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| | STORE NOW OPEN YEAR ROUND! | THURSDAY - NOON to 6pm
SATURDAYS - 10 am - 4pm
(Closed Thursday 25th and Saturday 27th November)
Please Note: Store open Wednesday 24th only.
Thanksgiving is around the corner! Starting early November you can reserve your Diestel organic turkey for pickup on Thursday 18th; Saturday 21st or Wednesday 24th. (Note: we are closed Thursday 25th and Saturday 27th to celebrate Thanksgiving!)
Outer Aisle FOODS & GOODS |
| 2010/2011 CSA SIGN-UPS
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Want to receive baskets of vegetables and fruits fall, winter and spring? Benefits of Becoming a Member:- Enjoy local and seasonal fruits and veggies all year round
- Fresh, high quality, home-grown flavor
- Bi-weekly fall, winter and spring deliveries to convenient drop off locations near you
- Your choice of the size bag for your needs: mini, basic and full sizes. Add on fruit, roots, and greens
- Access our on-line web store for many more essential items
- Cancel when you are out of town
- Supplement your own garden, you grow greens: we have roots and fruits!
- Lower your carbon footprint. Save gas, we deliver to you
- Support local growers, producers and makers.
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News From Outer Aisle
Last week in October, 2010 |
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Highlights of the Week!
Carrots and beets are the star of the show for the next couple of weeks. The cooler weather brings out the sweetness and crunch in carrots. Eaten raw, cooked in a soup, steamed by themselves they are an essential ingredient this time of year!
The promise of cauliflower and broccol i follow in the footsteps of this old favorite. You never thought that cabbage could be sweet until you've tried Early Jersey Wakefield. The parent seed was Introduced from England to New Jersey in 1840 and appeared in American seed catalogs since 1870. In 1888, Burpee reported it to be the most common early cabbage planted. It's popularity carried well into the early 1900's and even to this day. It's unique conical shaped heads are tender, crisp and sweet.
Don't forget we'll have 20lb burlap bags of potatoes on special for $20 for the next couple of weeks!
In the store this week, we'll be well stocked with the following:
- Winter Squash: Red Kuri and Green Kabocha, Butternut, Acorn and Delicata
- Sweet Potatoes: Hanna, Oriental, Red Garnet and Beauregard.
- Apples: Fuji and Jonathons
- Grapes: Crimson and Autumn flame
- Pomegranites, persimmons and a few figs
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Community Supported Agriculture
Our CSA program has grown over the years both in numbers and design. Community Supported Agriculture is unique in that it serves the community and farm at the same time. Our success at farming is largely a result of the community that supports us.
This year with the opening of the store, we have something of a hybrid system in place whereby members are free to shop at the store, delay their delivery start date and use their credit to purchase what they need. And other members, living further afield receive their delivery bi-weekly - with an active subscription they now have access to our new webstore for ordering extra items.
Last week we launched our new webstore and messed up a little with the timing. Be sure to check it out before next week's delivery. Webstore hours: Friday through Tuesday night. You must have an active subscription (ie. receiving a delivery to shop through the store). New items will be added in the next few weeks.
If you are considering becoming a member, we encourage you to join. Please contact us for more details on the hybrid system or Join our 2010/2011 Season today.
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PANTRY HIGHLIGHTS: Last week we raved on about coconut and hopefully inspired some of you to look further into this unique oil and all of it's healthy byproducts. This week we saw the arrival of the 2010 almond crop. It arrived UPS at our door and immediately we tore open the box and had our first taste of the new season. A truly fresh dried almond has that wonderful almond essence flavor and these are bursting with that flavor much to our delight.
A quick search on the internet yielded this information. In short they are an excellent source of protein, they contain a diversity of phytochemicals (help protect from heart disease and cancers), as well as anti inflammatory agents. They have a favorable effect on blood cholestrol levels and boasted to be the best wholefood source of Vitamin E as well as zinc, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium and folic acid.
We'll have organic fresh almonds available at a great $6 per pound price.
RECIPE of the Week!
Baked Sweet Potatoes (for hungry busy people!)
4 medium sweet potatoes, even in size
butter (optional)
salt and paprika or cinnamon sugar
Scrub sweet potatoes. Arrange potatoes on oven rack and bake at 450° for 35 to 45 minutes, until tender.
Remove at once and prick with a fork to let steam out.
Cut a 1 1/2-inch cross in the center of each potato.
Hold each potato with pot holder and press upwards until filling "bursts" up through the cuts.
Mashed Sweet Potatoes (try this for Thanksgiving!)
4 medium white fleshed sweet potatoes (Hanna's or O'Henry's)
salt and pepper
butter
Peel and cube sweet potatoes, boil until very tender. Combine with butter, salt and pepper and mash until creamy.
