Week 12

Happy Thanksgiving week! We are so very grateful for all of you - for your commitment to choosing local and sustainable vegetables and very specifically for choosing us to be your farmers. We get so much joy from from filling your boxes each week with our produce. We know that you have many options to choose from regarding where you get your food, so we want to express our gratitude to you for choosing Sundog!

FARM NEWS

Next week we will be taking Monday off and that means that your farm box letter will come out on Tuesday and that you will have a shorter than usual time for customizing your share (Wednesday morning at 8 a.m.).

We grow a few unusual crops because our customers love them, and this is one of them. It is parsley root! It's an indispensable item for soup according to our customers with European/Eastern European heritage.

The temperatures have dropped. We've had a heavy frost on the farm, and now we bundle up in order to do field work. This is especially true for our staff from Mexico - they are dreaming of warmer climes at this time of year for sure. We are wrapping up field work in the next couple of weeks, and Macedonio, Lucio, Jose Juan, and Juan Carlos will be flying to Mexico on the 22nd. We are incredibly grateful for their expert contribution to the farm this season!

Two kales and some clover! A photo of our living pathways in action. This is what we like to see - all plants and no exposed soil. Exposed soil doesn't have the capacity to sustain healthy bacterial and fungal life, and it is also begging for weed seeds to take root!

We moved James's office from our (rather small) mobile home to upstairs in our barn loft. Here he is hard at work entering inventory to build farm shares; behind the office you can see part of our squash harvest. It was a mediocre year in terms of yield for squash.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

This week I want to share some of my favourite ways to prepare cabbage! We have a lot of beautiful cabbage at the moment and it will feature in the next week's of shares. We grow a couple types of green cabbage - one is considered a summer or early season type, and the other is a storage or winter type. Both are doing well on the farm this year, which is why we will have plenty for your shares in the next few weeks. The summer variety is slightly more tender and has finer leaves and ribs than the winter variety. The winter type tends to be dryer, although I find that with the no till method of growing them, they are pretty juicy and sweet as well. 

Cabbage is super nutritious, pretty affordable, and it's beautiful and tasty!

I love cabbage so much that I painted one last year!

Both types of cabbage are perfect for making the following things:

Sauerkraut - one of the simplest things to prepare with cabbage, but it does require patience and a bit of natural magic. Simply shred a good amount of cabbage, add 1.5-2 tsps of salt per 1 pound of cabbage. Massage the cabbage and salt in a large bowl until juices are released. Put into a crock or mason jar. Cover the jar or crock in such a way as to submerge the shredded cabbage in its own salty brine and allow to sit until it is fermented to your preference. You may need to burp it, or release the gases that are created, every few days. I never cook or pasteurize my sauerkraut so that we get the benefit of all the microbes we need! If you want more information about fermenting, I like the approachable work of Sandor Katz.

Coleslaw - this is the simplest salad I make for my family and everyone seems to enjoy it. It is the easiest thing to whip up on those busy nights when making a salad seems like too much work. I shred the cabbage with a sharp knife, grate a carrot if I'm getting fancy, add a dollop of good mayonnaise (no miracle whip allowed!!) a splash of apple cider vinegar, LOTS of black pepper, freshly ground, and sea salt. So easy and delicious. I know sometimes folks add sugar, but our cabbage is so sweet already, I don't think it's necessary.

Cabbage Hot Dish - I don't know what else to call this one. It is another of my made-up dishes that developed based on what I often had on hand - cabbage, bacon and onion! It relies on simple, basic ingredients and the magic is in the cooking chemistry - the way the cabbage slowly caramelizes and becomes beautifully umami. 

Ingredients: bacon, cabbage, onion (one onion per medium sized cabbage), butter, salt, pepper and thyme(optional) Amounts are totally variable and adjustable for how many mouths you are feeding and how much bacon you prefer;)

Sauté the diced bacon in a very large heavy bottomed dutch oven or pot (I like cast iron for how it cooks things) until the fat is rendered and the bacon is crispy. Set aside the bacon and reserve half of the bacon fat in the pot.  Add a Tbsp (or more) of butter to the reserved bacon fat and in the same pot on medium heat sauté the diced onion until it's translucent. Add all of the cabbage, in batches if necessary as it melts down. Adjust the heat so that the cabbage doesn't cook too quickly. Add some salt - but take it easy as the bacon will create quite a bit of saltiness. I like to cook it low and slow so that it caramelizes. You will find that the bulk of the cabbage reduces dramatically! When the cabbage is finished cooking (there is actually not a right or wrong here either - less cooked just means it will be a bit crunchier but don't be scared to let the cabbage take on some colour) adjust the seasoning and add lots of fresh black pepper. Add the bacon. You can add parmesan too if you like. Serve with meatballs and mashed potatoes or just on its own. This is one of our son Silas's favourite dishes!

REMINDERS AND GENERAL TIPS/INFORMATION 

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