photos from the fall

Here's some family snaps and views and garden pictures that some of you might enjoy...



Entwistle family....

water and sky in canada

before the freeze

autumn garden

more to come....

extra recipes

Here's a view from the lake in Canada, and some recipes...


I’ll admit, I have not tried this recipe, but it intrigues me:

Green Tomato Pie
Ingredients:
6 to 8 medium green tomatoes
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon butter
pastry to 9-inch 2-crust pie

Preparation:
Wash the green tomatoes well; peel and slice. In a saucepan, combine tomatoes with lemon juice, peel, salt, and cinnamon. Cook tomato mixture over low heat, stirring frequently. Combine sugar and cornstarch; stir into tomato mixture. Cook mixture until clear, stirring constantly. Add butter, remove from heat, and let stand until slightly cooled. Line a 9-inch pie plate with pastry; pour in tomato mixture. Cover with top pastry, seal edges, crimp, and cut several small slits in crust to allow steam to escape. Bake at 435° for 35 to 45 minutes, or until nicely browned. Serve warm or cooled.

ROASTED KOHLRABI AND BUTTERNUT SQUASH
4 medium kohlrabi (2 1/4 lb with greens or 1 3/4 lbwithout)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 1/2 lb butternut squash
Special equipment: a 17- by 12- by 1-inch shallowheavy baking pan
Put oven rack just below middle position and putbaking pan on rack, then preheat oven to 450°F. (If roasting vegetables along with turkey, preheat pan for15 minutes while turkey roasts, then roast vegetablesunderneath turkey.) Trim and peel kohlrabi, then cut into 3/4-inch pieces. Toss kohlrabi with 1 tablespoon oil, 1 teaspoon thyme,1/4 teaspoon salt, and 3/4 teaspoon pepper in a bowl. Transfer kohlrabi to preheated pan in oven and roast 15 minutes. Meanwhile, peel butternut squash, then quarter lengthwise, seed, and cut into 3/4-inch pieces. Toss squash with remaining 1 tablespoon oil, 1 teaspoonthyme, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 3/4 teaspoon pepper in same bowl. Stir kohlrabi, turning it, then push it to one side of pan. Add squash to opposite side of pan and roast, stirringand turning squash over halfway through roasting, until vegetables are tender and lightly browned, about 30 minutes total (after squash is added). Toss vegetables to combine and transfer to a dish.

(sounds great, thanks Angela)

Steamed Chicory (from The Real Dirt on Vegetables by John Peterson) serves 4

3 Tbsp. raisins 1 lb. Chicories ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic 3 Tbsp. pine nuts Salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Put the raisins in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Set aside to plump, then drain.
2. Put the chicory in a steamer basket, set over 1 ½ inches boiling water, and cover. Steam until just wilted, 2 to 4 minutes. Transfer to a colander to drain.
3. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the garlic and pine nuts and cook until the pine nuts begin to brown (maybe three minutes).
4. Give the greens a few chops on a cutting board, then add them to the skillet and stir until the greens are well coated with the oil. Remove from heat and stir in raisins. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Newsletter week #22

Red Springs Family Farm
October 30, 2008, Week #22

This week:
Lettuce Tomatoes HOT Peppers
Swiss Chard Rapini Pink Mustard
Arugula Parsley Mizuna
Radishes Chicory Sweet and White Potatoes

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! This is the second morning we’ve woken to a twenty-five degree freeze! We can’t even harvest until the sun hits the veggies and thaws them, so I’m penning the newsletter before I know what’s out there. This week was the great cover-up. We spent a day in the sunshine and high winds rolling out hundreds of feet of white poly-spun row covering to protect tender plants. We brought in ALL the winter squashes, garlic, tomatoes, peppers and sorted them into baskets that now line the edges of our living space.

Three years ago, within a couple weeks of Lulah’s birth, BEFORE we built a sizeable addition onto our home, we covered the entire downstairs floor with one layer of peanuts to cure, and the entire upstairs floor with curing sweet potatoes. Fortunately, they all got picked up before Lulah’s early arrival in November, but I always remember waddling over peanuts and sweet potatoes around this time of year.

