What’s Growing This Week:  Cilantro Salad Mix Onions Tomatoes Carrots Greening Apples# Butternut Broccoli Melissa Engelman, devout farm child of Valerie, enjoys the challenged beauty of an organic apple.  She is standing at an all edible  garden in Village Holmes, world famous for twenty years for it's environmental innovations.

 Pablito....
READY FOR WINTER?
Yesterday, thousands of acres of brush fires north of Sacramento sent their smoke our way, blocking out the sun and created an artificial illusion of late fall.  While no one enjoys breathing smoke, yours truly had to admit a guilty pleasure at the temporary end to the increasingly tiresome Indian summer we have been experiencing since Labor Day.

The strangely cool day was followed by what most around here would consider a normally chilly fall evening, and we took advantage of the chill to prepare a suitable meal — French Onion Soup and an arugula salad with tomatoes and cannellini beans.

For two weeks now in my house, we have been reveling in the return of leafy green vegetables — especially in combination with ripe red fall tomatoes.  While I dearly love the intense tastes of summer — ripe melons, sweet corn, and luscious tomatoes — my body craves green vegetables in a different way.  These are the vegetables that make your body happy, not just your tongue.  They build up your immunity in the cold months and help you repair all the damage you did in the summer.
While I do cook green vegetables, I prefer to eat them in salads.  Salads at my house are always prepared in the largest possible bowls — even when only two people are eating — and often make up the majority of the meal.

I have also come to believe that salad composition is one of the most challenging and expressive aspect of cooking.  It is truly sad that the majority of American eaters still think of “salad” as meaning iceberg lettuce and pink tomatoes.  Although I like salads best when they have something green and leafy in them — spinach, arugula, or salad mix, for the most part — I have a new denition.  A salad is any combination of cooked and raw vegetables tossed with a dressing or sauce that is tangy.  This definition came fully into focus while I was in Thailand two years back, and my favorite salads continue to be those that encompass many different flavors and textures — as Thai salads do.  Sweet, tart, spicy, bitter, crunchy, chewy, moist, tender, and velvety.

 As luck would have it, Terra Firma subscribers get an opportunity to challenge their salad making talents.  In today’s box, for example, every single item can be used as part of a salad.  Tomatoes, apples, and carrots simply need to be sliced or shaved; butternut and onions should be oven-roasted; broccoli can be either steamed or raw.  Cilantro gets chopped and added just before serving.   To add extra dimensions, add creamy or crumbly cheese like gorgonzola, feta, or goat.  Toasted sesame seeds or almonds, or even caramelized walnuts will add crunch and flavor.  Marinated tofu, smoked chicken, or other meat can add another element.

Examples?
—Steamed broccoli , shaved carrots and chopped cilantro with a peanut-lime-soy vinagrette, topped with toasted sesame seeds.
—Peeled, cubed butternut roasted with diced onions, tossed with sliced apples and goat cheese in a balsamic vinagrette.  Serve on a bed of salad mix. And top with toasted walnuts.

If you despair of ways to eat greens, keep your eye on this column.  I try to include a salad recipe in every newsletter, although they sometimes seem so simple to me that they don’t even deserve the title of “recipe”.  But I know that with a cultural heritage that includes potato salad, Waldorf salad, and iceberg lettuce, most of us need a lot of help getting past the image of salad as boring, monotonous, and mostly unhealthy.  In the coming months, you can look forward to more spinach, arugula, and salad mix, as well as broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, beets, fennel, and other great salad ingredients.

Thanks,                      Pablito
 
 
 

The Great Pumpkin Pie Taste-Off Farm day will once again feature a regular TFF event — the Pumpkin pie tasteoff.  We have decided to change the nature of this event from a contest to more of a pot-luck.  Every person who participates will receive one free butternut squash for every pie they bring.   To facilitate the pie-making, you will find a butternut in your CSA box today.  I have also included a recipe for pumpkin pie. Expert pie makers know that the best “pumpkin” pies start not with pumpkins, but with one of the many winter squash varieties with superior taste and texture.  We consider butternut to be the best all-around squash for cooking, as well as the best value — it has a thin skin and a small seed cavity, meaning more cooked squash per pound.  This is why, after many years, butternut is now the only winter squash we grow.  However, you could also select a different variety — kabocha, buttercup, delicata, or others. Our goal is that noone will leave TFF Farm Day without a bellyfull of pie.

 

Farm Day Don’t forget to come to the farm on Sunday, Oct. 24, for a day in the fall sunshine, 1-5 p.m.  And remember, Sunday is the day to set your clock forward!  Take 1-80 North past Fairfield, to Lagoon Valley/Cherry Glen Road, and turn left after the exit.  Go 1 mile, then turn left again onto Pleasant’s Valley Road.  Take that until it ends, about 13 miles.  At the junction with Hwy 128, at the Pardesa Store, turn right and go 500 yards.  Turn right into our driveway and look for the signs for parking. Bring a hat and sunglasses, and a jacket or sweater in case of wind.

 

Recipes                                  ............................

 Butternut Squash Pie
—Adapted from Moosewood Cookbook.  Try baking the squash the night before you plan on making the pie.
Mix 3 C. pureed baked butternut squash with 3/4 C. honey and 2 T. molasses.  Add 1/4 t. powdered cloves, 1 t. cinnamon, 1 t. nutmeg, 1 1/2 t. powdered ginger., and 1 t. salt.  Beat 4 eggs lightly with 2 C. scalded milk and blend into the mixture.
Pour into a good pie shell and bake for 10 minutes at 450, then 40 minutes at 350.  Remove and let sit for at least one hour before serving.
Variations:  Brown sugar or sucanat instead of honey; slices of fresh ginger instead of powdered; decadent condensed milk instead of regular; graham cracker or chocolate crust.
 
 

Produce 101: preparation & storage  Store CILANTRO in plastic, in the fridge — preferably in a glass of water.  Add to foods just before serving — don’t cook. BROCCOLI  should be stored in the refrigerator, in a plastic bag.  Use within 4 days or freeze. TFF SALAD MIX is washed once at the farm, but should be washed again before eating, and then spun dry.  Stored in a plastic bag, it keeps for 3-4 days. Store BUTTERNUT SQUASH at room temperature until cooked.  To cook, cut in half and place face down on a cookie sheet, then bake at 350 degrees until quite soft.  Stored in the fridge, cooked squash will keep 5 days. The APPLES in today’s box are Rhode Island Greenings, a cross between Pippins and Granny Smith.  They are just slightly tart and lightly crisp.  They come to you from Paul Kolling in Sebastapol, and are CA state registered organically grown.

Terra Firma Basics
San Francisco/Sacramento/Davis Prices
Every Week: Every Other Week:
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$16 weekly vacation adjustment
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Vacations & Billing Inquiries
We need seven days notice before a vacation hold or other change of service.
Contact Valerie through voicemail at (530) 756-2800, or e-mail Goldenbell@aol.com

MAILING ADDRESS:
Terra Firma Farm
P.O. Box 836
Winters, CA 95694
(530) 756-2800
www.terrafirmafarm.com
Goldenbell@aol.com em
 

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