We are super excited to start a new harvest cycle with a new group of CSA members.  Many of you have been with us for multiple years (some of you have even been in our CSA for as many as 7 years!!!) and we are forever grateful and honored to continue growing food for you.  Growing food for people creates a bond almost as strong as actually sharing a meal with them and as our CSA membership grows (we have 130 members this season) we hope to continue connecting with as many of you as possible.  This blog space on our website is here exactly for that purpose.  When we started our CSA back in 2010 we had 12 members and they picked up their veggies on site at our urban farm.  For us it was important that they get to see the farm every week and truly connect with the process of eating locally.  Now we are a multi-farm CSA which means many amazing farmers are putting work into growing your food and we're going to do our best to show you the process right here on this blog.   We'll be uploading a weekly blog post with pictures from the fields and of us harvesting along with information about the veggies you are getting; a list of everything in the share and what farm grew it, descriptions of unusual varieties, storage tips to make the share last all week, cooking inspiration and recipes.

We welcome and encourage all of you to visit both our urban farm and French Farms in Homestead anytime.  Get out there and take a walk through the rows of vegetables that will one day end up on your plate!  If you can't seem to find a random day to visit, keep in mind that we'll be hosting a Farm Open House in three weeks on Sunday December 9th.  Check out our calendar for details. 

 IN THE SHARE THIS WEEK:

The first item on the list for this week is super special.  Roselle is also known by many other names in different cultures, mostly cultures that surround us here in South Florida.  In Jamaica it is known as Sorrel, which also refers to a holiday drink made with this beautiful plant.  In Mexico it is known as Flor de Jamaica, which again is a refreshing drink you can get pretty much anywhere in Mexico.  We've also known it as Florida Cranberry and you've probably had it or heard of it as Hibiscus tea.  Roselle is in fact a hibiscus family member, but it's an annual crop that flowers only once and produces unusual fleshy pods after blooming.  Technically speaking the pod is the flowers calyx which swells around a woody seed pod after the flower fades.  The part used for eating and making drinks is the bright red and juicy calyx.  If you were to google this product you'd find it is plentiful in a dried version.  It is almost impossible to find it fresh because it is only in season for a few short weeks and only in the tropics.  This is why it is so special for our CSA!  The time and place are just right for fresh Roselle on the branch.  We've been including fresh Roselle in our first CSA pick-up for many years so it's kind of a tradition at this point.  This year we are extra proud of our crop because for the first time ever it was grown by our main man Chris French.  Chris started French Farms 4 years ago and has been one of the main growers for our CSA.  You'll see his name pop up all over the place in the list of CSA veggies every week.  Ok, so Roselle, how to use it... First of all, it's beautiful in a vase for a few days.  When you are ready to make a drink you'll want to snip off each pod and peel away the fleshy part away from the woody seed pod inside.  The seed pods are discarded.  The fleshy parts are either stored in the fridge for up to a week, dried in a dehydrator for long storage or used right away.  There are millions of recipes for making Roselle drinks.  We are particularly fond of adding lemongrass and honey to make an iced tea, but the Jamaican holiday version includes cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, sugar, rum and other fruits and it's good either cold or warm depending on the freaky tropical winter weather!

We also have a bit of a tradition of including French Breakfast radishes in the first share of the season.  They are one of earliest crops every year and their spicy fresh taste is a great way to warm up your local palette.  We will often give you radishes with their greens still attached because radish tops are edible and delicious.  We suggest eating them cooked or juiced because they often have a slightly prickly texture that goes away when the leaves are cooked.  Anything from a light steam to a sautee will result in velvety greens to accompany a meal.  If you're going to store your radishes for more than a couple of days it's best to remove the roots from the leaves and store them separately to avoid wilting.  When they are stored attached the plant kind of thinks it's still alive and the leaves continue to adsorb moisture from the roots causing them to get squishy.  Small radishes like these are really yummy raw in salads, tacos or toast.  Check out this recipe for French Breakfast radishes and cream cheese toast from a blog called Killing Thyme.

You'll become very familiar with French Farm's spicy salad mix over the season.  Chris has pretty much mastered the salad greens game over the years and will be harvesting some form of baby greens almost every week for you guys.  This week the mix includes arugula, mizuna, red mustard, purple pak choi and tatsoi.  A perfect blend of flavor, spice, color and texture that Chris has been honing through trial and error.  This mix is so good it barely needs to be dressed or accompanied by anything else for a bowl of salad.  The only catch is that you should try to eat it within the first few days of the week for optimum freshness. 

Our favorite crop to grow in our urban farm field is bok choi!  You'll be getting these cuties about once per month this season, if not more!  We are partial to two varieties, this one is called Li Ren and it's a petite, but very compact bok choi.  The other variety we grow is called Pak Choi and it's a big guy with super dark green leaves and white petioles (that's the "stem" part of bok choi).  The compact nature of Li Ren makes it good for sauteing, cut in half or quarters lengthwise so that the leaves are attached at the base.  A simple olive oil, salt and pepper will do just right, but you can also go the Chinese route and cook it with butter and garlic.  Bok choi keeps for a while in the fridge so there's no need to rush with it.  If one or two of the outer leaves start to turn yellow you can peel them off and the core will still be perfect. 

We hope you enjoy the first share of the season!