Recipe and Photos by Nadia Tamby

This comforting meal is perfect for a cold Autumn night (though we don’t have too many of those chilly nights in Texas…). The beauty of this recipe is that you can substitute almost any of the ingredients. Use any shape pasta you like. Don’t have hot Italian sausage? Use some leftover slices of bacon from your weekend brunch or leftover grilled bratwurst. You can use any other hearty greens but I love the contrast of the bitter dandelion greens with the spicy sausage and creamy noodles in this dish and often people don’t know what to do with this peculiar green, so I thought I would show you a way to use it other than in salads. The toppings for this dish don’t take long to prepare and take the dish from an ordinary weeknight meal to something you could serve your guests at a dinner party. If you can’t find these tart dried barberries, skip them or use dried currants or raisins instead (they will be much sweeter but still add a nice contrast to the dish).



Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 lb hot Italian sausage
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 bunch dandelion greens, washed, trimmed and roughly chopped
• 1 package of pappardelle
• A splash of heavy whipping cream or half and half (optional)

Topping:

• 2 tablespoons pine nuts
• 2 tablespoons barberries (find these at Mediterranean specialty stores like Phoenicia)
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Grated parmigiano reggiano

Instructions:

Boil your pasta in salted water until it is al dente (it will continue to cook when you toss all the ingredients together).

Brown the sausages in a very large sauté pan (you’ll want something large enough to be able to toss all the pasta in later). You can either remove the sausage from the casing or cook them whole, slice them, and add them back to the pan to brown them. Alternatively, if you are using leftover, already cooked sausages, cut them up and brown them (you may need more oil) or if you are using bacon, drain off some of the excess oil and keep it for another use. Cook thoroughly and remove the sausage from the pan.

Add the sliced garlic and let it crisp and brown for a minute or so before adding the greens and stir until wilted. I find that using tongs for this dish makes it easy to toss everything together.

Finally, add the cooked pasta and the sausage back to the sauté pan and toss together. Add the cream if you wish (some of the pasta water will do for a lighter version). Salt and pepper to your liking.

In a small sauté pan, heat up 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. Add the pine nuts and the barberries and sauté until the pine nuts are lightly browned and the red currants have plumped up. Remove this quickly and transfer it to a bowl as they will burn quickly.

Serve the pasta and top it with grated parmesan and the pine nut and barberry mixture. Maybe even an extra drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a crack of black pepper if you feel extra fancy!

CSA Box Contents Week of Oct 30th

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

1. SUPPORT LOCAL

By joining our CSA, you are supporting a locally owned and operated business. Buying local helps our economy as well as supply jobs and support the livelihood of fellow Austinites. Unique local businesses are part of what makes Austin and Texas so special!

Our CSA can augment your regular weekly shopping list, ensuring that you have some of that scrumptious local produce in your diet, too! A little goes a long way!

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

2. Freshest-Possible Veggies

Cultivated in East Austin and harvested no more than a day or two before reaching your doorstep, these vegetables are at peak nutrition and flavor. Getting a CSA share with JBG means you know exactly where your food is coming from and how it's grown. GMO? Heck no! Come out for a volunteer day, see your crops in the field, and ask your farmers about it!

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

3. Know your Farmers

Montana seeds the crops, Ada champions our marketing efforts, Brenton and Becky manage the fields, Krishna crunches numbers, Andrew and his crew carefully pack every single CSA box... we love our people, and think you will, too. Come and meet us, we are regular Austin folks, just like you.

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

4. Feed Those in Need

Thanks to the support of our CSA members, JBG is able to donate thousands of pounds of produce every year to large operations like SafePlace, Central Texas Food Bank, as well as grassroots efforts who are all helping to keep Austin’s hungry, nurtured and fed.

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

5. Farm Community on the WWW

If our veggie guide and weekly recipes by our amazing food bloggers aren’t enough, our CSA community loves sharing how they innovate with their veggies on social media outlets. Check out our Instagram or FB, we love re-posting awesome recipes, photos, and videos from the community. Running low on recipe ideas, and want to see what other folks are doing with our produce? Check out our jbgorganic hashtag!

6. Flexibility

Gone on vacation for a week or a month? No problemo, we make it super easy to postpone your weekly deliveries. Got a big family, or just feeding yourself? We have 4 different box sizes that cater to your lifestyle. JBG also offers add-ons of local eggs from pasture-raised hens, and small batch locally roasted coffee as well. Customize your box with your favorite veggie and ditch the ones you aren’t keen on.

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

7. Get involved with our CSA Community

With member-only dinners, happy hours, plant sales, cooking classes, yoga + races at the farm, PYO-events, we really emphasize the “C” of CSA. We want the farm to connect awesome people, whether at one of the aforementioned events or at your community pick-up site! Speaking of exclusive farm events, we're having a huge Open House THIS SATURDAY!

8. Reduce Food Miles

It's estimated that the average American meal travels over 1500 miles before making it to a dinner plate. With all of that fuel, even a plant-based meal might not be so eco-friendly. We do wave at the planes going by, though, our farm is just 10 miles east of the Austin-Bergstrom airport!

