• Farm News - Healthy Food for All, produce donations, and SICM food pantry
• Recipe: Maple Balsamic Vinaigrette for Kale
• U-pick, and this week's share 

Farm News

The CSA members who came to the CSA potluck last Saturday left us with the first morning of Fall - waking up to temperatures in the lower 40-ies takes a little bit of getting used to, particularly so shortly after a relatively warm late summer!

Healthy Food for All. Over the past 4 years your CSA has been getting more and more involved with issues surrounding food insecurity. We worked together with Schenectady Inner City Ministry to bring subsidized CSA shares to a housing development in Schenectady. And although the community seemed very supportive in meetings over the winter, when the produce arrived interest waned, despite numerous efforts to re-establish interest ... we learned that there is a lot more surrounding the issues of food deserts than access to food and price alone.

Since then, we've started our Healthy Food for All project - CSA members can choose to contribute a little bit to the fund. And the fund helps people who have trouble affording a CSA share. All they need to do is ask.

We also continue our work with SICM - we now harvest about 50 CSA shares for a weekly delivery to their food pantry in Schenectady. It brings the pantry the same high quality produce that we bring to the sites!

And of course, we always find good homes for the produce that isn't claimed at the end of the pick-up time. Most importantly, volunteers of Capital Roots' Squash Hunger program collect the left-over produce and deliver it to local shelters and food pantries. We think that's another and rather nice aspect of our take on Community Supported Agriculture!

Enjoy this week's bounty!

Raymond and Sara

Recipe: Maple Balsamic Vinaigrette for Kale 
 
Kelly Beers brought a kale salad with this dressing to the potluck last Saturday -- this is the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
3 Tbsp maple syrup
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 - 1 C olive oil

Directions:
Mix all dry ingredients, then add the lemon juice, balsamic vinegar and maple syrup. Mix. Add the olive oil and mix until a bit emulsified. Toss with kale, and let sit for at least 1 hour before serving.