We’re enjoying local Cornish veg in spite of the freeze

Camel CSA members are enjoying an awesome selection of fresh, seasonal produce from north Cornwall in their Christmas veg boxes.

Our commitment to eating local food and reducing food miles has paid off. We can blissfully ignore rumours of a national Brussels sprouts shortage and avoid supermarket mayhem.

Happy Christmas everyone!

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Seasonal local food recipe No 76: The perfect potato gratin

Jamie Oliver suggests this as a luxurious alternative to Christmas roast potatoes. Of course, if you’re catering for lots of people, you could always have the gratin as well as the roasties. 

Serves 8-10

Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: about an hour

Ingredients
a large knob of butter
200ml semi-skimmed milk
300ml double cream
2 bay leaves
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2.5kg potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
a handful of fresh thyme
a handful of freshly grated parmesan cheese
olive oil
6 rashers of streaky bacon, chopped
a handful of vac-packed chestnuts, peeled and crumbled

Method
Preheat the oven to 200C/gas 6. Butter the inside of an ovenproof dish, around 30cm x 30cm, and at least 6cm deep.

Pour the milk and cream into a wide pan with the bay leaves and garlic. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for a minute or two. Remove from the heat and season with salt and pepper.

Add the potatoes and most of the thyme leaves and stir well. Spoon into the gratin dish and shake to even everything out. Sprinkle with the parmesan then cover with an oiled piece of foil. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes.

Meanwhile, fry the bacon in a little olive oil until crispy and golden. Add the remaining thyme and stir in the chestnuts. When your gratin is ready, remove the foil and spoon the bacon and chestnut mixture over the top. Pop it back in the oven for another 10 minutes until gorgeous and crispy on top.

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St Mabyn honey and Cornish Orchards wassail in our Christmas veg boxes

Here are the contents we’re hoping to include in our Cornish veg boxes this THURSDAY 23 December. Obviously the exact contents are ‘weather permitting’, but they do include some local Cornish treats!

There’ll be no boxes on Friday 31 December – the next vegetable box day will be Friday 7 January 2011.

Merry Christmas to all our friends!

Small boxes will have:
potatoes (Benbole Farm, St Kew Highway)
* parsnips (Camel CSA)
* leeks (Jeremy Brown, St Kew Harvest)
* savoy cabbage (Jeremy)
onions (Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
sprout stalk (Restharrow Farm)
Cornish honey (Lewis Cox, St Mabyn)
Wassail – a fruity punch made from Cornish cider and apple juice (Cornish Orchards)

Standard boxes will have above plus extra potatoes and onions as well as:
* squash (Jeremy)
carrots (Restharrow Farm)
romanesco (Restharrow Farm)
* garlic (Mark Norman)

* = grown to organic principles

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CSAs benefit from short food supply chain in big freeze

Our picking and packing team harvested the remainder of the celeriac this week. In spite of the freezing conditions in Cornwall – so unusual for this part of the UK – we managed to dig it up.

The celeriac came up with great chunks of frozen earth attached to it. Once the heavy clods were removed, the roots had to be trimmed. Not a pleasant job in a cold Cornish nor’easter.

We’re fortunate we can source so much local food, including what we grow ourselves. Nearly every week we’re able to fill the weekly veg boxes from within an eight-mile radius.

It means our food miles are low and our supply chain is short. And, unlike the big supermarkets, we’re less likely to get caught out by a shortage of fresh, seasonal produce when the weather turns against us.

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Seasonal local food recipe No 75: Red cabbage with chestnuts and sherry

Sounds suitably festive … It’s from Nigel Slater’s Tender Vol II.

Serves 4-6 as a side dish
Preparation/cooking: about 20 minutes

Ingredients
half a good-sized red cabbage (about 750g)
a little groundnut oil
200g pancetta or bacon in the piece
150g peeled chestnuts
a glass of medium sherry

Method
Shred the cabbage finely, then rinse and drain. Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a large saucepan, roughly dice the pancetta/bacon and add to the pan, letting it colour lightly. Add the chestnuts, continue cooking for a few minutes, then add the drained red cabbage. Expect it to hiss and pop. Turn the cabbage in the fat and cover with a lid. Continue cooking over a moderate heat for seven or eight minutes, until the cabbage has wilted slightly. Add the sherry, a little salt (depending on how salty the bacon is) and leave until almost evaporated. Serve immediately.

