Week #42 - Food shortcuts to extend your harvest

The fields are cleared and the majority of the harvest is canned, preserved or drying. As the last few weeks of Harvest 2016 wind down, I'm all about shortcuts to make our harvest last. 

Today I made sofrito, a mixture that you can make up when your tomatoes, peppers and onions are fresh and bountiful and fresh as a base for many recipes all winter. 

Sofrito is most commonly used a base for Latin, Puerto Rican, or Italian cooking... but in my mind, there are so many recipes that you need chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic and peppers that it is so handy to have some of this ready to go. Freeze it in ice cube trays and then pop out into freezer bags so that you can grab a tablespoon at a time or freeze flat in freezer bags (I do 2 cups per bag) so that you can grab for recipes all winter long. 

Of course, if you are short on freezer space, I imagine you could can sofrito using a water bath similar to salsa or pasta sauce. 

I use these storage tips for all kinds of garden produce. After making a batch of pesto from my basil harvest, I pop it into ice cube trays to access easier a bit at a time. 

This year we have a large number of sweet red peppers that are ripening late in the season (thanks to the late frost). One of the ways I extend our harvest of peppers, is to roast them, skin them and throw them into the vitamix (blender) along with a healthy amount of garlic. This mixture gets spooned into (you guessed it) ice cube trays and is used for pasta sauce, red pepper dip, and throwing into chili, stews and various sauces. 

What are your tips and tricks for extending your harvest and dealing with an overabundance of any one veggie at this time of year? 

In every nook and cranny....

FFF Photo a Day - Day 300

At this time of year, the house is full of drying bundles of herbs, peppers and greens, hanging off every available hook, in every nook and cranny....

Pick a peck...

FFF Photo a Day - Day 269

Picked a peck of peppers tonight... and a variety of other things. Our habanero crop is huge this year, so we will be able to make several more "Jars of Death" (dried & ground habanero powder)!

The red peppers in the basket are called "Sweet Heat" and are a mildly spicy red pepper. I'm making a version of roasted red pepper sauce with them! Can't wait!

Week #9 - 2015 FFF CSA - What's in the Box! - Stuff it!

We had some wild weather this past weekend but survived pretty well unscathed, compared to some of our neighbours! A little bit of a wind damage in the pumpkins but on the bright side its now easier to find the pumpkins! 

This week's box will continue to test our shareholder's muscles as the veggies get denser and heavier! Lots of peppers grace this week's box both sweet and spicy in a plethora of colours! 

One of my favorite things to do with peppers besides simply eating them raw is to stuff them with a variety of fillings. We prefer ground pork with creamy goat cheese and spices but there are so many options! If you prefer beef you could try this recipe. For the vegetarians in the crowd, try this quinoa and beans one. You really can't go wrong!  

At the end of the summer when if we have lots of leftover peppers, we stuff them and then freeze them standing up in muffin tins and then pop into ziploc bags. Then we can simply grab one (or more) and thaw throughout the winter! The peppers are a bit softer after freezing but still yummy!

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

• Rhubarb
• Lettuce
• Zucchini - (for full shares only)
• Carrots
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Ground Cherries
• Peppers (sweet & spicy)
• Tomatoes
• Squash - Acorn and Pattypan
• Cucumber
• Broccoli - (full shares only)
• Swiss Chard
• Kale 
• Herbs in the red cup: 
• Oregano
• Chives
• Parsley
• Cilantro
• Rosemary 

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

Undercover...

FFF Photo a Day - Day 141

Our peppers and eggplants have done well under our cold frames despite the storm on the weekend. 

The cold frames are made with reclaimed lumber boxes with old windows on top. 

We cover the windows with shade cloth or row covers to diffuse the sunlight so the seedlings don't burn. So far, so good! 

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!