coin Onion
1.75# All Blue Potatoes
You will either get Cabbage or ¼# arugula (next week you will get the one you didn’t get this week)
Squash
Hot peppers (Fish and/or Jalapeno)
1 bunch herbs (cilantro, parsley, chives, sage, or mint)
Not everyone will get the following:
1.5# heirloom tomatoes
Cucumber
Eggplant
¼# basil (after this week everyone will have received ¼# for pesto making)
Sweet peppers
U-Pick – cherry tomatoes OR beans. Ask us where and how. If you harvested last week please let other members harvest this week.

All Blue Potatoes – Gems of the soil I tell you! They are gorgeous, enjoy. Deep blue skin, blue flesh with a thin white line just under the skin. A good choice for baking and frying, nice for making colorful chips. When boiled the color turns to a light blue. Good mineral content.
Don’t store your potatoes in the fridge; temps below 38 degrees tend to make the potatoes undesirably sweet through a change of some of the starch to sugar. Because of that, you will find your potatoes outside of the cooler tomorrow – they will be around the tomatoes and flowers.
The other key to storing potatoes is to keep them out of light (artificial or natural). Too much light can cause the development of solanine in the tuber. Solanine is a potentially toxic alkaloid. Indications of solanine are bitter flavor along with greening of the potato. Solanine can develop while the tubers are growing, or later when exposed to artificial light. This is one of the reasons that we hill the potatoes (hoe soil up around the base of the plant) – allows more room for the tubers to develop under the protection of the soil. If you do find a little green in your potato, just cut it out or peel it off, the rest of the potato is fine. Last year a CSA member, who is a nurse, mentioned that she’d never heard of solanine poisoning. In fact, she said she had seen a lot of crazy things in her years as a nurse, but never seen, or heard of anyone dealing with solanine poisoning. So…….I wouldn’t worry too much about it. And, if you keep your potatoes out of the light, you won’t have to worry at all!

Gold Coin Onions – This is a Cipollini onion, they are pungent and sweet. When cooked, they become even sweeter. Just a taste this week, there will be more in a week or two.

Becca’s Nutritional Tip
Chili peppers have been used throughout history for their medicinal properties.
The Capsaicin in hot peppers is an anti-inflammatory and helps to reduce the pain sensation in many inflammatory disorders. They have also been found to stimulate circulation and cleanse the blood, helping to reduce cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. Hot peppers also help to stimulate digestion. Curries are a deeply fragrant and nutritious alternative to some of more traditional spices and sauces. Chilies are often the star in antioxidant-rich curries. You can use curry mixes in stir-fries, as a spice rub for nuts and seeds, or as a seasoning for roasted vegetables.

The News
Friday August 22nd – dusk – 7 chickens lost - fat and happy fox family……less eggs around here…..

CSA POTLUCK!! September 6th – late afternoon some time – will let you know exactly what time soon. The sign up sheet for potluck items is on the cooler door (may I suggest your favorite recipe from this year’s recipes??..). I will do my best to coordinate with you and get you any ingredients I can for your recipe in next week’s box.
There will be fun games (hay ride, chalk art, duck-splat-bingo (bring your quarters), egg races, potato sack races….) and lots of food for all. Hope you can make it!

The Recipe
Check out the Zucchini Blondie recipe from last year (8-27-07) – it’s archived in the recipe page of our web site. Yummy.

Leek Soup (from Quail Hill Farm Cookbook – yes, it’s the only one I currently have at the farm)
Cut off the tough green tops of 2 leeks and slice 2 potatoes. Dice 1 stick of celery and cut leeks. Sauté leeks, potatoes, celery in 2 oz oil or butter, stirring for a few minutes, but do not brown. Put all vegetables into a saucepan and add 3 pints stock or water, salt, pepper to taste. Simmer for 1.5 hours. Sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.

Hope the first week back at school is going well. See you tomorrow.
Daisy

8-19-2008

2008-08-26T08:58:00.001-07:00

CSA Newsletter
August 19th, 2008

…using organic techniques does not mean simply substituting organic inputs for a conventional one. The most basic organic technique is to observe your farm: what are the complex interrelationships among crops, soils, and wildlife. As organic farmers we take this circle wider – we observe the relationships between our farms and the surrounding community, between our region and the rest of the earth….Organic agriculture is not just a method of production – it is an attitude and an approach towards the world. Organic farming has developed in the country without the benefit of university support, government subsidies, or corporate influence…
Elizabeth Henderson touching on the direction organic has gone since government involvement starting in 1990.

What a week it’s been! Cold nighttime temps, the Slow Food fundraiser, the ducks started laying eggs, the dahlia’s started blooming and the tomatoes are petering out!
It feels like the harvest is a little slim this week…we are kind of in a lull right now, pre potatoes and storage onions, no cabbage or leeks this week (we’ll start with those again next week), and the greenhouse crops are slowing down. We are in the transition into fall-ish crops (hard to believe). That means that the spinach will show up again in a few weeks, and hopefully some pac choi again also, and then the already mentioned leeks, cabbage, potatoes, and garlic. The tomatoes, cucs, peppers, and eggplant will start dwindling down to nothing, but we’ll keep on keepin’ on with carrots, beets, and greens.

The Harvest
1# salad greens
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch herbs
¼# arugula
Hot peppers
Squash
Not everyone will get the following:
¼# basil (still working on getting everyone ¼# for pesto making)
eggplant
cucumber
heirloom tomatoes
1 bunch beets
Sweet peppers
U-pick
Beans or cherry tomatoes – ask us where and how. I
If you harvested last week, please let others harvest this week.

Mustard Greens – There will be ½# bags of mustard greens in the cooler in a bin as well – take a bag if you would like one.
Patty Pan Squash – We are growing 2 varieties of Patty Pan this year: Golden Scaloppini and Flying Saucer. The Golden Scaloppini is a golden color, while the Flying Saucer is golden yellow with a dark green kiss around the stem and the blossom end. I haven’t tasted the Scaloppini yet this year, but the Flying Saucer is very sweet, crunchy and juicy – I like it! I even really like it raw, which is unusual for squash and me.
The Patty Pan squash originates in North and Central America, as will all squash, and is a member of the Cucurbitaceae family along with cucumbers. The French name patisson comes from the Provencal word for a cake made in a scalloped mould. The French have also nicknamed it Israel artichoke and Priest’s bonnet.
Patty Pans are 90% water, and yet still a good source of vitamin A, magnesium, copper and iron.
Patty Pan squash should be kept in a cool place with no plastic wrapper, and eaten as soon as possible.
I can’t help mentioning the spelling – some spell it Pattypan, and some Patty Pan…….
Tomatoes – The tomatoes peaked about 3 weeks ago. At our peak we were getting around 44# twice a week. Then we started dropping to 20 something #’s twice a week, then it went straight from a 22# harvest last Wednesday to a 10# harvest on Saturday…….we’ll see what we get this Wednesday. Anyway, that is the story with most heirloom tomatoes – they have a defined peak, and then they drop off. We will continue to send out tomatoes for a few more weeks, but not nearly at the rate we were. The Green Zebras still have quite a bit of fruit on the vine.

