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 What's in the box this week?
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Greetings!
There are still a few tickets available for our first-ever Blossom Festival this Sunday,
March 14th. The orchards are in full, beautiful spring bloom, and
we're really looking forward to spending a day with many of the members of our CSA
program.
In
this week's box, you'll find Fuerte and Hass avocados, navel oranges, Pink Lady apples,
Murcott mandarins, and Meyer lemons, all organic, of course. This is the very last week for apples;
starting next week, we're hoping to start bringing in some very special
cherimoyas from Southern California. Those of you who have been CSA members for
a while will remember these remarkable subtropical fruits with their scaly
dinosaur-green skin, shiny black seeds and fragrant, custard-smooth flesh.
 Our
organic navel oranges come from Tulare County, south of Fresno, near Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Tulare is the
country's number-one producer of oranges, supplying the rest of the U.S. (and
the world) with quality citrus fruits. Wintertime is the best time for citrus
in a Mediterranean climate, and so while the rest of the country looks out at
snow and slush, we've got an abundance of Vitamin C-packed fruit to choose
from.
It
may seem like a long way until cherries and apricots, but in just about 8 weeks,
weather permitting, we should begin harvesting our first early-season
stone fruits, including delicate apriums and Brooks cherries.
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Mark Your Calendars!
Two weeks from now - on Tuesday March 23 -
Frog Hollow Farm will ship spring Holiday CSA boxes!
The Holiday boxes give us a chance to share many of Becky Courchesne's fantastic kitchen treats with you. We're still working on the "menu" for this box, but in the past Holiday boxes have included small batches of new flavors of conserves, dried FHF fruit, and sample bottles of FHF's organic extra virgin olive oil.
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Recipe of the Week
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Three
Citrus Marmalade
If
you don't want to bother using special canning jars, you can just fill any
clean jars with the hot marmalade mixture, let cool, then seal and store in the
refrigerator. This recipe is adapted from Well
Preserved by Eugenia Bone.
1 grapefruit
3 navel oranges
3 Meyer lemons
5 cups sugar
Remove zest (just the colored part of the rind) from 1 orange and
2 lemons using a vegetable peeler. Cut into matchsticks. You should have about 1 cup
of rind. In a medium pot, cover rind
with 3 cups of water. Bring to a simmer and let cook until rinds are tender,
about 25 minutes. Let cool.
Meanwhile, slice rind and/or white pith off the fruit. Slice fruit
in half and remove seeds. Make sure all bits of bitter white pith have been removed. Chop fruit finely by
hand or grind in a food processor to a chunky pulp.
When rind is cooked, add fruit to rind and water. Let rest in the
refrigerator for 2 hours.
Pour fruit mixture into a wide, deep pot. Add sugar, stirring
well, and cook on medium-low for about 30 minutes. Skim foam as it arises. If
you have a candy thermometer, cook mixture until it reaches 220F. If not, pour
a little marmalade on a plate and stick it in the freezer for a minute or two.
If it sets and wrinkles when you push it with a fingertip, it is ready.
If canning, pour mixture into 4 sterilized half-pint (8 oz)
canning jars. Seal with two-part canning lids. Process in a boiling-water bath
for 10 minutes. Remove from water and let sit, undisturbed, for 6 hours, until
completely cold. Check seals before storing in a cool, dry place. Marmalade may
look runny at first but it will usually thicken within a day or so.
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