first frost

Red beets and purple carrots, straight from the field.

Red beets and purple carrots, straight from the field.

Hello, friends. We just enjoyed our first frost Thursday night, we’re starting to see some golds and reds on the trees, and we are so very ready to settle into fall. The frost finally wrapped up the season on any peppers we were still harvesting, and it signals that it’s really time to clean up from the rest of summer. Our roots and greens will be no worse for wear. We’re still harvesting some of our sweet potatoes and you should see those available in a week or two once they’ve cured.

In the meantime, we do have a few new items this week, with red beets and rainbow carrot bunches, plus celery root and topped orange carrots. We’ve been waiting for all these fall favorites for over three months(!), and now it’s perfect timing. These roots and many other fall vegetables only taste better with each succeeding frost. A kiss of cold weather triggers these cold-hardy vegetables to begin producing extra sugars, thus lowering the freezing point of the water in their cells, and conveniently making them even more delicious. Last night, we got our fall on by enjoying by enjoying a one-pan roast of beets, carrots, and celery root with oranges and baked chicken thighs (recipe below). Tomorrow, we might even have our first fire of the season.

maple season

maple candy

maple candy

Speaking of sweater weather, it doesn’t get much more autumnal then maple syrup season, and we’re very happy to again be joining in the semi-annual Baltimore bulk syrup order from Baer Bros, a small batch syrup producer in western PA. Get your order in by Monday, and we’ll place the order for you and pack it in your box when it arrives in a few weeks. For the uninitiated, “Amber” or Grade A is most likely what you’re used to, but we strongly urge you to give “Dark”'/ Grade B a try. It’s richer, maple-er, and thicker, and is a treat usually reserved for those in the northern maple states. Maple cream is pure syrup that has been further reduced to an apple-butter like spread, and maple candies are 100% syrup crystallized into a small leaf-shaped mold.

what we’re eating

ingredients

  • 4 bone-in chicken thighs

  • 2-3 garlic cloves, minched

  • 1 tsp thyme, 1 tsp tarragon

  • 1 tsp orange zest, plus 2 tsp

  • salt and pepper

  • 1 bunch rainbow carrots, washed, topped and halved lengthwise

  • 1 bunch beets, peeled and sliced in half-inch rounds

  • 1 bunch celery root, sliced in half inch rounds

  • 1 pound yellow potatoes, washed and quartered

  • 2T olive oil, plus 1

  • 1 sweet orange, peeled (half-supremed) then sliced into rounds across the segments

  • juice of 1 orange, 2T olive oil, plus 1

cook

  1. Rinse and dry chicken thighs, pat with salt and pepper, 1 T garlic, herbs, and 1 tsp zest. Let sit uncovered in fridge for one hour.

  2. Toss prepped vegetables in a bowl with 2 T oil, remaining zest, and garlic, then arrange on a sheet pan.

  3. Arrange orange slices over the vegetables. Then place chicken thighs on top of that and drizzle everything with orange juice and remaining oil. Bake for 50 minutes at 350F. Let cool and serve!