Welcome to the 3rd share of the Pitchfork & Crow 2024/2025 Winter CSA! Here’s what’s in the share this week:

• Lettuce Mix
• 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.
• January King Cabbage
• Mustard Greens – A spicy green that can add some pep to any dish. Wilt it in hot soup or saute and eat as a side dish. Also, check out the frittata recipe down below.
• Lacinato Kale
• 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.
• Alpine Daikon Radishes – These are tasty sliced or grated raw in salads but also delicious roasted with other root veggies. The seed catalog suggests these are the most common variety grown for kimchi in Korea.
• Rutabaga – Known as swedes in other countries, these are good roasted with other roots, mashed, or in soups and stews.
• German Butterball Potatoes
• Leeks
• Yellow & Red Onions
• Garlic
• Sweet Mama Kabocha Winter Squash – These are sweet and flaky on the inside, great in pie, curries, soups, or just on their own. 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.

Time continues to fly and we’ve found ourselves in mid-January. Luckily for all us this is a very tasty time of year. Sweet cabbage and kale, spicy mustards, and somewhat bitter but colorful chicories are all coming straight from the field and greenhouses. It looks like we’ve got a round of cold temps headed our way, and these plants will be tested yet again. As long as we stay above 20 degrees we should be okay. The cold is a good reminder that it’s still winter and time to hunker down with a big bowl of cabbage and noodles.

Unfortunately it’s not all hunkering down for the winter here on the farm. There are plenty of things that need doing. After a summer of worrying about our main tractor’s ability to get beds prepped for planting, or really do anything requiring the PTO (mower, tiller, fertilizer spreader), our plans for sending it into the shop for a month or two this winter were realized. Last week the mechanic came and loaded it up. That tractor is such an important piece of how things get done around here we sure hope he can fix it up and return it better than ever.

In anticipation of the tractor being unavailable for a while we tried to think of any project that might require some heavy lifting or traction in the next couple of months. We staged a pallet of t-posts for trellising the peas that won’t be planted until the end of Feb., just in case. We made sure the composting chores were done and we cleaned up the gravel in the parking area. And, thinking the plastic roll was quite long, we procured plastic for a greenhouse that has had a few unrepairable rips that have been slowly lengthening. Thankfully the plastic roll wasn’t as long as we’d thought, and didn’t necessitate the tractor, but Jeff did replace the plastic and that project has been marked off the To Do list too!

We had several glimpses of the sun over the past couple of weeks. Those are always ideal times to get out in the field and have a look around. We tackled some chicory harvesting during one such sunny window. We love these winter hardy greens for their ability to stand up to the elements and their delicious freshness they bring to winter salads. Unfortunately the voles and field mice and gophers and deer all love them too. We cover them to protect them from the deer but that makes the perfect protection for the rodents. We’ve lost a lot of them this year to voles and decided it was time to get some in storage if we were going to have any to share with you.

Perhaps Jeff’s favorite project he worked on this past week was the surrounding of the fig trees to keep them safe from the deer that have over-pruned them the past several years. Jeff loves figs and his dream of a bountiful fig harvest lives on. Hopefully these pallet enclosures help that dream come true. While he kept busy with all things I dug into various budgeting and other paperworky projects. We will be opening the Summer CSA soon and that requires some reviewing and projecting and thinking and planning. Luckily, it’s winter and there’s time for all of that at the moment.

We really will 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:

Suspiciously Delicious Creamed Cabbage

1 medium green cabbage, cored and thinly sliced
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon (heaping) grated fresh ginger
2 tablespoons butter
³/₄ cup heavy cream
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. In a very large pan, heat the butter over medium heat until it is melted and starting to bubble a little. Stir in the onion and garlic and cook for about 5 minutes, until softened.
2. Stir in the ginger and cook for about a minute. Then, add in the cabbage, stirring well to coat it with the butter and other flavors. Cook, stirring occasionally for about 15-20 minutes, until the cabbage has softened and caramelized.
3. Turn the heat to low and stir in the cream making sure to scrape any browned bits up from the pan bottom. Cover and cook over low for about 10 minutes. Uncover, add salt and pepper to taste. Then cook for a few more minutes, stirring once or twice, to let some of the liquid evaporate. Adjust seasonings as desired and serve.