The News
Two varieties of garlic (Metechi Red Strip and Georgian Crystal) are out of the ground and hanging to cure in and around the flower shed – be sure to check it out. It is a beautiful sign of late summer harvest for me. I love jobs like harvesting garlic, jobs that happen every year about the same time. They make me remember each year that has passed and what I was doing and feeling at this time each year. Last year’s harvest – reveling in the first garlic harvest at Copper Moose Farm. Three harvests ago – just breaking ground on our home. Six harvests ago – marveling at my first garlic harvest ever - at Ranui Gardens.
I’m starting to seriously think about the CSA potluck on September 6th. Mark it on your calendars. Next week I am going to put a sign-up sheet on the cooler door so people can mark down A: if they are coming, and B: what they would like to bring. I would like to harvest anything I can for you for your potluck item. We (the farmies) will be in charge of the pulled pork and beverages.

Becca’s Nutritional Tip
Lycopene is a phytonutrient found in tomatoes, watermelon, and red peppers. Current studies show that lycopene has strong anticancer properties. It is also great for the skin, helping to protect against the sun’s harmful rays. Lycopene becomes more bioavailable when cooked and eaten with a bit of fat or oil. So make sure to sprinkle olive oil over a tomato salad or smother your cheese pizza with fresh tomato sauce and olive oil.

The Recipe
This one is from the Internet – forgive the awkward copying.
StuffedPattyPan Prepare like stuffed peppers.
If you decide to stuff the pattypans, cut off the lids; hollow out the inside with a spoon; heat some butter and oil in a skillet until foamy, add onion and cook gently until translucent; add meat and spices; cook for 3 minutes longer; blend in some bread crumbs; stuff the pattypans and place them in a baking dish into which you’ve poured 1/2” of water.
Bake for 20 minutes at 350° F, covered with aluminum foil. They can be served on their own, or with a tomato or white sauce, depending on the ingredients of the stuffing.
At the end of the cooking time, you can remove the lids and gratiné the pattypans by laying a piece of brie cheese over the stuffing.
Stuffing for a one-dish mealSquash flesh, mushrooms, chicken breast and shallots, diced and sautéed; add cream, mint, parsley, salt and pepper and bake for at least 30 minutes in a 350° F oven.
OR
Stuff with a knob of butter or a mixture of ground beef, tomatoes, sautéed onions, garlic and ginger.

Chocolate Beet Cake (From Quail Hill Farm Cookbook – adapted from www.cakerecipe.com)
Grease one 9”X 13” pan. Preheat oven to 360. Sprinkle 2 tsp lemon juice over 1 cup of beets, which have been boiled, peeled and grated. Set aside. Combine 2.5 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp baking soda, 2 cups sugar, ½ cup unsweetened cocoa, 1.25 cup melted butter, 4 eggs beaten, 2 tbsp honey, .5 cup milk and 2 tsp vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl. Stir in beets. Beat 2 minutes at medium speed. Pour into greased pan. Bake at 350 about 40 minutes. Cool and frost.
Frosting – combine 3 tbsp cream and 2 oz cream cheese, 1 tsp vanilla and a pinch of salt. Add 1# confectioners’ sugar, beat until fluffy. Spread on cake and add nuts if desired.

Arugula Dip (One of our CSA members found this one)
Arugula Dip
In Blender combine:
3 garlic cloves
¼ cup Olive Oil
2 handfuls of arugula
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
3 Tbsp organic cream cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
I cut up other veggies and use this as a dip—delicis!
Thanks Betsy!
That’s all for this week, hope you are having a nice one.
Daisy

8-12-2008

2008-08-26T08:57:00.002-07:00

CSA Newsletter
August 12th, 2008

By the time one is eighty, it is said, there is no longer a tug of war in the garden with the May flowers hauling like mad against the claims of the other months. All is at last in balance and all is serene. The gardener is usually dead, of course. ~Henry Mitchell, The Essential Earthman, 1981

Brrrr, it was cold here this morning. In fact, it frosted a bit! Caught me off guard, that’s for sure, but, all is well, and it’s supposed to warm up again, which is a relief.

The Harvest
1# salad mix
¼# arugula
½# stir fry mix
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch leeks
Hot peppers (Fish (red) and Jalapeno (green))
1 bunch herbs (dill, cilantro, chives or mint)
Not everyone will get the following:
¼# basil (a good amount to make pesto with)
1 bunch turnips
Sweet pepper (Sweet Cal Wonder Bell)
Summer Squash (cash flow, flying saucer, and zephyr)
1 bunch beets (Chioggia (red striped inside), Golden Detroit (gold), Detroit
Dark Red (purple))
1.5# Heirloom tomatoes
Cucumber
1 oz edible flowers
Eggplant (Snowy)
Cabbage (Farao)
2 oz shiso

U-Pick – Purple beans or Sungold cherry tomatoes while they last. Ask us where and how.
Leeks - These are Lincoln Leeks. They are an early, slender leek – perhaps not the big fat guys you are used to. Enjoy.
Shiso – I talked about this one a few weeks ago – but it’s very new to many people, so I’m going to touch on it again. If you didn’t get basil this week, but you got some other leafy herb, then it’s Shiso. Shiso is a member of the mint family. We are growing 3 different varieties this year: English (one side of the leaf is purple and one side is green), Green (light green leaves), and Purple (you got it – purple leaves). The different varieties have VERY distinct and powerful flavors. I am really enjoying this herb because of the big fun leaves, and the incredible flavors! I hope you enjoy experimenting with it. Keep me posted if you come up with some good recipes.

