Winter Share 2011-12 – Week 6

Chickens, organic black beans, butternut squash pasta

I hope everyone had a very special holiday season.  For me the parties and time off was nice, but I’m ready to be back to work.  We started planning over the break for the summer 2012.  I can’t believe it!  So much work to do and so little time.  We’ll be sending updates about that in the coming month, including new stops we are planning, new products, etc.

For this week, we are back to the winter crops.  We are at the end of most of our storage crops now.  Onions, cabbage, and winter squash are at an end.  We’ll still have potatoes thru the winter, fresh greens, and some frozen veggies that we have been hanging on to.

This week’s feature is a whole pasture raised chicken from Marion Troyer in Baltic, Ohio. These tasty birds were harvested in early November before it got too cold. They lived their entire lives outside on organic pastures and ate a diet supplemented with locally grown and milled corn, oats, legumes, and different grasses.  They receive no hormones or antibiotics.

To compliment your bird, we have some carrots, brussel sprouts, and beets.  If you are looking for a salad, we also have fresh organic mixed greens.

The other highlight of this week’s bag is our organic black turtle beans. I had my fingers crossed for these all summer.  The other beans I had planted for me – pintos, mother stallards, and many more – didn’t make it.  The wet spring made it difficult to even plant them then the wet summer and fall introduced many diseases.  Maybe next year!

Finally, everyone loves Ohio City Pasta. This week they are making a butternut squash and cracked black pepper linguini for us.  The pasta is made from butternut squash raised in Valley City Ohio (west of Brunswick).  They roast every squash, scoop out the flesh, and work it into their dry ingredients. This makes for an exceptional product.

Here’s all of this week’s bag contents:

Winter CSA Wk 6:

1 whole pasture raised chicken

1 lb carrots

1 lb brussel sprouts (removed from stalk)

2 lbs beets

1/2 lb mixed organic greens

1 dozen pasture raised eggs

2 lbs organic black turtle beans

1 smoked pork hock

1 lb roasted butternut squash and cracked black pepper linguini