CSA 2023 Fall Week 8 – Happy Thanksgiving!

Bok Choy

Red Leaf Lettuce

Mustard Greens or Red Kale

Red Round Radishes

Roselle

Medium Squash Mix

Green Tomatoes

Okinawa (Purple) Sweet Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes, Medium

Green & Yellow Snap Beans

Happy Thanksgiving! May your bellies be full!

We remain thankful for you, our customers and CSA members, for valuing the food that we grow and harvest. We love filling your green box each week, and we hope that it brings you excitement and joy when you open it. Perhaps what is most special about Thanksgiving is that when we gather round a table, big or small, we can create our own expressions of gratitude for nourishing food and our shared earth.

This week’s box contains a superfood that will catch your eye right away: the Okinawa sweet potato. These purple fleshed and skinned sweet potatoes are high in anthocyanins and other antioxidants. Anthocyanins are responsible for that pretty purple hue. They’re also a favorite staple in the diet of the famously long living residents of Okinawa island.  Have you heard of the Blue Zones or caught the documentary about them? Blue zones are areas of the world where people live notably longer lives with more vitality in older age. Okinawa has been dubbed a blue zone and, come to find out, the purple sweet potato may be a large part of the reason why. Here is what the Blue Zones researcher Dan Buettner has to say about it:

“All Okinawans age 100 or more who are alive today were born between 1903 and 1914. During the first third of their lives, roughly before 1940, the vast majority of the calories they consumed — more than 60 percent — came from one food: the imo, or Okinawan sweet potato. A purple or yellow variety related to our orange sweet potato, the imo came here from the Americas about 400 years ago and took well to Okinawan soils. This sweet potato — high in flavonoids, vitamin C, fiber, carotenoids, and slow-burning carbohydrates — is one of the healthiest foods on the planet.”

We can’t promise our purple sweet potatoes will make you live longer, but they are a tasty way to give it a shot!

Recipes inspired by the Thanksgiving holiday and this week’s share:

Spiraled Sweet Potato Gratin

A savory take on sweet potatoes that makes a pretty, yet easy, Thanksgiving side dish!

Ingredients

• 1 unsalted butter, softened
• 5 medium sweet potatoes, peeled
• 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream (or sub coconut cream)
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 fresh thyme leaves, plus more for garnish
• 1/4 black pepper
• 3 kosher salt
• 2 Parmesan cheese, finely grated (about 1/2 cup)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease bottom of a 10-inch cast-iron skillet or baking dish with butter. Using a mandoline, thinly slice sweet potatoes (about 1/16 inch thick). (Alternatively, thinly slice sweet potatoes 1/8 inch thick using a chef’s knife.) Place stacks of sweet potato slices on their sides in prepared pan, fanning slightly.
2. Bring cream, crushed garlic, thyme, pepper, and 2 teaspoons of the salt to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer, stirring often, until garlic is softened, about 15 minutes. Remove and discard garlic, if desired. Pour cream mixture over potatoes in skillet. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and remaining 1 teaspoon salt. Cover tightly with aluminum foil.
3. Bake in a preheated oven until potatoes are tender and easily pierced with a knife, 50 to 55 minutes. Remove foil, and bake until top begins to brown, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven; let cool 10 minutes. Garnish with additional thyme leaves, serve and enjoy!

Recipe borrowed from Southern Living

Sweet Potato Souffle

From Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ memoir cookbook Cross Creek Cookery

• 2 cups boiled, mashed sweet potatoes
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups rich milk or thin cream
• ½ cup honey
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch, dissolved in 4 tablespoons of the milk or cream
• 3 beaten eggs
• 1 cup broken pecan meats
• Marshmallows

Directions

1. Blend all ingredients except marshmallows, in order. Place in deep buttered casserole or baking dish. Bake slowly thirty to forty minutes, or until set, so that silver knife thrust into souffle comes out clean. Cover top with marshmallows. Continue baking until marshmallows are puffed and brown. Serve immediately. This is one of the most luscious and utterly delicious dishes that I serve. I constantly expect guests to fall into convulsion after partaking.
2. It is possible to omit the marshmallows, dotting with butter instead, and/or the pecans, but one might as well go the whole hog.

Serves 6 to 8

Roselle & Black Bean Quesadillas

• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 3 cups fresh roselle, seed pods removed, chopped
• 1.5 cups cooked black beans
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 tablesppon cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 6 large tortillas
• 3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• Top with your favorites like cilantro, green onion, avocado, etc.

Directions

1. Heat oil in skillet and ad onion. Cook 5 minutes.
2. Add roselle and black beans to pan. Add spices. If mixture is dry, add a small splash of water to allow spices to coat
3. Heat a large tortilla in the pan for 30-60 seconds. Flip tortilla over. Sprinkle half with cheese. Scoop roselle-bean mixture onto cheese and top with a bit more cheese.
4. Fold in half and cook 1 minute until cheese has melted.
5. Repeat until all quesadillas are cooked.
6. Garnish with whichever toppings you enjoy

Recipe by friend of the farm Elise Pickett from The Urban Harvest in St. Petersburg, FL