LAST HARVEST WEEK OF 2022!
This Tuesday’s pick-up will be the last of our 2022 harvest season.
BULK WEEK: Pick-up will be a little different this week: We will be offering larger than usual quantities of potatoes, carrots, and winter squash so that you can fill your larders and eat from the farm on into the Solstice. We recommend bringing an extra tote bag this week!
THIS WEEK'S HARVEST
Assorted Cooking Greens or Romanesco, Hakurei Salad Turnips, Brussels Sprouts, Asterix and Harvest Moon Potatoes, Mini Napa Cabbages, Celery Root, Kohlrabi, Purple-Top Turnips, Yellow Bridger Onions, Lorz Softneck Garlic, Assorted Cabbage, Watermelon Radishes, Multicolored Daikon, Bolero Carrots, Multicolored Beets, Hopi Blue Cornmeal, your choice of 2 Winter Squash
U-PICK
Only frost-nipped herbs: Thyme, Oregano, Marjoram, Tarragon, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Culinary Lavender, French Sorrel, various frost-nipped Mints
HARVEST NOTES
Hopi Blue Heirloom Cornflour: This beautiful corn flour is from the tall stand of corn that watched over potatoes and winter squash in the Farfield all season long. Harvested by members in October, and ground yesterday, this is a rare, heirloom cornflour with a fresh fats and flavor that only fresh ground corn can have. We recommend eating soon to get that fresh flavor, or storing frozen to preserve the fresh oils. See below for an amazing cornmeal recipe. This flour be used in any way that you would use cornmeal (polenta, grits, muffins, cornbread, etc.)!
SIGNING UP FOR 2023
We will open sign-ups for our 2023 CSA program in early January. Returning members will have the first chance to sign-up to reserve a spot before we open it up to folks on the waitlist and to the public. We expect demand to be high for next season to please sign-up pronto to reserve your spot.
We will expanding our CSA membership next year so if you have friends or family who’d be interested in enjoying the farm experience with you next year, please encourage them to sign up for the waitlist on our website (and to mention you in the comments!)
Smitten Kitchen’s perfect corn muffin recipe
This corn muffin recipe is famously addictive and based on what is for some (like Kayta) a nostalgic childhood flavor —the Jiffy corn muffin mix. (Southerners be aware, this is not a traditional, Southern-style cornbread, but one of a lightly-sweetened, more cakey variety.)
INGREDIENTS
2 cups (280 grams) cornmeal, to be divided
1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons fine sea or table salt
1 1/4 cups (300 ml) milk, whole is best here
1 cup (240 grams) sour cream (full-fat plain yogurt should work here too)
8 tablespoons (115 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
3 to 5 tablespoons (35 to 60 grams) sugar (see Note up top about sweetness)
2 large eggs
PREPARATION
Heat oven to 425°F (220°C). Either grease or line a 12-cup standard muffin tin with disposable liners.
Whisk 1 1/2 cups cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a medium bowl. In a large bowl (if you have a microwave) or a medium saucepan (if you do not), combine milk and remaining 1/2 cup cornmeal. In a microwave, cook cornmeal–milk mixture for 1 1/2 minutes, then whisk thoroughly, and continue to microwave in 30-second increments, mixing between them, until it’s thickened to a batter-like consistency, i.e. the whisk will leave a clear line across the bottom of the bowl that slowly fills in. This will take 1 to 3 minutes longer. On the stove, cook cornmeal mixture over medium heat, whisking constantly, until it thickens as described above, then transfer to a large bowl.
Whisk butter, then sugar, then sour cream into cooked cornmeal until combined. At this point, the wet mixture should be cool enough that adding the eggs will not scramble them, but if it still seems too hot, let it cool for 5 minutes longer. Whisk in eggs until combined. Fold in flour mixture until thoroughly combined and the batter is very thick. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups; it will mound slightly above the rim.
Bake until tops are golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 13 to 17 minutes, rotating muffin tin halfway through baking to ensure even cooking. Let muffins cool in muffin tin on wire rack for 5 minutes, then remove muffins from tin and let cool 5 minutes longer. Serve warm.
Celeriac rösti — photo from The Guardian
Celeriac rösti with caper and celery salsa
Recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi
This is a dish for any time of the day: for brunch (with some crisp bacon, maybe?), or for a light meal or first course. Makes 10 rösti, to serve two to four.