We were so happy to see so many tomatoes ripen this week! Some of these tomatoes are not free from blemish. We’ve tried to only give those blemished ones if they are perfectly ripe. Hopefully we’ve succeeded. And this really is the end of the tomatoes. That includes these green tomatoes. We love them dipped in egg, then dredged in seasoned cornmeal and lightly fried to tender crisp. Fried green tomatoes are a heavy dish, tho, so we only eat them once a year. If you’d like to do something else creative, green tomatoes pickle well, either water bathed in vinegar with dill seeds and garlic, just like cucumber pickles, or brined in a crock, covered in salt water (again, add garlic and dill seed). Drop me a line if you need more information on these methods, or come to the Wild Fermentation event this weekend (see below).

If anyone is looking for something to do on Saturday, we’ve got an event for you. Sandor Katz, author of Wild Fermentation will be doing a kim chi demonstration in our neighborhood. Long Hungry Creek Farm will be hosting Sandor, and a few other foodie friends, to make a day of it while the Chinese Cabbages are in full display. Bring a potluck offering for lunch (dinner will be covered). A $20 offering is appreciated, children are free, and anyone who wants to brave the chilly weather can camp (rustic). There are B&Bs a couple miles away in Red Boiling Springs, if you want to make a weekend event out of it. Chopping and chatting will begin around 10 a.m. and continue through dinner. A few more details and directions to the farm are available at http://www.barefootfarmer.com/. We’ll be there, and would happily break away to give you a little farm tour of our place if you would like.

Hot Pepper lovers, come and get them! Dry them, freeze them, put them in vinegar and make them last. Love these hot peppers! The yellow ones are a Peruvian variety called Lemon Drop. Cayenne’s and Jalapenos are recognizable, and the little tiny red ones are the Entwistle special J. Watch out, they are a serious hot pepper.


If you go looking for recipes, this sugar loaf chicory (Pan di Zucchero) can be used like a witloof chicory. I have not had the opportunity to cook one yet, but rumor has it that it will cook up surprisingly sweet. Outer leaves will be more bitter. To cut the bitterness, you can boil the chicory until just tender and dress them with lemon juice or vinegar. Good partners for chicories include hard boiled eggs, Asiago cheese, garlic, cilantro, basil, parsley, red pepper, thyme, balsamic or any vinegar of your choice, olives, nuts, or pastas. I will re-post an early season chicory recipe on the blog for you.

Chard with Parmesan (from Alice Water’s Simple Food)
Pull the leaves from the ribs of one of more bunches of chard. Discard the ribs (or save for making stock or another dish), wash the leaves, and cook until tender in abundant salted boiling water, 4 minutes or so. Drain the leaves, cool, squeeze outmost of their excess water, and chop coarse. For every bunch of chard, melt 3 tablespoons butter in a heavy pan over medium heat. Add the chopped chard and salt to taste. Heat through and for each bunch of chard stir in a generous handful of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Remove from heat and serve.

Easy Greens with Peanuts (from The Real Dirt on Vegetables)

½ pound chard greens, kale, or mixed greens, stems removed (save for stock or other recipes)
½ cup peanuts (toasted if desired)
3 Tblsp olive oil or butter salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Place the greens in a steamer basket set over 1 ½ inches boiling water, cover, and steam until just tender, 5-10 minutes for chard, or 15-20 minutes for kale, depending on the leaves’ thickness.
2. Transfer the greens to a colander and run cold water over them to stop them from cooking. Gently squeeze out the excess water from the greens and chop coarsely.
3. Place the peanuts in a plastic zip-top bag and crush them with a rolling pin or heavy skillet.
4. Heat the olive oil or butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the greens, sauté, stirring constantly, until thoroughly coated and glossy, about 2 minutes.
5. Remove skillet from heat; sprinkle the peanuts over the greens. Season with salt and pepper.

Just a note about sweet potatoes. What a wonderful crop they are! In discussion with Dessa last week, I learned that the sweetness of sweet potatoes is best developed at lower heat. That’s why folks wrap them in foil. If you don’t like foil (like me) a covered oven dish should serve a similar purpose. Also, you can put the sweets into a cold oven and let them warm as the oven heats. This way, the potatoes can take their time getting up to temperature and develop their sweetness to the fullest along the way. I like my sweets without foil so that the skins can puff up and the inner flesh gets to caramelize. There’s really nothing like sweet potatoes! Enjoy!

This time next week, we will know who are next president will be. It’s been such an intense time in this country. It gives us solace in our family to return again and again to the simplest things – another day of sunrise and weather, good company with one another, good work, and good food from the earth, right here. We wish you simple pleasures as well, and thank you for taking part in our harvest.

