Mountain Bounty Farm

2012 Summer Signups Start this Thursday, March 1. You’ll want to signup early for our summer veggie, fruit, and flower shares to ensure your site of choice.

Yeah for snow! I was starting to feel really guilty for still eating all those hearty winter meals – now I feel a bit better … eat on!

On Sunday night, my husband and I made a killer dinner  - and I just had to share it with you. It started with a NY Steak – cooked perfectly with a onion, roasted garlic and shittake mushroom topper. For the sides I made Root Veggie Fries with rutabaga, sweet potato, carrots, and parsnips (YUM!) and Leeks au Gratin (SUPER YUM!) + a nice bottle of red + raspberry sorbet for dessert = a lovely winter meal. My 5 year-old finished every bite!

What’s in that Box?

2 lbs oranges
1 lb tangerines
1 bu spring onions
1.5 lbs leeks
1 lb purple top turnips & rutabaga
1.5 lbs yellow potatoes
1 bu spinach
1 bu carrots
1 cabbage

What’s in that Bag?

blood oranges
grapefruit
kiwi

Recipes

My favorite Chicken Potpie recipe – use those carrots, onions – and try with potato, turnips & rutabaga! My husband likes to smoke a chicken for this recipe – but for easiness, use a rotisserie chicken, and be sure to have extra chicken stock to cook with.

I have to say I’m not a huge cabbage fan, but I saw this on on Paula Deen’s show today & it looked delicious – Cabbage Soup 

And this one will be perfect later this week – Roasted Potatoes & Turnips

Spinach & Tangerine Salad

Tangerine Ice – great to accompany winter meals

Burnt Orange Bread Pudding (also on Paula Deen – Note: my husband is a Southern man.)

The veggie box was scrumptous last week (yeah for all those greens!), although we’re still working on everything in it since we went up to Tahoe for the holiday weekend. We always stay in Incline and have found THE  place to eat – Jack Rabbit Moon. It is the kind of wonderful cooking I can only dream of doing! Their appetizers are always so good, wine list excellent, and their pasta dishes are infused like I would love to make mine. We also ate at Bite - a local favorite – and another wonderful place with great food and a cool hip vibe.

Enjoy  this week’s finds …. lots of recipes below!

Veggie Box Contents
2 lbs oranges
1 lb parsnips
0.5 lbs spinach
1 bu carrots
1 cabbage
1 bu collards
0.5 lb baby romaine
1 lb leeks
0.75 lb beets
1 lb golden turnips

Fruit Bag Contents
Kiwis
Blood Oranges
Grapefruit

Recipes

Upside Down Caramelized Root Veggie Tart – a great way to use beets + turnips + carrots. I recommend making it simple with a premade crust!

Lentil Stew with Winter Veggies – hoping this hearty winter meal brings on a winter storm

Roasted Beets & Parsnips 

Root Veggie Gratin – you can add potato to this, too

Root Vegetable Soup with Meatballs – this one is simple but elegant!

Blood Orange Martini – I don’t know about you guys, but I have been craving a summertime cocktail.

Mixed Baby Beet Salad with Blood Oranges, Shaved Fennel, and Chevrot Cheese

I don’t know about you, but I can’t get enough of these beautiful carrots. When you taste one, you don’t want to go back to store-bought and bagged! Be sure to check out my (and members) recipes below. Last weekend I made my family the Root Veggie Lasagna …. being a lover of Italian food (red sauces) I was a bit hesitant in trying one of my favorite dishes so differently. But this was delicious. You don’t really need very much cheese either – although I did add some ricotta to make it a little more traditional.

Veggie Box Contents
2 hds Batavian Lettuce
1 lb Rutabaga
1 bu Carrots
1 lb Broccoli
0.75 lb Romanesco
2 hds Radicchio di Treviso
1 bu Spinach
1 bu white spring onions
1 buttercup squash
1 bu cilantro

Fruit Bag
Navel oranges
Kiwis

Recipes

Roasted Balsamic Radicchio

Root Veggie Lasagna – I made it this past weekend and we had leftovers last night – super yum. I used parsnips, carrots, sweet potatoes, shrooms, onion and butternut squash – but you could use the rutabagas, onion and the buttercup squash in this week’s box! You could try some regular potato, too. I also added some ricotta with chopped green garlic in the layers – really good.

Cilantro Chicken – yeah! It is so exciting to see cilantro. Im trying this one this week.

