News and blog
We have one more week left in this year's CSA. Some of you have vacation weeks for this week and/or next week, so you're already finished with CSA. If you haven't taken both of your vacation weeks for this year and want to purchase the last week ($17.00 for Small Shares or $24.50 for Full Shares), let me know by the end of this week.
If you haven't signed up for Winter CSA or Winter Market Webstore, time is running out. Winter CSA and Webstore are only two times per month since we can't grow much during the cold months. But we have lots of local goodies in store for you this winter! You can still eat locally and seasonally even in winter!
This week's CSA contains:
Pie Pumpkin
Red Cabbage
Potatoes
Onions
Garlic
Arugula
Lettuce
Choice
Plus Full Shares have Carrots and Spinach
We've been saving the pie pumpkins to give out closer to Thanksgiving. You just have to make The BEST Pumpkin Pie. It really is the best I've ever tasted!
Or you can make Baked Pasta with Winter Squash and Caramelized Onions with your pumpkin, or any of the other myriad recipes we have posted for pumpkin or winter squash.
For your red cabbage, try Crunchy Cashew Thai Quinoa Salad with Ginger Peanut Dressing or Tangy Red Cabbage.
Arugula would be delicious on a pizza (add it at the end of baking or right after it comes out of the oven, or under other toppings and cheese to keep it from getting crispy), or in Fruit, Nut & Arugula Salad, for Spring or Fall or Toasted Turkey Cranberry Arugula Sandwich.
Full Shares have spinach this week, and it would be great in Chicken (or Chana) Saag. To make it vegan, replace the chicken with chickpeas (to make it chana saag) and the yogurt with a dairy-free alternative. Or you could try Apple Peanut Spinach Salad for a refreshing side dish or lunch option.
Have a great week and try to keep warm! I think I'll go make a cup of chai tea!
Amy
Greetings! This is Week 21 of our CSA season. The last week is Nov. 19/20, which is 3 more weeks. Some of you have elected to use the last two weeks of the CSA season as vacation weeks, which would make next week your last pickup week. If you haven't used both of your vacation weeks and haven't contacted me about when you want to take them or to purchase additional weeks, then I will be sending an email out soon informing you of your last pickup day.
Here is what is in this week's shares:
Potatoes
Sweet potatoes
Radishes
Broccoli
Italian (sweet) peppers
Lettuce
Choice
Plus Full Shares have Carrots and Mixed Greens.
Recipe ideas this week include Braised Red Radishes or Radish Top Soup (don't throw the beautiful tops away!). If you don't have shallots on hand, any onion can be substituted.
Roasted Rosemary Potatoes look like a delicious side dish.
Broccoli Cheese Soup is an all-time favorite. Sometimes I make a big batch and freeze some for easy lunches.
For a main dish, try Red Lentil and Sweet Potato Curry. It calls for spinach, but you could substitute any braising green that you have on hand.
Enjoy your week!
Amy
Greetings everyone!
I've had several people ask me when the CSA will be finished this fall. Well, after today we have 7 more weeks, until Nov. 19 or 20, depending on your pickup day. That's almost 1/3 of the season, so we're not by any means finished yet!
Some of you have not taken your vacation weeks that were built into the CSA this year. Our season is 24 weeks long, but everyone paid for 22 weeks so you could have 2 weeks of vacation anytime throughout the season. If you are sure you will not use them, you can either end your CSA share two weeks early, or you can purchase the additional two weeks, $17 per week for small shares or $24.50 per week for full shares. Just let me know which you prefer.
Here's what's in shares this week:
Watermelon (either crimson sweet or sugar baby--the dark green one)
Sweet Dumpling Squash (a variety of Delicata)
Cabbage
Sweet Potatoes
Onions (Full Shares)
Zucchini
Green Pepper or Sweet Banana Peppers
Cherry Belle Radishes
Choice
Herb
Cabbage...what to do with it? You could make naturally fermented sauerkraut, which is full of probiotics if you don't heat it. It's as simple as cabbage, salt and water in mason jars. Or you could try Carmelized Cabbage Soup or Braised Cabbage with Garden Veggies. If none of these strike your fancy, you can do a search on our recipe page for cabbage and come up with a whole page of options.
Want to spice up your sweet potatoes? Try Chile Spiced Mashed Sweet Potatoes. Add as much spice as you like!
Here's a new take on winter squash: Baked Delicata Squash with Cream and Parmigiano. We're having some delicate tonight for dinner, stuffed with ground lamb, apples, onions, celery, arugula and mushrooms. Yum!
Enjoy your veggies this week! And get outside before it turns colder this weekend!
Amy
Greetings everyone!
I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful fall weather! However, it is bound to come to an end soon. And we are looking toward the end of our Summer CSA season in November and the beginning of our Winter CSA season. We invite you to eat seasonally with us and at the same time support local farmers.