The News
It was great to see some of you last Wednesday at the Tomato Tasting. Thanks for coming! For the rest of you – I hope you can make it next year, it was good fun.
And…………….the results are………………………….
**A dead tie between Sungold Cherry Tomatoes and Green Zebra Tomatoes as the CSA favorites**
Looking at the board to see which tomatoes people liked and didn’t like has helped me decide which varieties to grow next year. I will probably not be growing Brandywines next year, as they didn’t get many stars for flavor from you all, and I don’t like how the plant performs here. My experience with them is that they are very susceptible to all tomato fungal, viral, and pest problems.
Now, Green Zebra on the other hand……the flavor is great, the plant is a prolific producer, and it has been one of the more disease resistant varieties all season. It’s a keeper!
Sungold Cherry Tomatoes – of course we’ll grow those again!
Striped German – I’ve liked this one. Produced early, big beautiful fruit, and I think a darn good flavor (even though it did not stand out in the ratings last Wednesday).
Cherokee Purple – An old favorite. Going to grow this one again also; I like the plant, it produces early, nice mellow flavor, nice color, and it rated along with the Striped German with you guys.
Yellow Pear – this tomato got some very purposeful stars from a few people…..but I’ve gotta say that it has not impressed me. I am going to keep searching for a more flavorful pear tomato.

Becca’s Nutritional Tip
Phytonutrients are compounds found in vegetables and fruits that interact in a synergistic manner to help boost immunity and overall health, as well as create the colors of each plant. Scientist are finding that phytonutrients help to guard against and cleanse away carcinogens, support heart health, enhance the immune system, and support healthy, graceful aging. So every bite of leafy greens, arugula, beets, turnips, and herbs are working to support your overall health and wellbeing. A quick trick to make sure each meal is full of phytonutrients - the more colorful each dish is, the more phytonutrients you and your family are ingesting.

The Recipe
These both come from the Quail Hill Farm Cookbook:
Spicy Coleslaw (they actually got this one from the Chez Panisse Vegetable Cookbook)
Great with anything BBQ’d or fried.

For every 4 cups of sliced cabbage (cored, quartered and sliced into 1/8” strips), add 1 diced small red onion, 1 thinly sliced jalapeno pepper (with seeds and veins removed), juice of 1 lime, 1 tbsp white balsamic or wine vinegar, ¼ cup olive oil, the leaves from a good –sized bunch of cilantro, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss it all together and let macerate for 1 hour. Serve at room temperature. Serves 3-4.

Carrot Cake
Beat 4 eggs. Add 2 cups sugar and 1 ½ cups safflower or canola oil and beat well. Sift and mix 2 cups flour, 2 tsp baking soda, ½ tsp salt and 2 tsp cinnamon. Fold in 3 cups of grated carrots. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes in a greased 10”X13” pan.
Top with cream cheese icing: mix together ½ stick sweet butter, 4 oz cream cheese, 1 cup confectioner’s sugar and 1 tsp vanilla. Spread over cake.

Daisy and Alayne’s Summer Concert Series Barley Wraps
2 cups cooked barley (follow cooking instructions for the barley you get – there are different kinds (pearled, hulled).
½ cup roasted beets (quarter beets, toss with olive oil, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper, sage, and thyme. Roast at 350 for about 25 minutes). Dice the roasted beets after they have cooled.
Diced cucumber
Diced heirloom tomatoes
Diced sweet bell pepper
Diced Parsley
Diced Thyme
Grated carrot
Juice from 1 slice of lime
Salt and pepper to taste
Goat cheese

Toss it all together and bring it to the concert along with basil or shiso leaves to make little bit sized wraps out of. It’s very refreshing!

Please bring back jars if you have them.

That’s all for this week, hope you had a great weekend. See you tomorrow - Daisy

8-5-2008

2008-08-26T08:57:00.001-07:00

CSA Newsletter
July 29, 2008

Government involvement in agriculture should be limited to upholding human rights and protecting the environment and should not include regulating production methods or providing subsidies.
Kimberton Hills Biodynamic Agricultural Planting Guide and Calendar

There is a lot of really interesting and potentially scary things going on with government regulation of food and food production right now. Raw milk is a big one, the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) and greens production are others. I’m guessing that many people have been made wary by all the outbreaks in the last few years – which people should be. The “solutions” being put forth create huge problems of their own, and do not address the root causes of these outbreaks. Greens growers in California and other States have been asked to cut down their hedgerows to eliminate wildlife and insects near their production fields. Hedgerows have been used for years by ecologically minded farmers, they encourage a healthy diversity. (Boy, in the “old days” that would have been considered a redundancy – ecologically minded farmers. Being a farmer meant you were a steward of the land. How the tables have turned.). Getting rid of good ecological practices is not going to do anyone any good.
Raw Milk – I question why the government is regulating raw milk as if it were a dangerous substance. I can walk into Wal-Mart or Home Depot, or my neighborhood grocery store and buy a very dangerous pesticide with proven carcinogens in the ingredient list, but I can’t go into my neighborhood grocery store and buy a gallon of raw milk. People get very passionate when it comes to the debate of raw milk, so I guess I’m going to skirt it a little. The thing I won’t shy away from saying is that I strongly believe that I should have the CHOICE to buy raw milk, from whomever I decide. The government currently does not give me or you that choice. There are very few dairies that you can buy raw milk from in Utah, and Legislation has made that so. More and more small dairy farmers go out of business every year because of un-necessary regulations and destructive legislation.
There is a wonderful organization out there called The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. I strongly encourage you all to check out their website and become educated on many of these issues – they do or will affect you (www.ftcldf.org). You can also help support their cause on their website. They are doing very important work defending small farms and farmers whom the government has come down on, often illegally, and tried to shut down. They are working to protect all of our freedom of choice as consumers and lovers of food. I read an interview with one of their lawyers and thought I would pass along some snippets.
Gary Cox: “The way I’m looking at it, it really comes down to private activity versus public activity. At what point does the jurisdiction and the authority of the government stop? As a former public servant who represented the State of Ohio in environmental cases, I can certainly understand where there is a need for state government and state agencies to regulate and protect the public. But if a group of private citizens wants to regulate themselves or subject themselves to their own standards of conduct, then I don’t think the government has a place in that area. Whether it is livestock processing or whether it is growing and producing vegetables or whether it is pet food products or it’s grain – if there is a group of people that want to hire somebody to perform a service for that group, then that type of conduct should not be regulated, especially when it comes to food. If I want to choose what type of food I want to put into my body, I should have that choice, and the government shouldn’t mandate what I eat, whether or not it is healthy or unhealthy or dangerous or whatnot. The government eventually has to realize they can’t regulate all areas of a private person’s life. People have a fundamental, indeed a God-given right to produce and consume the food of their choice. I really see a need for the Fund to represent farmers in all facets of farming. What we choose to eat is such a uniquely private decision for each individual that I think we’re really going to have to keep the government out of it.”

