This week begins week 1 of our winter program.  Last Saturday's sleet, blowing sideways at 20 mph, and 37 degree temperatures aptly marked the last pickup of our "summer" season.  My staff had a sad realization of what is to come during our winter deliveries!

This week, I'm sending this e-mail to all subscribed Winter customers and Summer 2014 Customers.  If you have subscribed to Winter 2014-15, you should receive a separate email about your specific pickup location - when, where, and pickup details. 

If you have not yet subscribed for winter, IT IS NOT TOO LATE.  Every year we get a bunch of last minute folks so this week I have 100 extra shares ordered and available for first come first serve.  To reserve one of these, either reply to this email (stating your pickup location) or register for a winter share at http://csalogin.freshforkmarket.com.

Finally, as a reminder the winter program is weekly for the first three weeks, then we go to every-other-week deliveries until Mid-May.  A full delivery schedule, pickup locations, pricing details, and samples of winter bags can be found here:  Winter Share Details

Thanks

Trevor 

Chicken 101 

This week we are featuring a whole chicken.  I start every season off with a whole chicken because I'm convinced it is the most versatile protein and best value that we can offer our customers.  It is also a great way to educate.  Each bird has two chicken breasts, two chicken tenders, two thighs, two drumsticks, two whole wings (4 pieces), and plenty of backbone and meat for soups and stock.  It's a tremendous value! 

In June each year, we teach a popular class titled Chicken 101.  It is a hands-on workshop about how to quarter up, debone, and prepare chicken.  For those who didn't attend, here are some links to help you:

Chicken 101 Recipe Guide

Cutting a Chicken (Page 56-57)

Winter Livestock  

Carrots and Fall Root Crops. 

This is my favorite time of the year for root crops.  Radishes, carrots, turnips, and rhutabagas are so good this time of the year.  The most noticeable difference is in carrots.  Summer carrots sometimes have a bitter note.  Not fall and winter carrots.  The carrots are kept in the ground as long as possible and the crop produces sugars to prevent from freezing.  You'll taste the difference! 

Many of our winter storage crops aren't event harvested yet.  Farmers like David Yoder in Homerville will actually cover their rows with straw or row-covers and wait to dig the turnips, beets, and rhutabagas until the ground is just about to freeze.  While the plant effectively quits growing, it continues to develop sugars and the root stores better in the ground than in the root cellar.  I've spent a few cold winter days in the past helping David pull turnips or cut kale in a foot of snow to fill some last minute orders!   It might sound strange, but it can be fun.  Here's a photo from a late night pickup at David's farm last Christmas..thank goodness for 4x4 with the snow almost bumper deep.

These are two workhorses of the kitchen. They are different cultural adaptations of the same basic concept: aromatic greens cooked long and slow as the flavor base to your braises and stews. If you want to steal a trick from professional kitchens, prepare a bunch of these and store in mason jars in your fridge or bagged in your freezer, so you always have some ready to go. 

Mirepoix: this is the traditional French soup base, and is made from an even mixture of celery, onion and carrot. All chopped to the same relative size (1/4- 1/2" dice), and cooked in butter as the first step to any soup. Read more about it here, or check out Michael Pollan's Cooked from the library to learn more about braising and soups. 

Suppengrün: this is the German version, which translates to "Soup Greens." Their variation uses leek or onion, celery root (a.k.a. celeriac), and carrot. There are two ways to use suppengrün: to make a liquid base for a soup, boil large chunks of each for a few hours, and then discard the spent vegetables. Add some parsley and salt and you have a simple veggie stock. Or, if you're preparing a meat dish or a braise, prep first: peel the celeriac, use only the white and light-green parts of the leek, and discard carrot tops. Chop all three veggies into a small dice, 1/2" dice, and saute in a fat (oil or butter), until aromatic. 

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

2 slices bacon, chopped

2 cups suppengrun (all cut to 1/4 dice: 1 onion, 1-2 carrots, 1/2 peeled celery root bulb or a few stalks of celery)

salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons flour

Herbs for bouqet garni:  10 sprigs each of parsley and fresh thyme, 2 bay leaves

1 lb split peas or lentils, rinsed and drained

1 smoked ham hock

7 cups water 

Melt butter in a 6-qt heavy-bottomed pot. Cook bacon until crisp, transfer to a plate lined with paper towel to drain. Add in suppengrün (onion, carrot, and celery root), reduce heat to medium-low, season with about 1 tsp of salt and cook until soft, about 10 min. Sift flour over veggies, and toast for an additional 3 minutes. 

Meanwhile, make your bouquet garni: using either cheesecloth or kitchen twine, make a small bundle of your herbs. Into the pot add the split peas, the ham hocks and the 7 cups of heated up water. Add in the bouquet garni, another teaspoon of salt, and bring to a boil over high heat. Once boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook until the peas are tender (1 hour.)  

Remove the pot from the heat, and discard the spent herb bundle. Transfer the hocks to  separate plate or carving board, and let cool for a few minutes. Use an immersion blender to blend soup to desired consistency-- I like to take out about half of the soup and only puree the half still in the pot, then add back in the textured soup. Once the ham hocks are cool enough to handle, chop up the meat and discard the fat, skin and bones. Add the meat back to the soup, taste to adjust seasoning, and serve with reserved bacon sprinkled over top.