Hi there!
Hello, Week 9! We're rolling into the end of June and we have an enormous bag in store for you all this week, filled to the brim with the best of summer produce-- tomatoes, eggplant, beans, melon, zucchini and so much more. Also, you might want to bring your umbrella to your stop, because we are finally looking at a little bit of rain.
We hope you're getting into the groove of using up your bag each week, but especially as we near the peak of harvest season, the bags just get bigger and more bountiful. A few helpful habits to get into to use up your share:
PLAN IT
Come up with a loose meal plan for the week, or at least a few big batch meals you can cook once and eat a bunch. This week, you could make a chilled melon soup, ratatouille, and a huge batch of quesadillas or burritos.
PUT IT UP
Start freezing or putting up what you can't use within the week. Check out our "
Preserving the Bounty
" Recipe guide.
CLEAN OUT
Commit to a weekly fridge clean out so nothing languishes in your crisper drawer and gets, well, un-crisp. Get inspired by following
#fridgegoals
and
@blisshaus
on Instagram.
SEE IT ALL
Switch to mesh cotton bags to store produce and transition to glass containers for storage (use Painter's or Washi tape to label), so you can quickly see what you have in stock.
Have other tips you want to share with us and your fellow Fresh Forkers? Send them in to info@freshforkmarket.com so we can all take advantage!
|
|
Check out the tasty Peach Salsa that
@cle_alltheway
served up this weekend. What are you all cooking next?
|
|
REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE & COMPOST
First off, thank you Sandy for the great question about we what reuse, recycle and compost as part of our sustainability efforts. Recycling and reusing are both environmentally friendly and economically practical for us. In the most simple form, we recycle cardboard and paper at the warehouse. Each week we literally create tons of waste in the form of broken down cardboard boxes. The waxed boxes, which are water resistant and good for produce, are saved, sorted, and sent back to the farmers. The traditional corrugated cardboard is set aside. Each Monday, Mike hauls a 24 ft truck full of cardboard to the recycling center. The payout from recycling is minimal - in fact, we call it the beer fund for the staff- but obviously this is one of the easiest products to recycle.
At the warehouse, any food scraps (cut off beet greens, carrot tops, or unsellable produce) are saved to be sent back to the farm for adding to the compost or feeding to the chickens. The "chicken bucket" concept is also utilized at Ohio City Provisions. When we break down meat, we save all the non-edible scraps-- connective tissue, sinew, and soft fat. Also, when we finish a batch of stock, the cooked bones, meat scraps, and vegetable scraps are also saved. Instead of putting all this in the dumpster, we haul it back to the farm to either add to the compost heap or give to the chickens. They love the scraps, and it's a particularly important protein in the winter when insects aren't readily available. After they've finished with them, any bones and remaining scraps are mixed in with the chicken manure, straw, saw dust, and other debris and added to the compost heap and eventually all the organic material breaks down and the nutrients are spread back on the field.
At the farm the collection and compost of animal waste is important. It has a tremendous fertilizer value, particularly in adding nitrogen to our fields. Nitrogen promotes green growth - vegetative growth that allows the plants to bear fruit or just produce large, healthy edible leaves (like celery, kale, or lettuce.) Conventional farmers use nitrogen derived from ammonia and carbon dioxide, such as urea or ammonium nitrate. Those range up to 46% nitrogen and give immediate results. Nitrogen in compost varies, but generally falls in the 2 - 3% range, and is often not readily available. The value of compost is the total package of nutrients added to the soil, microbes, and organic matter that will help long-term water holding capacity and soil tilth. The healthier the soil, the healthier the food.
While we can't take your food scraps or compost back at Fresh Fork or Ohio City Provisions (check out
Rust Belt Riders
for more information on composting in the Cleveland area), you can help our total recycling package by
bringing back egg cartons
and
empty, clean glass mason jars to be reused
. Please discard the lids on the mason jars as we do need to use new lids for canning.
What else do you want to know about? Email questions for Trevor to info@freshforkmarket.com and we'll try to include answers in the following week's newsletters.
|
|
Pigs & piglets chowing down on some #2 apples that can't be used in your shares, for cider or sauce... but they're still delicious!
|
|
Some reminders from our office
|
|
BAG CARE
As we pack the bags, our packers try to weed out any bags that are ripped, stained or too dirty to be used. So first off, if you ever get a bag that's in terrible shape, we apologize for missing it, and you can either toss it, or bring it to your stop and let us know so we don't put it back into the mix.
Also, we'd appreciate you doing the same, especially if you're using your bags for anything else during the week (i.e. laundry, kids or pets playing with them, other shopping.) Please return your bag cleaned off and ready to be repacked!
VACATION CREDITS: USE WITHIN 4 WEEKS
As part of our membership benefits, we allow up to four weeks of vacation from the share per customer (
click here
to read about how to schedule a vacation and more policy details.)
When you get back, the value of your bag is automatically added to your account as a credit. It cannot be used to pay off an existing balance, but it can be used to purchase extras going forward. You do need to spend at least $1 of the credits within four weeks of your return to maintain their full value-- after four weeks, the value cuts in half. All credits expire at the end of the season.
