Roots and Frozen – Winter Farm Share Week 8

Roots and Frozen describes our Vegetarian Pilot Winter Farm Share Week 8 beautifully. I think frozen describes my brain because I forgot to post about the January 29th share! I have no idea how that passed me by, other than the last two weeks have been exceptionally busy. I was really excited about this share, too, taking a bunch of pictures of it when we got it in. I used some of the vegetables immediately but I blindly forgot about the fresh pasta, so I’m thankful I was on the ball with that and froze it. I still need to go through the fridge and tally any losses but I don’t think it’s major.

Week 8 our small Vegetarian farm share included (featured photo at top of this post is full vegetarian share)…

Frozen Corn
Frozen Tomatoes
Frozen Green Beans
Frozen Strawberries
Fresh Pasta – whole wheat and tomato basil (one to make up for the missing black beans last week)
Ratatouille – canned 1 quart
Peaches – canned with honey 1 quart
Butternut Squash
Acorn Squash
Daikon Radishes – 1 lb.
Parsnips
Cabbage – Napa
Carrots
Rutabaga
Onion – red

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of just the fresh vegetables. Aren’t they beautiful?

Of course, I need to give the packaged farm share items equal time. What do you think? Am I making you hungry?

My half of the Vegetarian small share Week 8 (above photo) and what’s left since Friday, January 29, 2016…

Frozen Corn
Frozen Tomatoes
~~Frozen Green Beans~~ – my parents took these for their half
~~Frozen Strawberries~~ – my parents took these for their half
Fresh Pasta – whole wheat and tomato basil – 1/2 package of each – in the freezer
Ratatouille – canned 1 quart
~~Peaches~~ – canned with honey 1 quart – we ate these with frozen yogurt – yum!
~~Butternut Squash~~ – my parents took this for their half
Acorn Squash
Daikon Radishes – 1 lb.
Parsnips – half
~~Cabbage – Napa~~ – I still have one of these, so my parents too this one
Carrots – half
Rutabaga – half
Onion – red

RESULTS…

We added some round steak the week in-between farm share pickup weeks. I experimented with a skillet round steak with this recipe. It was pretty good but still a little too tough for us. It sure looks pretty, though, doesn’t it? I want to try it again, but in the slow cooker next time and see if it is more tender. I really should get a pressure cooker for the cheaper cuts of meat. But before I do that, I need to master my convection oven.

I also made my Vegetable Beef Soup (recipe coming soon) to fine tune the recipe, plus to do a photo shoot of the steps and ingredients. I’ll work a bit more on perfecting that to share with you soon. It’s one of our favorites and it works really well with winter vegetables.

I was really excited about the Parsnips while I was washing this week’s share because of the smell. The more I scrubbed, the more the sweet scent called to me, sort of like extra sweet carrots. I sliced off a piece to eat raw because I was so curious. They’re like an earthy carrot when eaten fresh. I roasted them, sliced thin, with the leftover Brussels Spouts, which I neglected to photograph, and they were delicious. I had no idea that I’m so fond of Parsnips. They also store really well in the veggie drawer in the refrigerator with a dampened paper towel. They turn out really sweet and crunchy like chips when sliced thin and roasted. The photo above was taken before giving them a good scrub with the vegetable brush. They come out a lot whiter when you do that. I did not peel them — just sliced them thin, tossed in some olive oil, then seasoned with salt and pepper. I think they’d be good with dill as well. The remind me of sweet potato chips in a way – they’re sweeter than carrots but also more earthy.

As far as the frozen, we ate the corn from last week easily in a couple of dishes. Then we used the tomatoes from last week in two dishes, including in a Greek scramble with feta cheese and black olives. I like having these frozen pints or quarts where I can scoop out a bit for this meal and then that meal, not really worrying about cutting up fresh. I’m happy to have this week’s frozen to use in the near future.

It’s hard to believe but almost everything from Week 7 (above photo) is gone. We loved that share. My brother-in-law devoured the Candied Jalapeno Peppers as soon as he got them. I did the same with the frozen Blueberries, defrosting a few every morning to go into my oatmeal. That’s my new obsession! We had to toss a couple of the pears because we didn’t eat those fast enough. I seem to easily forget about the pears for some reason. I love them so I’m not sure why I don’t remember we have them. We love the Candy Sweet onions so they go really fast. I believe I used the leeks in the Greek scramble too. We like having a Greek scramble for dinner sometimes. It’s an easy to fix meal that makes us both happy. Olives and Feta have become our new passion to zip up flavor, so they land in our salads, on our spaghetti, and in our scrambles. Yup, black olives on spaghetti. Yum!

That’s it for the January 29th share, which is the last one we’ll pick up on Fridays. We moved to a Wednesday pick-up this past week. I’ll post about that share in a couple days, so don’t let that confuse you. I’m behind/forgetful, but the shares are still two weeks apart in the winter.

We just paid for our second half of the winter share which begins in February, so I’ll be reporting on that through the first part of May. Then we’ll get super excited to start the Summer Share that we’ll be participating in for our second season! Sign up with Fresh Fork Market and we’ll compare notes each week!

What’s your fork, knife and spatula been up to? Happy eating!