In Your Box:

• Basil
• Beets
• Garlic, “Chesnook Red”
• Kohlrabi or fennel
• Lunchbox peppers
• Onion
• Sweet pepper
• Tat soi
• Tomatoes

Farm News

Rain! At long last, we’re finally making a dent in the drought pattern that has plagued so much of Minnesota since May. We’ve received around 3” or rain between Saturday and Monday. That’s right around what we average for the whole month of September, so for once I don’t have anything to complain about!

We still have many crops growing in the field, besides the storage crops that are already harvested and dried. This rain will be hugely beneficial to our lettuce, cabbage, and broccoli plants we’re be looking to harvest for the last couple of weeks.

We’ve had to work around the scheduling demands of fall soccer, but it looks like we can finally plan on having a fall harvest party this year after all. We hope you can join us on Sunday, October 8th for an afternoon on the farm. We’ll start at 3:30 pm with farm tours and yard games and then have a potluck dinner at 5:00. Please bring a dish to pass, table settings, and a chair. Our address is 17250 County Road 122 / New Germany 55367. We hope to see you at the farm!

This week’s box

The tiny peppers this week are a mini pepper called “Lunchbox.” This is a variety of sweet pepper bred to grow small peppers for snacking. I wasn’t entirely happy with the result (very slow to ripen, not a lot of fruits per plant), but it’s getting late in the season so I decided to go ahead and harvest them. I’ll try them again next year and see if planting them earlier helps them ripen more.

These peppers are great stuffed or just eaten plain and raw. They can also be used like any larger sweet pepper. Bonus points if you actually carry them in a lunchbox! I personally haven’t had a lunchbox since third grade, but I still have fond memories of my red Dino-Riders plastic box. 

All of our beets this week are a golden variety. They taste just like the red ones and can be used interchangeably, but they don’t stain like the red varieties. Some have gotten a little large, but they’re still fine to use and work well in soups.

Tat soi is probably a new crop for many of you. This Asian green is used just like bok choy, and the white stems can be used as well as the green leafy ends. Tat soi is best kept in the fridge and keeps well for 7-10 days.

Fiesta Stuffed Mini Peppers

INGREDIENTS

• 6-9 Sweet Mini Peppers halved and seeded
• 4 oz Cream Cheese softened
• 4 oz shredded cheddar cheese or shredded Monterey jack
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp fresh cilantro
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F
2. Wash and slice the peppers in half long ways. Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds.
3. In another bowl mix together the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, lime, cilantro, and garlic salt.
4. Spoon or pipe the filling into each of the pepper halves.
5. Place in a baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
6. Serve warm.

Coming up

Next week’s box should have bok choy, head lettuce, sweet pepper, carrots, chard, tomatoes, garlic, onion and radishes