Week 19: Farmer's Winter & Meat CSA

Hay Maze Install at Harvest Fest

First of all, I'm sorry about missing last week's post! I kept trying to find time after Harvest Fest and the Monday holiday, but the week just sailed by filled with a not quite usual jumble of meetings. In any case, here we are and folks keep asking me what my plans are once CSA is over and if I get a break or not. The answer is a little complicated. I actually only slow a down a little once CSA is over after next week. I then throw myself at all the things that I have left undone and still NEED to get done before the soil is too cold/frozen to work. There is garlic to plant, irrigation and plastic to pull out, crops to harvest for the farmstand and for our sister farms, Powisset and Appleton, fields to plow, harrow, fertilize and till, cover crops to plant. I will be forced to work less outside by temperature, weather and shortening days until, round about mid-December, I will be done with field work whether it is finished or not. Then I truly will slow down- spend some time wandering through museums with the kids (we are doing a lot of Early American History and Government this year with schooling so we will be touring important areas of Boston, Concord and more) and planning for next season. I will need to order seeds before the end of January, so greenhouse and field plans will need to be calculated, adjusted and re-calculated more than once. Hopefully there will be snow sometime in there and I can throw my skis on and tour the CHF trails or hop over Rt.30 to the Beals Preserve. There will be Trustees programs happening all winter, meetings with my fellow farmers, a NOFA conference where my son and I will be entrancing teenagers into wanting goats. Maybe, just maybe, I will go on vacation somewhere warm.
We have new T-shirts!!!! Check out our new design- they are gorgeous! Available in the store- $15 for Adult and $12 for kids.

CSA Renewal

Signup for Vegetable CSA will be OPEN by October 17th- all primary shareholders should get a renewal  Share link (http://www.thetrustees.org/chestnuthill). We are growing our numbers for on-farm pickup for next season, so tell your friends, co-workers and neighbors about us and all the great healthy food you got this summer. Hope for no drought! We should also have a whole new irrigation set up for next year and hopefully won't be as affected by any lack of water (YAY!).

Harvesting Potatoes

email with a link to renew for next season, please pass this information on to anyone sharing your CSA with you. If you are a secondary shareholder, because of a snaffoo with our software at the beginning of the season, we don't have any of your information saved (this literally made our CSA Admin burst into tears when she discovered the error, so please be patient with us and get in touch with your sharers)! Thanks so much)- this is the CSA Renewal

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MEAT CSA

Connor, our livestock manager, has provided the following info about our Meat CSA:

The Trustees and the regional livestock team are very excited to offer its first ever Meat CSA for the 2016/17 winter season.  We have multiple share sizes to choose from that all include diverse cuts of grass fed beef and pork along with two whole chickens per year, all raised on Trustees farms by Trustees farmers. 

Pickups are held every two weeks from December-April and you can sign up for any pick location that you’d like.   

Chestnut Hill Farm in Southborough on Tuesdays, 2-6 pm

Moose Hill Farm in Sharon on Wednesdays, 2-6 PM

Powisset Farm in Dover on Thursdays, 2-6 PM.

In addition to the two whole birds annually, the small size includes 5 lbs. of beef, 2 lbs. of pork per pickup ($825 total share cost).  The medium size includes 6 lbs. of beef, 3 lbs. of pork ($1045 total share cost) and the large includes 8 lbs. of beef and 4 lbs. of pork per pickup ($1375 total share cost).

To sign up or for more information about the CSA, our farms and our meat, please visit thetrustees.org/meatcsa or email meatcsa@thetrustees.org

What's in Your Share (maybe):

Salad turnips
Arugula
Pac Choi
Salad mix
Broccoli
Radish
Bok Choi
Carrots
Winter Squash
Garlic
Potatoes
Pencil leeks/scallions
Kale/Chard

Recipes:

Ok. I've been hearing a lot about Arugula Pesto and telling a lot of folks about it and it is dreamy delicious and a great thing to FREEZE for later so grab some of this peppery green and make this! You can substitute pine nuts/sunflower seeds/cashews/pecans etc for the walnuts, but I love walnuts in this! I also put in a Tblsp of butter just because I love butter and it makes any pesto a creamy wonder.
Ingredients:

• 2 cups packed fresh arugula leaves, rinsed and dried
• 1/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts
• 4 medium garlic cloves
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup finely grated fresh Parmesan cheese
• 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Throw all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth. Use anywhere you would use basil pesto for a peppery twist on an old favorite.

