Welcome to the 20th week of the Pitchfork & Crow Summer CSA! Here’s what’s in the share:

• Flashy Butter Oak Head Lettuce
  
• Garlic – This week’s garlic is Chesnok Red, a sweet mild variety great for baking.
  
• Broccoli
  
• Carrots
  
• Mixed Mustard Greens (& Purples!)
  
• Red & Gold Sweet Peppers
  
• Green Coriander Seeds – sometime just after flowering we begin to think of cilantro as coriander and eagerly await the forming of the seed.  If harvested and used before drying down the green coriander seed has an amazing citrus flavor that falls somewhere between cilantro and coriander.  Tear the seeds and green leaves off the stalk and flavoring salads, soups, or any dish really.  They’re fleeting, so enjoy them in the moment.
  
• Carnival Winter Squash
  
• Green Tomatoes – It’s fried green tomato season!
  
• Pentland Brig Kale – Jeff made a batch of kale chips last night.  Mmm…kale chips.
  
• Pears
  
• Strawberries!

Winter CSA Sign-ups Happening:   You can read all about it and find the sign-up form on the Winter CSA page.  Also, Click Here for photos of all our past winter shares.  Winter CSA spots are filling up.  Sign-up soon to secure a spot if you’d like to join us for the flipside of the growing season. 

The routine autumn tasks have continued here on the farm this past week.  As mentioned in previous weeks, Jeff has been using our antique grain drill to sow winter cover crop seed in any open field available.  That process has gone something like: harvest from a field, attempt to disc the field to prepare to plant cover crop, fix the disc, finish discing the field, sow the cover crop seed, repeat in another field.  Needless to say our disc has been causing Jeff a few headaches this week.  It would seem he has things in working order now and hopefully can proceed with fewer issues arising.

On Saturday we brought in the dry beans to begin to dry down.  In the spring we sowed a couple rows of dry bean varieties and we decided to harvest those as well as our green bean varieties for winter bean goodness.  The prop house is now overflowing with the bean plants we pulled from the field to continue to dry down in a warm dry space.  Other than that it’s been mostly weeding, and watering, and organizing, and harvesting for LifeSource, and seed cleaning around here.  You know, typical fall happenings.

On Friday afternoon we drove to Corvallis to meet with the folks at the Linn Benton Food Share.  Many of you are likely familiar with the Marion Polk Food Share and the good work they’re doing to help end hunger in Marion and Polk Counties.  Linn Benton Food Share is working toward that same goal in Linn and Benton counties and we were fortunate to speak with them about the potential overlap of our farm’s mission and their organization’s mission.  It was an invigorating conversation about the need for more fresh produce in the emergency food distribution system and the potential opportunities for small farms like us.

The statistic that they shared that really stuck with me was that 1 in 5 families in Linn and Benton counties depend on food from an emergency food pantry at least once per year.  That’s a lot of folks who need food in our community.  One of the main reasons we decided to start this farm was to work towards feeding our community and speaking with the Food Share folks was an excellent reminder of that.  Of course it was just a preliminary conversation and we’re still mulling over how to best proceed, but it was exciting to be discussing how we might work together to address real local issues together.  Hopefully something will come of this first meeting in the way of future harvests heading the way of the Food Share.  If not, it was still well worth the time to meet with good folks who are enthusiastic about their work feeding people.

Enjoy the vegetables and we’ll see you next week!

Your farmers,
Jeff Bramlett and Carri Heisler

.

Here are a few recipes to get you inspired:

Wild Salmon Carpaccio with Chervil and Green Coriander Seed

• Wild Salmon Fillet – 8 oz
• Extra-virgin Olive Oil – 1 Tablespoon
• Cilantro Flower Head
• Flowering Herbs – A Few Sprigs
• Salt –
• Fresh-Ground Black Pepper –
• Lemon – 1
• Chervil Sprigs – 4 large ones

Brush a piece of parchment with oil and place 2 of the salmon slices side by side in the center of the paper, flat side abutting each other. Brush another piece of parchment with oil and put it on top of the salmon. Make 3 more parchment-salmon “sandwiches” with the rest of the salmon. Put them all in the refrigerator to stay cold.

