Arganica Farm Club

16 December 2011

365 Form for Dec 29-THU

REG Form for Dec 29-THU

Hello dear Arganicans. Please remember that we have compressed the normal Sunday and Thursday delivery days the week prior to New Years to a single delivery day: Thursday, December 29th.

For delivery on Thursday Dec 29th
ORDER BY: Monday Dec 26th at midnight

New This Week:

• Organic Vine-Ripened Tomatoes and Grape Tomatoes
• Organic Red, Yukon and Sweet Potatoes
• Organic Acorn, Spaghetti and Butternut Squashes and Turnips
• Wade's Mill Buckwheat and Old-Fashioned Pancake Mixes, Waffle Mix and Yellow Cornbread Mix
• Rolled Oats
• Baking Cocoa Powder
• Morris Orchard Apple Cider
• Smokehouse Sampler - 2 lbs smoked links, 12oz sliced hickory bacon and 12oz sliced Virginia ham
• Blue Mountain Black IPA in a growler bottle and several other beer and wine options

The year's winding down, but we've been ramping up all our efforts here in the office in a strong push to implement some major improvements in our list of offerings, our website, our pricing and our membership structure by January 2012. Here in purchasing, we've been making a concerted effort to round out our product line to be able to provide you with more of the items on your grocery list. This is one of the reasons why we began carrying the Brittany Sea Salts and Seven Stars Farm Yogurt mentioned in last week's blog. This week we've added baking cocoa powder, rolled oats and a delectable collection of pancake, waffle and cornbread mixes to help you round out your baker's pantry.

If you haven't tried the Pumpkin Butter from Radical Roots, please give it a try! It's like eating a delicious spicy pumpkin pie out of a jar. Yum!! And just to give you a heads up, freshly pressed apple cider season is winding down. Stock up on small-batch apple cider from Showalter's and Morris Orchard this week. They'll be gone come January.

The Smokehouse Sampler from Edwards Ham is definitely also worth a look this week. This trio includes 2 pounds of old-fashioned, hickory-smoked Sausage Links, 12 ounces of smoky hickory Virginia Bacon, and 12 ounces of pre-sliced, uncooked center-cut Virginia Country Ham. The trio comes packed in its own gift box, and is perfect for an easy, hearty, down-home breakfast!

Week 4 of Arganicans Care

Arganica is now in week four of the special Arganicans Care holiday campaign to gather Arganicans for a chance to give food and monetary donations to special local food banks and charities dedicated to improving the communities in which they live.

Who will it Help?

Throughout the month of December 2011, Arganica is campaigning for donations for people in high need of healthy, organically produced food.  We have partnered with local food banks in each of our base cities:

• Virginia Peninsula Food Bank (Virginia Beach)
• Feed More Food Bank (Richmond)
• Blue Ridge Area Food Bank (Charlottesville)
• Bread for the City (Washington DC)
• Maryland Food Bank (Baltimore)
• Philabundance (Philadelphia)

Each of these organizations does incredible things to serve our communities, and all are worthy of our support. They are also in great need this (and every) holiday season for healthy foods and vegetables that many of their clients do not have easy access to.  We want you to get to know each of these organizations better, and we will feature one each week for the rest of the month highlighting their amazing feats that are many times taken for granted.

Why do this?

We KNOW Arganicans care about supporting the local economy from beginning to end. IN FACT, when we polled the Arganica membership on our Facebook page last week, 72% of members told us that “Supporting the Local Food Movement” was their favorite part of being an Arganica Member!  With this spirit in mind we starting thinking of more ways to expand ways to get our members involved directly. By donating local produce or money through Arganica this month, you are supporting BOTH the local community AND local food producers.

How does this work?

Over the next five weeks, weekly order forms will have a section on top called “Arganicans Care”.  All you have to do is select who you would like to donate to and what you would like to donate. 

Members can choose to donate a produce box filled with $25 worth of healthy fruits and veggies OR they can donate $25 cash to the organization of their choice. 100% of all donations will go to charity and Arganica will cover all costs of sourcing and packaging the food and delivering the crates and money to the food banks.

Donations will be collected from Dec. 3rd to Jan. 9th and deliveries will be made the week of Jan. 16th.

Let's make this happen!

The food banks are anxiously awaiting the healthy foods, so please be sure to help the Arganicans Care campaign and help support the local food movement.

Arganicans Care about Bread for the City

Not your traditional food bank, Bread for the City (BfC) provides so much more than food for the hungry - including health-care, housing services, legal services, clothing, social services, advocacy for the impoverished, and more! BfC was born in the 1970’s when a volunteer-run free health care clinic merged with a coalition of churches working to feed and clothe the hungry.  Since then, the organization has continued to grow and prosper, expanding in 2011 to two locations in DC, including a brand new expanded facility where they can offer ALL of their services under one roof.