We will again be delivering CSA Shares and Winter Market Webstore orders to several communities around Northwestern Pennsylvania from December through March. They will contain a lot of storage crops like squash, potatoes, onions and beets, as well as fresh greens, lettuce and broccoli as long as the weather cooperates. There will also be some farm-produced products in the shares such as jams and relishes. All of our produce is grown without pesticides and GMOs, and our animals are raised humanely without antibiotics and GMO feed.
There will be one medium-sized share offered this winter, rather than our traditional Full and Small Shares. It will actually be quite large to accommodate the twice per month pickup instead of weekly.
A change this year will be that we will only have twice per month pickup for our Webstore orders as well. We have traditionally offered weekly pickup only in Slippery Rock, but as our member base has spread out we have found that it's not as practical.
Pickups are being planned in Butler, Erie, Franklin, Grove City, Hermitage, New Castle, and Slippery Rock. However, we reserve the right to cancel a location if we don't have enough members.
To learn more about our Winter CSA, click here. To read about our Winter Market Webstore, click here. Remember that CSA Members receive FREE access to our Webstore, so there is no need to join both.
When you join sooner rather than later, you can spread your payments out over the course of the next two months if you need to.
Happy Fall!
Amy Philson, manager
NWPA Growers Cooperative
Hello, everyone! I sure am enjoying this weather! Warm, sunny days and cool nights. I thought we would have an early frost the way it was looking a couple of weeks ago, but it's staying away for a while yet. So that means the summer veggies keep producing in limited quantities. Yeah!
Here's what is in CSA shares this week:
Buttercup squash
Carrots
Sweet corn
Pears
Green peppers
Lettuce
Choice(s)
Herb
Plus Full Shares get delicata squash and arugula.
Enjoy those pears! It has been a difficult year for growing fruit. The peach crop totally failed, and there are very few apples around. Melons didn't do so well this year, either. So we're thankful for the pears!
Here are some recipes to try this week:
Balsamic Glazed Buttercup Squash
And a simple how-to: How to Roast Winter Squash
I hope you have a wonderful week! There are 8 more weeks to go in this season's CSA.
Amy
Hi everyone,
I'm sorry for the delay in sending this weekly email. I usually send it on Wednesday evening so the Wednesday pickup people have the recipes for their shares. But it just didn't get done yesterday. After packing boxes, making a huge pot of spaghetti sauce to can, putting out a whole bunch of fires for CSA and at home, we were eating dinner and Eric announces that we have to catch a bunch of lambs to take to the butcher last night. Our ewes are relatively friendly, but the rams avoid people. So I didn't get this email finished.
Anyway, here's what should be in your share this week:
Full Shares:
2 acorn squash
6 sweet corn
1 lb. beets
1 lb. onions
1 lb. green tomatoes
1 lb. tomatoes
1 green pepper
1 lb. ground cherries
1 head lettuce
2 choice items
1 herb
Small Shares:
1 acorn squash
4 sweet corn
1 lb. beets
1 lb. onions
3/4 lb. tomatoes
1 lb. ground cherries
1 head lettuce
1 choice item
1 herb
Those little tomatillo-like fruits with paper husks are ground cherries. Here are a couple of recipes to try with them: http://nwpagrowers.com/recipe/ground-cherries-recipes
My favorite way to eat green tomatoes is Fried Green Tomatoes.
A different twist on an old favorite way of cooking beets: Rosemary Roasted Beets.
And we have Acorn Squash in the shares this week! Yeah! Try Roasted Parmesan Acorn Squash.
That's it for now. Have a great weekend!
Amy
Hi everyone! It has been a tiring week at my house. Last weekend, we had a wedding reception for our son and his new wife. They were married a few weeks ago, but they wanted a very small, simple wedding with the reception later. So we had family here from Michigan for a few days in the midst of all of our regular stuff. I'm still not caught up, but I'm getting there slowly.
Today when we delivered to Grove City, we discovered that the YMCA is closed for the week for maintenance and the driveway blocked for repaving. Thank you, Grove City members, who had to deal with finding an alternate route in and then find us at a different spot at the Y.
And thanks, too, to Slippery Rock and Butler members who had to wait for the delivery truck, since Eric was running late due to the problems in Grove City.
Hopefully our Thursday route will go more smoothly.
Here's what's in the shares this week:
Sweet corn
Red onions (some of you may have some yellow in there, too)
Heirloom tomatoes
Inferno peppers (hot)
Green pepper
Baby arugula (I love arugula in my salads and in my omelets. I think it smells earthy like mushrooms)
2 choice
Herb
Plus full shares received eggplant and a cantaloupe.
You have everything you need to make a yummy salsa with corn, onions, hot pepper, tomatoes...except the black beans. Even better if you got cilantro as your herb choice!
Other ideas for your share this week:
Tomato, Swiss Chard and Ricotta Calzones (these would be really good with the arugula)
Green Onion Sweet Corn Fritters (you could sub any onion in these)
I hope some of these sound appealing to you! Remember, you can search our website for other recipes to use with your share contents.
