CSA Fall Newsletter: December 5th, 2022 (Week 5/7)
Howdy Folks,
This week you’re getting Japanese purple sweet potatoes. Although this variety is commonly referred to as Japanese, the variety was created in Louisiana. The name refers to the color combination of purple skin and white flesh and super sweetness.
Whenever we cook sweet potatoes we bake them whole on a cookie sheet until some of the sweet sugary syrup starts to come out of the potatoes. They are perfect at this point. Baking them in a 400º oven usually takes them between 45-1 hr. Make sure you see sugar oozing from them and they are easily pierced with a fork.
If you have any carrots and radish from last week, now is good time to do a standard herby roasted root dish. Dice up all roots to the size you like to eat them; Turnips, beets, carrots, garlic, potatoes. Throw them into a bowl and cover with a little olive oil, herbs of choice (or no herbs!), salt and pepper. Bake at 350 degrees for larger pieces for approx 1 hour or 375-400 degrees for smaller pieces for 45 minutes.
We heard from some people in Pittsburgh that the state of produce in the grocery stores isn’t great at the moment. I’m not sure if this is true in general, but it was for her b/c she bought a lot of food. Although this is a scary thought for health overall, it isn’t bad news for our business and certainly isn’t bad news for folks such as yourselves that have already secured a connection with a produce farm.
CSA, and better yet, produce farmers, are not perfect. We try our best to offer the combinations of vegetables that seem to make sense with availability and season. We’d love to always offer the show stoppers, but the season dictates and we try our best to push the margins. With that said, I feel very fortunate to have fresh produce albeit December fresh produce. Fresh vegetables now feel extra special to us. I hope you all feel the same.
We have 2 more weeks left of the Fall CSA season after this weeks box. We have a good deal of vegetables we’re protecting that are destined for your veggie boxes. At this point, they are all in hoophouses with extra ‘blankets’ that we pull on and off every day. This will protect them well into the teens. I’m crossing my fingers the weather holds up.
Your Farmers,
Chris, Aeros and The Who Crew