• Tomatoes
• Peppers
• Hot peppers
• Eggplant
• Cherry tomatoes
• Kale or chard or collards (none for Sunday due to smoke)
• Parsley or basil
• Onions
• Daikon radish or beets (none for Sunday due to smoke and hazardous conditions)
• Winter squash
• Garlic
• Potatoes
• Tomatillos (for Sunday as we got these harvested before conditions worsened)
• Zucchini

We are thankful everyday that we are safe and out of the zone of wildfire. We had the wind damage but the smoke and fires that have followed show us yet again things could be far worse. We think of other farmers we know and those that we do not and all that they have lost. We will rebuild and have nothing to complain about.

We managed to get out yesterday when the weather was very unhealthy (not yet hazardous )and we harvested what we could and then decided to bag it all up for everyone today. The share is limited to what we were able to get in a few hours. Most of our fruit has blown to the ground, a harsh end to summer and a very sad start to fall.

Next week we hope to be back to normal with the possibility of roasting red peppers and cider press. We will have to wait and see what Mother Nature has to send us.

Ratatouille’s Ratatouille

As envisioned by Smitten Kitchen

1/2 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced

1 cup tomato puree (such as Pomi)

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 small eggplant (my store sells these “Italian Eggplant” that are less than half the size of regular ones; it worked perfectly)

1 smallish zucchini

1 smallish yellow squash

1 longish red bell pepper

Few sprigs fresh thyme

Salt and pepper

Few tablespoons soft goat cheese, for serving

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Pour tomato puree into bottom of an oval baking dish, approximately 10 inches across the long way. Drop the sliced garlic cloves and chopped onion into the sauce, stir in one tablespoon of the olive oil and season the sauce generously with salt and pepper.

Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. As carefully as you can, trim the ends off the red pepper and remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube.

On a mandoline, adjustable-blade slicer or with a very sharp knife, cut the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper into very thin slices, approximately 1/16-inch thick.

Atop the tomato sauce, arrange slices of prepared vegetables concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible, alternating vegetables. You may have a handful leftover that do not fit.

Drizzle the remaining tablespoon olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.

Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside. (Tricky, I know, but the hardest thing about this.)

Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables have released their liquid and are clearly cooked, but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them.

Serve with a dab of soft goat cheese on top, alone, or with some crusty French bread, atop polenta, couscous, or your choice of grain