Welcome to the 5th share of the Pitchfork & Crow 2025/2026 Winter CSA! Here’s what’s in the share this week:

• Radicchio Head – 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 more tips if you think radicchio and chicories bring too much bitter to the table.
• Lettuce Mix
• Mustards/Arugula Bunches
• Lacinato Kale Rapini
• Kalettes – These are a cross between kale and Brussels sprouts. Pop the kale sprouts off the stalk and enjoy them in your favorite kale/Brussels recipes. We usually just cut the sprouts in half, toss with a little oil/salt/pepper, and roast at 400 degrees for ~20 minutes, just like Brussels. Note that some of these stalks have bonus kalette rapini too! Delicious! And yes, they do resemble shrubbery.
• Strawberry Paw Potatoes – Red on the outside, white on the inside, good for boiling, baking, and roasting.
• 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. Also, we don’t suggest refrigerating sweet potatoes as their ideal storage temp is between 55 & 60 degrees F.
• Parsnips – Great roasted or mashed with other roots but our favorite winter parsnip treat has got to be parsnip cake. I can’t smell parsnips without dreaming of that cake.
• Leeks
• Red Onion
• Garlic
• Candystick Dessert Delicata Squash
• Amish Butter Flavored Popcorn – You can knock the kernels off the cob and into a paper bag and pop them in the microwave. Most often we’ll use these directions and pop it on the stove top.
• Dried Apples – We grew them, we harvested them, we dried them.

And just like that, here we are halfway through the Winter CSA. We’ve made it through the darkest days of the season and we’re marching a little closer toward spring each day. The Persephone period that includes days with fewer than 10 hours of daylight has just ended. We’re by no means done with winter but spring isn’t so far away either.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, the rhythm of the winter season is different than the hectic, too-full schedule of the summer. We’re currently enjoying the space in the days to prioritize the second cup of coffee in the morning and the early quitting time for Jeff and Nugget to have enough daylight to head to the river for Nugget’s evening swim. We’ve been keeping busy drying apples and weeding things and reorganizing the winter squash and changing the tiller tines and prepping greenhouse beds and processing Summer CSA sign-ups and doing the things that need doing this time of year. I can feel the work of the season ahead looming, we just sowed the first round of tomatoes last week and summer onions are next up for instance, but it’s nice to lean into the luxury of winter while we still can.

We prioritized weeding projects last week in an effort to best use the dry-ish weather window. We weeded lettuce in a greenhouse and finished up hoeing the grass out of the garlic and overwintering onions. It’s slow going, covering the 4,000 bed feet of alliums with a hoe small enough to fit between the densely planted plants but give us some podcasts and a spell of clear weather and we’ll get it done.

In the weeks ahead we’ll continue to knock things off our big winter To Do list. We’ll transplant greens into greenhouses. We’ll continue the early seed sowing. We’ll get to pruning the orchards. We’ll dry more apples. And we’ll visit the river and savor the morning coffee, because before we know it things are going to get real busy around here.

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:

Sweet Potato Parsnip Latkes with Feta and Leeks

• 1 tablespoon butter or olive oil
• 2 medium-sized leeks, washed and thinly sliced
• 1 pound sweet potatoes (usually about 1 large)
• 1 pound parsnips (number will vary depending upon size)
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 1 pinch ground nutmeg
• 4 ounce feta, crumbled (a creamy French or Israeli style is nice)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup matzo meal
• 3/4 cup canola oil for frying (amount will vary depending upon how many skillets you want to have going)

Step 1 Melt the butter (or heat the olive oil) in a saucepan over a medium heat. Add the leeks and a pinch of salt and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the leeks have softened and are beginning to color (about 10 minutes).

Step 2 While the leeks are cooking, wash and peel the sweet potato and parsnips. Grate on the coarse holes of a box grater, and place in a large bowl (if you have no patience for hand-grating, you can use the shredding disk on a food processor, but place about ¼ of the mixture back in the bowl of the processor with the regular blade and pulse a few times). Add the salt, pepper, nutmeg, feta, egg and matzo meal. Stir to combine. Mix in the cooked leeks.