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In our Cornish veg boxes this week

Small boxes will have:
potatoes (Benbole Farm, St Kew Highway)
* celeriac (Camel CSA)
* garlic (Mark Norman)
onions (Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
carrots (Restharrow Farm)
curly kale (Restharrow Farm)
red cabbage (Restharrow Farm)

Standard boxes will have extra potatoes and onions plus:
parnips (Restharrow Farm)
* leeks (Jeremy Brown of St Kew Harvest)
* jerusalem artichokes (Camel CSA)

* = grown to organic principles

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Making Local Food Work video about Camel CSA

Who we are, what we do and why we’re doing it. That’s the subject of a short film being made by Making Local Food Work about Camel Community Supported Agriculture.

Making Local Food Work is the umbrella organisation that gives advice and support to community food enterprises like ours.

The aim of the video is to raise the profile of community supported agriculture projects. The idea is to interview people involved and to film us in action.

The film-makers have been recording the picking and packing team’s activities - digging up leeks and Jerusalem artichokes, weighing out the potatoes and onions and preparing the rest of this week’s Cornish veg boxes.

They’ve also been filming our growing team who have lots of winter chores to complete. These include finishing construction of the all-important rabbit-proof fence and putting down a weed-suppressing mulch to protect the native windbreak hedge.

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Seasonal local food recipe No 74: Vegetable korma

This recipe from Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook is perfect for using the veg in this week’s boxes with the romanesco cauli making a good base. She calls the dish ‘the perfect quick-and-easy weekday supper’. Serve it with rice and chutney.

Serves 6
Preparation/cooking: about half an hour

Ingredients
1 onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp good curry powder
2 x 400ml tins of coconut milk
1 cauliflower, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 parsnip, chopped
2 good handfuls of chard or spinach, chopped
french beans (good, but not essential)
bunch of coriander, roughly chopped
salt and pepper

Method
Fry the onion in the oil gently until soft. Add the curry powder and fry again for another minute or two. Then add the coconut milk and vegetables, except the beans if you are using them. Season.

Cook for about 10 minutes, until the veg are tender but not soft. If using beans, add them a couple of minutes before the end. Take off the heat and add the coriander.

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In this week’s Cornish veg boxes …

We have:

* jerusalem artichokes (Camel CSA)
potatoes (Benbole Farm)
* leeks (Jeremy Brown, St Kew Harvest)
onions (Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
sprout stalk (Restharrow Farm)
romanesco (Restharrow Farm)
parsnips (Restharrow Farm)

Standard boxes will have extra potatoes and onions plus:
carrots (Restharrow Farm)
savoy cabbage (Restharrow Farm)
swede (Celtic Produce)

* = grown to organic principles

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Volunteers carry on constructing rabbit-proof fence

It’s been invigorating work keeping the voracious Cornish rabbits out of our veg patch.

Our volunteers have almost finished constructing a rabbit-proof fence all round our two-acre plot behind St Kew Harvest Farm Shop at St Kew Highway.

The area at the back of the plot has proved the most challenging, as we’ve had to erect a double fence. This is to protect the native windbreak hedge that’s going to provide a valuable haven for wildlife.

So today’s jobs included hammering in fence posts and laying down a weed-suppressing membrane.

Video

We’ll finish these tasks later in the week when we take part in a video commissioned by Making Local Food Work, the umbrella organisation that supports community food enterprises.

The aim of the short film is to raise the profile of community supported agriculture projects among communities that haven’t yet got to grips with this collaborative concept.

It’ll show Camel CSA members at work – the picking and packing team preparing our weekly veg boxes, the growing team led by our three professional growers, and the families who support us.

Will our efforts inspire others to join the growing CSA movement in the UK, I wonder?

Watch Camel CSA’s videos

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