From Food52.com by FiveAndSpice, https://food52.com/recipes/7533-suspiciously-delicious-cabbage

Colonel Mustard’s Bubble and Squeak

2 medium russet potatoes
5 large mustard green leaves (I used the flat kind)
¹/₂ medium yellow onion
3 large cloves garlic
4 strips bacon
¹/₄ cup whole grain mustard
Salt and black pepper
Olive oil

1. Scrub the potatoes and cut into 1-inch cubes. Boil them in heavily salted water until they are very soft. Drain and allow them to steam and cool.
2. Wash the mustard greens, chop off the tough ends of the stems, and chop them (I keep most of the stem in there). Dice the onion and chop the garlic.
3. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat in a medium-sized non-stick skillet. Add the bacon and cook it until crisp, then remove it to a paper towel to drain. Toss the onions into the bacon fat and cook for a couple of minutes, then add the garlic and cook until they are soft. Remove them to a bowl. Now cook down the greens until the are soft — you will need to work in batches. When the pan runs out of bacon fat, add another splash of olive oil. Put the cooked greens in with the onions and garlic. Now add the potatoes, mustard, and pepper (about 6 to 7 turns) to the greens and stir and mash everything together. Crumble up the bacon and mash that in too. Try to get the potatoes mostly mashed up, with a few chunks left. Taste for salt and pepper, and add more if you’d like.
4. Now add yet another dash of olive oil to the pan and put it over medium heat again. Add in the potato-ey, green-y mixture and press it into the pan to flatten it into a cake. Allow it to cook until it is nicely browned — you can use a spatula to peek under there and see how it’s coming along. When it’s brown, turn off the heat. Cover the pan with a plate (with the serving side facing the potatoes) and carefully flip the whole thing so your browned side is facing up. Admire. Eat.

From Food52.com by AARGERSI, https://food52.com/recipes/27067-colonel-mustard-s-bubble-and-squeak

Curried Kabocha and Kale

• Curry Paste (use all–this recipe makes about 3-4 Tablespoons) (You could also use a store bought jar of curry paste here)
• 3 dried chile peppers (I used California peppers)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon galangal
• 1 tablespoon lemon grass
• 1 tablespoon coriander root
• ¹/₂ teaspoon cumin
• 1 tablespoon garlic
• 1 tablespoon shallot
• 2 teaspoons kaffir lime zest
• ¹/₂ teaspoon coriander seed

• Curried Kale and Kabocha
• 1 pound kabocha squash (I like kabocha because you don’t have to peel it, but you can use acorn or butternut)
• ¹/₂ pound kale (rib removed)
• 1 13.5 ounce can of coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon almond butter
• 2 tablespoons grape seed oil

1. Cut the stems off the peppers and empty out the seeds. Chop the peppers. Cover with water and microwave for about 30 seconds.
2. I juice the lemon grass and galangal so that I don’t have to strain the paste, but you can chop the lemon grass ends and galangal into small rounds and strain when done.
3. Toast the cumin and coriander seed until they ‘pop’ (about 3 minutes)
4. Place all the paste ingredients in a mortar or blender and blend into a smooth paste. If you didn’t juice the lemon grass and galangal (and there are pieces) you should strain the paste.
5. Cut the squash and kale into 2″ pieces
6. Heat the oil in a pan and add the paste (use only 1-2 Tablespoons if using the pre-made paste) and heat until it separates.
7. Add the coconut milk and bring to a boil, then lower to simmer. Add the almond butter to thicken and salt to taste.
8. You can either add the squash and let simmer in the curry for about 20 minutes or until the squash has softened or steam the squash separately and gently mix the curry with the vegetables when ready to serve.
9. Throw kale into the pot and cover for 5 minutes. The kale doesn’t need to steam for long, as it tastes best on the crispy side.
10. Turn off the heat and stir in the kale.

From Food52.com by Edamame2003, https://food52.com/recipes/7870-curried-kabocha-and-kale