Your gardeners,

Paul, Coree, and Lulah Entwistle

Overheard: You can drink all the bancha tea you want, be a vegan, say all the right stuff about diet and multinational corporations and recycling and old growth forest, but if you lie to your friends, you damage the earth terribly, much worse than you would if you owned some IBM stock and had a malt every now and then.

Newsletter week#21

More photos coming soon!

Red Springs Family Farm
October 23, 2008, Week #21

This week:
Lettuce Kohlrabi Baby Bok Choi
Tomatoes Peppers Garlic
Arugula Parsley Green Onion
Radishes Green Onions Mizuna
Sorrel Butternuts A Few Snow Peas
A sprig of Sage

The trip to Canada was great. Lulah traveled well (and we learned a lot about traveling with a toddler), and it was great to see family and friends. The leaves were in full color, a truly magnificent display. In our dream planning of the trip, we thought we might visit farms up there to see how things grow up north, but it turned out that visiting with the folks we knew and keeping Lulah well slept was enough to do.

It’s great to go away, then come home. An inch of rain fell and the gardens are in full swing – it’s really beautiful out here. Cover crops have sprouted and the cabbages are heading up. We picked the last of the ripe and green tomatoes and cleared them from the garden. This should really be the last of the sweet peppers, as well, though there will be another flush of hot peppers for those of you who love the heat. The crops to come are largely GREEN!

Those of you who were with us for the Spring will recognize the kohlrabi and mizuna. Mizuna is the feather leaves with white spines – a mildly peppery crisp green in the herb bag – nice in salads, and fine stir fried as well. Kohlrabi bulbs are Autumn’s cucumbers. Unfortunately, they’re not as prolific, but crisp and cool and versatile. Peel the green outer flesh off, then slice julienne, or grate the white bulb onto salad. Or do something like this:

Simple Sauteed Kohlrabi
2 medium kohlrabi bulbs, grated 1 tsp salt
¼ cup butter or light oil 1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed 2 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme, chives, or sage

1. Mix the kohlrabi and salt in a colander and let stand for 30 minutes to drain.
2. Melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute more.
3. Stir in the kohlrabi. Reduce ht heat to low, cover and cook for 10 minutes.
4. Increase the heat to medium, uncover the skillet, and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the fresh herbs. Let stand for a couple minutes to let the flavors develop.

That one came from Farmer John’s Real Dirt on Vegetables, as did this piece of information on the history of choi:

Choi has been grown in China since the fifth century, and from there is was introduced throughout Asia. Obscure in Europe, choi later became a more commonly used vegetable when seeds arrived in the late eighteenth century. Chinese immigrants who moved to Australia during the Gold Rush brought oriental vegetables with them. When the rush for gold lost its luster, Chinese would-be gold miners became market gardeners growing choi and other leafy greens. Today choi can be found growing on all continents except Antarctica.

These Baby Bok Choi are just so pretty! They would be great just chopped, steamed, and topped with toasted sesame oil, butter, salt, or vinaigrette. The leaves from your radishes this week would also accompany them well in a stir fry. The snow peas would be nice in there as well, if you can resist eating them raw!

The sage is included this week to accompany the butternut squashes – they are good partners.

There are so many interesting things to be done with butternut squashes. And yet, they need very little treatment to be enjoyed. They are naturally sweet, and easy to bake and enjoy with butter and nothing else. They can be curried, made sweet, or savory. I think they make better pumpkin pie than most pumpkins these days – your Thanksgiving guests will never know the difference. However, since we still have time before Thanksgiving – you might try this WOW pizza recipe from Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Vegetables:

Butternut Squash Pizza
1 butternut squash ¼ cup grated mozzarella cheese
Olive oil ¼ cup grated gruyere cheese
Salt and pepper 12 springs of parsley
2 cloves of garlic 20 sage leaves
½ lemon pizza dough for one pizza

