We only have a handful of CSA Farm Shares left and are now enrolling children for our summer day camp, called FARM CAMP! See our homepage for details!

Farm Update:

What did we do this week? Well, besides harvesting for 200 families and keeping up with weeding, we got ready for our farm dinner! Here's what the barn looked like at 7:30 p.m. Friday night:

And here's what it looked like just 14 hours later...ready for an elegant farm dinner!:

The event was a great success. The chefs did a fabulous job and Judging by the exuberant, smiling faces, everyone had a great time!

Our Grassfed Ribeyes on the grill...	Peaches & our Pork...
Our watermelon with basil  & a balsamic reduction...	Blueberry tarts  with fresh lemon cream...

OK, back to farming... Here's a sneak peak at what's growing!:

We're looking at a promising winter squash harvest provided we don't have a soaking wet fall like last year. Last season all growers in New England suffered lost crops of rotting winter squash and pumpkins because of the continual wet weather. It's been much drier this season (too dry!) and the winter squash are loving it!

What's in this week's share:

'Elegance' Salad or Braising Mix
Beets
Lettuce Mix or Lettuce heads
Tomatoes
Basil
Summer Squash
Cucumbers
Kohlrabi

Please note: Last week was our final week of flower shares for this season. Since we still have beautiful flowers in the field and today we'll be offering "Pick-Your-Own Flowers!" Gladiolas will be $1 per stem and Zinnias and all other varieties will be .50 cents per stem. We'll have scissors here you can borrow, but you may want to bring your own clean vase or jar!

ALSO: CSA Farm Share Renewals for next Summer will begin this week!

RECIPES:

Ingredients

Crust

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" cubes
• 3/4 cup buttermilk

Filling

• 2 pounds large ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into 1/4" slices
• 2 1/2 cups coarsely grated extra-sharp cheddar (8-9 ounces)
• 1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan (1/2 ounce)
• 1 scallion, trimmed, chopped
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 tablespoons cornmeal

• Special Equipment

  Use a 9"-diameter glass or ceramic pie dish

Preparation

Crust

• Whisk first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl. Using your fingertips, rub in butter until coarse meal forms and some small lumps remain. Stir in buttermilk and knead gently with your hands until dough forms. Wrap dough in plastic and chill for 1 hour.

Filling

• Lay tomatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with 2 layers of paper towels. Place another 2 layers of paper towels on top of tomatoes. Let stand for 30 minutes to drain.
• Preheat oven to 425°. Roll out dough between 2 sheets of plastic wrap to an 11" round. Remove top layer of plastic wrap. Invert dough onto pie dish. Carefully peel off plastic wrap.
• Toss both cheeses in a medium bowl until evenly incorporated. Reserve 1/4 cup of cheese mixture. Whisk scallion, mayonnaise, dill, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper in a small bowl.
• Sprinkle cornmeal evenly over bottom of crust, then top with 1/2 cup cheese mixture. Arrange 1/3 of tomatoes over cheese, overlapping as needed. Spread half of mayonnaise mixture (about 1/3 cup) over. Repeat layering with 1 cup of cheese mixture, 1/2 of remaining tomato slices, and remaining mayonnaise mixture. Sprinkle remaining 1 cup cheese mixture over, then remaining tomato slices. Sprinkle with reserved 1/4 cup cheese mixture. Fold overhanging crust up and over edges of tomato slices.
• Bake pie until crust is golden and cheese is golden brown, 35-40 minutes (check crust halfway and tent with foil if it's getting too dark). Let pie cool at least 1 hour and up to 3 hours before slicing and serving.
• Editor's note: This recipe reflects the change made to the amount of buttermilk in the crust.

Read More http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/08/tomato-and-cheddar-pie#ixzz24nVSDyRv

Kohlrabi Pickles:
courtesy of CSA Member Michelle Sherillo 

click here for a link to the recipe PDF for Kohlrabi Pickles

Pickled Kohlrabi:

courtesy of CSA Member Michelle Sherillo 

click here for a link to the recipe PDF for Pickled Kohlrabi

RAWMAZING RECIPE CORNER! 
Brought to you by raw food enthusiast apprentice Tara

Squash-guine with Marinara Sauce
Serves 2 people

* Squash-guine: This “squash-guine” is a delicious gluten-free alternative to white pasta. 
Take 2 squash - any squash variety works great! The squash will become your “linguine”. Peel the skin off, and then use the peeler to create strips of squash-guine. See picture of final result. 
* Marinara Sauce: This cold marinara sauce tastes like the best cooked Italian tomato sauce you have ever had--I promise! In a food processor, place all of the following ingredients and process until smooth:
1 ripe tomato, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 red bell pepper
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon fresh basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
i clove garlic chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
dash black pepper
* Mix the squash-guine with the sauce right before you are ready to eat. The squash-guine will let off water, which will dilute the sauce, so you do not want it to sit too long before eating. Enjoy!