The Harvest
1# Salad mix
½# Stir Fry mix
¼# arugula
2 oz basil (lettuce leaf, Red Rubin, Lemon)
1 bunch carrots (mostly Napoli, but some Yellowstone also)
1 bunch beets (a mix of Chioggia, Detroit Dark Red, and Golden Detroit)
1 bunch onions (Mini Red Purplette)
Sweet pepper (Purple Beauty or Sweet Cal Wonder Bell)
1 bunch herbs (cilantro, dill, tarragon, sage, or mint)
Not everyone will get the following:
1.5# heirloom tomatoes
Hot Peppers (Fish – red ones, or Jalapeno – green ones)
Broccoli
Eggplant (either Snowy or Galine)
Cucumber
1 oz Edible Flowers
U-Pick – Oregon Sugar Pod Peas (ask us where they are)

U-PICK – we are getting into U-Pick season, yeah! What is u-pick? U-pick is certain crops we are growing for you all to harvest. Right now all we have is peas, but soon we will have cherry tomatoes and beans also.
Here is how it will work – there will be small plastic baggies on the outside table, you grab one, and head out to harvest whatever the U-pick item of the day is. If you get there and there are no peas (or beans or tomatoes) of the right size to harvest, then please DO NOT HARVEST THEM. Leave them for next week when they will be ready.
Not everyone is going to be able to U-Pick each week – there just won’t be enough. I feel like I have enough lists going, and do enough regulating around here – so it’s up to you guys to share the harvest with your fellow CSA members. I think that if you harvest U-Pick items every other week or so, that will leave enough for everyone. I will let you guys know if you are not keeping up with the U-Pick and need to ramp it up.
I hope you enjoy U-Pick!

Basil – if you are having trouble keeping your basil, try leaving it on the counter – not in the fridge. Again, leave the bag open, and make sure nothing is smashing it.

The News
Just want to remind you all that next Wednesday (August 6th) is going to be the Tomato Tasting here at the farm, 5:30- 6:30. Come enjoy some tastings of all the tomato varieties, rate the tomatoes, get to know your fellow CSA members… etc. BYOB and anything else you might want. Look forward to seeing you then!
How do you all like the salad mix? There are a couple spicy greens in there, and I’m just wondering how you all feel about that? It’s nothing new, it’s the same mix we had last year, just thought I’d check in to see how you all like it. Let me know tomorrow, or shoot me an email. Thanks.

The Recipe
Here is another from our new favorite cookbook – yup you got it “Quail Hill Farm Cookbook”.

Mixed Greens with Salad and Fresh Goat Cheese
Rinse and dry about 1# of assorted bitter greens (that would be our stir fry mix). In a large bowl, layer greens alternately with ¼# fresh goat cheese cut into ½” cubes. Sprinkle to taste with ½ to 1/3 cup diced red onions (that could be the mini-red-Purplette onion). In a small, non-reactive saucepan, heat 2 tbsp walnut oil and add 3-4 tbsp coarsely chopped walnuts, toasting them lightly. Add 2 tbsp sherry or red wine vinegar and 1 tsp maple syrup. Bring to a boil and pour, stirring over salad. Toss lightly and serve immediately with a good crusty bread.

Beet Greens with Pine Nuts and Currants
Put on a very big pot of water to boil. Add more water than you think you should and then throw in about 2 tbsp kosher salt. Stem and roughly chop about 1# beet greens. When the water is at a rolling boil, throw in the beet greens and cook well. Put about 2 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan and chop up 2-3 shallots (or the mini-red- Purplette onions) or 1 medium onion. Cook until soft. Drain off the water and put the greens in a salad spinner. Spin a few times and then take out the blob of greens and wring them out. Chop them again. Add the shallots and onions along with a handful or two of tasted pine nits and currants.

Curried Carrot Soup
In a pan, cover with water 8 carrots peeled and cut into chunks, 1 onion cut into chunks and 1 clove garlic, minced. Cook until tender, about 30 minutes. Puree in a blender and then return to pot. Add 1 tbsp of curry powder, salt and then stir in chopped cilantro.

The last week of July…..wow. Hope you are having a great one.
Daisy

7-29-2008

2008-08-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

7-22-2008

2008-08-05T14:10:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter

July 22, 2008

Microbes in a healthy acre of soil will weigh as much as an average sized cow.

Hands on Agronomy by Neil Kinsey and Charles Walters

Hello! Hope you all had a great week. We actually got some rain here at the farm, hope you got some at your house also.

The Harvest

1# salad greens

½# baby spinach

2.5 oz basil (Red Rubin, Lemon, Sweet, and/or Lettuce Leaf)

1 bag garlic scapes

1 bunch scallions (this is the last week of these…)

1 bunch turnips (you may wish this was the last week of these…)

1 bunch carrots (Napoli)

1 bunch herbs (lavender, dill or cilantro)

Sweet pepper (Sweet Cal Wonder Bell or Purple Beauty)

Not everyone will get the following:

1 bunch beets

¼# arugula

Edible Flowers

Broccoli

Eggplant

Cucumber

Heirloom Tomatoes

Shiso

Baby Spinach – gotta love the rain….but it splashes soil onto the baby spinach (spinach is a very low growing green, especially when harvested at the baby stage, so it gets muddier than the other greens). We washed it as usual, and even a little more thoroughly, but there still may be some grit on it. You may need to wash it again…depending on your grit tolerance level…

Napoli Carrots – I will let them speak for themselves..

Shiso – Technically named Perilla, is a member of the mint family. It is rich in Calcium and Iron and has anti-inflammatory properties. Perilla seeds form an essential part of the famous seven spices of Japan, which originated more than 300 years ago in Kyoto. Shiso can be used in soups, with Tofu dishes, wrapped around sushi or pieces of meat, shredded in salad, or just a leafy green on a sandwich.

It has an incredible flavor, and I hope you have fun playing around with it. Below you will find a recipe to help you out.

Heirloom Tomatoes – The varieties remain the same: Green Zebra (green with a little yellow streaking – THIS TOMATO IS RIPE!), Brandywine (rose colored), Cherokee Purple (dusky dark red), and Striped German (multi-colored red, yellow, orange).

The News

Things are going well around here. The veggies are growing really quickly right now – gotta love it.

There is a sign-up on the cooler door regarding the Park City Marathon. One of our members is the race organizer and she is hoping that we will have enough members sign up to run a Copper Moose Farm aid station. She is just looking for a 2 hour commitment on August 23rd. Check out the sheet for more info.