I made this the other night with ground turkey instead of beef and it was fabulous. We served it with rice and used our homegrown sriracha! Our fresh cabbage caramelizes so wonderfully that it makes stir fry just sing! This is from BudgetBytes.com

BEEF AND CABBAGE STIR FRY

SAVEPRINT

PREP TIME

15 mins

COOK TIME

15 mins

TOTAL TIME

30 mins

INGREDIENTS

STIR FRY SAUCE

• 2 Tbsp soy sauce $0.18
• 1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil $0.33
• 1 Tbsp sriracha* $0.05
• ½ Tbsp brown sugar $0.02

STIR FRY

• ½ head green cabbage $1.78
• 2 carrots $0.22
• 3 green onions $0.17
• ½ Tbsp neutral cooking oil $0.02
• ½ lb. lean ground beef $3.90
• 2 cloves garlic $0.16
• 1 Tbsp fresh grated ginger $0.13
• Pinch of salt and pepper $0.05

GARNISHES (optional)

• 1 Tbsp sesame seeds $0.08
• 1 Tbsp sriracha $0.05

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Prepare the stir fry sauce first. In a small bowl stir together the soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, sriracha, and brown sugar. Set the sauce aside.
2. Shred the vegetables so they are ready to go when you need them. Cut one small cabbage in half, remove the core, and then finely shred the leaves of one half the cabbage (4-6 cups once shredded, save the other half for another recipe). Peel two carrots, then use a cheese grater to shred them (1 cup shredded). Slice three green onions. Mince two cloves of garlic. Peel a knob of ginger using either a vegetable peeler or by scraping with the side of a spoon, then grate it using a small-holed cheese grater.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Once hot add the cooking oil, ground beef, garlic, ginger, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook the beef until browned (about five minutes).
4. Add the cabbage and carrots to the skillet and continue to stir and cook until the cabbage is slightly wilted (or fully wilted, if you prefer). Stir in the prepared sauce and the green onions. Top with a sprinkle of sesame seeds and a drizzle of sriracha, then serve.

NOTES

* 1 Tbsp sriracha makes a medium-spicy stir fry. If you don't like spicy, I'd start with 1 tsp. The sriracha adds flavor as well as heat, so I don't suggest skipping it all together.

Events:

SURPRISE! Given that our Harvest Fest was rained out (and thank you to all the hearty souls that ventured into the torrent to support us- we did have a fun day anyway!) we still have a ton of pumpkins left over and Southborough Recreation and the Rotary Club have rescheduled the annual Pumpkin Lighting Ceremony for October 30th. So on Saturday October 29th we are adding PUMPKIN CARVING to our Halloween Fun Run Event. You can enter the costume party style fun run and get a free pumpkin, OR you can just come buy a pumpkin for $5 (and these are FABULOUS JACK O LANTERNS!!!) and use our carving tools to carve a beauty to bring home or put up on the wall in town. 2k run starts at 10 am, fun run starts at 11 am and the Pumpkin part of the day is all day from 10-2. Come join us for treats, tricks and fun!

11/5 Join us for the Great Pumpkin Chuck! I will just say this.....TREBUCHET. yep. You got that right, we have a trebuchet on the farm. It is big and it is a riot to watch throw pumpkins across the fields. Bring your old Jacks and we will chuck them. There will be pumpkiny snacks as well. $5. Have a chucker of your own you want to bring to the action- think it can throw an old jack farther than ours. Challenge accepted, bring it on. Contact Kira for info on our chucking contest....