10/22 box

Lettuce - Pi Farm

This versatile salad green has a place in practically any salad or sandwich (these are words that will come up a lot in this week's foods). And while it works quite well to make un-microwaved-school-lunch sort of foods, it can also be easily grilled, stir-fried, or, with slightly more effort, even made into a puréed lettuce soup if you just want your veggies cooked.

Try this list of lettuce recipes for more ideas.

Sweet Potatoes - Women's Metro Transitional Center

We're having sweet potatoes again this week. These quintessentially fall root vegetables are not, in fact, related to potatoes. Or yams. But the sweet part is indeed accurate. Click here to see last week's sweet potato blurb and recipes. Or, if you need new ideas, check out this list of 54 sweet potato recipes.

Hakurei Turnips - Thomasville Heights Elementary School and Pi Farm

This is our third week with these delicately-flavored turnips. Try cooking them with this week's garlic, or pairing them raw with Banner Butter's cultured sea salt butter for a delicious snack. Don't want to use them just yet? Separated from their greens, the turnips can be stored 7-10 days in the fridge, though the greens should be eaten while fresh. Or, pickle them using this simple recipe.

Click here to see last week's hakurei turnip blurb and recipes. For more ideas, try these recipes for maple-glazed and miso-glazed turnips, a twist on roasting that calls for cayenne and honey, or a salad that also incorporates sweet potato.

Collards - All GGA Farms

Collards are making a reappearance in this week's box. And if you choose to make that Southern staple, collard greens, don't forget about the potlikker. When boiled, a lot of the vegetable's nutrients end up in the liquid, making a flavorful broth that can be consumed by itself or used as a base for a heartier soup. Here's a brief Atlantic article on the history of potlikker. For a more comprehensive look at Southern food history (including collards), check out The Potlikker Papers by John T. Edge.

Click here for last week's collards blurb.

Here's a list of even more ideas for eating your collards.

Kale - Thomasville Heights Elementary School and Pi Farm

Although it has its roots in Greek and Roman times, this fiber-rich vegetable was a relatively minor presence in the US diet until its explosion in popularity around 2012. Kale is also making a comeback in our boxes after its absence last week. You can eat your kale in a salad, sautéed, in soups, smoothies, or baked into kale chips using a Paideia family's simple recipe below.

Here's a website with plenty of kale preparation tips and ideas, including a recipe for kale pesto and garlic-braised greens.

Click here to read the 10/8 kale blurb.

Sweet Pepper/Bell Pepper Mix - Pi Farm

Did you know green sweet peppers are simply unripened sweet peppers? Though slightly less sweet, all the color varieties of these delectable peppers are a refreshing, crunchy snack on their own. You can also cook them to add some flavorful fall color to the table in almost any dish: sautéd, stir-fried, roasted, puréed in soup. Or, for a twist, try pickling them to use as a garnish for weeks to come (see below).

Need more ideas? Here's a whole list of sweet pepper recipes.

(This blurb has been reposted from the 10/8 newsletter)

Garlic - Thomasville Heights Elementary School

Most garlic in the US is imported from China. Local, garlic is not only fresher, but also significantly more eco-friendly since it didn't have to travel nearly as far. Use these fresh garlic cloves to spice up many savory dishes, such as the recipes for the other veggies on this page.

If you're feeling adventurous, try treating garlic as a vegetable by roasting a whole clove and eating it by itself (this is likely only appealing to those who already like garlic). Alternatively, you can use roasted garlic as a spread or add it as you would regular garlic to your favorite savory recipes.

(This blurb has been reposted from the 10/8 newsletter)

Frisée Salad Greens - Community Herd

The word "frisée" means "curly" in French and this salad green certainly lives up to its name with its distinctly frilly edges. While it certainly can form the base of a salad on its own (such as in this French country salad), you can also mix it with your lettuce to mellow out its sharp, bitter flavor, or use it for a pop of flavor or an attractive garnish in other dishes, from sandwiches to soups. It also pairs well with this week's garlic and feta, as well as other rich, heavy flavors that cut down on the bitterness. And if you don't like raw greens, they can also be sautéed, such as in this simple recipe.

Click here for more information on how to prep, store, and use frisée.

Read more about Community Herd and the work they do here.

Feta Cheese - Decimal Place Farm

We have fresh goat cheese from Decimal Place Farm again this week! This time, it's feta, a crumbly, flavorful cheese perfect for topping sandwiches and salads. For something a bit more hearty, consider baking it, adding it to pastas, making it into dip, or using it as a pizza topping.

Here's a whole list of other ideas for your feta cheese.

Click here for an article about their cheesemaking process and here for more information about the farm.

Sea Salt Butter - Banner Butter

This week's extra item comes to us from Banner Butter, a local creamery that makes small-batch, cultured butter from the cream of local, grass-fed cows. Fresh and flavorful, this sea salt butter is flavored with hand-harvested sea salt and is perfect for smearing on your turnips or semolina bread for a snack. Or both at once. In fact, if you have radishes left over from last week, this butter is ideal for making a very, very simple French radish and butter sandwich, a dish that relies on the freshness of the radishes and the flavor of real cultured butter.

The butter can be stored in the freezer for up to 12 months, but once it's opened, it should be refrigerated and used within 6 weeks.

