Welcome to the 2nd share of the Pitchfork & Crow 2024/2025 Winter CSA! Here’s what’s in the share this week:

• Spinach
• Chicory – We’ve got the pink Rosalba and speckled green castelfranco to choose from this week. Great for robust winter salads with punchy dressings and nuts and strong cheese and citrus. Holds up to a little warming too. We’ll eat it under oven baked salmon, rice, and creamy dressing for a quick dinner. Soaking in ice water or light cooking can help reduce the bitterness if needed. Click here for some tips if you think radicchio and chicories bring too much bitter to the table.
• Bok Choy
• Brussels Sprouts – Pop the sprouts off the stalk and enjoy them in your favorite recipes. We usually just cut the sprouts in half, toss with a little oil/salt/pepper, and roast at 400 degrees for ~20 minutes. Don’t forget to check out the recipe index here on our website if you’re looking for suggestions.
• LaRatte Fingerling Potatoes
• Sweet Potatoes – In an effort to prolong their storage life we’re giving these out unwashed. You may want to give them a soak pre-scrubbing. Enjoy!
• Bora Nam Purple Daikon Radishes – These are tasty sliced or grated raw in salads but also delicious roasted with other root veggies. We sauted some for our ramen lunch today.
• Rainbow Carrots
• Beets
• Yellow & Red Onions
• Garlic
• Dried Thai Chile Peppers – Use them to add some heat to dishes like chile or grind for a little pepper powder.
• Mixed Winter Squash – Choose from Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Acorn, Candystick Dessert Delicata, and Black Futsu winter squash. Want to know more about these winter squash varieties? We’ve got a page on our site for that! Check it out for squash details and recipe ideas.
• Dried Apples – These are organic apples we purchased through the produce store down the road, 4 Seasons Farmers Market. We dried them here at the farm.

Happy New Year! We hope you’re all having a wonderful holiday season. With the passing of the Winter Solstice back on December 21st the days are once again slowly growing longer. We’re welcoming the idea of the return of the light but still appreciating the restful schedule that winter’s short days provide.

Reminder: It may be New Years but the show goes on and we’ll see Salem members today and Farm members tomorrow despite the pick-ups landing on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day respectively.

We’ve been hunkered down the last week working on our annual crop planning process. We spent a few days reviewing the past season crop by crop together. Thankfully I had finished up our seed inventory a couple of weeks back, so once finished with crop planning I could jump into choosing seed varieties and nailing down seed quantities needed for the upcoming year. It was a long week of spreadsheeting but we’ve got a plan and the seed orders are mostly finished!

After this many years we’ve dialed in many of the varieties that work well for us. We did decide to make a few cropping adjustments for the upcoming season, such as dropping acorn winter squash in favor of more delicata and butternut, adding popcorn and a watermelon variety back to the rotation, and dropping the hottest of the hot peppers but nearly doubling the poblanos. Just a few tweaks to keep things interesting.

We managed to get some other projects crossed off the To Do list recently too. In anticipation of having our main tractor in the shop for the next couple of months we cleared out this past season’s tomato house and prepped beds for spring carrots and peas. Jeff also upped his field mouse trapping game. We use plastic ammo boxes with holes cut into the ends and plastic easy-set mouse traps just inside each hole. He’s now got a twelve box trap line to help catch mice in the carrots and chicories. The feral cats that live under the barn have been feasting.

After some work in the fields and a week of crop planning and now finishing up the second Winter CSA harvest, we’re ready to see what 2025 has in store for us. As usual, we’re kicking the year off with my birthday on Thursday. Let’s go 45!

Also, we’ll be hashing out the 2025 Summer CSA details in the coming weeks. We’ll be in touch soon when we’re ready to launch the season and open the memberships. Keep an eye out for the email if you’d like to join us again next summer.

Enjoy the vegetables and we’ll see you here again in two weeks!

Your farmers,
Carri Heisler & Jeff Bramlett

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Here are a few recipes to get you inspired:

Warm Orzo Salad with Beets & Greens

³/₄ pound beets, with greens attached
¹/₄ cup pine nuts
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
¹/₂ medium red onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 ounces orzo pasta
3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
kosher salt & freshly ground pepper

1. Heat the pine nuts in a dry skillet, over medium heat, until they begin to brown. Watch them carefully, as they will burn in a flash. Remove from the heat & transfer to a bowl. Set aside.
2. Peel the beets & chop them into bite-sized pieces. Remove the stems from the beet greens & slice the leaves into strips. Wash the greens thoroughly to remove any grit.
3. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the sliced red onion & garlic. Cook until the onions are tender & golden brown, about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium low & add the beet greens. Cover & cook, tossing occasionally, until the greens are wilted, about 5 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, cook the beets in a pot of salted water, until just tender, about 10-12 minutes. Remove the beets from the pot using a slotted spoon & set aside. Return the water to a boil & add the pasta. Cook, according to the package instructions, until al dente & drain. Add the orzo to a bowl, along with the beets, pine nuts, beet greens & crumbled feta. Toss, season with salt & pepper to taste & serve.

