FFF CSA - Week 10/12 - What's in the Box? - Yellow gems!

I can't believe its the last week of August! Summer feels like it has evaporated overnight. Cooler nights and fall crops are upon us.

Week ten brings our shareholders another large haul of deliciousness but I specifically wanted to mention two yellow gems they will find in their box.

The first is a pale yellow oval shaped fall veggie known as a spaghetti squash. This vegetable gets its name from the texture of its fruit when baked. To cook, simply cut in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper, then bake at 400F for 35-45 minutes. Dragging a fork through the cooked squash results in noodle shaped pieces that can easily substitute for regular pasta in many noodle dishes.

The second yellow gem are ground cherries. Our CSA shareholders will find a sampling of these flavourful cherries in their baskets this week. Ground cherries are in the same family as tomatoes and closely related to tomatillos (same papery husk) and taste both sweet and tropical. Some people have said that they taste like a cross between a tomato and pineapple! Ground cherries are ready in early/late fall and thus we are sharing a snack size sample with our shareholders. As larger varieties are available, you can use ground cherries to make jam, chutney or wine!

So... What's in the Box this week?

• Swiss Chard (in with herbs this week... cause we are running out of room!)
• Beets
• Baby carrots
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Potatoes
• Peppers 
• Pattypan squash
• Spaghetti squash
• Turban squash (fulls only)
• Ground cherries 
• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Herbs in a cup - oregano, parsley, chives, basil

Note: We do rinse the produce but it would be prudent to wash all vegetables when you get them home. Keeping the herbs (ends) in a cup of clean water will keep them fresh longer. (unless of course, you are drying them for storage later.)

Reminder: Please return your empty box along with all re-usable containers (ice cream pails, plastic containers, etc) so that we can reuse them all over again. 

Follow us on Facebook or on Twitter at @FenezFollies

Sweet wine!

FFF Photo a Day - Day 318

Our ground cherry wine is percolating....

Wine anyone?

FFF Photo a Day - Day 305

Celebrating this Hallowe'en night by mixing up our much anticipated batch of ground cherry wine! 

We've been picking and freezing ground cherries for a couple of seasons in preparation. 

Farmer Phil doesn't want to wait...

Busy hands...

FFF Photo a Day - Day 293

Farmer Phil and I are glued to the radio and our laptops as we watch the election results roll in... 

Luckily we can keep our hands busy husking ground cherries while we watch history be made!

Good times!

FFF Photo a Day - Day 278

During harvest time, there are many late nights bringing in produce from the fields and processing it all once its in.... 

At this time, many hands are needed and appreciated! Yesterday we sat as a group around the kitchen table husking ground cherries. (We are making wine with them this year!)

Thanks everyone! 

Week #8 - 2015 FFF CSA - What's in the Box!

This week our shareholders will discover three new treats in their boxes. Ground cherries, tomatillos and eggplants join their usual fare during Week #8 of our CSA veggie box share. 

These three items may or may not be familiar to you... But here is a bit about each one, just in case!

Tomatillos, otherwise known as the Mexican tomato are indeed part of the same nightshade family as tomatoes but have a very distinct taste and look. They grow within a papery husk that should be removed before eating. 

Tomatillos are delicious added to your regular tomato salsa or guacamole. They are the main ingredient in salsa verde (essentially green salsa) used in many recipes for Mexican food. Tomatillos are particularly good paired with pork. 

The best way to store tomatillos are in a brown paper bag in the refrigerator (leave husks on).

Ground cherries as you may guess from the look of them, are related to tomatillos (same papery husk) but have a very different taste. Often mistaken for gooseberries, these little gems taste both sweet and sour at the same time! They are quite indescribable! To eat, remove paper husk and pop them in your mouth. This week we've given everyone a little sample bag to try! As the season moves forward you will get more with which you could make jam or chutney... if they last that long! 

Ground cherries are called thus as you harvest them once they fall to the ground from low bushes. 

