- Celeriac (great recipe below)
- Radicchio ( soak it in ice water for 15-30 minutes and taste the difference)
- Leeks
- Shallots or onions
- Daikon radish or turnips ( recipes below- you can always make a quick pickle with the daikon and it is so good)
- Watercress (a super food full of nutrients)
- Bok Choy
- Winter squash :tetsukabota
What a world wind of wild weather we have been through. From 90 degrees in Honduras to -44 in the Yukon back to the ice storm of 2024 here. He made it through better than many others. We lost plastic on 2 hoop houses that were already showing signs of wear and we have had some flooding of another hoop house. We feel pretty lucky. We have been shoveling chicken manure when the weather permits and now the chickens can return to their coop with fresh straw and dry feet.
We have the heat mats fired up and seeds started for the upcoming season. Sugar snap peas, onions, kale, chinese broccoli and the first tomatoes and peppers are seeded and waiting to germinate. No transplanting into hoop houses for some time as we have to repair them but the plants will be ready once the farmers can get their work done.
We will prune the orchard next weekend.Hopefully plenty of people will join us to get things in order for the spring. We will start at 0900 and end when the orchard is pruned, usually around 3-4/ Potluck lunch. Bring any implements that you have including: (label them with your name).
· Clippers
· Loppers
· hand saw
· Gloves
· Chainsaws
· orchard ladders
It is time to sign up for the regular CSA season. Please jump to the page with our enrollment form https://www.finquita.com/wordpress/?page_id=231 and complete and send us your deposit of $100 to save your spot. The regular season starts on April 14 (Sunday harvest) or April 17th for Wednesday harvest. There are two pick up sites in Portland. There is pick up at the farm. Reach out to us if you have questions. Tell your friends as those personal referrals are the best.
There are two more harvests in the winter Season: February 18 and March 10.
Here are some great recipes to enjoy:
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From great squash.com:
Master Recipe: Baked Squash
Simple, sweet, wonderfully-baked squash, best with butternut, honeynut, calabaza, sweet dumpling, tetsu, or candy roaster varieties. The perfect food by itself, or a great base ingredient for many other squash and pumpkin baked goods and recipes.
SERVINGS
4 people
PREP TIME
10minutes mins
COOK TIME
40minutes mins
TOTAL TIME
50minutes mins
Equipment
- Sharp, heavy knife
- Parchment paper
- Baking sheet
Ingredients
- 1 winter squash
- 1 tsp olive or avocado oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375ºF/190ºC. Cover a baking sheet with parchment.
- Cut squash in half from the stem to the base. Make sure you have a heavy, sharp knife and a stable surface.
- Use a sturdy spoon to scoop the seeds and pulp from the cavity.
- Pour the oil into the cavity of one squash and from there, use your fingers to rub it all over the cut sides of both squashes.
- Place the cut squash face down on the sheet and place in preheated oven.
- Remove from oven when squash liquor (sugary juices) are showing around the cut squashes and have turned a candied dark brown with burnt black edges, about 40 minutes for a smaller squash like honeynut, up to an hour — the time will vary greatly based on the size and age of your squash. Newly-harvested squashes are wetter and take longer to cook.
- Cut in serving-sized chunks, such as ¼ of an average butternut squash per person, plate up, and serve. Provide any topping such as butter, salt, pesto, cheese, salsa, soy sauce, or whatever it is that may fit well with the rest of the meal that day, but encourage everyone to enjoy how incredibly delicious this squash is perfectly plain, just the way it is!
Testu squash is good prepared many ways. As a first try, I recommend baking it, cut in half, cut side down, as in my master recipe for baked squash. After that, you can:
– eat it as a side dish, with butter
– make cheesy squash grits
– make your favorite pumpkin bread or pumpkin pie recipe.
– wake up to some squash waffles, aka squaffles.
– warm up with a Bengali squash curry.
Great recipes to use your winter veggies From Six Seasons cookbook:
Sautéed Turnips with Prunes and Radicchio
Most people would not consider prunes an exciting ingredient, but when cooked, the plush texture and deep toffee sweetness of a prune can really bring some sex appeal to a dish.
→ Serves 4
8 pitted prunes, quartered
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
¼ teaspoon dried chile flakes
1 bunch Japanese turnips, greens cut off and reserved, trimmed and halved
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Small head radicchio, cut into 1-inch ribbons (soak in ice water for 20 minutes to reduce bitterness, then drain well)
Put the prunes in a small bowl and add 1 tablespoon of the vinegar. Add warm water just to cover the prunes. Let them soak for 20 minutes to soften and plump.
Heat a glug of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook gently until it’s nicely golden brown, very fragrant, and soft, about 5 minutes-do not burn the garlic! Add the chile flakes and then arrange the turnips in the pan, cut sides down. Season with salt and black pepper and cook until the turnips are starting to brown lightly on the cut side, 4 to 5 minutes. Flip the turnips over and add the prunes and a few spoonfuls of their soaking liquid.
Cover the pan and steam the turnips until they are tender when pierced with a knife, adding a few more splashes of the soaking liquid as you cook them. You want there to be just enough water to continually create steam but not so much water that the turnips are boiling.
When the turnips are just tender, add the greens and the drained radicchio. Increase the heat to high and finish cooking with the cover off, tossing and stirring to wilt the greens and mix everything together.
Remove from the heat and season with salt, black pepper, and the remaining 1 tablespoon vinegar. Taste, adjust the seasoning, and finish with a drizzle of olive oil. Serve warm.
Celery Root,
Cracked Wheat, and Every-
Fall-Vegetable-You-Can-Find
Chowder
Any and all fall and winter vegetables work well in this soup. The celery root puree keeps the overall flavors from becoming too sweet and one-note. You could use farro or another grain in place of the cracked wheat, but the soup’s consistency will be thicker and more porridgelike… not necessarily a bad thing on a cold day.
1 small celery root about ¾4 pound)
½ pound onions, sliced 3 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup cracked wheat
Several sprigs thyme
1 stalk celery, diced
1 small carrot, diced
1 big turnip, diced
1 medium potato, diced
2 cups shredded kale
1 big handful arugula or other spicy or bitter greens( use the watercress!)
Using a sharp paring knife, cut away all the tough exterior of the celery root; if there are dark fissures remaining, cut those away, too. Cut it into chunks.
Put the celery root, onions, I garlie clove, butter, and # cup water in a medium pot with a lid.
Add 1 teaspoon salt and about 20 twists of pepper, cover, and bring to a simmer. Cook until everything is thoroughly soft, 20 to 25 minutes depending on the size of your chunks. Let this cool for a few minutes, then puree it in a food processor or blender. Set it aside.
Heat the olive oil in a big soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the remaining 2 garlic cloves and gently toast for a few minutes to begin to soften the garlic. Add the cracked wheat, reduce the heat to low, and cook, stirring frequently, to gently toast the grain and deepen the flavor, 7 to 8 minutes-you’ll smell the grain getting toasty; take care not to burn the garlic.
Add the thyme to the pot.
Add the celery, carrot, turnip, potato, and 1 teaspoon salt. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft and fragrant but not at all browned, 10 to 15 minutes.
Add just enough water to cover by ½ inch, adjust the heat to a lively simmer, cover, and cook until the vegetables are all tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
Add the kale and cook for another few minutes-the kale should keep a bit of bite to it.
Stir in the celery root puree. The final soup should be nicely thick, but if it seems too thick and porridgelike, add more water. Taste the soup and add more salt if you like, then add lots and lots of pepper so the flavors are mellow and sweet from the vegetables with a bit of heat from the pepper.
Right before serving, reheat the soup and toss in the arugula. Serve hot.
Winter Squash and Leek Risotto
Butternut squash is perfect for this dish, as the big bulb of solid flesh is easy to grate. Adding the scraps to the broth doubles down on the lovely squash flavor.
» Serves 4
About 8 cups vegetable or chicken stock
2 pounds winter squash
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Extra-virgin olive oil
* teaspoon dried chile flakes
Kosher salt
2 cups carnaroli or other risotto-appropriate rice
1 pound leeks, trimmed, split lengthwise into quarters, cleaned, and thinly sliced crosswise 1 cup dry white wine
2 cups freshly grated
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
¼ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 tablespoon
chopped sage
Put the stock in a soup pot. Peel the squash with a vegetable peeler or a sharp paring knife and split it lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and fibers and add to the stock. Grate about 2 cups of the flesh using the large holes of a box grater and set aside. Roughly chop the rest of the squash and add it to the stock. Let the stock simmer slowly for at least 30 minutes so it takes on the squash flavor.
Melt the butter in a small glug of olive oil in a large skillet or Dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add half the grated squash, the chile flakes, and 1 teaspoon salt and cook for about 2 minutes. Add the rice and cook, stirring frequently, so that the rice becomes glossy and slightly darker golden, about 5 minutes. Add the leeks and 1 teaspoon salt and cook over medium-low heat until they are soft and fragrant, another 10 minutes or so.
Increase the heat to medium-high and add the wine, stirring and scraping to deglaze the pan.
Simmer until all the wine has evaporated.
Start ladling in enough of the hot stock (don’t let the solids get into the risotto pan) so that it just barely bovers the rice. Adjust the heat so the liquid bubbles nicely but isn’t boiling hard. Str the rice occasionally, scraping the bottom of the pan. When most of the liquid has reduced, add more stock. Continue this process, stirring to encourage creaminess, until the rice is getting tender but still has a chalky center when you bite into a grain, about 10 minutes.
Add the remaining grated squash and a bit more stock and cook just until the squash is tender.
The consistency of the risotto should be quite moist, because it will stiffen up as you add the cheese and as it cools.
Fold in 1½ cups of the Parmigiano, the parsley, and the sage and serve right away, passing the rest of the cheese at the table.
