CSA Pickup – 7/15/20

This season’s CSA always seems to have salad mix as an option. We start our salad mix seeds by directly seeding them in the ground about a month before the lettuce can be harvested. That same crop can be harvested every couple weeks for 6 weeks. After the 3rd harvest, we pull the bed and flip it into something new as we rotate our crops around the farm to prevent weeds and pests. Above you can see one of our farmers, Christine, harvesting this weeks salad mix with our fancy salad harvester. The salad harvester, which uses an electric drill to power its blade, has also allowed us to include even more salad mix in our shares. Can you imagine harvesting all those little lettuce leaves by hand with a pairing knife? (That was reality up to the start of this season!) Enjoy some salad mix this week and don’t forget to bring your big tupperwares and reusable bags to put it in.

In addition to those salad tupperwares, don’t forget your clean containers and various bags for all the other things.

This week we are adding on about 30 new CSA members for our “Heat of the Summer” CSA. Our crops are coming in strong and we are so excited to welcome these nes members to the Rainshadow Organics community as we share the bounty of our fields.

Just a reminder to all: we are continuing on our personal shopping experience at the Bend Farmers Market. Bring your bags, wait in line, and then, when you get up to Sarahlee, she will help you choose your veggies. How many veggies you get will be determined by what size CSA share you have signed up for.

We will see you and your smiling masked face tomorrow. Don’t forget to wash your hands before entering the farm store or picking your veggies with Sarahlee.

Beef Liver Recipe Suggestions

We have heard from our Meat CSA members that they are excited about the challenge of cooking the beef liver we included in our Meat CSA about a month ago but were a bit lost about what to do. While we don’t have any specific recipes suggestions (that would take the challenge away), we do have a couple hints.

One of our Full-Diet, Free-Choice CSA members suggests that you rinse the liver in water, soak it in milk for 30 minutes, and then rinse it again. The soaking in milk removes the strong liver flavor. She chose to season it, toss it in flour, and fry it in butter.

Another place full of suggestions is the Vintage Recipes and Cookery Website. This page has some great suggestions on liver recipes from the 1800s.

New Add-Ons for CSA Members
The bounty of summer brings on preservation for winter and summer treats! Chef Travis has been working hard making jams, pickles, broths, and lard with extra vegetables from the field, fresh fruit from Thomas Orchards in Kimberly, OR, and our animals. Don’t forget to check out the Food4All add-ons to have yours ordered and ready for you when you pick-up your CSA share. Orders must be placed by Tuesday at noon before your Wednesday pick-up.
OUR WINTER CSA IS OPEN AND FILLING FAST!

If you are thinking about eating locally with us this winter, now is the time to sign up. We will open up the Winter CSA to our larger community at the end of July. Just a reminder, there are only 80 shares available for the Winter CSA! Follow the link below to learn more about our winter CSA program and to join! THERE ARE ONLY 30 SPOTS LEFT!!

At Rainshadow we raise Heritage Breed turkeys for Thanksgiving. Our turkeys came as poults in March and now roam free in our poultry pasture with our meat birds. We can’t wait to sell them for Thanksgiving dinners. More on that later.

Welcome to our new members and thanks to you all for making what we grow worth it. We love feeding our Central Oregon family.

Rainshadow Organics Crew