Winters Past

The neighbor’s sheep have been getting into our trees across the creek for a couple of weeks now. They don’t seem to be causing any trouble, but the last thing I need right now is a bunch of sheep deciding to go across the creek and getting into the vegetables. This week, I finally got tired of waiting for the neighbor to fix the hole they have worn in the fence, and climbed over a different fence and jumped across the creek to see what it would take to make the needed repairs. The problem, of course, is in an inaccessible, rocky, and brushy part of the fenceline, so it won’t be particularly easy; then again, neither will dealing with sheep in my vegetables, so we’ll get it done.

The neighbor’s sheep live on the “other” eighty acres that made up the original 160-acre homestead that included our farm. When the Kjome family moved here back in the mid-1800’s, they got here too late to build a house, and lived under a rock outcropping that first winter.

It all got me to thinking about how things have changed since then, especially (of course) when it comes to the food we eat in the winter. Of course, Nils Kjome couldn’t have imagined that someday it might be possible to get raspberries from Chile for the Christmas feast, but some of the other changes are more subtle.

Most – if not all – of the root crops that we eat today came from the Old World. (Potatoes, which come from the New World, are not, technically, a root crop.) Compared to the Old World grain crops like oats, wheat, and barley, roots like turnips and beets were relatively easy to harvest, especially on a calorie-for-calorie basis. Without mechanical harvesters, harvesting small grains required mowing with a scythe, binding and shocking to dry, and threshing by hand; in comparison, a beet could be pulled out of the ground, the greens chopped off, and the harvest work was done. Of course, the-bigger-the-better was the rule when it came to roots in those days; after all, why pick up four beets that weighed a quarter pound each when you could pick up one that weighed a pound?

Size also mattered because larger crops had a greater surface area to volume ratio. In general, whether you consider cabbages or rutabagas, rot starts on the outside and works its way in. We still store some crops for our own homestead use on the farm that turn slimy on the outside, but when we peel past the gross outside leaves, the remaining core still provides good taste and nutrition.

Many of the crops we store for human consumption now were also valued as a source of livestock feed. In the mid-1990’s, when I helped oversee the receipt of thousands of vegetable varieties from Eastern Europe at Seed Savers Exchange, we were surprised at the number highly-variable and not-very-tasty selections that we received, until we realized that many of these were actually used as fodder crops. Pumpkins and squash developed into important fodder crops in Europe when they arrived from the New World in the 1600’s. Interestingly,

Storage presented its own challenges. Root crops continue to give off heat as they slowly respire, so they tend to warm up any space where you store them. Root cellars insulate against winter’s cold and summer’s heat, but their temperature tends to be slightly too warm for optimal root storage, and they cool down in the fall considerably more slowly than the weather outside, being buffered by the relatively steady temperature of the ground. Having used a root cellar in the past, I can attest to the juggling act that went into timing the fall harvest so that the storage area was cool enough, but that we still had enough time to finish the harvest.

Now, we value root crops that come in smaller packages, and cabbages that actually fit in the refrigerator; and that’s okay. For the most part, modern farmers don’t feed root crops to their livestock, although turnips are gaining in popularity as a fall grazing crop. And, recent research has shown that pumpkin seeds have compounds that kill off internal parasites; now, many organic hog farmers feed their sows heavily on pumpkins in the fall, to flush out any parasites before they move the sows inside for the winter. Some things change, and some change back again. We’ll still keep an eye out for fairy-tale sized rutabagas, but we probably won’t try to fit them in a CSA box.

Farm Happenings

What We Did: Time has just slipped on by here. In an attempt to balance cooler space and the impending winter, we’ve been picking away at the harvest instead of going into it whole hog; now that we’re past the Ides of October, we’ll start cleaning up whole crops and packing them into the walk-in cooler.

Weather: We had a heavy frost on Thursday morning. The last two weeks have been dominated by inconvenient rains, which have frustrated our efforts to finish sowing cover crops. Days have been downright pleasant. I don’t remember a fall with more consistently enjoyable weather for doing outside work.

Comings and Goings: Our old friend Linda, currently the farm manager at Gardens of Eagan, came down for a visit on Saturday. We took a tour of the farm, talked about greenhouse building techniques and cover cropping strategies, and enjoyed munching on Beauty Heart radishes for lunch.

In Kim’s Kitchen

If I was stranded on a desert island with just one herb, I’d hope it was Italian Parsley. I like to keep a bunch handy in the refrigerator to chop and sprinkle the leaves over just about anything. The stems don’t look as pretty, but they have more flavor than the leaves, so I chop them especially fine and tend to use them in a cooked dish or mixed in, rather than as a final garnish. Italian parsley stands up well to the cold out in the field, but becomes pretty questionable as we move into November, so I hope my desert island isn’t as cold as the Upper Midwest in the winter.