2011 has been a historical year for BfC for many other reasons, including the opening of a rooftop garden, expanded monthly cooking classes, expansion of their food pantry to new neighborhoods, and completed plans to offer vision and dental services in 2012. Donations from food producers and grocery stores remain strong, supplying enough food for 50,000 clients in 2010. With the expansion of their NW center, and more vehicles to pick up and deliver food, that number of visitors will continue to increase. 

BfC offers a unique experience to their food pantry clients, where the participant gets to choose their own food with a guideline card based on family size. Guideline cards are specifically designed to help families adopt strong nutritional health practices and access a diversified diet of veggies, fruits, meat and grains. This, combined with other educational opportunities from BfC’s rooftop garden and apple orchard, has brought agriculture education directly to inner-city participants - many of whom have never had an opportunity to gain such a deeply “rooted” connection to their food.

Please help this tremendous organization succeed in their ambitious plans!

Producer Profile: Wade's Mill
Raphine, VA

“This circa 1750 water-powered mill is one of my favorite places in the whole valley. Please take a trip there some day!” –Dom, CEO, Arganica Farm Club

Jim and Georgie Young, “the miller and his wife,” are proprietors of Wade’s Mill, one of only a few mills in the country that still uses a water-powered stone milling system. The Youngs carry on a milling tradition which began in the 18th century with Captain Joseph Kennedy, one of the first settlers in the Shenandoah Valley.

The mill stones at Wade’s are powered by a 21-foot overshot water wheel that is fed by the appropriately named Captain Kennedy’s Mill Creek. The resulting stone-ground flour is superior in texture, flavor, and nutritional content to the modern milled variety flour, which is generally processed with high heat and electric-powered steel rollers.

Sift in some Wade's Mill flour to improve any of your holiday sugar cookie, fruitcake, and gingerbread recipes!

On Our Order Form:

• Semolina Flour (2lb Bag--coarse flour ground from durum wheat, best for pastas, breakfast cereals, and pizza dough)
• White Bread Flour (5lb Bag)
• Whole Wheat Bread Flour (5lb Bag)
• Whole Wheat Pastry Flour (5lb Bag)
• All-Purpose White Flour (5lb Bag)
• White Corn Grits (2lb Bag)
• Yellow Corn Grits (2lb Bag)
• Cracked Wheat (2lb Bag--crushed raw whole wheat kernels)
• Wheat Berries (2lb Bag--whole wheat kernels, without hull, can be boiled and added to salads and baked goods for crunchy texture and a hearty dose of dietary fiber)
• Polenta (2lb Bag)
• Buckwheat Pancake Mix (1lb Bag)
• Jimmy's Old-Fashion Pancake Mix (1lb Bag)
• Waffle Mix (1lb Bag)
• Yellow Cornmeal Cornbread Mix (1lb Bag)

Suzy's Kitchen Notes

Eggplant with Pomegranate and Yogurt Sauce
Serves 4 as a side

2 large and long eggplants
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 fresh lemon
1 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, plus a few whole sprigs to garnish
1 pomegranate
1 teaspoon za'atar (optional)
Brittany Sea Salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Sauce:
1 cup Seven Stars Farm Plain Whole Milk Yogurt
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, plus a drizzle to finish
1 small garlic clove, finely minced
pinch of Brittany Sea Salt

1. Preheat oven to 395 degrees F.

2. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise, slicing straight through the green stalk. Use a sharp knife to make four diagonal, parallel incisions in the cut side of each eggplant. Cut as deeply as you can through the flesh of the eggplant without cutting through to the skin. Repeat with four parallel cuts at a 45-degree angle, creating a diamond-shaped pattern.

3. Place the eggplant on a parchment-lined baking sheet, cut side up. Using a pastry brush, generously brush the olive oil on the cut side of each eggplant. Repeat the process until all the olive oil has been used and absorbed into the flesh.

4. Drizzle with a few squeezes of fresh lemon juice, sprinkle with the thyme leaves and some salt and pepper.

5. Roast in the oven until nicely browned on top and meltingly soft in the center, approximately 35-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

6. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce by combining the yogurt, 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil, garlic and pinch of salt in a bowl. Stir thoroughly to combine. Keep in refrigerator until needed.

7. Remove the red seeds from the pomegranate and discard the rest of the fruit. I've found the easiest way to separate the seeds from the rest of the fruit is by first cutting the pomegranate in half. Then take each half and break them apart by hand into 3-4 pieces. Take each piece and press it inside out, then gently pick the seeds off, allowing them to fall into a bowl. Sift through the seeds to remove bits of white skin or membrane.

8. Spoon a generous amount of yogurt sauce on each eggplant. Sprinkle za'atar (if using), pomegranate seeds, and thyme sprigs on top. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil.