CSA Week 18: Butternut! Ginger! Potatoes!
Farm Share Newsletter - October 7, 2023
This Week's Share:
Ginger
Baby Bok Choy
Fingerling potatoes from Provo Farm
Daikon
Beets
Mini butternut squash (wait three days before eating)
Anise hyssop (Korean licorice mint)
Putting the Farm to Bed
We have friends visiting from El Paso. One of them brought a suitcase full of sweaters and rain gear, only to arrive during the hottest PNW October I've ever remembered. It's been perfect weather for tying up drip tape, clearing crop residues, rolling out tarps, and everything else we need to do to wind down for the year. We keep a few beds planted with winter-hardy vegetables for the offseason — for our selves and the occasional wholesale order. But the main order of business is putting the farm to bed.
Of course, we're still harvesting the last of our greens (and even getting a few tomatoes and eggplant, thanks to the unexpected heat). And we're still keeping up the streak of at least one new crop per share! This week we have fresh ginger, which we planted way back in June. We've never gotten ginger grow to a size we'd like but it still feels special to pull it out of the ground. Use it up rather fast or dry it out. I don't recommend refrigerating your ginger below 50F. We also harvested some anise hyssop, aka Korean licorice mint. It's great as a tea or sprinkled like an herb on chicken, tofu, or even a salad.
The mini butternut squash is super tasty. It has its origins in in a breeding project at Cornell University (that also involved the Chef Dan Barber). Not only are they smaller, but apparently they are sweeter too. We began the curing process a week ago, and they could use another few days in a warm spot in your house. After that, enjoy them whenever you'd like. They should store for at least a month, possibly longer. My favorite way to roast them, is at 400F, sliced down the middle, with olive oil and salt. Kind of like this.
Rounding out your share this week are the familiar faces of baby bok choy, daikon, and golden beets. And also the guest appearance of red fingerling potatoes from our friends and fellow Vashonites at Provo Farms.
Recipe - Dashi-Simmered Kabocha Squash With Ginger
Your mini kabocha from last week should be ready to eat within the next couple days. We prepped some a little early to feed our friends. This is a super quick and easy preparation that is copied almost step-by-step from Just One Cookbook.
Ingredients
1 mini kabocha
2 cups dashi (we use a concentrate, but you could make your own)
1/4 cup white wine vinegar (this is what we used because its what we had, but you should use sake if you have it)
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp soy sauce
2-inch piece of ginger, sliced into thin matchsticks
Steps
Cut kabocha into one inch pieces. Keep the skin.
Place kabocha in a single layer in a pot. Cover with dashi, sugar, vinegar, and soy sauce. Stir very lightly.
Bring to a boil and then simmer over low for roughly 30 minutes or until you can slide a fork through squash without any resistance. We'd recommend placing a sheet of foil with holes in it directly over your squash too to capture the heat.
'Til Next Week,
Steven