And for those of you who missed my favorite way to do the rutabagas …….click here.

And here are some yummy sounding ones from MBF members (try using the buttercup squash in these, too):

Butternut Squash Soup

Potato Soup

Butternut Squash Salad

Warm Spinach Salad with Fried Egg & Potatoes

Tumeric Roasted Rutabagas

There is only LOVE.

Maybe I LOVE Valentine’s Day because I have a wonderful husband and 2 beautiful little girls (giving me an excuse to make homemade cards and cut out heart frosted cookies) … but I also support the idea of a day or month of celebrating romance and LOVE. I am currently reading the NY Times bestseller, The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin. You may know the story or have read it – the author attempts to become a happier, more light-hearted person by completing a year of practical changes in her life, with each month focusing on a different theme. Last night I started reading, ironically, the “February” chapter, where she looks at her marriage. During the month she continually reminds herself of one of the 12 commandments she decided upon before entering her experiment … “There is only LOVE.”

This little simple sentiment is what I am taking with me as an inspiration as we go through this next little holiday time. I will try to remind myself of this when I get overwhelmed with the seemingly endless amount of work around me (I can take a break), or when I am impatient with my children (they only know as much as they know), or critical of my husband (he works hard, too). I’ll take it with me in the car, the grocery store, the gym …. remembering I can only work on myself.

THANK YOU!
So enough about me – now a little bit of LOVE out to you guys. Last night John Tecklin, the brain and the heart behind Mountain Bounty, sent out a heartfelt email about the challenges the farmers have had this winter. In response, we have received a large handful of notes back to us, thanking us for the update and praising us with words of support. Thank you! Our farmers are doing their best with this difficult weather – and we all are thankful that people like you believe in what we do.

Now for the food. If you aren’t taking your lovey out this weekend or Tuesday nite to celebrate – think about staying in for a cozy romantic dinner for 2 (or the family) and try the recipes I included this week – below. Happy Love!

Veggie Box
2 lbs Oranges
1 bu Carrots
1 bu Green Garlic
1 bu Collards
1 bu Rapini OR Red Mustard
0.5 lbs Little Gem Lettuce
0.5 lbs Spinach
1.5 lbs Potatoes
1 Red or Grey Kabocha

Fruit Bag
Grapefruits
Navel Oranges

Recipes
Kabocha Squash Pasta & also Soup Recipe (2 recipes, same page)  - this is a fun blog, too! Some lovely and fun relationship advice, too.

Collard Greens with Guanciale and Chilies – this is an awesome dish I recently found in Sunset Mag (Jan 2012). Guanciale is an Italian sweet bacon. I used pancetta instead and it was great – but you can also use thick-cut bacon. Try using pickled piquillo peppers in it, too.

Hanger Steak with Green Garlic Sauce – my husband and I love to make tri tip or a good thick NY steak on the weekends. Pair this with some nice roasted potatoes, garlic up & saute that rapini or spinach- and all you’ll need is the chocolate cupcakes (below) a good bottle of red from The Pourhouse (in Truckee) or Carrington’s (Nevada City).

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes – here’s another fun recipe and page from the blog mentioned above. No need for one of those fancy cupcake shops when you got this recipe. (Oh and if you really want to impress someone, get them the decadent truffles from The Truffle Shop in Nevada City.

Can you believe it is already February? It always amazes me how quickly the year gets going ….. and this weekend is already the Superbowl. Dare I even say that we’ll still be having a huge party even though the 49ers aren’t in it? It is a big tradition with our family of friends – and of course along with the game, (and the billion dollar commercials), and lots of fun stuff to drink, we’ve got tons of fun party food to eat. I usually serve Martha Stewart’s famous Mac N’ Cheese (unfortunately no produce needed – and I use good sourdough bread for the topping and smoked gouda + cheddar and/or gruyere), and this year I started searching for more fun – and healthier – munchie things to make. I wanted to be able to share Mountain Bounty’s good stuff! So check out the recipes below that I’ll be trying this weekend …..

An Important Word from ME!
Also – before you read on for this week’s bounty, I just wanted to remind all of you about how our pickup system works. WE RELY ON YOU! I do my best on this end to make sure our counts are totally correct, our farmers and delivery drivers count that again, and then once the boxes and bags arrive at the pickup sites – it is up to YOU! I cringe every Wednesday & Thursday nite when the farm cell rings. I keep my fingers crossed that everyone correctly picks up their shares within the time we have alotted at each site. Please remember: There are no extra boxes or bags at the sites. If you are sharing, and you and your share partner mistakenly pick up the same week, someone else will go without their share. OR – if you don’t tell your friend or husband EXACTLY what to pick up, and they pick up an additional bag or box, someone else will go without their share. Please help me make the system work.
Thank you guys!

