Red Acre Farm CSA

What’s in Your Basket  for the Final Week of this Season?

• Cilantro(full shares only)
• Pomegranates,local and organic
• Winter Squash:Spaghetti,Buttercup,Butternut and Acorn
• Onions,yellow purple and white
• Gourmet lettuce mix
• Spinach
• Beet Greens
• Leeks
• Carrots
• Rosemary
• Apples,Fuji (local not organic)

Ideas for Eating, Cutting, Cooking and Keeping the new stuff:

Winter unlike summer does not keep giving you new varieties it just gets slower and slower so only 2 new items in your basket and they are from St George!

Pomegranates,organic and grown in St George. Harvested in fall they are ugly and have shrunk but still yummy on the inside. WAIT do not eat your pomegranate until you watch this video! I grew up eating these things and ruining my clothes.I made my children eat them in the bath tub. Tia, our share holder just told me about this video clip on how to cut them underwater! http://www.youtube.com/watchv=sHyqoeB0Wlk&feature=related .The fruit can be eaten out of hand by deeply scoring several times vertically and then breaking it apart. The clusters of juice sacs are then lifted out and eaten. We love the seeds sprinkled on any salad. Pomegranate fruits are most often consumed as juice and can be juiced in several ways. The sacs can be removed and put through a basket press or the juice can be extracted by using an ordinary orange juice squeezer. Another way is to warm the fruit slightly and roll it between your hands to soften it. Cut  a hole in the stem end , place on a glass to let the juice run out, squeezing the fruit from time to time to get all the juice. The juice can be used in a variety of of ways: as a fresh juice, to make jellies, sorbets or cold or hot sauces as well as to flavor cakes, baked apples, etc. Pomegranate syrup is sold commercially as grenadine. The juice can also be made into a wine. You can dry them for a decoration if nothing else.

The pomegranate is native from Iran to the Himalayas in northern India and was cultivated and naturalized over the whole Mediterranean region since ancient times. It is widely cultivated throughout India and the drier parts of southeast Asia, Malaya, the East Indies and tropical Africa. The tree was introduced into California by Spanish settlers in 1769. In this country it is grown  in the drier parts of California ,Arizona and as far as Utah.

Cilantro,We experimented this season growing on a 20 by 12 plot in St George and this is one of the crops we grew. We love this stuff. Before it is used, cilantro should be crushed, either by hand or with a mortar and pestle. Cilantro is a perfect addition to Mexican dishes; add Cilantro to salsas and bean dips. Mix crushed Cilantro into sour cream and use it as a topping for chili, tacos, or enchiladas. Sprinkle Cilantro over stir fried vegetables for color and Asian flavor. Add Cilantro to sesame ginger dressing when making Chinese chicken salad.

Rosemary, had to much of it? Do not know what to do with it?  We will put the recipe for the rosemary chocolate cake on the exchange  that was  served and so fabulous at the share holder dinner.

SPRING SHARES: Family $230 and Pair $125 that price is for returning share holders only. The delivery fee for St George is $60 NOT $50 because of the 2 extra weeks in Spring.We had a request to pay for eggs and cheese for the year.Jack Rabbit Cheese is offering an annual  share for all 40 weeks $180.  That is a fantastic deal and he pays the tax. If his prices or food prices go up yours will not! We will do eggs for $80. and they are going up in price and winter eggs are more money.No annual milk shares. Egg,and milk shares annually or seasonally are only in addition to a vegetable share.

If you need or want EGGS before Spring Shares start we will have them in our fridge in our seedling room.That is the back door facing east. Come anytime it is the honor system ( there will be a jar to put your money in)$3 a dozen.

Last Share Day for the season. From the very depths of our soul THANK YOU! We so believe  in real organic,sustainable,local,small farming. Everyone of those words should not exist without the other. We want the healthiest food possible and that does not mean certified organic so we have the “legal right” to use substances that we do not feel healthy or are real organic. Sustainable, our soil will only get better and healthier  and we will  leave this world a better place for our great grand children.Local, your food taste better because it did not travel a thousand miles.It leaves no impact on the environment. And to quote DJ our cheese guy and share holder,

It has been sugested that every dollar spent at a local business (including local farms) puts $7 back into the local economy, whereas every dollar spent at Wal-Mart puts $1 back into the local economy.  When I look at it that way, if I want local people to be able to afford the goods and services I provide, I’d better shop local!!  Otherwise, I too will be working at Wal-Mart.” None of those words can exist without YOU supporting us. THANK YOU again. We hope to see all of you back March 2.

Much Love, Lynn,Sara,Symbria and the chickens!

What’s In Your Basket This Week?

• Sorrel
• Carrots
• Radish
• Turnips, Hakurei
• Bulls blood
• Rosemary
• Gourmet mix
• Oak leaf/Endive,bitter best stir fried
• Red curly leaf/ Red Romaine
• Micro greens
• Apples,Fuji, local conventionally grown

Ideas for Eating, Cutting, Cooking and Keeping the new stuff:

Sorrel,The only green you have not seen before. It has a bright lemon flavor.Use sparingly in salads and generously in soups and sauces.I did not want to send the newsletter out until we had prices and dates for our next season.