Tomato Tasting!! We’d like to invite ya’ll over for a tomato tasting, Wednesday August 6^th from 5:30 to 6:30. It’s BYOB and anything else you might like to enjoy your tomato tastes with. Very informal, but thought it would be fun for us all to get together and explore the very different flavors of our heirloom tomato varieties.

The Recipe

These come from our new favorite cookbook, Quail Hill Farm Cookbook, sent home to us from John and Kristi from a farm on Long Island.

Scallion Appetizer

Clean and trim scallions. Dry and rill the scallions in beaten egg, then in corn meal or flour. Heat olive oil in a skillet or wok till close to sizzling. Drop scallions into oil. Add to oil finely chopped herbs such as parsley, thyme, sage, or dill. Season with salt and pepper. Lower heat to medium. Stir and cook for about 10 minutes. Drain and serve immediately.

Ginger Sesame Eggplant

Coat 1 medium eggplant with olive oil and roast at 400 degrees until soft. Allow to cool, then peel, chunk into ½” dice, and mix with any juices. Combine 1 glove of finely chopped or pureed garlic (or a garlic scape instead) and 1 tbsp peeled fresh ginger and 1 tbsp sesame oil. Saute together until translucent. Toss with the eggplant chunks and season with ¼ tsp hot sauve, 1 tbsp rice vinegar, ½ tsp sugar, soy sauce to taste and 2 tbsp chopped cilantro. Serve warm or cold – with chips as a dip, or a sauce for soba noodles.

This comes from Food and Wine network:

Lemon-Lavender Short Bread

ingredients

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon dried lavender blossoms, chopped

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

directions

1. In a medium bowl, mix the sugar with the chopped lavender and grated lemon zest. Using a handheld electric mixer, beat in the butter at moderate speed. At low speed, beat in the flour and salt until a soft dough forms. Transfer the dough to a sheet of wax paper and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Form the dough into a 4-inch log and chill for at least 45 minutes longer.

2. Preheat the oven to 350°. Slice the shortbread dough into 1/4-inch-thick rounds and place the rounds on ungreased baking sheets. Freeze the rounds for 10 minutes.

3. Bake the shortbread for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned. Transfer the baked shortbread to a wire rack to cool completely.

MAKE AHEAD The cookie-dough log can be frozen for up to 1 month. Thaw slightly before slicing. The baked shortbread can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5

Shiso-jito (probably not the recipe you were expecting..)

ingredients

3 shiso or mint leaves, 2 torn into 4 pieces each

2 lime wedges

1 teaspoon chopped candied ginger

Ice

2 ounces citrus vodka

1 ounce chilled ginger ale

directions

1. In a cocktail shaker, muddle the torn shiso and lime wedges with the candied ginger. Add ice and the vodka. Shake well; strain into an ice-filled rocks glass. Stir in the ginger ale and garnish with the shiso leaf.

That’s all I’ve got. Hope you enjoy this summer bounty. See you tomorrow.

Daisy

7-15-2008

2008-08-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter

July 15, 2008

The quality of our topsoil determines the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. If the quality of the topsoil is allowed to degrade to any degree, the life it supports degrades to the same degree.

Malcolm Beck, Acres USA May 2008

Topsoil, topsoil, topsoil – that’s what it’s all about! The world’s food supply depends on about 7 inches of soil that covers the earth in some places. It is very valuable, delicate, and only slowly renewable. The most important element of topsoil is the microbes living in it.

When intensively farming land, which is what we are doing, you have to be very conscious of the soil’s health. Each of our 34 outdoor growing beds get’s a cover crop at least once a year. Cover crops help rebuild the soil in many ways. Some are used for their nitrogen fixing abilities, some are used for the massive amounts of organic matter they produce, and all of them enhance the microbial life in the soil.

When plants are growing they excrete excess sugars from their roots. Those plant exudes attract microbes which feed on the sugars, and the surrounding soil. In turn, the plants receive micro and macro nutrients and minerals that the microbes have processed into a plant available form. So, if I can keep the microbes in the soil happy and fed, then all the plants growing in this soil should be happy and fed also!

Some of you may have seen me or Alayne out spraying things early in the morning or late in the evening. The things that we are spraying are helping to feed the microbial life in the soil. In fact, sometimes we are spraying microbial life itself. This leads me to our compost tea brewer! (Oh thank god, I thought it would never come up and I have been DYING to talk about it!) Compost tea is a critical element in many well run organic, biological, and biodynamic farms. Compost tea is made up of an inoculant (some form of compost, I use vermicompost (worm poop basically)), food, and oxygen. The compost and the food are put into some kind of container filled with water, oxygen is added to the mix, and the tea is allowed to brew for 24 hours. After about 24 hours you have the maximum microbial bloom (the population is at its highest), and then you race out and get those microbes on the plants and in the soil. You already know what they are doing in the soil, but we want them on the plant leaves also because they are the good guys and they eat the bad guys that may be on the plant leaves.

There are other elements to my soil management program here at Copper Moose Farm, but I have a feeling I may be loosing some of you (I realize that not all of you think soil science is as cool as I think it is). So, I will save the rest of it for another letter…..

To wrap things up; conventional agriculture has destroyed much of the world’s topsoil, hence the increasing dependence on petroleum based fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Exhausted topsoil cannot “feed the world” without these chemical inputs. Soil that is treated respectfully and kept healthy can feed the world without the use of dangerous chemicals. Don’t believe Monsanto and Cargill when they tell you that the only way for us to feed the human race is to embrace their Round-up Ready beets, corn and rice and their toxic and unnatural strains of vegetables with deadly chemicals imbedded directly into their DNA!

The Harvest

1# salad greens (spinach is in the salad mix this week)

½# stir fry greens

¼# arugula

1 bunch scallions

1 bunch turnips

1 bag scapes

Sweet Pepper (either Purple Beauty or Sweet Cal Wonder Bell)

Jalapeno (enjoy them, this is the last!)

Not everyone will get the following:

¼# basil

Eggplant

Cucumber

Edible flowers

Beets

Broccoli

Heirloom Tomatoes

Basil

That’s a lot of basil! It must be time to start making pesto and freezing it for later use. That’s why I am giving you so much right now. Don’t seal the bag when you get it home, and make sure it doesn’t get crushed in the bottom of the fridge (it will go bad faster this way). Keep the bag slightly open and in a safe place in the fridge.

Stir Fry Greens

These are mature: mustard, beet greens, chard, kale. These are meant to be cooked. They don’t need long, just a few minutes of steaming or stir frying should do it.

The News

Just wanted to remind everyone of a few events:

August 16^th – Slow Food’s Feast of Five Senses – contact Slow Food Utah for more info.

