Good Day Waratah Downs CSA Members!
It has been a busy week for us all here, among the usual, we had a lovely group of folks come out for our Organic Farm Tour through Canadian Organic Growers on Sunday, our regular markets, plus the Carp Garlic Festival(which was a first for us!). We faired well, despite a heavy downpour on Saturday, the Carp Garlic Festival was extremely busy, and we had a hard time keeping up, though Sunday of this festival was a little more relaxed.
We have been thoroughly saturated with garlic oils in our hands, clothes and faces! We hope you all are enjoying the taste of the garlic in your shares, as most of us do. It was sure a blast to hear all of the uses, preferences and also the flavour profiles of the many different varieties of garlic at the festival. One must really be a bit of a garlic connoisseur in order to navigate the subtleties of flavour differences in raw garlic. It’s tough to imagine a palette cleanser that would allow you to properly taste test each kind.
We hope you are all enjoying the tomatoes thus far. This time of year we can often fall back on a delicious tomato sandwich, and on a nice piece of bread, this can be a lovely taste of sunshine and a great way to simply enjoy a nice ripe tomato from the garden. Biting into them whole is an option if you are a true tomato lover, and the Romas this week would make a lovely fresh pasta sauce, which is often our fallback at home after a long day and little capacity to come up with a complicated meal. Roma/paste tomatoes are better for cooking/canning as they have a firmer flesh, less water content and seeds, which make them ideal for stewing up. I do like them for a sandwich however, since they can be a little less messy due to these same characteristics.
We found this really fun article that includes several “Freakishly Delicious” celery recipes from Huffington Post. It was actually quite eye opening for us on the potential of this sometimes underrated vegetable. What most intrigued me was the Celery Pickle, which is an option I had never considered before-I will have to try this one in the coming weeks if we have little extra around. Our celery is quite strong in flavour, which would come very handy when featuring it as the star of a dish or meal. The article and recipes can be found here: http://www.
As I stare at our tomatoes and potatoes, I am reminded of me of my most revered dishes in recent years. Enjoying a delicious lunch while visiting a good friend in Spain, her mother had prepared for us a mouth watering tomato and potato salad. I have yet to find a similar recipe online, but if you are adventurous you can give it a try, I have her instructions. Essentially it was made up of boiled, peeled potatoes(still a little warm), tossed with freshly sliced tomatoes, finely diced raw onion, and all tossed with a good quality olive oil to finish. I have still yet to duplicate this, despite Mercedes'(my friend’s mother) reassurance that this was all it took. There is something about having a meal in a different locale that can sometimes make a dish unable to ever be replicated how you remember it.
We are so pleased with the feedback thus far, but would love to hear more from you all. As always, please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions, concerns or comments. Your inout can help us better prepare as we plan for our season to come and continue to share our harvest with you all. Thanks again for all of your support and we look forward to what the next few weeks bring!
-Coral, and the whole Waratah Downs Organic Farm Team
All Shares This Week Contain:
-Carrots
-Celery
-Chard
-Tomato
-Garlic
-Potato
-Lettuce
-Green Onion
Medium Shares Only Include:
–Turnips
-Cauliflower
-Parsley
-Extra Lettuce