“It’s Good to Be Green” Smoothie
This is not a smoothie for the faint of heart - it is green, green, green, and therefore packed full of nutrition and benefits for you! But don’t worry, it is delicious and you will love how it tastes and how it makes you feel.
- Handful of “Vitamin Green” leaves, try to use between 6-8, if the taste is too “green”, reduce the number of leaves
- 1/4 of a pineapple, skinned and cored
- Handful of strawberries
- 1/2 cup cold water
- Blend it up and serve it cold on ice... delish!

SOLD OUT !
New for 2012! Introducing...
Devon Point Farm's ‘Endless Summer’ Early Winter CSA Farm Share
Saturday Pickups, 10 am – noon • 8 weeks:  Oct. 20 - Dec. 8 • $200 per share

Our Winter CSA Farm Share Sells Out in just over a week!

Summer days are shortening and autumn is just around the corner. Mid-October brings Connecticut’s first frost, which also coincides with the close of our summer CSA. But this year, as your memories of summer fade and the holiday season approaches, your dinner table can continue to bask in the final rays of summer sunshine! We are introducing the ‘Endless Summer’ early winter CSA at Devon Point, which offers you 8 weeks of root vegetables and a variety of greens all grown in the late summer sunshine.  Membership is limited to 50 shares, and pick-up will be held every Saturday morning  at Devon Point Farm from 10am -12 noon starting Oct. 20 and running through Dec. 8. Vegetables in the winter CSA will include potatoes, winter squash, onions, lettuce and salad mix, carrots, turnips, beets, radish, cabbage, pac choi, broccoli, mache, broccoli raab, arugula, mustards, spinach, and a variety of unique greens that add a nutritional punch to your diet--and are impossible to find at the grocery store--such as mizuna, claytonia, and minutina. As always, we will send you a weekly newsletter with information about your vegetables and recipes for you to learn how to prepare new vegetables.  This will be our first year growing and harvesting post-freeze. We are excited to offer you fresh, locally grown, non-GMO, nutritionally dense, beyond organic vegetables through mid-December that capture the summer sunshine. But there is also a risk associated with a new service, and as always, we are grateful to you our farm members for accepting this potential risk with us.

What's Out in "Left Field?"

To keep things simple, we names our fields after the baseball field. "Home field" is the one closest to our house. "Center Field" is between home field and Pulpit Rock Road, it is full of Pumpkins and Winter Squash this year. "Right Field" is on the right as you are driving out our driveway with our barn behind you. Behind the barn in the new area where the cherry tomatoes and eggplants are located is "The Dugout." And that brings us to "Left Field"...

There's another 6 acres of vegetable hidden away from view on left field. Leeks, Kale, Potatoes, Onions...

We're harvesting the onions right now and will be drying them and storing them to include in your shares in future weeks. I love onions!

My  most challenging job is making sure that you have a balanced share of vegetables with a nice variety. I aim to give you eight different vegetables each week. Despite all of my winter planning, my excel spreadsheets, and following my planting schedules to the day, some vegetables are just plain old uncooperative! So a vegetable like onions is a stress-reliever for me. When I have a week that I may not have as much diversity to select from in the field, I can share the beautiful onions!

There are sunflowers tucked out in Left Field. They serve two purposes... they attract the pollinators to the field which then go on to find the squash flowers and tomato flowers. Without our bee hives and our native pollinators, our vegetable yields would be far lower! We can also harvest the beautiful sunflowers! 

Part of making sure there are vegetables throughout the season is successionally planting. These squash planted in left field show how we've kept starting seeds and transplanting every 2 weeks to keep the summer squash, winter squash and pumpkins coming!

There are thousands of row feet of tomatoes in left field! We planted well over 1,300 tomatoes on the farm this year, some in the hoophouse, cherry tomatoes in "the dugout" are behind the barn, and then over 900 just in left field alone!

What's in Your Share:
Tomatoes
Zuchinni & Summer Squash
Cucumbers
Arugula or Lettuce or Mizuna (Asian Greens)
Cabbage or Peppers
Kohlrabi
Radish
Carrots

NOTE: ONLY 4 TICKETS ARE LEFT FOR THE FARM DINNER on AUGUST 25th!! Get yours today on our website: www.devonpointfarm.com

WANT CHICKEN? Our chicken is $7/lb and birds are about 6.5 lbs. Grain fed, no hormones, no antibiotics and no medicated feed. Email or call Patty if you want one or several, they are selling out quick!

What is a Kohlrabi?

These little sputnik-shaped vegetables come in green or purple, can be eaten raw or cooked, and taste a lot like broccoli stems. The word kohlrabi is German for cabbage turnip (kohl as in cole-slaw, and rübe for turnip) though kohlrabi is more related to cabbage and cauliflower than to root vegetables. We usually eat them raw, just peeled, sliced and added to a salad, but they are also delicious cooked and are often used in Indian cuisine. You can eat Kohlrabi raw julienned in salads, or make "Kohrabi Chips" by slicing them thim, brushing on olive oil, sprinkling on salt & pepper and baking them in a 425 degree oven until they are a little crispy. Or try one of these recipes below!:

KOHLRABI & APPLE SLAW with CREAMY COLESLAW DRESSING

DRESSING
1/4 cup cream
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon good mustard
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Salt & pepper to taste - go easy here
Fresh mint, chopped

1 pound fresh kohlrabi, trimmed, peeled, grated or cut into batons with a Benriner
2 apples, peeled, grated or cut into batons (try to keep equivalent volumes of kohlrabi:apple)

Whisk cream into light pillows - this takes a minute or so, no need to get out a mixer. Stir in remaining dressing ingredients, the kohlrabi and apple. Serve immediately.

