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News from Farm:
The winter cover crop is lush and growing. It's one of the few things out on the farm that is spring green. The other crop to be putting out new spring-colored growth are the strawberries. Our beds are looking good this year. We have made doubly sure that the landscape fabric will stay down and the paths are mulched about a foot deep. Fingers crossed for more and better strawberries for 2022.
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We worked on moving our spread-out, rather unmangeable peony patch this week and got about 30 or so plants moved. It went pretty smoothly and easily but we have 100 plus more to go and it didn't got that smoothly or easily. So we are going to wait another year and come up with a different strategy for the rest of them. Next big job is to start digging up our dahlia tubers. We have around 1000 or so of those, so we're hoping to get a chunk of that done before the apprentices leave us at the end of October.
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A reminder: We will be at the River Arts District Market until November 3rd. We will be attending and delivering to the North Asheville Tailgate Market until December 18th. We aren't sure yet how long deliveries to Cecilia's will continue. Let us know if you like to keep getting deliveries to Cecilia's into December.
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Below: Our new streamlined peony patch
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What's available this week??
New this week are our 5lbs bags of onions. We have them available with all three of our onions, sweet, yellow and red. The reds and the yellows are the best for long term storage (think December-January). We also have some green onions this week. These are larger Japanese-style green onions and are great grilled as well as for all the usual things. Cabbage is back on-line and we'll have some broccoli and cauliflower at market both on Wednesday and Saturday. We have lots of lettuce mix at last. Green oak leaf, romaine, red leaf and little gem lettuces are whats available for head lettuce. Potatoes, winter squash, beets and carrots with tops, cilantro and parsley. We still have some cherries and cocktail tomatoes on-line. We'll have a very few red slicers and heirlooms at market.
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Lettuce and lettuce mix growing in the cat tunnels
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for our November and December markets
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John's Recipe of the Week
| John Loyd is our dear friend, neighbor, CSA worker member and a gourmet Southern cook. His delightful cooking observations and delicious recipe offerings appear here each week. |
“Everything can have drama if it’s done right. Even a pancake.” Julia Child
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DRESSINGS – As the greens roll on into what is becoming real fall, here are some dressings, one that uses tomatoes, which seem wonderfully endless in supply.
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Tomato vinaigrette – Thanks Food and Wine. This makes a good bit of dressing, so you may want to reduce the amount of ingredients.
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1 pound of tomatoes stemmed and halved. Any kind will do including the grape ones. Big ones work the best.
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1-3 tablespoons red wine vinegar to taste
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½ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
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Over a bowl, grate the tomatoes so the skin comes off. If using grape tomatoes you can process, which chops the skins up well enough.
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Whisk oil, salt, and pepper into grated tomato until well combined and season with more salt and pepper.
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This dressing works for both salads and toasts.
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Sweet mustard vinaigrette – Thanks Bon Appétit.
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2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
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1-tablespoon agave nectar
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1 ½ teaspoon whole grain mustard
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Whisk vinegar, lemon juice, agave, and mustard in a medium bowl. Whisking constantly, slowly stream in oil; whisk until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper.
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We have been making homemade peanut butter lately. What’s cool, is that you can use whatever peanuts you like and the butter has no sugar or other additives except what you choose to put in.
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All you do is put peanuts in your processor and turn it on for about 3 to 4 minutes. The peanuts go from coarse to clumpy, and after 3 or so minutes it looks like peanut butter. You can add salt to taste at this point, running the machine a few moments more to incorporate the salt. Adding honey at this stage is pretty good too.
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So far we have used dry roasted honey and straight dry roasted nuts. I think buying raw peanuts and roasting them to a flavor you like would be interesting as well.
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A honey bee gathering the last bit of nectar from a sweet fall aster,
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Thanks for reading and best wishes.
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Your farmers, Vanessa and Alex
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Love the flowers. Honor the vegetables. Let the weeds go!
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- Cheri Huber and Ashwini Narayanan
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