Sept 6^th – CSA Harvest Potluck

Copper Moose Farm is at the Park Silly Sunday Market these days. CSA members will receive 20% off flower bouquets – so come see us.

The Recipe

Caroline’s mom sent us this one:

Fluffy Turnips

6 medium size white or yellow turnips 1/8 teaspoon basil

2 egg yolks 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind

2/4 teaspoon salt 2 egg whites

Dash cayenne pepper 2 tablespoons brown sugar

Start your oven at 375 degrees or moderate. Peel turnips and cut in sizeable chunks. Cook with a cover in a small about of boiling, salted water until tender when tested with a fork. This takes about 20 minutes. Drain thoroughly and mash.

Beat egg yolks in a separate bowl until thick and add to turnips along with salt, pepper, basil and lemon rind.

Beat egg whites until stiff and mix or fold gently into turnip mixture. Pour into an ungreased quart baking dish, sprinkle with brown sugar and bake 20 minutes. New slant on turnips for 6.

And this one comes from Brent, chef at Chez Betty Restaurant:

Curried turnip and ginger soup Serves 6

5 ea lrg turnips peeled and lrg. dice

1 Tbsp. fresh ginger peeled and minced

1 Tbsp. garlic minced

1 Tbsp. scallion minced

1/2 gal low sodium chicken stock

2 Tbsp. yellow curry

3 Tbsp. soy sauce

1/2 tsp. garlic chili paste

2Tbsp. olive oil

1/2 can unsweetened coconut milk

1/4C light brown sugar

In a large pot ,heat olive oil on a medium high flame. When oil is hot add the ginger garlic and scallion. when you can smell the aroma add the chili paste, soy sauce, and curry. Then add your turnips, coconut milk, brown sugar, and chicken stock. Simmer for about 30 min until turnips are tender. Let cool and puree in your blender until smooth. Soup can then be reheated and served garnished with chopped chives

That’s all for this week. See you tomorrow – enjoy the harvest!

Daisy

July 8, 2008

2008-07-11T09:44:00.001-07:00

CSA Newsletter
July 8, 2008

There are five solid reasons that genetic engineering is not right for agriculture. One: it’s bad science. It was developed on the basis of flawed assumptions which have since been discredited by the scientific community. Two: it’s bad biology. It was deployed without regard for its potential for genetic contamination and its risks to human health. Three: it’s bad social policy. It puts control over seeds and the fundamentals of our food and farms into the hands of a few corporations who have their own, not our, best interests in mind. Four: it’s bad economics. After billions of dollars and thirty years, only a few products have been commercialized, they offer nothing new. No one asked for genetically modified organisms, and given a choice, consumers would reject them. Five: it’s bad farming. GMO’s don’t address the real issues plaguing agriculture; they’re designed to substitute for or increase the use of proprietary weed and pest control chemicals. Patented and genetically altered seeds perpetuate the very worst problems of the industrial food system, and they are undermining the autonomy of the farmers who use them.
Claire Hope Cummings from Uncertain Peril

I’m reading a very informative and totally terrifying book right now – would recommend it to all; Uncertain Peril by Claire Hope Cummings. We should all be very concerned about genetically engineered food. I would love to go on a long ramble about it right now (a slightly to moderately fiery ramble…), but I’ll hold off and do a little more formulating before I steal your ear for this one.

On to safer topics:
The Harvest
1# salad mix – herb salad mix again. As someone said “it’s a taste extravaganza in your mouth!”
½# spinach
¼# arugula
1 bag scapes
1 bunch herbs
1 bunch Evergreen Hardy White bunching onions
Jalapeno pepper
¼# basil (not all will get)
1 bunch baby beets (not all will get)
1 bunch radish (not all will get)
1 bunch Purple Globe Top turnips (not all will get)
Tomatoes (not all will get)
Eggplant (not all will get)
Broccoli (not all will get)
Edible flowers (not all will get)

I’m gonna do this one more time, just in case…
Greens we wash Greens we don’t wash
Salad mix arugula
Spinach basil
Any stir fry greens

Garlic Scapes!
Woo hoo! It’s garlic scape time! We love these. You know how people say that anything is good sautéed with butter and garlic? This is the ultimate! All you have to do with these babies is cut them up to green bean size, sauté them in garlic, and then put them on, in, next to anything. You can also use them any way that you would use garlic. They are great in stir-fries.
What is a garlic scape? Garlic scapes are the flower of hard neck variety garlic. The end – which looks like a bud, kind of, would eventually turn into a ball filled with little garlic pearls – kind of like an onion flower. Those little garlic pears, if left to fall on the ground, would grow into a garlic bulb that you could eat in 2 year. Garlic scapes are the primary reproductive part of the garlic plant. The bulb is the secondary reproductive part, hence, once I snap the scapes off, the plant puts all of its energy towards the bulb = bigger bulbs! This is all for hard neck garlic. Most of the garlic that you find at the store is soft neck, because it stores better. I’ll get more into this when the garlic is ready.
Beets
Yes, those are beets that many of you got (and the rest will get next week). 3 varieties: Detroit Dark Red (purple), Golden Detroit (gold), and Chioggia (red on the outside, red and white striped on the inside. The greens are just fantastic right now also – don’t forget to steam those up with some garlic scapes!
Herbs
You will get one of the following: Sage (has purple flowers right now!), cilantro, tarragon, thyme, or lavender (the other one with purple flowers).
What could you do with lavender? What couldn’t you do? Dry is to use as a sache or potpourri. Make lavender short bread, pound cake, cookies. Use it in a tea, on your salad…it’s endless!
Broccoli
We are very excited about this one. We didn’t grow it last summer. Had a great crop in the greenhouse during the winter, but this is our first summer crop. Hope you enjoy it!
Turnips
Ahhh, you either love ‘em or you hate ’em! Either way, a good recipe can totally make the difference. I encourage you all to try to find some wonderful ways to prepare your turnips – let me know how it goes. Here is why you should learn to love them: they are very high in vitamin C. The greens are full of vitamin A and lutein. Lutein has been shown to help prevent cataracts and cardiovascular disease.
I hope the following recipes help you out with the turnips.

The News
This Saturday (July 12th) at 12 we will be hosting a garden and greenhouse tour – open to the public. If any of your friends have been asking what’s going on here at Copper Moose Farm, this is the time for them to come check it out. And of course we would love to see any of you that just don’t get enough of us! I encourage you all to encourage everyone to walk or ride their bikes!

August 16th Slow Food Utah will be having their annual Feast Of The Five Senses here at Copper Moose Farm. For more information go to: www.slowfoodutah.org. I know that this is a very popular event for them each year, so if any of you are interested in attending you might want to inquire now.