Step 3 Pour the canola oil to a depth of 1/2-inch in a frying pan—you can use the pan used for the leeks, and additional pans if you’d like to make quick work of it. Heat the oil over a medium flame until hot—if you drop in a shred of the latke mixture, it should bubble vigorously. Shape about 3 tablespoons of the latke mixture into a round shape (I like to pack a 1/4 cup measure mostly full), and place in the oil. Flatten slightly to form a small pancake. Repeat as many times as your pan space allows. Cook the latkes until well-browned, 5 to 7 minutes, then flip and brown the other side. These latkes are more delicate than standard potato pancakes (especially when warm), so be delicate. When the second side has cooked, place on a plate lined with brown paper, stacking as needed. If you want to be extra-good, now and then strain out any rogue bits that have floated into the oil before they burn (or leave them in, for a taste closer to what grandma would have made). Serve. Or…

Step 4 If you’re not serving at once, layer the cooled latkes in a sealed container with parchment between the layers, and freeze. To serve, preheat the oven to 375° F. Place the latkes on a cookie sheet (you can place them on a rack on top of a cookie sheet for a crisper result, but usually the sheet is fine for me), and cook until they have colored a bit more and are heated through and sizzling (10 to 15 minutes).

From Food52.com by deensiebat, https://food52.com/recipes/7939-sweet-potato-parsnip-latkes-with-feta-and-leeks

Roasted Delicata Squash With Crunchy Kale & Feta

• 1 (about 5 to 6 ounces) delicata squash, ends trimmed, seeds removed and sliced into 1/2-inch-thick half moons
• 1 bunch lacinato or curly kale, leaves removed from the stems and torn into 1-inch pieces
• 3 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon to 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, plus more to taste
• 1 teaspoon plus 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 1/4 cup water
• 4 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 2 lemons)
• 1/4 cup crumbled feta
• 1/2 teaspoon ground sumac, plus more for sprinkling on top
• 1 pinch cracked black pepper
• 1/4 cup packed flat-leaf parsley leaves and tender stems, roughly torn (optional)

Step 1 Heat the oven to 400°F with a rack positioned in the lower third of the oven.

Step 2 On a sheet pan, coat the squash and kale with the olive oil, then season with the cumin, red pepper flakes, and salt, until everything has a glossy sheen to it. Be sure to squeeze the kale leaves with your hands as you mix. Arrange the vegetables on the sheet pan, ensuring the squash pieces have contact with the pan and arranging the kale in empty spaces. The pan will be a little crowded, but the kale leaves will quickly shrink.

Step 3 Roast in the oven until the squash is easily pierced with a fork and the kale crispy, 25 to 30 minutes, turning the squash over and mixing around the kale halfway into the roasting time.

Step 4 Meanwhile, in a small serving bowl, whisk the tahini with the 1/4 cup water until it becomes a smooth, spreadable hummus-like consistency. Whisk in the juice of 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons), sumac, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Loosen with more lemon or water if needed, or add more tahini to thicken. Sprinkle some sumac on top, if desired.

Step 5 Remove the vegetables from the oven. Pour the remaining lemon juice on top, drizzle with olive oil, and top with the crumbled feta, pepper, and parsley, if using. Serve with the sumac-tahini sauce

From Food52.com by yasminfahr, https://food52.com/recipes/84347-roasted-delicata-squash-recipe-with-crunchy-kale-feta-tahini

Harissa Chicken With Leeks, Potatoes, & Yogurt

• 1 1/2 pound bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs and drumsticks
• 1 1/4 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 by 1/2-inch chunks
• 3 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoon harissa
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 4 1/2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed
• 2 leeks, white and light green parts, halved lengthwise, rinsed, and thinly sliced into half-moons
• 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
• 1/3 cup plain yogurt, preferably whole-milk (if using Greek, thin it down with a little milk to make it drizzle-able
• 1 small garlic clove
• 1 cup mixed soft fresh herbs such as dill, parsley, mint, and/or cilantro leaves
• 1 splash fresh lemon juice, as needed

Step 1 Combine the chicken and potatoes in a large bowl. Season them with 2½ teaspoons of the salt and ½ teaspoon of the pepper. In a small bowl, whisk together the harissa, cumin, and 3 tablespoons of the olive oil. Pour this mixture over the chicken and potatoes, and toss to combine. Let it stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Step 2 Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine the leeks, lemon zest, ¼ teaspoon of the salt, and the remaining 1½ tablespoons olive oil.

Step 3 Heat the oven to 425°F.

Step 4 Arrange the chicken and potatoes in a single layer on a large rimmed baking sheet, and roast for 20 minutes. Then toss the potatoes lightly, and scatter the leeks over the baking sheet. Roast until the chicken is cooked through and everything is golden and slightly crisped, 20 to 25 minutes longer.

Step 5 While the chicken cooks, place the yogurt in a small bowl. Grate the garlic clove over the yogurt, and season with the remaining ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper.

Step 6 Spoon the yogurt over the chicken and vegetables in the baking sheet (or you can transfer everything to a platter if you want to be fancy about it). Scatter the herbs over the yogurt, drizzle some olive oil and lemon juice over the top, and serve.

From Food52.com by Melissa Clark, https://food52.com/recipes/68405-harissa-chicken-with-leeks-potatoes-and-yogurt