Next Thursday is Thanksgiving so we will be holding csa pick up on Tuesday from 4 -6. Load up on good thanksgiving meal ingredients—sweet potatoes, pumpkins, onions, garlic, leeks, and potatoes for mashing. Add some tasty brussel sprouts to the spread for something green.

The recent cold snap has been a good impetus to switch gears on the table as well as the boot rack—from meals planned around fresh greens to heartier winter fare. It’s suddenly smells and feels delightful to have a pot of soup slow cooking on your stove for the afternoon, or a pan of squash and roots roasting away in the oven.

It’s also a great season to get into baking bread and pastries. We are in the process of cleaning this year’s wheat (that giant trailer that we’ve all been avoiding banging our knees on in the csa room for months), and have milled up the first batch into whole wheat flour. We have also milled some soft white wheat that we bought in, which makes a lighter, but still whole wheat, pastry flour.

These flours are different in the protein and thus gluten content—the higher the protein the more gluten. Higher gluten is great for making bread, lower gluten is better for pastries, cakes and cookies. Both of our flours are whole grain, the bran has not been removed prior to milling. This makes it much healthier for you since most of the nutrients are in the bran. Bakers often suggest sifting out the bran since it’s stemy-ness can damage the gluten strands in your dough, impeding its rise. But, the bran can be saved and used too—sprinkled over oatmeal, or baked into muffins and pancakes. You can also reintegrate it into your bread by rolling the loaves in bran before baking, adding a nutty crunch to the crust and putting the nutrients back in.

In the Farm Shares

In the veggie share: brussel sprouts, winter squash, leeks, kale, white, blue and fingerling potatoes, garlic, red and white onions, green, red and savoy cabbage, carrots, beets, wheat berries, whole wheat regular flour and pastry flour. Next week: sweet potatoes.

In the meat share: Pork, beef and chicken in the freezer. Lard and leaf lard for holiday baking.

Sara Kurak
Full and By Farm

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