In the fall, Spinach assumes an entirely different character than it has during the summer, becoming sweeter and toothier as the leaves thicken and sugar-up for the cold weather. We seeded this crop on the first of September, and it tastes absolutely delicious. I probably eat more spinach while I’m harvesting than I ever do in the kitchen, but in the kitchen, the following recipe for wilted spinach is one of our favorite tastes of the fall.

Wilted Spinach Salad

1/2 lb fresh spinach
4 Tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, peeled and pressed
1/2 cup coarsely chopped hazelnuts or almonds
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt
freshly ground pepper

Heat the oil in a small skillet. Add the nuts and cook over low heat for about five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic near the end. Pour over the spinach, scraping in as much of the oil as possible. Toss until spinach is coated and the nuts are well distributed. Sprinkle in the vinegar and salt and pepper, toss again, and serve.

Spinach-Rice Casserole

Adapted from The Moosewood Cookbook

2 cups uncooked brown rice
1 Tbs. butter
1 cups minced onion
8 oz. fresh spinach
1 tsp salt
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cayenne
black pepper to taste
1 tsp prepared mustard
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1 cup grated cheddar
paprika

Cook the rice as you normally would. Preheat oven to 350, and oil a 9x13-inch baking pan. Heat the butter in a deep skillet; add the onion and sauté until soft. Add spinach, salt, and garlic, and cook for about five minutes over medium heat, stirring frequently. Add this mixture to the cooked rice, along with seasonings and half of the sunflower seeds. Mix well.. Beat together the eggs and milk, and stir this into the rice mixture with the grated cheese. Spread into the prepared pan, sprinkle with the remaining sunflower seeds, and dust with paprika. Bake uncovered for 35 to 40 minutes until thoroughly heated and lightly browned on top.

Cabbage is a classic “fresh green” of winter, even when it’s been stored for a long time. This year’s Red Cabbage seems sweeter than normal, and Kim came up with this delicious slaw that makes the most of that sweet flavor. Cabbage stores well even after you cut it if you just put it in a plastic bag in your crisper drawer, so don’t feel like you have to use it all at once.

Light and Lively Slaw

The Dressing
2 Tablespoons rice wine Vinegar
2 Tablespoons canola oil
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons minced parsley
salt to taste

The Slaw
3 cups thinly sliced red cabbage
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh onion
1 small winter radish, grated
1 large carrot, grated
1 Tablespoon sesame seeds

In a bowl combine all the dressing ingredients. Set aside. Combine the cabbage, onion, carrot, radish, and sesame seeds in a medium bowl. Toss the dressing with the slaw ingredients. Wait 10 minutes for flavors to blend and serve.

Flowering Kale, with its bright pink leaves, is most commonly found as an ornamental plant outside of the dentist’s office; the variety we grow makes for much tenderer eating, similar to the normal green kale but a little lighter in texture. Steam with seafood for an elegant dish, or steam on its own and use it as a bed for meats or roasted winter vegetables. We often enjoy it sautéed with olive oil and lightly sprinkled with kosher salt.

Not only staples in the kitchen year round, Garlic and Onions provide substantial health benefits, both with their anti-fungal activity and their general tonic effect. While all of the roots and greens prefer high humidity storage, such as you find in a plastic bag in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator, garlic and onions both prefer dry storage. Cold is good, but keeping them dry will make more of a difference. A paper bag can help wick away moisture, as can an-unglazed ceramic pot.

The only truly black vegetable we know of, Black Spanish Winter Radishes have a nice, hot flavor and make a wonderful presentation. I like to slice them thinly with the peels on to show off their very cool color. Served with sharp cheddar cheese and a dark beer, they make an unbeatable winter repast.

Bright Scarlet Turnips add a little bit of a different twist to the turnip theme. Although these got a little bigger than we would have liked before harvest time, we have found them to be sweet and tender still. Use them anywhere you would use regular turnips, but with a little more sweetness and a little less of the iron-y flavor of the standard turnip varieties.

Roasted Turnips and Carrots

1/2 lb carrots
1 lb turnips
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp fresh thyme (optional)
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400. Prepare the carrots and turnips so that they are about the same size and shape, by cutting the turnips lengthwise into halves or quarters. Toss with olive oil and thyme, and season generously with salt and pepper. Spread evenly in a baking pan in a single layer, and roast, uncovered, for 20 to 45 minutes, stirring and tossing periodically until the vegetables are cooked through.