This is a delicata squash, a mild tasting, heirloom variety of winter squash. You can store them for several weeks.

What do I do with it?
You can bake, roast , steam, or sauté it. You can peel it first with a vegetable peeler, or if you’re roasting to make soup, just leave the skin on while you cook it or remove it first. (One really nice thing about these squashes is that the skin is very thin. You can easily remove it before or after cooking with a vegetable peeler.) It you’re baking or roasting it, cut it in half longways and scoop the seeds out. To bake, put in a pan with 1/2” or so of water, cover, and bake at 375° for 30 min. or until soft. If you are roasting, leave the skin on, brush the cut side with olive oil, and put cut side down on a baking sheet. Roast at 425° for 20 min. or until soft. To steam or sauté, peel first and then cook on the stove.

Then what?

There are lots of nice ways to prepare delicata squash.

• Steam or sauté, add butter, salt and pepper and serve as a side vegetable.
• Use roasted squash and make a soup or bisque. (This is my favorite.)

  

• Cube and make with a rosemary, sage, and cider vinegar glaze.
• Cook any of the above ways, mash squash, and add butter, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and thyme or other herbs. Use the mixture to stuff ravioli or pasta shells.

(Note: These cooking and serving suggestions will work with most winter squash.)

Just follow the veggie signs to find the farm.

Zucchini or other summer squash

• Blanch, grill, or saute and freeze in plastic resealable bags.
  
• Make zucchini bread or muffins and freeze.

Tomatoes

• Put whole tomatoes in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Freeze solid (6 hours or so), and then put in a resealable bag.
• Make tomato sauce and freeze it. (It’s so convenient to have ready-to-use tomato sauce for pasta or pizza and much more delicious than canned sauce.)
• Sun- or oven-roast tomatoes and freeze them. For oven roasting, quarter or half the tomatoes, spread in a single layer on oiled cookie sheets, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh pepper. (You can add garlic and herbs as well if you like.) Bake at 225 degrees for 3-4 hours (or until done depending on the size of your tomatoes). The tomatoes will get shriveled looking as the water is removed. After they are done, you can freeze and use in a wide variety of recipes.

Greens (chard, spinach, collards, etc.)

• Blanch and freeze in plastic resealable bags.
  

Basil and other herbs

• Chop finely in a food processor adding a small amount of water to make it easy to take out. Put in ice cube trays and top with water. Freeze and then put cubes in resealable bags when frozen. (You can then pop these cubes right into soups or sauces as needed.)
• Make pesto. Then freeze in ice cube trays and put in resealable bags when frozen.

Leeks

• Cut white and pale green part into 1/2″ thick round pieces. Wash to remove any dirt. Drain. Spread out in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Freeze solid (6 hours or so), allowing the pieces to freeze individually. Then put in a resealable bag.

Berries

• Spread out in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Freeze solid (6 hours or so), allowing the berries to freeze individually. Then put in a resealable bag.
• If you plan to make pie, make your pie filling and freeze in resealable bags.

Apples and peaches

• Peel and cut fruit in half. Put halves in a single layer on a cookie sheet with the cut side up. Freeze solid (6 hours or so), and then put in a resealable bag.
• Lightly saute or blanch and freeze in resealable bags.
• If you plan to make pie, make your pie filling and freeze in resealable bags.

Whatever you freeze, make sure to label and date it so you can easily identify it later.

This Thursday, August 5, Kenny Livingston will be visiting Portal and the farm.

Kenny is riding his bike across America  “to inspire his fellow Americans, through example, in making a commitment to change the way we approach our personal health, nutrition and lifestyle choice.” You can get an update on Kenny’s trip here.

Kenny will be speaking about his adventure at 4:00 on August 5 at the farm, and we’ll have light refreshments available as well. Kids are welcome.

It’s a great chance to see the farm and get inspired about healthy lifestyle choices. Let us know if you plan to come so we can plan accordingly.

Credit: See-ming Lee

If you are overloaded with zucchini this time of year, here are some more recipes with unique and delicious ideas for zucchini.

Some of these like the soup and tart can be frozen so that you can enjoy this later in the year when fresh zucchini aren’t available. You can also blanch or lightly saute sliced zucchini and freeze it.

A CSA share from July with lettuce, chard, zucchini, cabbage, garlic, onions, granola, and fresh bread

You have probably heard about the farm’s CSA (community supported agriculture) shares. CSA is a “farm share” and a way for farmers and customers in the community to share the risks and benefits of growing local sustainable food. It provides a fresh, authentically-grown bag of food once a week for $25 (full share) or $15 (half share).

For the farm, it is a way to make sure we have customers to buy the food we grow.

The production on a small, sustainable farm is limited. And our CSA customers always get the first priority of whatever we harvest each week because they have “reserved” their order in advance.

We usually also have a variety of produce and baked good for our non-CSA customers at the farm stand every Sat. from 10am to noon (AZ time). However, if you visit the farm stand and don’t find the produce you want, you might consider CSA in the future. The farm’s next CSA round will start  Saturday, August 7th.

Another option is pre-ordering. If there is produce you want, just drop us an email or call us and let us know. Pre-orders are next in priority after CSA.

Hope you’re all having a great summer and enjoying lots of great produce from your own garden as well!

This was the farm float in this year’s Rodeo July 4 parade. This was our first year in the parade, and we had a great time! The baby goats on our float were the hit of the parade. We even won a prize for best float! It was fun to see everyone in the community come out for this event.

Summer squash gratin…

Veggie soft tacos…

Onion-cheese omelets, and

Cold Asian salad (with delicious farm-grown green onions)!