Finally, we have beautiful eggplants ready to go. Eggplants or aubergine are also a member of the nightshade family and is related to both the tomato and the potato! 

Besides being a beautiful colour, it is lovely roasted with some garlic and olive oil, and is the main ingredient in such dishes as baba ghanouj, moussaka and ratatouille! We discovered a great recipe to use up our eggplant and zucchini last year called Eggplant & Zucchini Parmesan. 

So ... What's in the Box this week?

• Lettuce (mixed greens in bag)
• Zucchini
• Peas or Beans (half shares only)
• Broccoli or Cauliflower (full shares only)
• Potatoes
• Peppers (sweet and spicy)
• Beets
• Onions
• Tomatoes
• Ground Cherries New this week!
• Tomatillos New this week!
•  Pattypan squash
• Cucumber
• Swiss Chard
• Kale
• Eggplant New this week!

Notes to our CSA Share holders: 

We pick the vegetables within 24 hours of the box being delivered. We do rinse the produce but it would be important to wash all vegetables before you eat them. Keeping the herbs (ends) in a cup of clean water will keep them fresh longer.

Please return your empty box along with all re-usable containers (pails, cups, bags etc) so that we can reuse them all over again. 

Follow us on Facebook or on Twitter at @FenezFollies

A peek inside our cupboard...

FFF Photo a Day - Day 33

As part of extending our harvest we spend a lot of time freezing, drying and canning in the fall. This picture was what my canning cupboard used to look like... its less full right now (and not as neat)!

We make tomato sauce, paste, pasta sauce and salsa with what is typically an over-abundance of fall tomatoes. Jalapeno jelly, ground cherry jam, salsa verde from our tomatillos, and various other assortments of preserves, pickles and sauces. 

For most of our canning we use the water bath canning process. I covet my neighbours pressure canner and hope one day to own and master that processing method. 

Week #9 - 2014 FFF CSA - What's in the Box - Ground Cherries

I can't believe we are at Week #9 of our CSA program this year already! I have to admit that this morning picking vegetables it felt decidedly fall-like! 

This week everyone has a bag of ground cherries. If you are not familiar with these golden nuggets you are in for treat! I've heard someone describe the taste of ground cherries as like a cherry tomato injected with mango and pineapple juice! That's a fairly apt description for this fruit that are similiar (and in the same family as gooseberries. They can be used in both sweet or savory recipes or just eaten plain and simple. You can use them in salsa, put them in pie, tarts or cake or our favorite... make jam! 


ground cherry jam recipe:
3 cups ground cherries
1/4 cup orange juice
1/8 cup white sugar
1/4 cup honey
zest of 1/2 an orange
pinch of sea salt

Our CSA customers can count on getting ground cherries each week for the remainder of the season. They are ripe and ready to be picked when they fall off the plant to the ground, so we need to pick frequently. Luckily Ground cherries will keep for up to 3 months in the fridge - best in a mesh bag (like those that other produce sometimes come in from the store (i.e. onions or oranges). 

So... What's in the Box this week?

• Swiss Chard
• Zucchini for the half shares
• Cucumber
• Tomatoes
• Beets
• Broccoli for full shares
• Ground Cherries New!
• Kale
• Peppers - Hot peppers for all, Sweet and Hot for full shares
• Corn - New!
• Onions
• Potatoes (Yukon Gold variety)
• Herbs - parsley, chives, oregano, rosemary and cilantro

We pick the vegetables within 24 hours of the box being delivered. We do rinse the produce but it would be prudent to wash all vegetables when you get them home. Keeping the herbs (ends) in a cup of clean water will keep them fresh longer.

Please return your empty box along with all re-usable containers (ice cream pails, plastic containers, etc) so that we can reuse them all over again. 

Follow us on Facebook or on Twitter at @FenezFollies

Week #11 - FFF CSA Blog update

Yikes! Its week #11 of our twelve week CSA! Where has the time gone! Hard to believe that we will be done for the season! We will miss our weekly chats with our customers and the weekly routine of picking and packing!