We are officially a 4  season farm! With much gratitude to all of you as we could not have done it with out this seasons “winter”experiment that you all were brave enough to be a part of. We are learning and becoming better at farming every day . We are so excited  for next year. Farming is one of those things where you are living 6 months in the future and every day in the moment – all at once…

At the request of many we now have a price for the entire year.

The spring share will begin March 2nd for pick up at the farm and March 3rd for St George.For a total of 12 weeks ending May 18th.

Shares for SPRING will be: $240
Pair shares: $132
*For current Share Holders only: $230
*Pair shares:$125
St George delivery add $50

Mark your calendar for May Day at the farm May 21st!

SUMMER shares begin June 1st and end September 28th for a total of 18 weeks.
Family Shares: $360
Pair Shares:$200

FALL shares begin October 12th and end December 14th for a total of 10 weeks.
Family Shares: $200
Pair shares: $110

We will offer a limited number of ANNUAL shares. For 1 calendar year (2011), all seasons, a fresh basket of produce for 40 weeks.
*Family Shares: $770
*Pair Shares: $425

This secures the price of your produce regardless of how much prices go up.

* cash or check only

The last share day is always bitter sweet for us . Looking forward to a break but sad to know that we will never see some of you again . If you plan on being a Spring Share holder we would appreciate it if you pay tomorrow or at least let us know. Be sure you bring your basket to turn in this week. We will have paper bags for you. We appreciate you supporting local and real organic small farming.

Symbria, Lynn and Sara

What’s In Your Basket This Week?

• Pea sprouts
• Buckwheat, micro green
• Spinach
• Turnips
• Swiss Chard
• Pac Choi
• Mesclun Mix
• Oak Leaf ,Red and Green mix just for Christmas
• Carrots
• Rosemary
• Apples (local not organic)

Ideas for Eating, Cutting, Cooking and Keeping the new stuff:

Pea Sprouts, will continue to grow in the fridge in a container,rinse. 

Buckwheat,these are your first micro greens in your basket and you will see more of them in January.Micro greens  are a tiny form of edible greens produced from the seeds of vegetables, herbs or other plants. They range in size from one to two inches long, including the stem and leaves. Micro greens can have surprisingly intense  flavor.They are crops harvested at the seedling stage.The stem is cut leaving the root behind, and it is not produced in water, it is not a sprout. They are very popular with chefs, okay a trendy food item  and pricey little guys. Bulls Blood $64. Lb !

Spinach, The best tasting green in a smoothie. With pineapple juice even the picky ones will love it. Refrigerate in a plastic bag.

Turnips, Hakurei Turnips.Most people don’t associate the word “turnip” with  “sweet and buttery,” but Hakureis are just that.  These turnips are best eaten raw to savor their texture and flavor, but they also sautee up well with a little olive oil, salt and their own greens.Don’t toss those tops! They make great stir-fry greens. Give them a wash, chop them up, and cook them!If you want your turnips to last longer in the fridge, cut the tops off and store the roots in a Ziploc in the crisper.There is a recipe on the exchange that uses the tops, bottoms, and apples.

Swiss Chard, It is high in vitamins A, E, and C, and minerals like iron and calcium. It is completely interchangeable with spinach in any recipe – lasagna, spanikopita, etc. – and in fact is more nutritious because it lacks oxalic acid, an element present in spinach that inhibits the body’s ability to absorb minerals.
Chard is the parent plant of beets; you can see the close resemblance in the leaves of beets and chard. It evolved in the Mediterranean, but is called “Swiss” due to its initial description by a Swiss botanist in the 16th century.
 
Great steamed or sautéed, chopped into soups, baked into quiche or scrambled with eggs, added to casseroles, steam it, drizzle it with a little vinegar, salt and olive oil and serve with black-eyed peas or baked beans and cornbread. Don’t be afraid to chop up the stems and eat them too.
Store it in the fridge in a plastic bag.

Pac Choi ,a Chinese green.  You can eat both the white stems and the green leaves . Pac Choi is wonderful lightly steamed, braised in soy sauce or a sesame-soy glaze, stir-fried with cashews, or  add it to soup. Think garlic, ginger, sesame seeds, sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, peanut oil, a dash of sugar, some chicken or veggie stock, salt and pepper – some combo of all that in a pan with your choi, and you should be good.
 
Sore in a plastic bag  , it should keep in your fridge for up to a week.

Mesclun Mix, is a salad mix of assorted small, young salad leaves which originated in Provence, France. The traditional mix includes chervil, arugula, leafy lettuces and endive in equal proportions, but it now may include just about any kind of lettuce in the mix.The packet we planted said ”Mesclun” You will have to guess what the mix is. The name comes from Provençal(Southern France)—mescla, “to mix”—and literally means “mixture”. By definition you have been eating mesclun mix for weeks!

Thanks  to one of our favorite Share Holders  I feel inspired to write.I know someone really reads this news letter.Nur wrote an article  on us in the Spectrum ,entertainment section.Instead of a restaurant she reviewed Red Acre CSA. The article was so good we wanted to join.Thank You Nur, for supporting us and local,real organic,sustainable small farming.