Preheat an oven to 400.
Slice off the top of the squash ½ inch under the stem, and slice just enough of the bottom to remove the flower stem; be careful not to cut into the seed cavity. Split the squash in half crosswise just above the bulge. Stand each half end up and carefully cut away all the skin. Cut each portion in half lengthwise and scoop out the seed and fiber from the lower half. Cut the quarters into ¼ inch slices. The upper portions will yield half moon slices, and the lower sections elongated C shapes.
Brush the slices with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and arrange them in one layer on a baking sheet. Roast for 30-60 minutes, checking from time to time (roasting time varies according to moisture content and density of the squash). It is done when lightly browned and tender to touch.
Meanwhile, peel and chop fine the garlic and add to about ¼ cup olive oil. When the squash slices are done, remove from the oven. If you’ve got one, put a pizza stone in the oven and boost the heat to 450 to 500. (Do not put a regular pizza sheet in a hot oven!)
Roll out a circle of pizza dough, brush with the olive oil and garlic, and sprinkle evenly with the mozzarella and Gruyere. Arrange the slices of cooked squash over the cheese. Bake the pizza for about 10 minutes, until the crust is browned and the cheese melted.
While the pizza is baking, chop the parsley leaves. Fry the sage leaves briefly in hot olive oil, then drain them on an absorbent towel. When the pizza is done, garnish with sage leaves, chopped parsley, and a squeeze of lemon.
This is a very rich pizza, and is best served in small portions, as an appetizer.

For next week, sweet potatoes, and green tomato pie!

Thanks for sharing our harvest.

Your gardeners,
Paul, Coree, and Lulah

“Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.”
~Thoreau

Newsletter Week #20

Red Springs Family Farm
October 9, 2008, Week #20
Wow - 20 weeks!

This week:
Lettuce Fun-Jen, Chinese Cabbage
Tomatoes Peppers Garlic
Basil Arugula Parsley
Radishes Green Onions
Winter Squash Shell Beans, Myrtle cowpeas

(photo credit to Cella! Beautiful!)

Thank you all for accompanying us on this journey through the main growing season! We think it’s been a great year, and hope you feel the same. We’re very excited to be taking a break this next week – NO VEGGIES for OCTOBER 16 – returning to schedule for October 23. We are looking forward to bringing you a nice selection of Fall greens and goodies upon our return.

Two very beautiful inches of rain has fallen on the gardens and the depths of our gratitude is nearly unspeakable. There is no comparing the benefit of rain to the benefit of irrigation. Overnight, the garden seems to have come back to full vitality. Greens look as if they have doubled in size. Paul spent the first couple hours of sprinkling weather running from field to field throwing cover crops on all open ground. Next year’s garlic is safely planted and mulched. We are blessed beyond measure.

It is a strange feeling for us to be leaving home, going on “vacation”. We are well habituated to our little place in the hollow, and rather in love with our chickens, turkeys, and kitty friend Wowee. Nonetheless, we will be glad to see new places and visit family and old friends up north. If Lulah allows us much daytime travel, the promise of the Autumn colors is enticing.

We have picked the tomatoes and peppers pretty hard. Coming into the middle of October, there is a chance that when we return there will be no more tomatoes or peppers. Of course, there’s also a chance that there will still be LOTS of tomatoes and peppers, and we really hope that’s the case. We’d love to send you true green tomatoes for frying and pickling. Some of the tomatoes you get today will be green, but should redden if left on a sunny windowsill. Should the frost come, we will endure and enjoy with kohlrabi and baby bok choys to come.

Speaking of cabbages, these Fun-Jens are also called Lettuce Leaf Cabbage for their light green and frilly foliage. They’re taste is so mild that they work well in salads, if salad is your favorite thing. If you prefer stir fried foods, these are suitable for wok cooking, as well. If I were you, I would cook onions, ginger root, and sweet red peppers first, then throw in the garlic and thinly sliced cabbage last, cooking just until the leaves are well wilted. Dress with tamari and toasted sesame oil. Yummmy!

The shell beans are from seed that we’ve been saving for several years now. We like these beans a bunch. They’re called Myrtles, after the lady up in Kentucky who saved them for many years before us. We don’t know Myrtle, but appreciate her taste. We’re sending these beans before they dry out. We grow cowpeas and black beans for our own use, and have a rather labor intensive system of shelling and cleaning them for storage. You’re welcome to come out to the farm and work on the beans with us sometime if you’re interested. As it is, we’re sending these in the shell, so you can appreciate their beauty and freshness in your own hands. Some of these beans will be slightly further along than others – they turn a nice tan brown as they dry. They are delicious either way, and being fresh from the shell, you will find that they don’t take long to cook up. Recipe tips to follow.

