Newsletter – October 9, 2018

Dear Friends of the Farm;

This is week 18 out of an 18 week season. You should get Yukon Gold Potatoes, yellow cooking onions, turnips, garlic, bell peppers, Canario peppers, jalapeno peppers, green tomatoes, Black Beauty tomatoes, red popcorn and celery.

The green and black tomatoes will continue to ripen on your counter, but it may take up to a week or two depending on how warm your home is (considering the current cold temps outside). Green tomatoes are excellent fried. Slice then cover with flour; dip into a beaten egg then place into a second mixture of ½ flour & ½ cornmeal. Now sprinkle with salt, pepper and paprika (can add to flour/ cornmeal mixture) and fry until golden brown. Eat as hors d’oeuvres or in a BLT.

Our celery is pretty potent; you may not like eating this raw. But it is fantastic in soups, stews and stir-fry’s. Anything you put this into, you are going to know there is celery in it! The leaves are wonderful dried and kept for later use during the winter. I simply wash any sand off then place on a paper plate and air dry until crisp, crumble & store in a jar.

2018 Review: May and June are our biggest months for planting new crops; both by seed and by transplant. They were also two of the hottest months Colorado has seen…possibly record breakers! Keeping things watered and alive was difficult. We had record breaking weather through the middle of July with many days/weeks hitting 100 degrees or more. It was difficult to germinate seeded crops and is the reason you did not get any green beans and only a few weeks of corn this summer. It is also the reason muskmelon was picked for the first time in our lives at the end of June! Most of our summer crops came on four weeks earlier than crops we used to pick in the 1990’s. Then we had a small lull in production in September because it cooled off so much in August and delayed the ripening process. But of course, it warmed right back up in September and we had a wonderful ending to the season with fresh, wonderfully sweet, corn!

Fundraiser update: We are nearing the end of our fundraiser through Gofundme. We will keep this open through the end of the month. All donations of $100-$149 will automatically be entered into the drawing for a free Winter Share. (Just as a reminder, Winter Distribution begins Nov. 1st and we still have shares available!) Donations of $150 or more will also be entered to win a free Summer Share for 2019! We will draw our winners for the Winter Share on the 21st and the Summer Share on the 28th. Please remember, any amount helps and we are so grateful for your support. If every member were to donate just $21, we would meet and/or exceed our goal of $14,000. Visit our Gofundme page to learn more.

The first 25 members who donated to the Gofundme account will receive a hat or t-shirt this week through the Distribution Center. Thank you again for all your help in raising funds for the no-till planter!

Goodbye and thank you! Feeding people is our passion. We are committed to providing the best tasting organic produce you have ever eaten. We have fed thousands of people and donated thousands of pounds of produce to people & communities around Northern Colorado throughout the years. We have never done anything so important or made us as happy. Thank you for being a part of this! We love you all and appreciate your support more than ever! We cannot exist without our members; who happen to be the most passionate people about supporting local farming and eating organic produce. We are looking forward to being your farmers in 2019. Have a wonderful, restful winter and think of us when you pull out vegetables from the freezer.

Jerry, Jacquie, Kyle and Crew

Newsletter – October 2, 2018

Dear Farm Members,

This is week 17 of an 18 week season. You should get Yukon Gold Potatoes, yellow cooking onions, red beets, daikon radish, turnips, squash or cucumber, bell & anaheim peppers, tomatoes and possibly melon.

Fruit, Honey & Oil: This is your last delivery of all three of these items. You will be getting Empire apples as well as Bartlett pears from First Fruit. I hope you have enjoyed everything; it was a pleasure working with Rancho Durazno, Ela Family Farms and First Fruit as well as Lazy Bee Ranch and Healthy Harvest.

Fundraiser: The fundraiser continues to be a huge success with donations almost daily! The GoFundMe account has accumulated $5900. The tour, dinner and two raffles raised another $4450. Then add the donations coming directly to the farm making a total of another $1300 equaling a smashing grand total of $11,650!!! This is an incredible show of support from the most amazing members a CSA could possibly have! You are the most wonderful people imaginable and we thank you from the very bottom of our loving hearts. Kyle is astounded and appreciates this enormous generosity! He cannot wait to share with you this new piece of equipment and continually show updated pictures (on Facebook and Twitter) of the experimental area of the farm we have set aside for this project & what it (hopefully) will do for us.

Many requests were made for the recipe from the Green Chili soup we ate…so here it is!

Sopa de Chili Verde

1 pound pork shoulder
1 pound green tomatoes
1/2 tsp coriander seed
1 cup organic wheat flour
1/2 pound of your favorite green chili peppers
1 tbsp. molasses
1 tbsp. cumin
1/2 pound onion
1/4 cup honeydew melon (optional)
1/2 tbsp. salt
4 large cloves garlic
1 tsp pepper
1/2 cup roughly chopped cilantro
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp. mustard seed

Pork:

Mix flour, salt, pepper and cumin. Dredge meat in flour mixture. Heat a skillet to medium high, add olive oil. Once there is very light smoke coming from the skillet, add pork and brown on all sides. Set oven to 200 degrees. Place pork in a roasting pan covered in foil and slow roast overnight. Remove and let cool. Pull apart pork into bite size pieces and add to the chili verde sauce. Heat and serve or allow to slow cook for up to 4 more hours.

Sauce:

Peel and coarsely chop onion. Peel garlic. Lightly coat chilies, tomatoes, onions and garlic with olive oil and place on a cookie sheet. Roast in the oven @ 375 degrees until the chilies blister (about 1/2 hour). Remove from oven and let cool. Once cooled, blend mixture and add cilantro, molasses and honeydew while mixing. If it will not all fit into one blender batch, pour it into a mixing bowl or stew pot and mix batches together.

You can also cut the pork into pieces and brown and then add it directly to the chili verde and let it stew for several hours over low heat on the stove top if time is an issue, however I strongly recommend slow roasting for larger shoulder roasts.

This recipe was greatly reduced to a family size. Some adjustments may be needed after cooking the first time to accommodate your preferences!