Hello dear eaters of meadowlark,

We returned this week after a lovely weekend spent camping in the wilderness of Canada. Thanks to the awesome farm crew, especially Rober and Nick, who made it easy for us to sneak away for a birthday weekend in the wilds. We spent time visiting favorite hikes and spent a magical day climbing rocks in the sunshine. We return satiated and relaxed and ready for the fall work that lies ahead, such as putting gardens to bed, planting garlic, digging potatoes and replacing the plastic on the greenhouse. We will start planting garlic very soon and would love to have some help with "cracking" garlic. A garlic head grows from a single garlic clove, so to plant we "crack" open the heads into single cloves. It takes many, many hours of workto crack the tens of thousands of garlic cloves that we plant each fall! It is easy, companionable work and if you would like to join us, we will be working away at this for the next week or so. We welcome you to come between 9:00-4:00 M-Friday. Dress warmly, we usually work in the barn. If you have a guitar or banjo pick, bring that with you, as that is the easiest way we've found to open up the heads of garlic..

Boxes this week include: salad mix, kale or red mustard bunch for cooking, onion, garlic, shallots, potatoes, dragon beans, green or red sweet pepper, confection winter squash, radishes, carrots, beets with lovely, huge greens, the last of the summer's tomatoes. We just couldn't cut the tops off of these beets; they are huge and full of good fall nutrition! For the beet greens, try them cut into large pieces and boiled in salted waer in a large pot until tender, then drain. Put them in wide skillet with olive oil, garlic and fresh tomatoes. Season with oregano or basil and cook on high until tomatoes are heated. Serve with asiago cheese grated on top.

With all of these "rooty" veggies, I am hungry for roasting. Turn the oven on pretty high, 410 or so, and coarsely chop carrots, beets, potatoes, shallots, onions, garlic, pepper and whatever else sounds good. Put together in a big bowl, and toss lightly with olive oil, kosher salt and herbs of choice like sage, thyme or oregano. The key to good roasting is to lay the veggies in a single layer on a cookie sheetor shallow roasting pan. Cook unditurbed until tender and brown in areas. Delicious for brunch or dinner, it is a great way to use a big amount of potatoes. They are delicious in a wrap for lunch or all by themselves! Try different combos and see what is your favorite...

Here is a recipe that uses those beets and sounds warm and winter like:

BEET AND MUSHROOM CURRY

 - 1 lb. beets, without tops and cut into 3/4" dice

- 1/2 tsp whole yellow or brown mustard seed

- 2 tsp peeled and grated fresh ginger

- 1 fresh hot green chile or jalapeno, very finely chopped, no seeds unless you love it hot

- 1 C chopped fresh tomato

- 1/2 tsp whole cumin seed

- 6 oz medium mushrooms, halved

- 2 large garlic, peeled, crushed

- salt to taste

Put oil in medium pan and set over me-high heat. When hot, put in cumin and mustard seed. As soon as the mustard seeds pop, put in the mushrooms. Give mushrooms a quick stir and put in beets. Stir and fry the beets for 2 minutes. Now put in ginger, garlic and shile. Stir and fry, still on medium heat, another 2 minutes. Now put in tomatoes, 1/2-1 C water and salt. Stir to mix and bring to boil. Cover, turn down heat to low and cook gently, about 40 minutes until beets are tender. Serve with rice or pasta. Have a great week, the meadowlarks