Sweet Potato Muffins (recommended by one of our customers)
Makes 24 muffins
1 1/4 cups plus 2 TSP sugar
1 1/4 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1/2 cup chopped raisins
1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Thoroughly grease 24 muffin cups or prepare with paper liners. Preheat oven to 400 F. Beat 1 1/4 cups sugar, sweet potatoes and butter until smooth. Add eggs and blend well.
Sift together flour, baking powder, spices and salt. Add alternately with milk to sweet potato mixture, stirring just to blend; do not overmix.
Fold in raisins and nuts. Spoon into muffin cups. Mix remaining sugar with cinnamon and sprinkle over muffins. Bake until muffins test done, about 25 to 30 minutes. Serve warm.
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Vegetable Profile:
Sweet Sweet Potatoes: Did you know that 95% of all sweet potatoes in California are grown in Merced county? Did you know that sweet potatoes per pound are one of the top nutritious vegetables, so much so that they are included in a list of Top 10 Super Foods? And, did you know that there are many types of sweet potato  ranging from the white skinned, white fleshed to the bronze red skinned, orange fleshed varieties?
We were about to find out all about sweet potatoes as we sat down family style to the a menu of sweet potato everything. On a whim, we bought tickets to attend the Slow Food event celebrating the Sweet Potato. In torrential rain we navigated our way to the event, near Livingston, (north of Merced). Washed gravels and fine granite silts from ancient glaciated Yosemite Valley make up the soil structure in this part of the valley; ideal growing conditions for the sweet potato. Unlike potatoes, the sweet potato is a swollen root from the plant, Ipomoea batatas, and a member of the Convolvulus family.
Early on in our farming career we experimented with a wide variety of crops, including sweet potatoes. They are planted from slips that are propagated from the sweet potato themselves and in the spring of that year (1997 or so) we found a grower by the name of Sweet Potato Joe, an old time rancher and sweet potato grower who helped introduce the white skinned variety, Hanna Gold to this country. As the story goes, it was picked up in Mongolia along a roadside many years ago and brought back in a suitcase to the Merced area where it became one of the mainstay varieties grown today.
For the past three years we have been purchasing organic sweet potatoes from a grower, Quail H Farms, near Livingston. Typically we would get three varieties, the Red Garnet known for its sweet orange and juicy interior, the Hanna Gold, white fleshed, especially good for mashed potatoes, and Beauregard, another orange moist fleshed variety. This year we received several boxes of an Oriental variety with deep purple skin and white flesh. We always like trying new things and being busy tired farmers after a day in the garden, we simply baked them in the oven for 45 minutes. The result; a creamy sweet caramelized delight, with a texture reminiscent of a baked banana. Going back in time to my New Zealand past the taste reminded me of Kumara, the name of the variety of sweet potato that was brought over with the first Polynesian immigrants to New Zealand over 1,200 years ago, and a popular vegetable today, one that often graced my family's table growing up.
Needless to say the dinner was amazing! Pizza topped with caramelized sweet potatoes, raw grated sweet potato and cabbage coleslaw and white fleshed mashed sweet potatoes were the highlights! The room was packed with farmers and sweet potato growers, who on occasion throughout the dinner would get up and espouse the virtues of sweet potatoes and enthusiastically share their favorite recipes. We even met the great grand daughter of Sweet Potato Joe, who apparently is still alive and still growing sweet potato slips.
According to the Sweet Potato Council of California, sweet potatoes are an excellent source of Vitamin A and C and B6. A medium sized baked sweet potato provides about twice the daily intake of Vitamin A and over 40% Vitamin C. High in complex carbohydrates and fiber, low in sodium and calories. Bon Apetite!
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What's Up In The Garden
We welcome the rain! Rain brings rest to all, replenishes the dryness of summer, rejuvenates all and marks the turning of the seasons. We are especially relaxed knowing that our garlic beds were made ahead of the rains and some of them even planted. With three inches of rain and cool temperatures to follow the chances of the soil drying out enough to shape 2 foot high beds is very slim. Timing is everything and we are very grateful for the help from our two interns and others for pushing it to make this happen.
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 Outer Aisle FOODS & GOODS "Essentials for the 21st Century".
Our mission is to facilitate a speedy transition to a sustainable
economy by offering the essential tools, ingredients and knowledge to
prepare us for the 21st century.
Behind the scenes of Outer Aisle is Taylor
Mountain Gardens. Located just around the corner on Main Street in
Douglas Flat, our nearly two acre "beyond organic" farm produces a large
variety of seasonal vegetables including these seasonal highlights:
summer heirloom tomatoes, fall cauliflower, winter carrots and spring
potatoes to name just a few!
OuterAisle FOODS operates a year round CSA (Community
Supported Agriculture) program. We distribute the highest
quality, local, seasonal and regional produce and products to members
all over Calaveras and Tuolumne Counties. We only purchase product from
farms and producers who are committed to ecologically sustainable
practices and go beyond the National "Organic" standards.
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