November CSA, 11/5

And so it begins. This is week one of our Winter CSA. Welcome!

We are excited to have those of you who are new to a Rainshadow CSA joining us. For those who have been members of our Summer or Winter CSAs in the past, welcome back. We can’t wait to rekindle these monthly meetings and introduce ourselves to those of you who we haven’t met before.

We have spent the past month harvesting our winter storage crops and planting our winter successions of greens and other vegetables in our hoop houses. We are beyond excited to start sharing our nutrient-dense, organic bounty with you.

Monthly Newsletter

 

Every week I will send out this newsletter. It will include farm news and events, a bit about the month’s CSA, and recipes or other suggestions about how to cook, process, and enjoy the food that you get in your monthly CSA.

This newsletter is an important part of how we communicate with YOU! It is important that you actually receive and see it 🙂 Because we use Mailchimp as our delivery service, these emails will probably end up in either your Promotions Tab (if you use Gmail) or possibly your Spam folder. We encourage you to do the following things in order to give yourself a better chance of receiving these emails:

  • Please add [email protected] to your Google Contacts: Emails from a your Google Contacts always go to your Primary inbox.
  • Move our emails from your Promotions tab into your Primary tab: You can teach Gmail where to deliver your messages. When you move one of our Mailchimp campaigns from the Promotions tab to the Primary tab, Gmail asks whether it should always deliver your campaigns there. Select yes.
  • Still having trouble with Gmail: Check out these Gmail Help instructions
If you don’t use Gmail/Google, let me know if you still are having issues receiving/finding these emails and we can work on finding a solution.

The Monthly Share

 

Your Veggie CSA share will be in crates when you arrive at your pick up location. Please come prepared with your reusable shopping bags and/or coolers so you can unpack your veggies from the crate and take them home. We will need all those crates again next month to fill for you :).

The Meat CSA share will be in a paper bag ready to go.

When you get your CSA home, please do the following things to ensure that your veggies stay the freshest and best throughout the month:

  • wash any greens and wrap in a towel so they stay fresh in the fridge
  • keep root vegetables (potatoes, parsnips, carrots, beets, etc.) in a dark, dry fridge drawer.
  • Potatoes can also be stored in a dark cabinet. Don’t keep potatoes in the broad daylight. The sun makes their skin turn green, an indication of high solanine levels. Solanine is a toxin, so we don’t want that. If your potato skins are looking green, not to worry, just peel the potatoes and that will take remove the solanine. The good news is that if a potato stays in the dark, the solanine will not happen.
This Week’s Share

This week’s veggie share includes kale, parsley, chickweed, onions, carrots, potatoes, a sugar pie pumpkin, parsnips, and red beets.

The meat share will include a pork cut, 2-3 lbs ground beef, and other beef cuts to round out the 10 lbs.

What is chickweed? It is an edible “weed” that grows in our hoop houses. It tastes earthy and a bit like spinach. You can use it as a spinach replacement in recipes or as a fresh salad base. Try chopping daikon radish, carrots, and roasted beets into matchsticks and tossing it with the chickweed and your favorite vinaigrette dressing.

Photo from Eat the Weeds

Recipe Suggestions

 

I am planning on trying these two recipes with my share this month. Where possible, I am going to adapt the recipe to include ingredients that Rainshadow Organics has. I will include the original ingredients in the recipe and then, in brackets [I will put the Rainshadow ingredient substitution].

Let us all know if you cooked these or if you did something else with your ingredients by posting to our CSA Members Only Facebook page. It is a private group, so follow this LINK and I will accept your membership request.

Roasted Beets & Carrots with Couscous, Sunflower Seeds, Citrus, and Feta
(serves 4 to 6)

1 lb beets
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt & Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 lb carrots, cut into thick slices
1/2 lb onions, cut into chunks (keep them about the same size as your carrot chunks)
1/2 cup Citrus Vinaigrette, plus more if needed
1 orange
1 lemon
1 lime
1 1/2 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon Champagne or white wine vinegar
Salt & freshly ground pepper
3/4 cup olive oil
1 cup Israeli couscous [Hard white wheat berries] 1 garlic clove, smashed and peeled
1 large sprig thyme [dried works well too] 1/2 teaspoon dried chile flakes
1/2 cup salted roasted sunflower seeds [roast those pumpkin seeds from your pumpkin! and then dice them into sunflower seed sized chunks] 1 cup slightly packed cilantro leaves
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

Heat Oven to 450F.

Using a rasp-style grater, zest all the citrus into a bowl. Halve the fruit and squeeze all the juice into the same bowl to get 2/3 cup juice (fish out the seeds). Whisk in the honey, vinegar, 1 teaspoon salt, and several twists of pepper.

Taste and adjust with more honey, vinegar, and salt and pepper, if needed, to make the flavor vibrant. Whisk in the olive oil a few drops at a time or put the juice mixture in a blender or food processor and drizzle in the oil while the machine is running; the machine method will make the vinaigrette creamier and emulsified. (This can store for up to 2 weeks in your fridge.)