Note: if you’re in need of some additional Celery Root inspiration, check out Ottolenghi’s other mouth-watering recipes here.
ingredients
1 celeriac, peeled and coarsely grated
1 small desiree potato, peeled and coarsely grated
1 banana shallot, peeled and thinly sliced (use a mandolin, if you have one)
1 tbsp lemon juice
Salt and black pepper
½ tsp each coriander seeds, celery seeds and caraway seeds, toasted and finely crushed
½ garlic clove, peeled and crushed
2 eggs, beaten
2½ tbsp plain flour
Vegetable oil, for frying
100g soured cream, to serve
For the salsa
½ small shallot, peeled and very finely chopped
2 celery sticks, finely chopped
10g basil leaves, finely shredded
10g parsley, finely chopped
15g capers, roughly chopped
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon, plus 1 tbsp juice
1½ tbsp olive oil
Combine the celeriac, potato, shallot and lemon juice in a medium bowl with two teaspoons of salt, then tip into a sieve lined with a clean tea towel or cheesecloth. Set the sieve over a bowl and leave for 30 minutes, for the liquid to drain off. Draw together the edges of the towel, then wring it a few times, to get rid of as much water as possible. Transfer to a clean bowl and combine with the spices, garlic, eggs and flour. Using your hands, form the mix into 10 6cm-wide patties, compressing the rösti as you make them, to squeeze out any remaining liquid.
Put all the salsa ingredients in a separate bowl, add a generous grind of pepper and mix to combine.
Pour enough oil into a medium-sized nonstick frying pan to come 1.5cm up the sides. Put the pan on a medium heat and, once the oil is very hot, fry the rösti in batches for seven minutes, turning them a few times, until crisp and golden-brown all over. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen towel and keep warm while you cook the rest of the rösti. Serve at once with the salsa and a spoonful of soured cream.
WINTER SISTER FARM CSA
Gonna miss us this winter? You don’t have to: Winter Sister Farm’s 2023 Winter CSA program has got you covered! Winter Sister Farm, right next door to us, was started by our dear friends Anna and Sarah Dozor. Their CSA runs runs from December through May and includes 24 weeks of specialty winter veggies, flowers, herbs, and more — all picked up by CSA members, free-choice market style, on their beautiful farm here on Cooper Rd. Sign-up today!
Prepping 2023’s garlic beds.
FARMER’S LOG
HARBOR
It was a bittersweet harvest morning today — the last Friday harvest morning of our 2022 harvest season. This Tuesday’s harvest pick-up will be the last of our 2022 CSA harvest season.
If each harvest season is like a voyage — with us farmers & CSA members together on a grand harvesting adventure — we have reached our harbor now.
But what an adventure we had!
We outfitted an entirely new ship this year, with an entirely new crew, and we tested our mettle in uncharted waters. We weathered storms. We battled pirates (mostly deer). There were days when the world was our oyster and there were days when we were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. But in the end, it was a bounteous voyage.
It was a year of abundant umbellifers and strawberries (once we got rid of the pirates); of radiant flowers and sweet winter squash. Our catch of potatoes would make Forrest Gump and Bubba jealous. In the end we fed over 300 adults and 140 Sonoma County kiddos with regenerative, soil building practices.
All thanks to you, dear members.
You see, the community supported agriculture that we practice here, that we ask you to practice here, is not a gimmick or a fad. It is not a clever way to sell farm produce ahead of time. It is a direct relationship between a human community and the land and the farmers that feed it. We are one crew on this voyage. And that bond allows us to farm well; to farm intentionally; to farm for the future.
Each Spring, human beings all over the world set out on adventures of gathering and growing food. When farmers kick off on their yearly voyage, they know not what awaits them; whether their nets will come up empty; if they’ll make it back to shore. Farming is risky. As the climate changes, these voyages are only going to get more precarious.
Vanishingly few farmers have a community with them on their voyages like we do.
So as we close out this Farmer’s Log on 2022, let it be known that any and all the abundance we enjoyed this year was because of your commitment, and our commitment to each other, to take care of each other and the land. There is no safer harbor than that.
And now for our customary parting words…
If, in the dark season ahead, you feel pent up, like you need to get out of the house and stretch your legs, come visit the farm and stand still for a moment in a field.
There you will find silence, broken only by the screech of a hawk or the singing of the blackbirds. A coolness will emanate up from the wet soil, chilling your knees. Before you will lay the sleeping farm, the soft contours of the land draped in a blanket of green.
But listen closely...
For within that slumber next season churns. The cover crop stretches its living roots deep into the soil where subterranean creatures break down this year's roots and residue, processing them — like so many memories — into the raw materials that will make up next year’s stories, next year’s voyage, next year's bounty.
Listen closely and you’ll hear the land dreaming.
Now, it is time for your farmers to rest, to reflect, and to do a little dreaming ourselves. Thank you all so much for the memories this harvest season. Here is to many more to come.
See you in the fields,
David for Kayta
