week 15

Cooking in Season
Week 15

So I’m pretty sure it wasn’t picking the jalapenos that burned my hands, face and eyes last week, but a random pepper row in my boss Marty’s garden with “semi-hot” something peppers that turned out to contain quite a bit more capsaicin than expected. I had a bowl of Marty’s wife’s pasta with just half of one of those peppers chopped up in it and it heated up the whole giant pot. Wow. Maybe I’ll be pickling those with some super gloves on for cutting without injury. My sister cut them in half and stuffed them with cream cheese, sausage and cheddar on top. Delicious! So hot though that I had to keep eating them for the burning to subside.

Our first round of picking and crushing at my vineyard went amazing last weekend! It was a couple 14 hour days (thanks Janice for helping) with two different picking and crushing crews, but we made it and the wine is happily fermenting in giant vats, releasing happy yeast blurps (I call them yeast farts) as we speak. Round two is this weekend and after popping out a rib somewhere in between getting attacked by the 700 pound sow a few weeks ago and climbing in and out of fermenting tanks, I feel like I’m being held together by a shoestring. The good part about this time of the season though is bittersweet: soon the hard work will be over… but then comes the depressing snow and long winter.

Speaking of which, it’s winter squash season finally. We’ve got carnival squash, spaghetti, acorn, and a couple butternuts. I had some blue hubbards, but the chickens snuck into my garden and hollowed them out. The carrots are coming in now too, which makes for perfect soups. Add in some onions and sweet potatoes and it’s really starting to feel like fall with winter soups quickly on the horizon. I got some peppers from Greenfield Organic near Wooster after loving their tomatoes last weekend and am very pleased again. Red peppers take so long to ripen that they tend to be on the top of the list for pesticide laden crops on supermarket shelves so very worth it to buy organic, just as a sidenote.

Sweet corn is here again. I don’t even know what round this is but my bosses are really on top of staggering their plantings. The yellow type is Bodacious, which I am very not impressed with. The stalks only got 4 feet tall (anyone want mini corn shocks?) and only one out of every 4 stalks produced an ear. You’d think after all that, they’d taste amazing, but they’re just ok. I think they’re getting shucked and going in my freezer to be brought out when I forget how good fresh sweet corn is. And I’m never planting that again. The bi-color is from Nick’s garden is Now That’s Delicious, and it lives up to it’s name. I picked it last night and it’s still fresh and sweet. - I tell you all the names and when they were picked because you have no idea when you go to a roadside stand what type it is and how long ago it was picked or if it was in the prime or too old or what. It’s quite a gamble and knowing you like yellow, white or bi-color really isn’t enough. So this year the winners were Now That’s Delicious and the early batch of Temptation was amazing, so now if you stop at a stand, you can ask the type and when it was picked and hopefully you’ll avoid some mealy mix of sweet and feed corn like I’ve been subjected to in the past. Next year is another round of trial and error in the race for the best sweet corn. So much to learn!Oh, and my sister went to the grocery store and confirmed allegations of a shortage in pumpkin pie filling, so take those pie pumpkins and harken back to an earlier time before canned pumpkin pie filling began. My grandma says fresh pumpkin pie tastes terrible, but she likes green beans from a tin can so what does she know.

Hopefully you all have been squirreling away the extra veggies from the past 15 weeks and throwing them in the freezer, in cans, or in a root cellar. It’s been a really great year, although the end usually has been far more productive but I think lack of rain really has us limping to the finish line this year. Our lettuce is up and the winter crops are growing well. Our hens lay a little bit through the winter and then kick into high production in the spring time, so email me if you’d like some eggs in the off season and I’ll try my best to keep up.

Next week, no newsletter and it’s BYOB – bring your own basket. Take only what you like and what you can use. We’ll pull up everything we’ve got left that’s ready for you all.Thanks for joining this year! It was another great season. Email me if you want any garden help this winter… or just want to chat. I go through CSA withdrawal when pickup stops. Yes, I’ll miss you all. Have a great winter. -Janee