Here’s what Alice Waters has to say about this week’s specials…

From Chez Panisse Vegetables:

Oven Roasted Squash with Garlic and Parsley
Choose as favorite winter squash – any one will do – and peel and seed it. Cut into 1-inch chunks and toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread the chunks evenly on a baking sheet and roast at 375 for 40 minutes, until tender throughout and lightly browned, stirring occasionally with a spatula to prevent burning.
Peel and chop very fine a few cloves of garlic and sauté in olive oil for just a minute, being careful not to brown. Toss the squash with the garlic and a handful of chopped parsley, taste and adjust the seasoning, and serve.

From The Art of Simple Food:

Shell Beans
I cook shell beans in different ways: sometimes plain, with rosemary, garlic, and olive oil; sometimes in soup, alone or with other vegetables, pureed or not; other times in gratins, under crunchy breadcrumbs. Beans can be cooked in advance, and they keep well for a day or two, refrigerated in their cooking liquid, to be reheated and served plain or incorporated into any number of dishes. What’s more, beans are extremely nutritious and affordable compared to other sources of protein; and, perhaps best of all, little kids love them.
Today it’s easy to find many different fresh and dried beans in farmers’ markets and good grocery stores. Spring is the season for fresh fava beans. In late summer, from August through September, I look for the many varieties of fresh ripe shell beans that may be fleetingly available. They are a real treasure of the late summer and early fall. Unlike their dried counterparts, fresh shell beans do not need to be soaked and they cook quite quickly.
All over the world, beans are traditionally cooked in earthenware pots (and for some reason they seem to taste better when they are), but any heavy non-reactive pot will do. Try to choose a wide pot so the layer of beans isn’t too deep; otherwise the beans are hard to stir and the ones on the bottom of the pot get crushed. Be sure to use enough water that stirring them is easy; the water level should always be an inch or so above the level of the beans. IF the water is too low, the beans will be crowded and will tend to fall apart when stirred. Worst of all they might start to stick and burn on the bottom of the pot.
When cooking fresh shell beans there is no need to soak them. Just pop them out of their shells and put them in a pot. Cover with water by no more than about 1 ½ inches: the beans will not absorb much water. Add the salt at the beginning and begin testing for doneness after about 10 minutes. Depending on the variety, the beans may take as long as an hour to cook, but usually they are done is much less time.
Beans can be flavored at the end of their cooking and served right away; or once cooked, they can be cooled, flavored or not, refrigerated (or frozen) in their liquid, and used later.

We hope you all have a wonderful two weeks ahead!

Your Gardeners,
Paul, Coree and Lulah

“…farming is not just a business like any other profit-making business, but a pre-condition of all human life on earth, and a precondition of all economic activity. As such, farming is everyone’s responsibility, and has likewise to be accessible for everyone.” – Trauger Groh & Steven McFadden, Farms of Tomorrow Revisited

Newsletter, week #19

Red Springs Family Farm
October 2, 2008, Week #19

This week:
Lettuce Collards Radish Greens
Tomatoes Peppers Eggplant
Basil Arugula Parsley
Celery Potatoes Winter Squash

Please allow us to re-iterate:
YES – THERE WILL BE VEGGIES, ON OCTOBER 9!
There will be no veggies on October 16. Veggies will resume October 23.

It was 35 degrees down in the hollow this morning! Good preparation for a trip north. We will set off in another 8 days – passing towns and hills of autumn trees – into Canada. Not much in the way of sweet potatoes up there! We’ve been digging ours tho, and they sure are pretty. Sweet potatoes, like winter squashes, need to cure in order to develop their sugary sweetness, so we’re not giving you any until we get back from vacation. They will be worth the wait.

Some of you didn’t get to sample the pineapple tomatoes last week. We’ll try to make sure that these tasty late treats get circulated completely.

The collards sure are big and beautiful. These are classic southern food, if you don’t mind cooking them to pieces with ham! Really, there are other options, too. Wash, slice, and steam them until wilted, then serve with butter, nutritional yeast, and vinegar. Yumm. One friend of ours even massages her cooking greens – bruising them in her fists until they are soft enough to eat in salads. Add some celery seed, olive oil, salt, and garlic…

We have come to the season of greens!

