Box 15

Greetings all on this lovely fall day.  The past several days have been ones of transition.    Kevin has taken off for the west coast to continue (maybe even finish?) his schooling, leaving me to finish up the season.  The equinox came, officially ushering in fall and, coincidently, ushering in the first frost of the year on the farm, the unofficial beginning of fall.  Goodbye peppers, goodbye eggplant, goodbye tomatoes…hello winter squash and root vegetables!

It’s time to light up that oven and cozy around with some good fall comfort foods.

This week:

I hope you enjoy the last tomatoes of the season, it’s been a good run.  I did some tomato seed saving the day before the frost–you may recognize some of your favorite varieties in the picture. We did about 40 different tomato varieties this year, including the cherries, most of our tomatoes are heirlooms, so if you have any around still that you fancy you can do this yourself  for next years garden by following directions from a gardening book or online.

The herb this week is a great little basil called pistou.  It looks almost like oregano in this miniature form growing as a tiny bush and is at full maturity the size it is and can be used as you would regular basil, but a little fancier.

Kabocha Sunshines are going out in the boxes this week.  My all time favorite squash, I regret to say there is not enough for everybody to get one.  We had terrible pest problems this year with our winter squash (squash bugs!) and lost about half of the crop—mostly the softer thicker meat ones like Kabocha, Baby Blue Hubbard, Kuri and Buttercup (not to be confused with Butternut which faired just fine).  So consider yourself lucky if you’ve been graced with a lovely rich, orange squash in your box.

If you are having trouble using up your turnips (what ? you still haven’t used the ones from a few weeks ago?!)  Searing them in hot oil is great way to start.  From here they can be added to any vegetable stir fry or tossed with a little vinegar and herbs for a side dish.  They are especially good in a simple tomato curry dish:

Heat up oil in pan, add Tbls of mustard seeds, when they start to pop add diced turnips, shake so they are coated in oil then let sear.  After they are seared add diced tomatoes and pistou basil.  Add a splash of vinegar or lemon juice and salt to taste.   Try a little at this point, if you want, add some turmeric or curry powder (or both) at this point you can, or serve as is over rice or couscous.

Enjoy the first fall box!