Slipping into fall

After a couple additional weeks of 85+ degree days that made it still feel like summer on the farm, lately the weather has been shifting towards fall. The crops, following the weather, are also shifting--summer crops tapering off as fall crops start to come into harvest. Traditional fall crops like garlic and the kitchen herbs thyme, sage, and chives, kick off this week, and we will continue the harvest on kale and storage onions.

The Onion of the Week this week is the beautiful cipollini, a traditional Italian variety with an eye-

Red and yellow cipollinis

catching flattened shape. My culinary guru Deborah Madison has some good general advice on the topic of cipollinis that I posted last year:

"While you can do all those things with cipollini onions you do with your basic storage onion, they're an onion to be featured whole [because of their unique shape], not just used as an ingredient. It makes sense to cook them in a way that showcases their form, such as braised with rosemary and sage, pan roasted, oven roasted, or grilled. They make a special treat to offer friends and family. The only challenge to cipollini is in peeling them. I find it works best to drop them into a pan of boiling water for a half minute or so, then carefully pull back the skins and cut them off along with part of the root. Or you can pour boiling water over them, then slip off the outer skins after taking away a thin slice at the base."
---Deborah Madison, Vegetable Literacy

Along with our own fall crops this week, we also have some treats from local farms. Since potatoes don't do well in our soil here (reasons like soil pH, high organic matter from use of animal-based compost, and the farm-wide presence of the soil-borne potato plant pathogen Streptomyces scabies), we don't grow them. However, on my family's farm in Easton, they grow quite well. So for the second year, we're buying our potatoes in from there. In addition to the lovely red and yellow potatoes, we'll also have delicious and crunchy carrots from Second Nature Farm in Norton--you might know them from the Hingham Farmers Market, where they sell on Saturdays. 

Reminders of the Week

Tuesday is Farm Fresh Yoga day for the rest of the season! Come to the Yellow House on Tuesdays at 5:30pm for your weekly yoga fix! Free for CSA members and sliding scale donation to our Food Access Fund for friends and neighbors and coworkers.

This is the last week for ugly tomatoes--time to get your sauce on! Email me to reserve a box--20lb for $20.

Our end-of-season harvest celebration will be Tuesday, October 27th this year, starting at 6pm. Potluck and BYOB, it's a fun and DELICIOUS evening--mark your calendar!

Garlic drying in the Red Barn loft

Looking ahead to the winter, we're thinking of putting together a Weir River Farm CSA cookbook with recipes for all the veggies of the season. If you have a recipe you love and you'd like to share, please email me or bring a copy to CSA pickup any time. We're looking for delicious, seasonally-inspired, relatively simple, and fool-proof recipes. Thanks!

In your share this week: the last of the tomatoes and tomatillos, peppers, garlic, cipollini onions, hot peppers, kale, Langwater Farm certified organic potatoes, and Second Nature Farm certified naturally grown carrots. Pick Your Own this week is flowers and thyme, chives, or sage.


Recipe of the Week

Sweet-and-Sour Cipollini, Small Red Onions, and Shallots with Raisins
Deborah Madison in Vegetable Literacy

Deborah's note: Choose large shallots, small onions, and cipollini in whatever size you can find them. Add a few pearl onions as well, if you have them. All the different sizes and variations in shape are handsome together. Balsamic vinegar is a fine choice here because its sugars will contribute to the glaze. Serve the onions warm or at room temperature as a side dish or as part of a meze plate.

Rory's note: We'll have shallots and onions (including small ones) in the share in upcoming weeks, once those kinds are finished drying in the greenhouse. If you want to hang on to your cipollinis until you have all the ingredients, they will last in a cool, dry, dark place for months.

1 lb mixed onions (see headnote)
1 Tbs butter or olive oil
1 thyme sprig
1 bay leaf
4 sage leaves, or 1 tsp minced rosemary
4 large shallots, the sections separated
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1/3 c. port (can be Zinfandel port)
1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
1 Tsp honey or brown sugar
1/3 c. golden or dark raisins, or a mixture of raisins and dried currants
1 c. light chicken stock or water, plus more if needed

Peel the onions and leave them whole except for the small red onions. Cut those in half lengthwise through the root, unless, of course, they're very small. Chances are the layer beneath the papery skin will be stringy and inedible. It will also detach itself from the rest of the onion when it cooks. If you take off that first layer as well as the skin, the stain and flavor of the port will penetrate better.
Select a pan just large enough to hold everything in a single layer and melt the butter with the thyme, bay, and sage over medium-high heat. Add the onions and shallots, jerk the pan back and forth to coat them with the butter, then season with a few pinches of salt and pepper. Add the port, vinegar, honey and raisins, then pour in the stock. When everything has begun to simmer, lower the heat, cover the pan, and cook for 10 minutes. Give the onions and shallots a turn and re-cover the pan. Continue cooking in this fashion until the liquids have thickened to a syrupy glaze, about 20 minutes in all, possibly shorter or longer depending on the size of the onions and shallots. Pierce a few of the larger pieces with the tip of a knife to make sure they are tender. If they don't seem soft enough, add a little more stock, re-cover the pan, and cook until reduced to a syrup. Do this as many times as needed.
Serve the onions warm or at room temperature.

Super spicy Caparino hot peppers!