From Food52.com by The Parsley Thief, https://food52.com/recipes/7032-warm-orzo-salad-with-beets-greens

Sweet Potato Waffles, Sweet or Savory

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 ¹/₂ cups flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar (increase up to 1/4 or 1/3 cup if you know you want your waffles for something sweet)
2 ¹/₄ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon orange zest
¹/₂ teaspoon ground ginger
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (13- or 14-ounce) coconut milk
1 ¹/₄ cups pureed sweet potatoes (or pumpkin, or other winter squash)

1. Preheat your waffle iron. In one bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, powder, salt, ginger, orange zest, and sugar.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter, eggs, coconut milk, and pureed sweet potatoes. Then, stir in the dry ingredients just until smooth.
3. Griddle the waffles in the waffle iron according to the iron’s instruction, cooking until the waffles are browned and crispy on the outside. Keep cooked waffles warm in a 225F oven so you can serve them all at once. As with most waffles, these freeze well and can be toasted when you want to eat them. Serve the waffles with your choice of topping: maple syrup and pecans, avocado and a fried egg, chorizo and spinach, fried chicken and jalapeno syrup, sliced turkey with cranberries and cheddar, you name it!

From Food52.com by FiveAndSpice, https://food52.com/recipes/25127-sweet-potato-waffles-sweet-or-savory

Radicchio Salad

1 ¹/₂ pounds radicchio (about 1 head), ideally Treviso, but any will do. I also like to add exotic varieties like the white with red speckles (Castelfranco), but this is more about the look than the flavor. A simple round head of radicchio will do.
¹/₄ cup pitted dates
4 ounces feta cheese (I love French sheep’s milk feta, if you can find it)
¹/₄ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons lime juice (I think this is 1/2 to 1 whole lime)
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper (to taste)
Salt and pepper, to taste

Separate the leaves of the radicchio. Rinse and dry thoroughly. I like to cut the leaves no smaller than lengths of 3 inches. Slice the dates into long slivers and sprinkle over the radicchio. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and the Aleppo pepper then drizzle the olive oil over. Squeeze the lime juice and crumble the feta cheese over everything, and grind pepper freshly from a pepper mill. Toss, serve, and eat immediately.

From Food52.com by Sara Jenkins, https://food52.com/recipes/39628-radicchio-salad

Roasted Black Cod in Ginger Cilantro Broth

1 bunch cilantro
1 tablespoon white miso
4 cups vegetable stock
Juice of 1 1/2 limes, divided
1 ¹/₂ teaspoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
salt
2 pounds black cod, skin removed and cut into 3 inch rectangular pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons minced ginger
¹/₂ teaspoon Sriracha
2 teaspoons mirin
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 ¹/₂ cups thinly sliced ribbons of baby bok choy

1. Separate the cilantro leaves from the stems, and save them both seperately. Store the leaves in the refrigerator for later use. Slice the stems as if they were chives, by lining them up in a long bundle and slicing across them. As Chef David Kinch once said, “It will be impossible for you to slice them too thinly.” Stop when you have 3 tablespoons of thinly sliced cilantro stems. Set the sliced stems aside.
2. In a medium sized mixing bowl, add the miso to 1/2 cup of the vegetable stock. Whisk the miso until it is fully incorporated into the stock. Whisk in the rest of the stock and set aside.
3. In a medium-sized bowl, add the juice of 1 lime, the soy sauce, and 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Add a small pinch of salt. Whisk to combine. Add the black cod to the mixing bowl and gently toss with the marinade. Set aside in the refrigerator. Preheat the oven to 425° F.
4. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil to a medium-sized saucepan. Add the cilantro stems, along with the minced garlic and ginger. Adjust the heat to medium, and cook until the vegetables begin to sizzle and soften, stirring regularly. Add the stock and the Sriracha, and stir to incorporate the Sriracha into the stock. Bring the stock to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 30 minutes.
5. When the stock has simmered for 30 minutes, turn the heat down as low as it will go. Remove the black cod from the marinade and place the fish on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Lightly season the fish with salt. Cook the fish in the oven for 4 to 5 minutes, until it is barely cooked through. You can see if it’s ready by flaking it: If the fish does not flake easily, continue to cook it. If it flakes and the center of the flesh is fully cooked, immediately remove it from the oven.
6. Add the juice of half a lime to the stock, along with the mirin and the fish sauce. Add the ribbons of baby bok choy. Gently stir. Taste the broth, and adjust the seasoning as necessary. Roughly chop two handfuls of the reserved cilantro leaves and set aside. To serve, ladle the broth into bowls. Top each bowl with a few pieces of black cod. Gently flake the black cod with your hands as you add it to the bowls. Garnish with chopped cilantro leaves. Enjoy.

From Food52.com by Josh Cohen, https://food52.com/recipes/39742-roasted-black-cod-in-ginger-cilantro-broth