Farm News

Let’s talk about glaciers for a moment. Well, really ice sheets. Twelve thousand years ago, most of New England was under an ice sheet one mile thick. No kidding, five thousand feet of ice. That’s hard enough to imagine, but what is even more mind bending is what happened when the climate began to warm, and all that ice started melting. Torrents of water rushed to the bottom of the ice sheet, and flowed in raging rivers that tore at the bare earth, dumped rocks, sand and gravel into little hills, and formed immense lakes. Fort Hill Farm sits on a terrace, which is like a shelf, above the Housatonic river. But at one time, it was a sandy beach next to such a glacial lake. Now, think about what happens when you go to a sandy beach and try to make a moat for your sand castle. You cart buckets and buckets of water from the lake, but you just can’t get that moat to hold water. That’s Fort Hill Farm in a nut shell, our field can take almost all the water that gets thrown at it, and usually we only complain during dry spells when we can’t seem to get enough water poured on our 22 acre beach. But this week, we were crying “Uncle!” to the torrents of rain, and the cool, gloomy days that interspersed the down pours. Big puddles grow in the harvest roads, and never seem to go away. Chinese cabbage heads need so many questionable outer leaves removed that they look like they’ve been on a crash diet. Tense moments in the strawberry patch, as thunderstorms pounded ripe berries. Weeds grow exponentially while our fleet of vintage cultivating tractors rusts idly in the barn. I hate to complain about too much rain, because I know some day soon I will be hoping for more of it, but boy we are happy for any sunny day we get this month.

But despite (or maybe because of) all the water, the greens harvest roles in, with excellent (if gritty) spinach, lettuce, and arugula. Chard and kale look great, baby red and green cabbages are starting to form, and the first small heads of broccoli have been sighted. Our crew is working hard to bring in the harvest, while continuing to tend what we have planted, and get the summer and fall crops in the ground.

Hope you enjoy the harvest.

Paul, for Janine, Aaron, Jake, Sarah, Rebecca, and the Morning Crew.

CSA ANNOUNCEMENTS

-Please be sure to read the newsletter announcements each week! This is our way to communicate with you, our members. Paper copies of newsletters are available at your distribution site, or on line at www.forthillfarm.com.

Check out the newly minted CSA recipe database! Janine spent a good chunk of the winter putting it together, with technical help from my brother in law Jack Prior, and it looks great. Each crop has a brief intro and plenty of recipe ideas to get your culinary impulses flowing. No more hunting through old newsletters for a recipe! To get there, go to www.forthillfarm.com, and click on ‘Recipes’.

Featured this week:

Arugula: a peppery green, great for spiking salads with a little zing. Lots of salad recipes for this one on our web site. If it’s a little to ‘hot’ for your taste, try wilting in oil and tossing with pasta, as cooking mellows out arugula quite a bit.

Chinese cabbage: great in stir fry or Asian salads, see recipe below. Will hold for a few weeks in your fridge, so if you are feeling a little “greened out” this is a good one to tuck away for later use.

Escarole: Essential ingredient for Escarole and Beans, also great in soups, go to forthillfarm.com and check out the recipe database for more info, or see the Haddock and poached escarole recipe below. BOX SHAREHOLDERS PLEASE NOTE: we wrapped the escarole in a rubber band to distinguish it from lettuce! Escarole is a great cooking green, but most folks find it very bitter raw.

Spinach: Courtesy of the spring rains and our efforts to bring your more of Popeye’s, and our shareholders, favorite veg.

Strawberries: Have taken it on the chin a bit with all the rain. But still a decent crop, just not as many as we would have liked. Strawberries available as pick your own (open to all shareholders). Current limit is 2 quarts per share, limits subject to change. We’ll make more quarts available for picking if we can, but the rain and clouds on ripe berries is making picking management a challenge. Check the web site ‘Announcements’ for current limit. Pick your own hours are Tues. and Thurs 2:30PM to 6:30 PM, and Saturday 8AM to noon.

Garlic scapes: if you love our garlic, you’ll at least like our scapes. These are the flowers of our hard neck garlic. We snip them off so the plants put their energy into making a big garlic bulb, rather than a flower. Luckily the scapes are a gourmet form of garlic and are delicious sautéed with other vegetables (great with spinach!). To prepare, cut off an inch of the very narrow whip part, and then line a bunch of scapes up and chop into half inch pieces.

Potentially on the way: bok choy, garlic scapes, lettuce, strawberries, scallions, kohlrabi, carrots?

Recipes (recommendations from Janine):

Poached Haddock with Escarole

Shared by shareholder Anne Zapletal

1/4 cup chopped shallots                                                   2 tsp chopped garlic
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes                                     2 TBSP (approx) olive oil
1/4 cup white wine                                                              1-1/2 cup chicken broth
1 cup grape tomatoes or chopped tomatoes                  1/2 canned cannellini beans (or chick peas)
2 tsp vinegar                                                                         salt and pepper to taste
4 haddock fillets (or other mild white fish)                     1 tsp fresh parsley
1/2 tsp fresh rosemary (use less if dried)                         1 head escarole, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
In a Dutch oven or large ovenproof pan with lid sauté shallots, garlic and pepper flakes in olive oil. Deglaze pan with white wine and chicken broth and simmer 3-4 minutes. Add beans, tomatoes, vinegar, salt and pepper. Simmer another 3-4 minutes. Place fish on top, sprinkle with herbs, and poach in oven for 25 minutes. Meanwhile, steam escarole in 1/4 cup water for 3-4 minutes or until just wilted. Divide between 4 plates, top with fish, tomatoes and beans and serve.

Chicken with Garlic Scapes & Capers,

From Mariquita Farm in California

2 whole skinless boneless chicken breasts, halved
2 Tbsp. Unsalted butter                                                      2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
4 Tbsp. dry white wine                                                        2 Tbsp. lemon juice
4 chopped garlic scapes                                                     1 Tbsp. drained capers

Between sheets of plastic wrap slightly flatten chicken. In a large heavy skillet heat 1Tbsp. of butter and the oil over medium high heat. Sauté until cooked through. Season with salt & pepper. Transfer chicken to a platter and keep warm. Pour off fat from skillet and add the remaining butter, the wine, lemon juice, scapes and bring mixture to a boil. Stir in capers and salt & pepper to taste. Spoon sauce over chicken. Serves 4.

Chinese Cabbage Salad

From Asparagus to Zucchini, a guide to farm fresh, seasonal produce

5 cups shaved Chinese Cabbage 2 TBSP rice vinegar

¾ cup sliced or shredded radish 4 TBSP sesame oil

1 ½ cups chow mein noodles 3 TBSP soy sauce

(the crunchy ones) 1 TBSP honey

1 cup crushed peanuts ½ to 1 tsp dry mustard

¼ cup sesame seeds

Combine cabbage, radish, chow mein noodles, peanuts, and sesame seeds in a large bowl. Mix remaining ingredients and toss with the cabbage a little at a time. Mix in just enough dressing to suit your taste. 6-8 servings.

Fort Hill Farm

Newsletter 2, June 17 2009

Farm News

Poached Haddock with Escarole

Chinese Cabbage Salad