Veggie Box Contents
2 lbs oranges
1 Butternut Squash
0.5 lbs sundried peaches
1.5 lbs potatoes
1 bu leeks
1 lb parsnips
1 bu rapini
1-2 romanesco

The sundried peaches are just that, sundried with no additives. They have a dark color, almost black, especially on the outside. As a reminder, the rapini is also known as broccoli rabe. And romanesco is a kinda like broccoli + cauliflower – it sautes with garlic beautifully!

Fruit Bag
Navel Oranges
Lemons

Recipes

Leek Tart

Butternut Squash Bruschetta

Parsnip Fritters

and this recipe, I randomly found in a 1999 Cooking Light magazine at the gym today – Creamy Potatoes & Greens – sounds like a great side with hamburgers!

And if you have just signed up, be sure to scroll down for more recipes in past MBF Winter Newsletters!

What a wonderful weekend I had – hunkering down inside with the family – went to the movies (We Bought a Zoo is really worth the ticket), and had some scrumptous food. Eventually I’ll share with you my to-die-for chicken pot pie recipe. Sunday nite we even added smoked chicken in it. So good. Our shares sound lovely this week – and enjoy the recipes I’ve put together for you below. A nice varied selection.

Veggie Box Contents
2 lbs Oranges
1 Green Cabbage
1 Buttercup Squash
1 bu Green Garlic
1 bu Collards
1-2 Celery Roots
0.5 lb Mei Qing Choi (Bok Choy)
1 bu Scarlet Queen Turnips
1.5 lbs French Fingerling Potatoes

The Mei Qing Choi and Collards show signs of past freezes: mainly tip burns along the edges of the leaves. You can treat the cute turnips like radishes – they are great in salads.

Fruit Bag
navel oranges
kiwis

And now for some Recipes:

What to do with the Green Garlic – fun recipes!

Balsamic Fingerling Potatoes

Celery Root & Potato Pancakes

Yahoo! Winter is coming this week!

Let’s try some fun new recipes as we settle in and watch the rain and snow fall.

Veggie Boxes – yup, you’ve got some of those wonderful oranges and mandarins in there again. YUM!

Do you want FREE VEGGIES? Just a reminder that we now have 2 new sites in Reno and we’re looking to fill those sites with new members. Tell all your Reno friends – for each new member you bring in, we’ll give you a free week of veggies in the summer. For details, go to our homepage or contact Kathy at 530-292-3776, info@mountainbountyfarm.com.

What’s in Your Veggie Box?

2 lbs Navel Oranges
1.5 lbs Satsuma Mandarins
2 Delicata Squash
1-2 Romanesco
1.5 lbs Potatoes
2-4 Leeks
0.5 lbs Little Gem Lettuce
1 bu Spinach

What the heck is a Romanesco? It kinda looks like cauliflower and tastes more like broccoli – a beautiful veggie. And – The lettuce and spinach do show tip burn around the edges of leaves due to freezes, but are fresh and sweet.

What’s In Your Fruit Bag?

8 lbs mandarins
2 lbs kiwi

Super Yum Recipes

Do you still have some of that celery root? I made this with it (and even added the parsnips from last week) and it was a hit with my friends and family. Celery Root & Potato Gratin

And try this with that gorgeous romanesco – Sauteed Romanesco with Pine Nuts & Garlic

And I’m making this tonight – Arugula, Fennel, Apple, Mandarin & Pomegranate Salad

With that salad, try this one to wow even your carnivorous friends – Nut Stuffed Delicata Squash

And thank you to member Barbara for this one (if you’ve got that cabbage and fennel left) – Savoy Cabbage and Fennel with Parsley-Lemon Butter

Hi there Mountain Bounty Friends!

Yes – there is fruit in your veggie box! Just a reminder that veggie share members once again get fruit this week – PLEASE ONLY TAKE the veggie box – AND NOT a fruit bag. Your fruit is inside the veggie box. THANKS!

Do you want Free Veggies? Just a reminder that we start up our 2 new Reno sites next week and we’re looking to fill those sites with new members. Tell all your Reno friends – for each new member you bring in, we’ll give you a free week of veggies in the summer. For details, go to our homepage or contact Kathy at 530-292-3776, info@mountainbountyfarm.com.

