November 17, 2008  This week’s featured fruits and vegetables are broccoli, cauliflower, sweet Potatoes, Winter squash, Chinese cabbage, apples and lettuce (Sandy Spring) or Swiss Chard (Tikvat). And the possible bonus prize: Mushrooms (if, Farmer Pam says, they get up early enough to pick them!)

URGENT CALL FOR BOXES!

If you’re hanging on to any spare boxes, now is the time to bring them back to your pickup site!  We want to be sure we have enough boxes for the last vegetable delivery on November 24th.  Thanks!

Recipes:  CSA Thanksgiving

For a bit of fun this week, I decided to design a Thanksgiving dinner out of this week’s vegetables. After all, according to the traditional Thanksgiving story, the pilgrims were a) celebrating seasonal bounty, and b) making a feast with what they had.

The Chinese cabbage was a challenge, but in the end, I thought I’d either serve Chinese dumplings as an appetizer, or serve a cabbage and pineapple salad with the meal.  (Alternatively, I could substitute in some turkey for chicken and make chicken, cabbage, and corn salad with the leftover turkey the next day!)

Then, in addition to the turkey and stuffing that’s traditional at my house, there would be:

• Broccoli-cauliflower casserole (possibly one with a walnut crust, or more likely one with lots of cheesy sauce, because it has to stand in for our usual green bean casserole!)
• Butternut squash with apples (an easy crockpot dish, though I’d half or quarter the recipe – it makes up huge!  We brought this to our family’s Thanksgiving last year, to great acclaim.)
• Green salad (’nuff said)

And then for dessert:

• Sweet potato pie (or you can check my blog to see the modifications I made to the recipe after reading the reviews.)  I like this pie better than pumpkin pie, truth to tell!

This was so much fun, I might do another Thanksgiving lineup with next week’s vegetables too.  Fresh vegetables taste so good, they’re the best thing I can think of to put on a Thanksgiving table.

Food for Thought: Local Thanskgiving Bounty

We’re thankful for farmers – so why not make them part of our Thanksgiving?

Some local farmers markets are reopening before the holiday (and some have never closed!), so their patrons can take advantage of their delicious – and local – bounty for Thanksgiving.  Edible Chesapeake’s enewsletter, Local Mix, lists a number of markets that are having special events.  Here are two in our area:

• Cheverly Community Market, Cheverly, MD: Nov. 22 and Dec. 13, 9 am to 1 pm
• Riverdale Park Farmers Market, Riverdale, MD: Nov. 20, 3 pm to 7 pm

Our own local Kensington farmers market offers a number of taste treats for Thanksgiving:

• Salt River Lobster offers several special seafood packages for Thanksgiving, including oysters, smoked salmon, and crab legs.  Pop over to their site for information on ordering ahead, as well as to check out some of their specials for the winter holidays as well. 
• Krishon Chocolates, in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, has created some cumin cranberry truffles (fantastic!), and may have some pomegranate truffles too, in addition to all the delicious regular fare!  This coming Saturday, their chocolatier also promises to tempt buyers with pecan caramel cinnamon rolls – mmmm! 
• MacBride and Gill Falcon Ridge Farm’s master cook Nancy says, preorder a pie (n_mac_bride AT hotmail.com) by Thursday, and she’ll bring it to the Saturday market for you to pick up!  For $14, you can buy either apple with crumb topping or Asian pear and cranberry with crumb topping.  I love that their fruit is grown via Integrated Pest Management (low or no spray).
• Stephan’s Pastries, one of the new market regulars, is taking special orders for cream puffs in a tempting variety of flavors.  I can vouch for the traditional cream-filled variety!

And for those who want turkey for their Thanksgiving, the Maryland Department of Agriculture provides a list of Maryland farms selling turkeys directly to consumers.  My Organic Market (MOMs) in Rockville can also order a local free range or organic free range turkey for you to pick up at their store.

Enjoy the abundance of the season – and the region!

Jennifer Milewski