Now we’re entering the season of mellow fruitfulness, we’ve got a beautiful pumpkin in each vegetable box this week.  They’re Jack-o’-Lantern variety from Mark Norman, one of Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s expert growers, who runs his own horticultural business on the edge of Bodmin.

Also in the small boxes:
*potatoes (Camel CSA)
*onions (Camel CSA)
*parsnips (Camel CSA)
*curly parsley (Camel CSA)
*100g salad bag (Jane Mellowship)
*pumpkin (Mark Norman)
*1/2 cucumber (Jeremy Brown)
*carrots (Jeremy)
cauliflower (Richard Hore, Rest Harrow Farm, Trebetherick)
tomatoes (Mr & Mrs Sanders, Polmorla Market Gardens)

Standard boxes are the same as above except:
*140g salad bag (Jane)
plus
*whole cucumber (Jeremy)
*runner beans (Jeremy)

* = grown to organic principles

Try Camel CSA’s Recipe No 11 – Squash (or pumpkin) and apple curry

Various pioneering efforts to grow our own food in the far south-west are put under the spotlight in the September issue of the magazine Cornwall Life.

The four-page spread features several pictures of Camel CSA volunteers at work on our two-acre plot at St Kew Highway.

It reveals how our community project is helping Cornwall play a leading role in the Making Local Food Work programme led by the Plunkett Foundation.  As Jan Trefusis of the foundation says:

Cornwall really is the star of this programme, with a high proportion of our uptake for the project coming from across the region.

Rewards

The article emphasises how community supported agriculture can offer a sustainable way of producing local and seasonal food where the rewards and risks are shared between grower and consumer.

It describes Cornwall’s other emergent CSAs at Harrowbarrow near Callington and in the Lamorna valley and at Lowarth Brogh near Land’s End.  It tells us about plans to set up similar projects at Trevalon Organic Vegetables at Herodsfoot, Liskeard and on a farm near Launceston.

Traci Lewis of the Soil Association adds:

Who knows what can be achieved when we all start supporting each other more?  We look forward to working with more landowners, farmers, growers and communities in Cornwall to find out.

Trish, who is Camel CSA’s veg box packing supremo, recommends this delicious way of cooking beetroot from Jamie Oliver’s Return of the Naked Chef.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: about 1 hour

Serves 4

Ingredients
455g fresh raw beetroots, scrubbed
10 cloves of garlic, unpeeled and squashed
1 handful fresh marjoram or sweet oregano, leaves picked
salt, freshly ground black pepper
10 tbsp balsamic vinegar
6 tbsp olive oil

Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas 6. Tear off a strip of kitchen foil big enough to hold the beets in a parcel. If the beets are large, cut in half to speed up their cooking time; if small, use them whole. Place them in the middle of the foil with the garlic and marjoram, season generously with salt and pepper and then fold the sides of the foil into the middle. Before you seal the parcel, add the vinegar and olive oil. Scrunch or fold the foil together to seal at the top. Place in the preheated oven and cook for around 1 hour, until tender. Serve in the bag at the table.

Click here to browse all the recipes that Camel CSA members have recommended so far.

Oh wow!  There’s not only plenty of basil in this week’s share of the vegetables from Camel Community Supported Agriculture but also some chocolate cherry tomatoes.  Each of the standard veg boxes has a large Pink Caspian beef tomato – not Siberian (!) as I suggested earlier – as well. 

So, if you haven’t made last week’s Recipe No 9 – Grilled courgette, tomato and bean salad in basil sauce, why not give it a try?  Or have a go at making Nigel Slater’s Courgette, tomato and ricotta bake.

The small boxes contain: –
*potatoes (Camel CSA)
*onions (Camel CSA)
broccoli (Celtic Produce, Bodmin)
*celery (Mark Norman)
plums (a gift from Mark’s Dad)
*basil (Jeremy Brown)
*tomatoes (Jeremy)
*small salad bag (Jane Mellowship)

Standard boxes contain all the above, except:-
*large salad bag (Jane)
plus
*beetroot (Camel CSA)
*courgettes (Mark)

* = grown to organic principles

The broccoli (calabrese) comes from the Bodmin wholesaler Celtic Produce and was grown on a farm at St Merryn, near Padstow.  It is not organically produced.

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