In This Week’s Box
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- Shinko Pears, Frog Hollow Farm
- Warren Pears, Frog Hollow Farm
- Golden Russet Bosc Pears Frog Hollow Farm
- Pink Lady Apples, Frog Hollow Farm
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Note! The week of Thanksgiving, we will be delivering ALL CSA shares on Tuesday 11/22!
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From Farmer Al
Dear CSA Members–
LIQUID GOLD…..…….It’s Olive Oil and California Olive Oil will be rare as gold this year! (Perhaps not as pricey, though!) We started picking our olives today and our crop is as light as all other olive farms in California. We’ll probably pick less than 1/4 the amount of last year’s record crop– but what we do harvest will be really good!
And, we’ll send each of you some ripe black olives for cuing so you can make your own dry-cured olives. These unusually cold nights we’ve been having in Brentwood are said to increase the Oleic Acid content of the olives, which will give them that extra-sharp flavor we look for in our oil………it will also make for great cured olives. It’s a great project for kids…..We’ll send instructions with the olives next week.
Bon Appétit,
Poached Pears
You’re probably starting to look for creative ideas for using up some of your pears– I know the Warren Pears are usually the first to be devoured in my household, while the last pears standing are the Boscs’– speaking of standing– they are perfect for arranging in an oven proof baking dish and poaching!
If you’ve never poached pears before, you might be surprised at how easy it is– after looking at a few different recipes on epicurious.com, I came up with a variation on some recipes I’d seen using ingredients I had on hand.
I wanted to use up a bottle of ‘Marker’s Mark’ bourbon that I knew I was never going to drink–(I’m not a big Manhattan fan) so, in a Dutch oven, I combined 1 Cup bourbon with 1 cup grape juice, a 1/2 stick of butter, 1/4 cup sugar sprinkled over the peeled pears, stems in tact, which miraculously stood up all on their own without even cutting the bottoms down, and a dash of bourbon vanilla to the mix.
Oven heat was on 400 F for the first hour, then I took the heat down to 325 for the last 1/2 hour or so. The liquid almost cooked off, but there was a nice sauce remaining to drizzle over the pears and the vanilla ice cream served in bowls. For ease of eating, I actually cut the fruit off the stems and served the pears sans cores, but the presentation is rather pretty when the pears are left whole.
-From Melissa, CSA Coordinator
Note! The week of Thanksgiving, we will be delivering ALL CSA shares on Tuesday 11/22!
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