We are also busy getting ready for Open Farm Day which is this Sunday. If you are looking for something to do on Sunday and want to explore the farm other farms - this is a great day to take one in. Here is a link to information on Open Farm Day:

http://gov.mb.ca/agriculture/business-and-economics/market-development/open-farm-day.html

Also in case you  haven't seen it, check out our Open Farm Day video previewing the farm:

http://youtu.be/zM0_LyXHJjY

What's in the box this week?!

Peppers (assorted sweet and hot)

Potatoes
Cucumbers
Carrots
Zucchini
Herbs (Basil, Parsley, Chives)
Ground cherries
Spring onions
Squash
Tomatoes (a rainbow of varieties)
Honeydew Melon
Leeks
Swiss Chard
Beets
Green Beans -  The warm weather has given us a second flowering which is quite a treat this late in the season.

Just a heads up, next week, which will be the last week, there will be a number of extra items so bring your muscles! Our pumpkins are almost ready so we hope to tuck them in for the last week. As well our bumper crop of tomatillos has taken its time but if finally ripening up. (Don't worry if you don't know what those are ) - they are yummy and I'll provide some recipes. We will also have a watermelon for everyone! (We had one this weekend and it was heavenly!)

 

Hope you enjoy this week's goodies!

Week #8 - FFF CSA Update - What is a "peck" anyway?

We all know that Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. You may not know that a peck a dry measure that equals about a 1/4 of a bushel.



Sweet Bell Peppers
 

Serrano Chiles

While you won't find that many peppers in your CSA box this week, there is a variety of peppers that are flourishing in our fields and thus have or will make their way to you over the next few weeks!
I thought it might help to walk through some of them to help you decipher the sweet from the hot (an important distinction for most of us).  Throughout this blog update you will find pictures of the different kinds of peppers we are growing this year.
 


Jalapeno

Sweet Bell Peppers: (we grow green, red, purple, orange and yellow)


Habenero

Serrano Chiles: long green chile (light green)
Jalapeno: short, dark green chile
Habenero: green to orange - pepper looks like its been crumpled - very hot
Red Chiles: - long, thin chiles - can be eaten either fresh or dried.





Medusa Peppers

Red Chiles

A couple of other items of interest related to this week's box.... bitter cucumbers? I have been researching this topic as it was driving me crazy and I thought I would pass along what I found. Every once in a while we would come across a bitter cucumber from the garden and I was trying to figure out whether the bitter ones are smaller? Larger? Less green? How can you pick them out?

Well what I found out was that the bitterness is caused by a actual chemical that is found in the stem, leaves and skin of the cucumber. Every once in a while the bitterness leaches into the flesh of the cucumber. Not a lot is known concretely about why this happens to one cucumber but not to others. However, when you are cutting a cucumber and discover that the stem end may be a tad bitter... keep cutting and you will likely get past the bitter part as it rarely affects the whole "fruit". You can also just peel a larger part of the skin and outer flesh off as the bitterness often is only around the outside.

Ground Cherries - each of you have a small sample of ground cherries in your boxes this week. These little nuggets of goodness come wrapped in their own paper husk. This berry grows on a bush and is in the nightshade family (same as tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos). You know they are ripe when they fall off the plant, the husk gets brown and papery and the berry is a deep yellow. Hope you enjoy!

What's in this week's box? Thanks for asking...
 Kale
Peppers - assorted - both sweet and hot!
Potatoes
Cucumbers
Carrots
Zucchini
Swiss Chard
Herbs (Basil, Cilantro, Chives, Parsley, Oregano)
Broccoli - for the half shares
Cauliflower - for the full shares
Ground cherries - a little taste for everyone!
Spring onions
Squash - assorted (spaghetti squash, sunshine, scallop and acorn)
Tomatoes - while most are red... you will find some purple and yellow tucked in!

Hope you enjoy your treats this week!