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

9. Know your Seasons

Eating locally connects you to the seasons, to the land, and to your own health and wellness. Cucumbers will cool you down in the summer, while braised collards will warm you up when the temperatures start to drop. Enjoy the best pico de gallo of your life during the short window when cilantro, onions, peppers, and tomatoes all overlap, and we promise you'll never go back to the store-bought stuff again. You'll get acclimated with the seasons on a whole new level, and learn about what naturally grows when and why.

Photo by Casey Wiggins.

10. Try New Foods

With farmers who are constantly chompin’ at the bit to try a new crop, who knows what will show up in your CSA box. From the array of Asian greens to the broad pepper spectrum, keep your mind wide open to a whole new world of vegetables you never even knew existed.

Finishing up planting. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

The temperatures keep dropping and we are at the end of the fall planting. Phew! Our farmers have been running full-steam ahead with planting, and are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Are you coming to our Open House this weekend? Don't miss an opportunity to see the farm in it's most magical state and also during such a magical time.

Radishes. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Radish harvest. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Dill. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

They're kind of a big dill. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Prepped beds. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Becky, farm manager, deep in planning. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Fall 'maters. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Lettuce details. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

The beautiful makings of a salad. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Recipe and Images by Megan Winfrey

There is one vegetable in particular that is always in my CSA box, no matter the season. I'm talking about beets, y'all, and I was OVER them. After roasting them, boiling them, pickling them, even dying cotton with them, I'd resigned to throwing them in my juicer, every single week, with different additions like carrots, apples, ginger, garlic, parsley, and lemon. Although absolutely delicious, I started to feel guilty about pulverizing my beets every week, and started looking for some new recipes.

This recipe is so simple, and I haven't enjoyed beets so much in months.



Moroccan Beet Salad

• 2-3 beets (or more for a larger batch)
• 2 garlic cloves, pressed or finely grated
• Juice of one lemon or lime
• 1 tsp. cumin
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 tbs. olive oil
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped

Behind food photography scenes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Wash beets and place them on a piece of foil. Drizzle with a bit of olive, sprinkle with some salt, and wrap the foil around the beets like a pouch.

Roast in the oven for 40-45 minutes, until you can pierce them all the way through with a knife.

Let them cool, then peel. The skin should slide off when you run your thumb over it.

Once peeled, cut into bite sized cubes and transfer to a medium sized bowl.

In a small bowl, combine all other ingredients except parsley. Whisk vigorously until combined.

Pour mixture over the beets and toss well.

Top with chopped parsley, serve slightly chilled or at room temperature. Stays good in the fridge for 1 week.

CSA Box Contents Week of Oct 23rd

Fall is a notoriously stunning time at our farm, and we want to share the beauty of it with you, our community. We want you to see, spend quality time, and create memories on the land where your weekly veggies are cultivated. Come join the fun, you won’t regret it! This event is for our beloved CSA community and anyone else who’s had a hankering to experience the magic of the farm. We can’t think of a better place to relish the beautiful Texas fall than our expansive 200 acre farm. What a time to get lost at the farm, too, with fields galore laden with your favorite fall crops.

Farm tour. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

On Saturday October 28th from 4:30 - Sundown, Johnson's Backyard Garden will be hosting a Fall Open House at our Garfield, Texas farm located at 4008 River Road, 78612.

On this Saturday, we'll open up the farm at our favorite time of day - the late afternoon when the sun loosens her hold and the tractor engines have cooled down. We've got a plethora of activities lined up to show you the farm including: tours on our flatbed trailers (think hayrides minus the hay) JBG staff will be there informing attendees about what’s growing where and schooling people on farm history. Which by the way, did you know that it has been a longstanding tradition on the farm to get folks out to share the land with us? Not only will our amazing staff photographer be out documenting the day, but he will also be taking family portraits from around 5:30 to 6:30! Been stressing about that Christmas card photo? Fret no longer, you are sure to love Scott’s photos, he’s a pro. Worried you might miss out on exercise if you join us at the Open House? We will have walking trails galore among our crops accompanied with maps of what’s growing where so you can peruse your favorite crops and avoid those you aren’t so fond of. Our friends at Youga Yoga will be teaching a sunset yoga (with face painting!) class at around 5:30 as well. There will be a mini-market stand so you can snag some veggies straight from the farm (*csa members: if you want to pick up your csa box at the farm this day instead of your usual pickup location, email casey at farm@jbgorganic.com). We're hoping our flower crop cooperates so we can have a floral U-Pick. For the kids: there will be a vegetable-inspired arts and crafts activity, tractors to sit on, trampolines to bounce on, ample space to run around, and a ginormous sand pile to conquer.

Tractor fun. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Walking tour. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Bring a picnic, perhaps some beers, and hang out awhile. Our farm is your park! This event is free and open to the public, so tell your friends! Please leave four-legged friends at home. See you at the farm!

Photo by Scott David Gordon.