Enjoy the heat this weekend! We may just have to turn our air conditioner on at our house!
Amy
Hi everyone! When I got home tonight after helping Eric deliver all the shares today (one of our daughters or another farmer usually helps him, but our daughters have colds and we didn't want them to infect your food, and Jesse is on vacation), I went to turn on my computer to check email and send this weekly email. But one of my children had been playing near the desk and knocked my laptop onto the floor, damaging it. So I can't turn it on, and I can't remember how to check my work email since I have it programmed to download directly to my computer. I can't contact our website company until they open in the morning, and at that time I will be packing boxes for our Thursday deliveries. So...as long as my husband lets me use his laptop tomorrow, if you have sent me an email I will respond sometime tomorrow. If it's urgent, like concerning Thursday's delivery, you can call me. What a wonderful day this has been (insert sarcasm)...but with everything that has gone wrong in our day today (you don't want to know), we got all of the orders delivered on time and no one is hurt :-).
Sorry for rambling. My job is usually enjoyable (at least most parts), but we all have those days once in a while, right?
For those of you wondering, our son's wedding was simple and lovely. They wanted a very small, simple wedding, and that's what they had.
Here's what should be in your shares this week:
Full Shares
onions
carrots
cucumbers
eggplant
tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
beans
lettuce
2 choice
herb
Small Shares
beets
carrots
beans
cherry tomatoes
lettuce
1 choice
herb
Here are a few new recipes for your shares:
Curried Eggplant (small shares will probably get eggplant next week)
Reminder: Don't throw away those lovely beet greens! You have two vegetables in one! Saute the greens in a little oil and season for a quick side dish, or add them to soups or casseroles or omelettes.
Reminder #2: You can search for other recipes on our website by entering an ingredient in the search box.
I hope you all have a wonderful week and enjoy the bounty of summer!
Amy
This weather is definitely NOT end of July weather! Our farmers have been battling rain all season, and we're just not getting any relief. All the rain has ruined some crops and delayed many others. By this time, we should have plenty of tomatoes and peppers, but they just aren't getting ripe very quickly because of the lack of sun. We should have much more variety in our shares, but some veggies got flooded out and had to be replanted. Others just aren't producing like they should. But that's a risk that you take when you join a CSA. You agree to take the risk along with the farmers, not knowing what the growing season will be like. Our farmers are working hard while fighting the weather, and they're getting a little discouraged. But they will keep plodding along to bring you the best that they can produce.
On top of this, virtually all of the peach crop was decimated this spring. The blossoms didn't freeze, but a huge fluctuation in temperature from one day to the next caused the trees to all drop their blossoms. So we will have no peaches for you this year.
Blueberries aren't as flush as in years past, so it looks like one time is all you will get them in your shares. We will try to have a few more in the Webstore, but I know we can't get enough for shares.
So all that being said, we are trying our hardest to bring you satisfying CSA shares. If you're getting tired of something or would like to see more of something, you're welcome to give me some feedback. I would love to put a fruit in the shares each week, but it just isn't possible this year.
Here's what should be in your shares this week:
Lettuce
Cabbage
Red Onion
Red Potatoes
Squash Blossoms
2 Choice
Herb
Plus Full Shares received Green Beans, Kale and Tomatoes or Cherry Tomatoes
Not sure what in the world to do with squash blossoms? You can slice them and add them to a salad. Or you can make Stuffed Squash Blossoms. The website in the recipe tells you all about how to prep your blossoms.
And for your cabbage, how about trying World's Best Braised Green Cabbage?
Roasted Green Beans with Onions and Walnuts looks delicious, too.
Not sure how to dry your herbs that you can't use right away? Here are some great instructions.
If you're ever looking for a recipe (or other info) that's tied to whole food or health and don't want to wade through a bunch of recipes with packaged ingredients, here's a great search portal that I use: http://grannysvitalvittles.com/real-food-sites-google-search-portal/. You can search by ingredient or topic, and it searches through real food-related blogs to find matches. I just though I would share that, since I used it to find some of the recipes for this week.
Happy cooking!
Amy
It's Week 7 of the CSA! We finally have another local fruit available this week (yeah!) Here's what you should have in your box this week:
zucchini
cucumber
blueberries
green beans
lettuce
2 choice
herb
Plus Full Shares received beets, tomatoes, and yellow zucchini.
Here are some recipes to try this week:
Blueberry Coffee Cake
Garlic Green Bean Salad
Chocolate Zucchini Brownies
Lemon Zucchini Bread
Zuchini Summer Squash Skillet
Japanese Cucumber Salad to go in Korean Beef Lettuce Wraps
All of these recipes are available on our website. Click here to go to the recipe page.
Or try Blueberry Zucchini Bread from a past season. You can search for other recipes by ingredient on our website to see some great recipes from past CSA seasons.
I hope you have a great week!
Amy
