Pennypack Pickings
Volume 12, Issue 17 | November 21, 2014

WINTER SHARES SOLD OUT
Many of you missed this opportunity... 2015 June-November shares will go on sale soon.. be sure to sign up early so you do not miss out!
Watch your email......

Cleaning Out Your Basement or Garage?

If so, and if you have a vacuum or shop vac in good, working order that you no long need. We'd love to put it to good use.

Contact Diane

BEANS & BEAN SOUP

Tuesday, December 9

$15 - REGISTER ONLINE

Traci Opdahl of Amazing Healthful Foods will teach Bean Basics Plus and show several bean dishes. Beans are super easy, once demystified. Beans are high in fiber and good-quality protein. Beans and Greens are one of the best sources of calcium and potassium. Food must be delicious, first, but it should also be healthful. Come and learn how to do both!

THE HIGHLANDS

UPCOMING EVENTS

Arts & Craft Show

November 22 & 23

Field House at

Germantown Academy
Click here for more details

Lunch with Santa

December 7, 12:30-2:30pm

Reservations Required

Click here for flyer with details

ENDIVE/ESCAROLE SALAD

by Harm Scherpbier

No more fear of the giant Endive heads!

Take a head of Endive and rip it in half. Use half for this salad, and store the other half for later in the week. Break the leaves off the head & remove some of the thick bottom parts.

Wash very very thoroughly & dry. In small batches, stack some leaves on a cutting board and cut into fine strips. It should look like shredded paper, thin ribbon strips, green and yellowish. Add simple olive oil / vinegar dressing ( I use the standard Paul Newman Olive Oil and Vinegar Dressing - that's best for this salad). Pour some dressing over the shredded Endive, toss - done. You can of course add other things - salad turnips, beets, whatever - but I think this salad is best by itself with the simple dressing.

Learn more about Escarole (Endive) here.

Join the facebook group, The Pennypack Community Kitchen, which was created by member, Kinu Nardini. The group shares recipes, preparation ideas & more throughout the season.

Click to join the group

PENNYPACK FARM
FEEDS THE COMMUNITY

We just finished our tally of food donations for this season. We topped 4,600 pounds of fresh, organically grown produce to area food cupboards. Pictured above is a sample of one week's donation to Loaves and Fishes Cupboard in Jenkintown.

In recognition of our contribution to feeding the community, we were just awarded a grant of $15,000 from the Leo and Peggy Pierce Family Foundation to significantly increase our programs that provide fresh produce to low income families in Montgomery County! We are deeply honored to receive this grant.

We have some big plans... we will be asking you to support our new initiatives.. watch for more!

SEASONAL FARM UPDATE

by Farmer Devin Barto, Horsham Farm Manager

The summer CSA has ended but we are continuing right along. We have been busying bringing in the root crops for winter storage. This has been a laborious process as we carry heavy sacks of turnips, squash, potatoes, rutabagas, beets, watermelon radishes, cabbages, and sweetpotatoes up and down steps and in and out of trucks. Our coolers and root cellars are stuffed full of winter produce. It is a good feeling.

tunnel This first week of the winter CSA started very cold, right where we left off last year. We are expecting a cold winter. Our greenhouses are off to a good start, and our field tunnels are covering chard, kale, collards, and lettuce.

We've had nice crops of potatoes, rutabagas, squash, turnips, beets and carrots. Our Napa cabbage also did quite well and we have a fair quantity in storage.

Once the Thanksgiving share has come and gone, we'll be looking ahead to crop planning, seed ordering, and fixing up our machinery for another summer season.

We had a good season with great food, a great staff, great members, great volunteers, and workshares too. All the folks who contributed the farm this season, all the little things that people did, from picking bugs off potato plants in June, to washing out harvest bins, to fixing fencing, pulling a weed, dropping of a lunch to the farmers, getting a thank you from a member, putting together the harvest fest, donating to silent auctions, picking up plastic out of the fields, to harvesting nearly 12,000 bunches between both farms. It is astonishing that all this work gets done and all the people that have contributed to the success of Pennypack Farm and Education Center. It is truly a community organization.

Thanks for a great 2014 season from the all the farmers.

ACTS OF KINDNESS

by Diane Diffenderfer, Education Director

You know how it feels to get a great email, a memorable piece of correspondence? In August I received a particularly nice note. Here's a snippet, "...My daughter is turning 7 in September. In lieu of birthday presents this year, for her party we would like to ask her friends to bring gifts we can donate to an entity that has to do with nature. We are members at Pennypack and my daughter, Ruby, is a real lover of nature." Ruby and her friend Siena both teamed up for this project.

Donating supplies In my response, I suggested art supplies for the Edible Classroom. One of the birthday girls has attended several of our Tuesday morning kids classes and, aside from eating tomatoes, peas and anything else she could pick, she loved creating works of art.

Turnip eating Recently, the girls brought the donated art supplies to The Highlands. We sorted through all the marvelous items then took a walk through the fields. We picked and ate Red & White Russian Kale and salad turnips. The girls smiled the entire time and would have happily stayed all day!

It's moments like this that serve as a reminder of the varied acts of kindness that happen around us everyday. It's also a clear message of why what we do is called "Community Supported Agriculture".

Thank you and have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.