COLD TO COLD
If you ever have a doubt over where something should be stored, just pop it in the fridge. Our produce is very recently harvested, and since harvest has likely been in cold storage. If an item comes to you cold, try to keep it cold, and use it up within the week. Once we get closer to the fall and the temperature outside (and in our kitchens!) cools down a bit, there are many more items that can go into dark/cool storage in a pantry-- things like onions with a paper wrap and winter squash. But for now, try to keep everything that came to you cold in the fridge, if you have the room.
|
|
|
COOKING DRIED BEANS
Chef Parker Bosley is our resident champion of dried beans; he just loves them. Here are some of his tips for making delicious beans from scratch at home:
His general advice is to cook the whole package all at once, and then to freeze in individual portions (1-2 cups) in their liquid for easy cooking use. Also, the cooking time (for the 'Long Cook' stage below) varies based on what type of bean you are cooking and what type of pot you are using.
|
|
SIFT AND SORT
Spread the beans on a tray, and push them around with your hand. Pick out any broken pieces or pieces that look damaged, or anything that is not a bean. Shake the tray to look for pieces of bean shell or other impurities and discard them all.
SOAK OVERNIGHT
Rinse the beans well, then place the beans in a bowl and cover with cold water, about 2 or 3 inches over the beans. Soak overnight, or for 6 to 8 hours.
QUICK BOIL
Strain the beans and rinse. Place the beans in the cooking pot, cover with water and bring to a boil quickly. Boil for a couple of minutes, turn off the heat and and strain.
LONG COOK
Rinse the pot and the beans once more, and add the rinsed beans and more clean water back to your pot. Bring to a boil again. Skim for a couple of minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low (so it just bubbles occasionally) and add some ½ cup each of diced onion, carrot and celery, 1 bay leaf and 1/2 tsp of dried thyme. Taste, after an hour or so, for doneness- when you can press a bean up against the roof of your mouth with your tongue and smash it, it’s done. If the beans are starting to burst, turn the heat down.
Do not add salt until the beans are cooked (it will break them down.) Optional to add some meat stock or vegetable stock here. If you are using vegetable stock or water add a couple of teaspoons of tomato paste.
IMPORTANT NOTES
Always keep the water just under a boil with an occasional bubbling. A hard boil causes the bean to burst. You will note that these beans cook in less time that most commercial beans, for two reasons: first, these were recently harvested (the past Fall) and hand-shelled, and then they were not artificially dried with heat, but instead allowed to dry naturally.
|
|
We have a bunch of extra produce for sale this week, and likely for the weeks to come. If we have more that comes in from the farm, we will also bring it out on the routes for sale.
This is the perfect time to start canning!
Today you can place a Special Order for:
|
|
|
- Banana Peppers- 1/2 bushel for $20
- Fresh Peaches - 1/2 bushel (22#) with crate deposit for $34
|
|
Some of
@farmsteadblooms
flowers at the Rocky River pop-up last week, and now available for Special Order!
|
|
THE MINI
Sweet Corn - 4 ears
Cantaloupe
Green Peppers - 2
Bunching Onions
Tomatoes
|
|
SMALL OMNIVORE
Sweet Corn - 4 ears
Cantaloupe
Green Peppers - 2
Bunching Onions
Tomatoes
Black Beans - 1 lb
Yellow Wax Beans
Cilantro - 1 bunch
Chorizo - 1 lb
|
|
LARGE OMNIVORE
Sweet Corn - 4 ears
Cantaloupe
Green Peppers - 2
Bunching Onions
Tomatoes
Black Beans - 1 lb
Yellow Wax Beans
Cilantro - 1 bunch
Chorizo - 1 lb
Blueberries - 1 pt
Ham Hock
Corn Crackers
Hot Sauce - 1 jar
Red Potatoes - 3#
|
|
SMALL VEGETARIAN
Sweet Corn - 4 ears
Cantaloupe
Green Peppers - 2
Bunching Onions
Tomatoes
Black Beans - 1 lb
Yellow Wax Beans
Cilantro - 1 bunch
Eggplant - 1
Blueberries - 1 pt
Zucchini - 2
|
|
LARGE VEGETARIAN
Sweet Corn - 4 ears
Cantaloupe
Green Peppers - 2
Bunching Onions
Tomatoes
Black Beans - 1 lb
Yellow Wax Beans
Cilantro - 1 bunch
Eggplant - 1
Blueberries - 1 pt
Zucchini - 2
Corn Crackers
Hot Sauce - 1 jar
Red Potatoes - 3#
Eggs - 1 dozen
Broccoli - 1 head
|
|
VEGAN
Sweet Corn - 4 ears
Cantaloupe
Green Peppers - 2
Bunching Onions
Tomatoes
Black Beans - 1 lb
Yellow Wax Beans
Cilantro - 1 bunch
Eggplant - 1
Blueberries - 1 pt
Zucchini - 2
|
|
Recipes featuring this week's share ingredients
|
|
|
|
|
|
|