We appreciate your patience  with filling your baskets in our tiny home. The plan was  to be in the green house weeks ago. We just need one warm day to pull the plastic on. So hopefully when you come back it will be done.Mark your calenders , we will not see you again until January 5^th. We will miss you, but hope you miss our produce.

Wishing you all the best of the season.  Much happiness and good health  to you at this most wonderful time of the year.

Everyone at Red Acre Farm,

Lynn,Symbria,Sara and all the critters

What’s In Your Basket This Week?

• Radish sprouts
• Endive and a Red leaf mix(bitter, best stir fried)
• Red Sails and Hansen lettuce mix
• Gourmet Lettuce mix
• Leeks
• Beets
• Fuji Apples(conventionally grown )

Ideas for Eating, Cutting, Cooking and Keeping the new stuff:

Radish Sprouts, will continue to grow in the fridge in a container,rinse daily and set in sun to “green up.” Juice them,throw them in a smoothie or toss on those fresh greens for a salad.

Apples ,usually with a CSA fruit is sold as a separate share.When it comes across our path we like to share it with you.Albert (our partner with the green houses) drove up Monday to Santaquin to get a bin of number 2( not perfect) apples to sauce and juice for his family.We are benefiting from that. Not organic but local.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Green, the baskets are green as I said they would be and light and fluffy like snow.Last week was very typical of a traditional first season share basket.Light and then the season gets heavier until you can’t fit it all in your basket at the end.You leave on a high note with abundance.

We felt it a daring adventure to do a Winter harvest at almost 6000 feet and the reverse feeling, ending with less at the end of the season. Truly believing in real organic,fresh and local food we were willing and up for the challenge.

This season the baskets started out heavy and bountiful as we were still reaping from the summer harvest,now getting lighter I want to keep reminding you.As we all are capable in lean times to forget the abundant times.

Thanksgiving brought unseasonable low temperatures and extra inches of snow more like January when we had planned a break for the cold. The green house did well but there was some loss for sure and you saw it in your baskets last week. You” buy into the bounty as well as the risk”.

We had some feed back which I now understand why on the bottom of every receipt they give away just about anything to know what the customer thinks.

We really want to know your thoughts. This is not just about food but belonging to a community and a cause, a movement. You really do vote with your dollar and every bite that goes into you and your families mouth. TELL US WHAT YOU THINK!

You are literally share holders.We will grow if able, what you request.We have even planted “your seeds.”We want you to be educated and part of this most important subject,food. It keeps us alive and determines your quality of life. You really cannot live without it.What you are getting for food is becoming more and more controlled with less and less truth and information given to you about what you’re eating.This food we grow, you can see and know what it is where it came from .How it was grown and who grew it.It Is literally your food!

We do not plan to get wealthy off of farming. Yes, we would love to be better which means full time and living off the money from the farm.It is not sustainable if there is not a way to support the farmer.In this area where this is a new concept we have to educate others as well as us learning and it being a low income area it is difficult to achieve a balance of quality and affordable.

Does Local hand grown organic food cost more then GMO big ag mass produced, well food but I do not call that food. The question you have to ask yourself. Is it worth it and does it really “cost” more?

For us the answer is yes,it is worth it and it does not “cost” more even if we sometimes pay more. We eat less of something better.We feel better are healthier and weigh less as a benefit.I could go on for volumes proving why for your health,survival (when the trucks do not roll in,the effect on the environment) and politically why we should eat ,local and real organic.

We do live what we believe. I packed all of our Thanksgiving dinner up except the turkey( next year we are raising heritage breeds) and headed to our sons home in Colorado .To put our money where our mouth and heart are we did NOT buy the Smiths $7 turkey. Could we afford it ?Well we felt like we could not afford not to.We supported our local health food store as I know some of you did.The $30 something bird ,14lbs was a good price organic and free range.Not local and did I really know what I was getting? Next year we are changing that.

Our one stop on a 30 hour road trip in a grocery store was not as inexpensive as the 99 cent menu but we sure felt better.Heirloom tomatoes $4 a lb a bag of organic chips some fresh salsa at the deli and fruit.Could we afford it? We can not afford not to!

We hope that for our share holders feel the same way?With your basket being so light last week and not as inexpensive as Bountiful Baskets,Costco or maybe even the health food store, but o so worth it! There is no comparison to the almost no carbon foot print it takes to get to your table, the better taste of local, real organic more nutrient filled produce picked less then 24 hours before you get it.We/ I just want to convince people it is worth it and that it is not whether you can afford it ,it is that we can not afford not to!

Please,always let us know your thoughts,email, call or stop by.

We hope you love your produce as much as we love growing it for you!

What’s In Your Basket This Week?

• Tomatoes(obviously not vine ripened)
• Carrots
• Radishes
• OakLeaf
• Bulls Blood
• Ruby Red
• Watercress

Nothing new this week and on the lighter side as we recover from feasting Thanksgiving Day!

We are half way through the season it is all down hill from here…..