ROASTED KOHLRABI

1 1/2 pounds fresh kohlrabi, ends trimmed, thick green skin sliced off with a knife, diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon garlic (garlic is optional, to my taste)
Salt
Good vinegar

Set oven to 450F. Toss the diced kohlrabi with olive oil, garlic and salt in a bowl. (The kohlrabi can be tossed with oil and seasonings right on the pan but uses more oil.) Spread evenly on a rimmed baking sheet and put into oven (it needn't be fully preheated) and roast for 30 - 35 minutes, stirring every five minutes after about 20 minutes. Sprinkle with a good vinegar (probably at the table so the kohlrabi doesn't get squishy).

About Tomatoes…

Did You Know?

• That tomatoes (a member of the Solanaceae “nightshade” family) were considered poisonous by many people until the mid 1800s!

• Americans eat more tomatoes per person than any other fruit or vegetable (except the potato, thanks to French fries)

• There’s almost twice the amount of vitamin C and beta-carotene in a homegrown, vine-ripened tomato than is in a commercial market tomato that is picked “mature-green” and ripened with ethylene gas! 

How to Make Sun-Dried Tomatoes: 

If you are lucky enough to have a food dehydrator, this is very easy. Just slice the tomatoes into ¼ inch thick dials. Place on racks and  let dry on a low heat setting until they start to get leathery. Flip them over and continue drying until the consistency you like. If you get them crispy-dry you can store them in a lidded jar or plastic ziplock bag. If you leave a little moisture in so they stay leathery, then you will have to freeze them to keep them from getting moldy. If you tomato slices get moldy, throw them out. If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can successfully dry them on the same racks you would place cookies on to cool, or on a screen. You can dry them out in the sun (cover with cheesecloth to keep the bugs off) or in your oven on low heat, flipping often.

I like to try new and exciting things with my tomatoes! You can use any dressing you like!:

Curried Zuchinni Soup 
a Martha Stewart recipe courtesy of share member Laurina Young

A cup of this soup is delicious, served hot or cold. To chill quickly, place soup in a bowl, and set in an ice-water bath, stirring frequently until cool. Laurina made it with summer squash as well and liked it!

Ingredients

                  1 tablespoon olive oil

                  1 medium onion, chopped

                  Coarse salt

                  2 garlic cloves, minced

                  2 teaspoons curry powder

                  1 1/2 pounds zucchini (about 3 medium), sliced 1 inch thick

                  1 baking potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks

                  1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted, for garnish

Directions

1. .    Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and 1 tablespoon salt; cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft, 4 to 5 minutes. Add garlic and curry powder; cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 1 minute.
2. .    Add zucchini, potato, and 4 cups water. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and simmer until vegetables are tender, 10 to 15 minutes.

In batches, puree soup in a blender (do not fill more than halfway) until smooth; serve immediately, or let cool, and refrigerate in an airtight container until chilled. Garnish with toasted almonds.

What's happening on the farm?

WHAT IS THIS?? This 'deep purple' carrot came up out of the ground with a little more than dirt clinging to it! Look closer, it's not a diamond ring (unfortunately)... it a beer-can pull tab, buried deep in the ground, most likely from the farm's previous owner Bob Joy. Bob last farmed this land well over 20 years ago and he was a well-loved bachelor who was known to like his beer! We've found remnants of Bob's beer cans and sardine cans all over this farm, but this is by the most unusual location to date! We often wonder if Bob is looking down at us from heaven, would he be proud of how well we're taking care of his old farm?

What the pigs don't eat... our four little piggies can only eat so much! When we rip dead cabbage plants out of the field after harvesting the cabbages, there's too many for the pigs to eat so we pile them up and make compost to fertilize our fields with next season!

Weeding... My mom always said there's only two things that were inevitable in life, death and taxes.... I think she forgot about weeds! (above, Tara & Kate weeding swiss chard, below, Chris weedwhacking along fencelines)

 
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!!!

On June 19th, Erick Taylor, owner of Devon Point Farm was interviewed on WINY 1350 AM. 
Click the link above to listen! Special thanks to the Woodstock Agricultural Commission for
inviting us to be interviewed! 

On Monday, March 5 at 6:30 pm, I'll be giving a presentation on "Getting Healthier by Incorporating Fresh & Healthy GREENS" as part of Day kimball's "Healthier By Spring" Workshop. For more information on the Workshops, please contact Judy Hansen at Day Kimball Hospital, 860-928-6541 x 2015.