Trim the top and bottom of the beets, peel them, and cut into bite-size chunks. Toss with a small glug of olive oil, season lightly with salt and black pepper, and spread on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast for 10 minutes. Toss the carrots and onions with a glug of olive oil and season with salt and black pepper. Spread evenly on a rimmed baking sheet and add to the oven. Roast all the vegetables until tender and lightly browned, 12 o 15 minutes more. Pile the roasted vegetables into a bowl and toss with 1/2 cup Citrus Vinaigrette.

Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil and add salt until it tastes like the sea. Add the couscous, garlic thyme and chili flakes. Cook according to the package directions. Drain and remove the thyme sprig and garlic clove. Let cool. [If using wheat berries, follow the same process but cook stove top for 1-2 hours.]

Add the couscous, sunflower seeds [or roasted pumpkin seeds], and cilantro to the vegetables and gently toss everything together. Taste and season with more vinaigrette, salt, black pepper, and chile flakes until the salad is nicely balanced and zingy. Crumble the feta over the top and serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

6-Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables, Joshua McFadden w/Martha Holmberg

Curried Parsnips with Yogurt and Chutney
(serves 4)

 

1 1/2 lbs parsnips peeled and chopped into even-sized pieces
2 to 3 tablespoons butter [lard] 1 onion, thinly sliced
2 apples, cored and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon curry powder
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup yogurt
1/4 cup mango chutney
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Steam the parsnips until barely tender, about 7 minutes. Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter [lard] in a medium skillet. Add the onion, apples, and curry powder and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes. Add the parsnips, season with salt and pepper, and cook 5 minutes more with the additional tablespoon butter [lard] to help them brown. Turn off the heat, then stir in the yogurt, chutney, and cilantro and serve.

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Deborah Madison
Pick Up Schedule

Just as a reminder, we deliver the winter CSA on the first Thursday of the month, November-May. Our pick up schedule on Thursdays is:

  • Sisters: 2:30-2:40
  • Redmond: 3:30-3:40
  • Bend: 4:30-5:30

If you signed up for an On Farm pick up, then your CSA box will be ready on the 1st Saturday of the month, 11am-3pm.

Please EMAIL us if you have any questions about your CSA or if you can’t remember where you are scheduled to pick up your share.

Pick Up Schedule
Each month along with your CSA, we can deliver other Rainshadow Organics food stuffs. We spend the summer pickling and preserving. We grow wheat, corn, and buckwheat which we mill into flour. We make chicken, beef, and pork broth. Our bees produce honey. Pigs produce lard. These are great ways to enjoy the organic, nutrient-dense bounty of Rainshadow Organics.

Flours and Wheat Berries:

  • 2 lb bags hard red, hard white, soft white flour: $5/bag
  • 2 lb bag buckwheat flour: $7/bag
  • 2 lb bag corn flour: $12/bag
  • 3 lb bag hard white or hard red wheat berries $5/bag

Meat: we will have a variety of beef for sale (no chicken or pork at this time). Price/lb varies by the cut ($8-$15/lb):

  • $5/lb: beef liver
  • $8/lb: ground beef
  • $10/lb: chuck roast
  • $11/lb: cubed round steak
  • $12/lb: top sirloin
  • $13/lb: brisket
  • $14/lb: rib steak
  • $15/lb: flat iron
  • $15/lb: New York Strip
  • $19/lb: tenderloin

Broth: $8/quart: chicken, beef, pork

Lard: $8/quart; $4/pint

Pickles, Salsas, Preserves, Sauces: $5/half pint; $9/pint; $16/quart

  • spicy zuchini relish (pint)
  • turmeric pickled kohlrabi (pint/quart)
  • dilly bean & dill pickles (quart)
  • pickled hot peppers (pint)
  • tomatillo salsa, hot and mild (pint)
  • pickled beets (pint)
  • strawberry syrup (1/2 pint/pint)
  • tomato sauce (quart)

Honey: $10/pint; $20/quart

Upcoming Events
We have updated our events calendar through February. Join us for a Sunday Brunch or a Farm to Table Dinner. We continue serving brunches and dinners on the deck when the weather is downright wintery outside. To keep it warm, we wall in the deck for warmth and turn on the propane heaters. We will maintain our social distanced seating and keep the air flowing.

We still have spaces at our November 20 Farm to Table Dinner and many of our November Brunches! Our December & February dinners and brunches are wide open as well. Check in with your friends & family, click on the Events Calendar button above, and make a date of it!

Fall Hours

We have transitioned to Fall hours. Our Farm Store will be open Thursday-Saturday, 11-3 and the restaurant will serve lunch Thursday-Saturday, noon-2. On Thursday and Friday we will be serving our Farm House menu and Saturday is pizza day featuring our wood fired pizzas. Join us for lunch on the deck!
Questions or Comments?
Send us an EMAIL if you have any questions or comments about the newsletter, the farm, or the restaurant. We will answer as best we can. Chances are, someone else has that question too and we might address it in a future newsletter for everyone to learn from!