Take one out of the refrigerator and use a meat pounder, a mallet and wide metal spatula, or the flat bottom of a frying pan to gently pound out the salmon round and thin. Pound with a downward and outward motion, forming the fish into a flat disk. Rotate the parchment as you pound and lift it to the light now and then to see whether the salmon is being flattened evenly. Make the circle of fish just smaller than the chilled plate. Repeat with all the pieces. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Remove the seeds from a mature cilantro flower head. Pound slightly with a mortar and pestle.

Remove the blossom from a few sprigs of flowering herbs (such as chervil, cilantro, thyme, borage, rosemary, sage, or nasturtium).

When ready to serve, carefully peel the top sheet of parchment away from the fish and invert onto a cold plate. Peel off the other piece of paper. Season with salt and pepper. Squeeze lemon juice over and drizzle with olive oil. Scatter the crushed coriander and herb blossoms over and serve immediately.

From EmmaFrisch.com via The Art of Simple Food II by Alice Waters, http://www.emmafrisch.com/2014/09/alice-waters-wild-salmon-carpaccio-with-chervil-and-green-coriander-seeds.html

.

Skillet Bruschetta with Beans and Greens

• 8 3/4″-thick slices crusty bread
• 6 tablespoons olive oil, divided, plus more
• Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
• 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 15-ounces cans cannellini beans, rinsed
• 1 bunch kale or mustard greens, ribs removed, leaves torn into bite-size pieces
• 1/2 cup low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Brush bread on both sides with 4 tablespoons oil total. Working in 2 batches, cook bread, pressing occasionally to help crisp, until golden brown, about 3 minutes per side. Season toast with salt and pepper and set aside.

Increase heat to medium-high and heat remaining 2 tablespoons oil in same skillet. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add beans and cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to blister, about 3 minutes. Using a spoon, lightly mash about half of the beans. Add kale and broth and cook, tossing often, until kale is wilted, about 2 minutes. Add lemon juice; season with salt and pepper.

Serve beans and greens mixture over toast, drizzled with oil.

From Epicurious via Bon Appétit, http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/skillet-bruschetta-with-beans-and-greens-51234250

.

Red, White, and Green Lasagna

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 large red bell peppers, chopped
• 15 ounces ricotta (about 2 cups)
• 1 1/2 pounds broccoli, flowerets cut into 3/4-inch pieces and stems cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 2 cups Rich Winter Tomato Sauce
• twelve 7- by 3 1/2-inch sheets dry no-boil lasagne pasta
• 10 ounces mozzarella, grated (about 2 1/2 cups)
• 1 1/4 cups fresh grated Parmesan (about 5 ounces)

In a large non-stick skillet heat oil over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking and sauté bell peppers, stirring, until crisp-tender. In a bowl stir together bell peppers and ricotta, stirring until combined well. In a vegetable steamer set over simmering water steam broccoli, covered, until crisp-tender, 3 to 5 minutes, and stir into ricotta mixture with salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Pour 1 cup tomato sauce into a baking dish, 13 by 9 by 2 inches (sauce will not cover bottom completely), and cover with 3 lasagne sheets, making sure they do not touch each other. Drop about 1 1/2 cups ricotta mixture by spoonfuls onto pasta and gently spread with back of a spoon. Sprinkle 3/4 cup mozzarella and 1/3 cup Parmesan over ricotta mixture and make 2 more layers in same manner, beginning and ending with pasta. Spread remaining cup tomato sauce over pasta, making sure pasta is completely covered, and sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan.

Cover dish tightly with foil, tenting slightly to prevent foil from touching top layer, and bake in middle of oven 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake lasagne 10 minutes more, or until top is bubbling. Let lasagne stand 5 minutes before serving.

From Epicurious via Gourmet, http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/red-white-and-green-lasagne-13506

.

.