Another wonderful week of winter veggies and fruits! We’ve got an interesting selection this week (and unfortunately you’re not out playing in the snow) – so get creative with those dinners. Look for some great recipes below, too.

What’s In Your Veggie Box?

2 lbs oranges
1.5 lbs mandarins
.75 lb yellow carrots
1 lb rutabaga
1 lb parsnips
2 fennel
.75 lb mei qing choi – AKA bok choy
.50 lbs broccoli
2 leeks
1 savoy cabbage

What’s In Your Fruit Bag?

8 lbs mandarins
2 lbs kiwi

Some Fun Recipes

What to do woth Bok Choy – a fun side veggie – wonderful with lots of garlic: Spicy Bok Choy in Garlic Sauce

You’ll feel so gourmet with this one - Sauteed Parsnips & Carrots with Honey & Rosemary

And you still have leeks leftover from last week? And now you have more – try this! Braised Leeks

This is a great winter meal and super easy to make! Pork with Apple-Fennel Compote

And how about something for breakfast using those oranges – Orange Almond Scones - really one of my favorite brekkie treats!

Happy New Year Mountain Bounty folks – we’re so glad to be entering another year with you!

And we’re all thrilled to have deliveries start up once again. I know how much I missed the fresh veggies during the holidays – I can imagine you guys did, too.

Reno Deliveries
Big News! We’re adding 2 pickup sites in Reno, beginning January 19. If you refer a new member in Reno, we’ll give you a free week of veggies this summer. Contact Kathy for more info – 530-292-3776 or info@mountainbountyfarm.com

Veggie Box Contents
2 lbs Navel Oranges (from Blue Heron Farm, Rumsey CA, certified organic by CCOF)
1.5 lbs Mandarins (from Gold Oak Ranch, Rumsey CA, certified organic by CCOF)
1 Red Kabocha Squash
2 Celeriac (celery root)
2-3 Leeks
1.5 lbs Potatoes
1 bunch Rapini (aka Broccoli Rabe, a tender green)
1 bu Spinach
A note about what’s in your veg box -  Due to freezing nights, some of the greens show signs of burn around the edges of the leaves. Other than the cosmetic blemish, the greens are fresh and tasty! See below for some great recipes …

Fruit Bag Contents
2 lbs kiwis
8 lbs of mandarins

Recipes
Start a Pizza Night! My family often uses Friday as our weekly pizza night. If you’re not into making your own pizza dough, you can pick up some great fresh, prepared dough at most groceries stores – or try asking your favorite pizza restaurant for some. And then get creative with your toppings ….. here are some great ones:

Roasted Garlic, Caramalized Leek and Bacon Pizza

Rustic Potato Pizza

Pizza with Rapini

And one of the best presents I gave my husband this Christmas (and he swears it is one of the best presents ever) was the cookbook, Eat Like a Man, from Esquire Magazine (a magazine I love to read, too … honestly!) On New Year’s Day he made the Beef Stew (which has among other things celeriac, ale, and portobellos). For a hearty meal this winter, you’ve got to try it – to impress men and woman alike – click here.

And now that you have that Kaboucha Squash on hand, you’ve got to try that Squash Fennel Soup I posted a few weeks ago – this is THE squash to make it with.

Enjoy the bounty!

Winter is getting close … but where is that snow? I think I’m dreaming of a white Christmas …. in the meantime I have been craving soup galore (and Xmas cookies) – see soup and more recipes below. I hope you enjoy this week’s veggies and fruits.

AND DON’T FORGET – This is the last week of deliveries for the year, as to give our friends at Riverdog some much needed vacation and time with their families. Your deliveries will start up again January 4 & 5.

Check out what’s in this weeks shares … and try the yummy recipes below.

Veggie Box
1 bunch orange carrots
1 bunch yellow carrots
2 delicata squash
1 bunch spinach
2-3 stalks leeks
1.5 lbs potatoes
1 lb watermelon daikon
1 lb scarlet queen turnips
1 bu collards
0.5 lb arugula

Fruit Bag
8 lbs mandarins
2 lbs kiwis 

YUMMY RECIPES

a great recipe for Potato & Leek Soup
or use those leeks in this beautiful Delicata Squash Soup
and looking for a new pasta recipe? – this one is hearty! Penne Pasta with Arugula, Gorgonzola, & Walnuts