The Recipes

Turnips Puffs

Mashed turnips are combined with egg white and other ingredients to make this turnip casserole.
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:
· 2 cups cooked, mashed turnips, cooled
· 1 cup bread crumbs
· 1/2 cup melted butter or margarine
· 1 teaspoon sugar
· 1/2 teaspoon salt
· 1/4 teaspoon pepper
· 2 eggs, separated
Preparation:
Combine turnips, bread crumbs, margarine, sugar, salt, pepper, and beaten egg yolks. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form; fold into turnip mixture. Spoon turnip mixture into a buttered 1-quart casserole. Bake turnip puff at 350° for 40 minutes.Turnip recipe serves 4 to 6.

Radish or Turnip Greens with Miso Sauce
(Taken from Farmer John’s Cookbook – Thanks Simone!)

1 bunch radish or turnip greens or both
1 tbsp miso paste
1 tbsp peanut oil
sugar
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
2 cups hot cooked rice

Bing 2 cups water to a boil in medium pot. Add the greens and boil for 1 minute.

Drain the greens in a colander and run cool water over them to stop the cooking. Let drain again, then gently squeeze out an excess water with your hands. Transfer the greens to a cutting board. Chop finely and set aside.

Put the miso paste in a small bowl. Stir in 2 tbsp water; then add a little more water so that the miso is thinned just enough to stir into other ingredients.

Heat the peanut oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped greens; cook, stirring until they are tender and heated through. Add the thinned miso paste. Add sugar to taste; stir the ingredients until thoroughly combined. Remove from heat; stir in the toasted sesame oil. Serve over rice.

And another……also from Farmer John’s

Young Turnip Galette with Cardamom
Try with grilled lamb chops or a roasted chicken

1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp powdered sugar
½ tsp freshly ground cardamom
2 tbsp cold water
3 young turnips, preferably of similar size, sliced into very thin rounds.
6 tbsp butter
salt

Whisk the cornstarch, powdered sugar, and cardamom in a medium bowl. Whisk in the water until it forms a thin paste. Stir in the turnips and coat evenly.

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat, them remove the skillet from heat.

Place one of the turnip rounds in the center of the skillet. Then add 4 more, slightly overlapping the first round, so that you end up with a four-petaled flower shape in the center of the skillet. Add the rest of the slices, overlapping them in concentric circles, until you have used them all to form a large single circle that fills the bottom of the skillet.

Place the skillet over medium heat; cook until slices are golden brown on the bottom, about 10 minutes.

Carefully flip the Galette with a large spatula. Continue to cook the Galette until it is golden brown on the second side, about 10 minutes. Remove the skillet from heat, season the Galette with salt to taste, and slice into triangles.

Hope you are all well. See you tomorrow - Daisy

July 1, 2008

2008-07-11T09:43:00.001-07:00

CSA Newsletter
July 1, 2008

When the finance of crop production is considered together with that of the various social services which are needed to repair the consequences of an unsound agriculture, and when it is borne in mind that our greatest possession is a healthy, virile population, the cheapness of artificial manures disappears altogether. In the years to come chemical manures will be considered as one of the greatest follies of the industrial epoch. The teachings of the agricultural economists of the period will be dismissed as superficial.
Sir Albert Howard from An Agricultural Testament (1943) (p. 205)

Happy July! Hard to believe…

The Harvest
1# salad greens
½# spinach
¼# arugula (not everyone will get)
1.5oz basil (lettuce leaf, red rubin, lemon, sweet)
Pac choi
Jalapeno
1 bunch scallions (Deep Purple Bunching, or Evergreen Hardy White)
1 bunch radish (not everyone will get)
1 bunch Purple Top turnips (not everyone will get)
Eggplant (not everyone will get)
Tomatoes (not everyone will get)
Cucumber (not everyone will get)
Edible Flowers (not everyone will get)

Edible Flowers – what to do with those beauties?! Dress up a salad (after you have put the salad dressing on). Put them on a dessert, a cheese plate, or float in a chilled soup! So many things to do with them…

The News
You will notice that the flea beetles got to the pac choi. I cover the salad greens and all cabbages with floating row covers to hide them from the flea beetles – but it doesn’t always work. So….that’s who made those little holes in your pac choi. I guess it’s all about sharing some times.
What’s in my salad mix!? Those of you who were members last year will remember our herb salad – here it is. We like to mix things up everyone once in a while, so we threw some dill, tarragon, mint, and spearmint into the salad mix. Very tasty, and aromatic. The other item that is not usually in your salad mix is not something I put there or would like there…….You may have notice the summer snow falling lately…..yup, it’s cotton time. Although we have double washed and picked through the greens as usual, there is still some cotton hiding in there. It is a little unnerving to come across it as it looks like spit, or pile of insect eggs (sorry to be so graphic). Thankfully it is neither of those, just cotton from our beautiful trees around here.
Someone mentioned to me the other day that their radishes got ”all rubbery”, and I reminded them to cut the tops of their roots before stored in a plastic bag in the fridge. Thought I would pass that reminder along to all as we are starting to come into root crop season.

The Recipe
These two come from Rebecca Brenner from Park City Holistic Health.

Arugula/Salad Mix

3 small bunches of arugula torn into bite-sized pieces
½ salad mix
1 carrot shredded
1 tomato diced
3 fresh scallions
Roasted pumpkin seeds (optional)
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper
Edible flowers

Dressing:
¼ cup light soy sauce
2 ½ to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 ½ tablespoons minced garlic
1 ½ tablespoons each of fresh chopped basil and cilantro leaves

In a large bow, toss together arugula, salad mix, carrot, tomato, scallions, pumpkin seeds.
Combine dressing ingredients, and drizzle over salad. Add sea salt and pepper to taste. Toss well.
Decorate edges of salad with edible flowers. Serve and Enjoy!

Spanish Calzone

Dough

1 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast
6 tablespoons warm (110 F) water
¼ cup cold water
2 tablespoons olive oil
¾ cup whole-wheat flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup unbleached white flour

Dissolve the yeast in warm water and set aside for 3 to 4 minutes. Combine the cold water and oil in large bowl. Add the yeast mixture, then the whole-wheat flour, and salt. Gradually add the white flour to make a workable dough.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and knead for about 5 minutes, sprinkling a bit more white flour to keep it from sticking.
Put dough in oiled bowl and turn it once so that its surface is coated with oil. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let rise in warm place for an hour – you want the dough to double in size.