Click here for more information about Banner Butter.

ALSO in this week's box:

Semolina Batard from Root Baking

Eggs from Tiny Joy Farm @Berea and Riverview Farm

Mountain Fresh Creamery 2% Milk from Candler Park Market

See In Every Box for more detailed information.

Note: There may occasionally be last-minute changes to box contents depending on the goods that are available from the farm. While we try to keep this website up-to-date as possible, we cannot guarantee that what's in your box will exactly match what's on the website.

Food Feature:

Since the vegetables have reappeared in this week's boxes, we are reposting some Paideia community recipes for kale, sweet peppers, and collards from previous weeks.

KALE CHIPS

Ingredients: kale, olive oil, salt, lemon

Try to wash the Kale a few hours before so that is is dry when it's time to cook. Store in refrigerator until it's time to cook.
Preheat oven to 375.
Remove the stems. Tear the kale into smaller pieces (chip size, not too small).
Place kale pieces into a big bowl and drizzle olive oil (just enough to very lightly coat the kale) add a pinch of salt and squeeze half a lemon.
Mix well then spread onto a baking sheet.
Put in oven for about 7 minutes, take them out and feel them. If they are not crispy continue cooking and checking every few minutes. If some are crispy and others are not, remove the crispy ones and continue to cook the others until crisp.

PICKLED SWEET PEPPERS

Time: 10 min prep, 40 min baking, 5 days pickling

Ingredients: red, yellow, or orange bell peppers, balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, sugar

Feel free to substitute different kinds of vinegar in different amounts to taste. Sugar is also to taste - it makes the resulting pickle a little sweeter, but is by no means required.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit
Spread out whole bell peppers on a baking sheet. We usually use a silicon baking mat to make cleanup easier.
Bake for about 20 minutes, or until blistered.
Turn the bell peppers so the unblistered side is facing up and bake for another 20 minutes or so. Bake until the skin should be able to come off easily.
Let the peppers cool before peeling off the skin and getting rid of the seeds. Tear the peppers into strips
Mix balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, and a bit of sugar in a jar.
Pack the bell peppers strips into the vinegar and seal. Usually, it takes at least 5 days for the pickles to taste pickle-y, but again, it depends entirely on how sour you like your pickles. Use in salads, sandwiches, pasta, as a garnish—anywhere you might use a pickle!

SAUTÉED COLLARDS

Ingredients: collards, garlic, red pepper flakes, olive oil

Sauté chopped garlic and red pepper flakes in olive oil
Wash and shred the collards
Add to the sautéed garlic mixture on the fire and keep turning over until they shrink down
Cover and simmer for about 10-15 minutes

If you ever have a recipe/preparation ideas you'd like to share from your CSA box, please email paideiacsa@gmail.com. We would love to see what you're cooking!

Here's one Paideia family's CSA box dinner from last week, featuring collards, sweet potatoes, and sourdough bread:

Profile: Women's Metro Transitional Center Urban Farm

From left to right: Leah Clement (MTC Urban Farm), Erin Cescutti (Pi Farm), Tania Herbert (Pi Farm), Eva Dickerson (Thomasville Elementary School Farm)

Each week, we will be featuring one of the people who makes this CSA happen: the vendors, the farmers, the organizers. This week, we are continuing our virtual tour of the Grassroots Growers Alliance with MTC Urban Farm and Leah Clement, the farmer who runs the program.

MTC Urban Farm is a farm and agricultural training program that began in 2019 to assist women who are transitioning out of the prison system. Program participants attend monthly workshops (assisted by Paideia High School students) that focus on agricultural skills training, horticultural therapy, and health and wellness. As part of the Grassroots Growers Alliance, this program works to foster meaningful relationships between our communities while learning to grow and run an urban farm. In addition, it equip the women with agricultural job skills that help to ensure successful transitions out of the prison system. The GGA lets these women become part of something transformational, allowing them to transcend the walls of the prison system as they work to build out a more equitable food system for all of us. We are grateful for the weekly fresh produce we receive from their farm for the CSA boxes.

WHY I FARM: Leah Clement

I am the farmer educator at the Metro Transitional Center food garden, an urban micro-farm and educational program at a halfway house for people who are finishing out the end of their prison sentence. Though it may sound cliche, I’ve always felt a connection to plants and loved working outside. But I actually came to farming through the backdoor while, surprisingly, in graduate school for my MDiv. I was studying restorative justice and also spending time in a few state prisons as a chaplain, everywhere from the high security solitary confinement ward to teaching dance classes and facilitating community conflict processes. Due to lingering complications from a traumatic brain injury, however, I started managing a garden space and landscaping both to cope with the pain and earn income to get me through grad school. In the process, I started Googling about all sorts of strange tomato leaf formations and bugs eating our kale plants, learning more about sustainable agriculture and regenerative land management. I was hooked. When the opportunity to manage this small farm program presented itself, I felt that it was a beautiful marriage of my growing skills and interests. In the process, I get to facilitate a police-free zone even amidst barbed wire fencing, and encourage our collective healing: within and between ourselves, with the land itself, and in our food system—all while growing food for ourselves and the broader community! I feel incredibly grateful to be doing this work.

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