If it were not for drip irrigation technology, I’m not sure any of these greens would have made it this far. As it is, for the price of a little daily inconvenience (I am woman! Hear me grumble!) we have greens growing in the field after a month without rain. There will be more kale, kohlrabi, Chinese cabbages, and maybe even broccoli, to come.

If we were in Florida, I’m sure we would coax another flush of peppers and eggplants from the rows, as well, but most likely the latest round of blooms will succumb to a frost before fruiting. We will soon be harvesting what’s left, and letting the rest go. Speaking of frost – it might be wise for you to finish putting up your pesto next week. Place extra basil orders soon. October is un-predictable.

There’s a wonderful event happening in our neighborhood this weekend. Long Hungry Creek Farm’s Thirteenth Annual Harvest Festival and Biodynamic Celebration will be going on all weekend long. We’ve been helping to organize – and gladly offer you a customer discount if you’d like to come out for a weekend in Red Boiling Springs. Look for details at www.barefootfarmer.com. There are talks and workshops all day Saturday, excellent food from the farm, and interesting folks speaking about bees, food, Permaculture and Biodynamic agriculture. We’re offering a farm tour Sunday afternoon, as an alternate to the extended tour of Long Hungry Creek Farm. Let us know if you’d like to come!

On that same note, please remember that you’re welcome to come out for a visit anytime. We’d love to host a CSA-community potluck sometime, but understand that it’s a far drive and not always convenient for families. If we threw a party, would you come? We welcome any other ideas, as well. If anyone wants to volunteer to host a farm harvest party, it would be fun to get together in town, too.

In your herb bag this week, you will find some red stemmed radish greens. These are thinnings from the rose-heart radish patch, and will allow the radishes left behind to plump up. Slice the greens and stir fry them, with olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper. They are good eaten’.

You could also incorporate them into this versatile and forgiving dish:

Mixed Greens, Mideast Style (from Live Earth Farm CSA in Watsonville, CA)

½ lb mixed cooking greens, rinsed and drained 2 Tbsp. paprika
2 Tbsp. olive oil 2 tsp. ground cumin
1 large onion, chopped cayenne pepper to taste
8-10 garlic cloves, or to taste, finely chopped 2 cups canned tomatoes, with juice
¼ cup chopped fresh (or dry) parsley ¼ cup chopped fresh (or dry) cilantro
Salt to taste

Coarsely chop the greens. Heat the oil in a large heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid over medium heat. Saute the onion and garlic for about 5 minutes, until they are soft. Stir in the parsley, cilantro, paprika, cumin and cayenne; cook for one minute. Stir in the greens. They will shrink as they wilt, so you can add them by the handful if they do not fit in the pot all at once.
Turn the heat to high; stir in the tomatoes with theyjuice. Cover and bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium, and let simmer, covered, stirring often to prevent sticking. After about 20 minutes, add salt to taste.
If the greens are tender, reduce the heat to low, and simmer uncovered, stirring frequently, until very little liquid remains. Do not leave this dish unattended; it can scorch easily.
Serve over rice, or wherever suits you best. This dish also freezes well.

For a variation on the theme of Baba Ghanoush – try Abu Ghanoush ---- mix eggplant pulp, just chopped roughly, with fine slices of sweet pepper, a few thinly sliced tomatoes, and a small onion. Mix lemon or lime juice with olive oil, minced garlic, ground cumin, fresh chopped parsley, and salt to taste. Combine with eggplant mixture and stuff into a pita, or over rice.

This cold snap is serving as a reminder that winter will indeed come. Though it was 90 degrees only a few days ago, we scrambled around this chilly morning, lighting a fire, finding socks and extra shirts, and trying to convince Lulah that more clothes were a good idea. The greens are standing strong in the field; sweet potatoes glowing in their skins, begging to be kept warm. The sun travels further to the south each day, and the nights grow longer. Stay well as the season moves. Eat greens and breathe gently in the cool dry air.

Thank you all for your support – see you next week!

Your gardeners,
Paul, Coree, and Lulah Entwistle

“It needs a more refined perception to recognize throughout this stupendous wealth of varying shapes and forms the principle of stability. Yet this principle dominates. It dominates by means of an ever-recurring cycle, a cycle which, repeating itself silently and ceaselessly, ensures the continuation of living matter. This cycle is constituted of the successive and repeated processes of birth, growth, maturity, death, and decay.” – Sir Albert Howard in The Soil and Health, 1947