Filling

While dough is rising…

2 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 bunch chives, chopped
1-2 Eggplant, unpeeled, chopped
2-4 ripe tomatoes
3 cloves of fresh garlic
2 handfuls of chopped spinach
3 tablespoons of Spanish olives, chopped (optional)
2 tablespoons of fresh chopped cilantro
¼ jalapeno pepper
Light sprinkle of fresh, shredded mozzarella or jalapeno chedder optional

In a large sauté pan, sauté the chives until soft.
Add the eggplant and cook until the eggplants is soften (10 minutes)..
Add jalapeno, tomatoes, garlic, spinach, and olives and sauté for 3 – 5 minutes.
Pre-heat oven to 325.
Form dough into 2, 6 inch flat rounds. Roll it out on a floured surface, turning it regularly to keep a round shape. It should be about 1/8 inch thick, and slightly thicker around the edges.
Place the dough on a lightly oiled pan and cover half of circle with ¾ cup vegetable mixture. Fold circle in half, and wet fingers to pinch together sides.
Bake in lower half of oven until the crust is golden brown - 12 – 15 minutes.
Serve warm with side salad – may also serve with organic salsa, sour cream, and guacamole.

That’s it for this week. Hope you are enjoying your CSA experience so far.
Daisy

June 24, 2008

2008-07-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

CSA Newsletter
June 24th, 2008

According to the government’s own figures, this country has lost about one-half of its topsoil since the turn of the 20th century. Supposedly this has been the century of greatest technological advancement, yet the deprivation, degradation, destruction, and contamination of this planet worsens every day. Sympathizers contend that it cannot be blamed on technology, for the intensity of farming has simply increased due to demand. Well, demand isn’t going to degrease because the world population isn’t going to decrease – quite the contrary. I agree, however, that technology is not the culprit, for true technology provides mankind with free un-polluting energy to light his lights, power his machines, heat his homes, propel his transportation systems, and most importantly, provide him with food that doesn’t rot, carry contaminates, or require rescue chemistry for disease, insect and pest control.
Farming for the most part has actually become mining. The true farmer and caretaker of the land produces better and better crops, and leaves the soil in better shape each year while needing fewer inputs.
The life cycle of nature is an expanding spiral. At the base of this spiral is the soil.
Dr. Arden B. Anderson from The Anatomy of Life & Energy in Agriculture

The Harvest
1# salad greens (this is the “normal” amount of salad mix).
½# spinach (this is the “normal” amount of spinach).
¼# arugula
1 bunch radish
Jalapeno pepper
2 oz basil (not everyone will get).
Eggplant – Galine (purple) or Snowy (white) – not everyone will get.
1 oz edible flowers – pansy, viola & chamomile mix (not everyone will get).
Heirloom Tomatoes – Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, Sungold Cherry, Yellow Pear Cherry, Striped German (not everyone will get)
1/2# Mustard Greens (these are cooking greens) – these will not be packed in your box, not everyone likes them and I didn’t have enough for all, so – if you want some, take some. Not interested – don’t bother.

Jalapenos
These spicy peppers are named for Jalapa Mexico, where they are widely grown. They are classically harvested as a green fruit, but when allowed to ripen to red, they become sweeter. Chipotle peppers are smoked red jalapenos. They are great in burritos, tamales, as “poppers”, in salsas, stir fry’s, and even in your morning eggs. Enjoy!

Heirloom Tomatoes
You might be saying to yourself, “my, it seems pretty early for tomatoes up here in Park City”. You’re right! Last year the CSA did not start getting tomatoes until 7/11. But you’ve been here the past couple weeks, you know how far along our plants are, and this last week of really warm weather has been what they needed! But, you are right in the sense that we don’t have many yet. I’ll do the same thing with tomatoes that I’ve been doing with everything else – put up a list and let you know who should take them. Tomatoes don’t go in the cooler – so they will be out on one of the stainless steel tables (it will be obvious). You shouldn’t put them in your fridge when you get them home either. They taste much better when eaten soon, and kept on the counter out of the sun when not being eaten.
I have noticed that the first few tomatoes a plant ripens don’t really have their full flavor yet. So although they are tasty, they are not as tasty as they will be in a few weeks.
We have a number of varieties this year; here is some info on the cast of characters going out this week:

Cherokee Purple – always a favorite. It’s a great plant, early and productive. The tomato is a unique dusky rose color – nice, sweet tomato.

Green Zebra – This is a new variety for us this year, and shaping up to be a very productive plant. The fruits are various shades of yellow to yellowish-green stripes with a sweet zingy flavor.

Striped German – This is a beautiful multi-colored tomato (shaded yellow and red – gorgeous when sliced!). It has a complex fruity flavor with a smooth texture.

Sungold Cherry – everyone’s favorite! This little gold tomato is better than candy. This is the only tomato we grow here that is not an heirloom.

Yellow Pear Cherry – Grown since the late 1800’s. It has a tender, mild flavor that is low in acid and whose sweetness lingers on the tongue. This one is also new for us this year.

The News
Biggest news around here is that we’re sending out tomatoes, peppers and eggplant this week! That about says it all.

Well, I guess there is a little bit more news…..I have some very yummy salad mix that was harvested on Friday for Savor the Summit’s Grand Picnic (it’s different from our normal salad mix because it has baby spinach in it, lot’s of baby spinach). It’s been in the cooler since then and is in great shape. I will have bags of it here for sale – 50% off because it wasn’t harvested today - $4 for 1#. The big jar will be out for your cash, and the sheet will be out if you want to do monthly billing. I will have it well marked in the cooler.

The Recipe
I had some friends in town this weekend. Christi cooked breakfast Monday morning, and her spinach was soooo good and so simple I thought I would pass it along.

Christi’s breakfast spinach:
2 cloves minced garlic
Olive oil
Couple handfuls of spinach
Feta cheese
Salt and pepper

Sauté garlic in oil for a few minutes. Throw in a couple handfuls of spinach. Sauté until it just starts to wilt. Serve on plates; sprinkle a little feta cheese on top. Salt and pepper to taste.

Grilled Radishes
1 bunch radish – sliced
2 cloves garlic – minced
2 tbsp butter – cut into small pieces
1 cub ice
Salt and pepper to taste

Pre-heat grill on high. Place all ingredients on a double layer of aluminum foil and season with S & P. Tightly seal the foil package. Place on grill for 20 minutes or until the radishes are tender.

Simple recipes this week, but I find that most of the time that’s all I have time for in my kitchen – I imagine many of you are in the same boat.
That’s all for this week – look forward to seeing you tomorrow - Daisy