The Chatfield CSA at Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield
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CSA Info - Please Read

Posted 8/26/2014 2:30pm by Josie Hart-Genter.

Dear Shareholders,

We wanted to give you a quick list of the tomatoes we have been harvesting this season. We hope you are enjoying the bounty!

Today: We will be downstairs today in the lower level of the parking garage due to the rain storms starting at 4p.m. Please enter off York St. and look for us directly to your right as you enter on the ground level. 

tomato varieties available this week:
Orange Blossom: Heirloom quality fruit, ripens early with a great taste and beautiful orange color for salsas and salads.
Martha Washington: The fruit has a pinkish skin with a melting texture and medium sweet flavor.
Beefsteak (Big Beef): Largest variety - deep red and very round. One tomato can weigh a pound or more. 
Brandy Wine: A variety of beefsteak that has a pink/light red color. Very sweet and tasty in anything! A fairly large tomato great for caprese salad!
Urbanite: A pure classic "tomato" flavor and acidity. Developed by our former grower, Jenny Thomas and her farming family.
New Girl: A small red tomato that holds up great in sauce. Also a good slicing tomato for sandwiches, etc.
Cherokee Purple: green on the top and purple on the bottom – exceptional complex flavor. Slice and serve on its own or in simple tomato dishes no need to cook this beauty.
Striped German: A huge full tomato often large enough to feed a family with one fruit. Eat these right away as their skin is very thin and they tend to over ripen quickly.

Prudens Purple: A smaller purple tomato with rich flavor and thicker skin – great for roasted or cooked dishes.
Black trifele: Deep purple alomst black in color. Unique shape like two pears put together. Usually very ripe. Deep sweet flavor, good in sauces or fresah salads for a unique color and flavor.
Striped (or speckled) Roman: A very odd shaped tomato with long stripes of different color, looks like a round chile. Great paste consistancy for sauce making. (Roma)

Green Zebra: This smaller, green striped tomato is supposed to be green. It has exceptional sweetness - great for snacking. A fresh addition to the top of any taco or quesadilla as well!

 

sauce recipe: Anna's (or Rao's) Sauce
Phil Cordelli - CSA Head Grower

Years ago I lived in New York City and worked with community gardens throughout Manhattan. One was near a legendary Mafia-owned Italian restaurant in East Harlem named Rao's. The elderly woman who cooked the red sauce for the restaurant was named Anna and was always sitting outside the garden in a folding chair, no matter the weather. One day during tomato season she told me her sauce recipe which she had been making for the restaurant for decades.

I went back to visit the garden last winter and saw that there was a small plaque outside the garden in her spot commemorating the passing of Anna, "the mayor of 114th St." Of course there are no precise measurements in her recipe. Feel free to substitute olive oil for fatback.  I don't have a saucepan big enough, so I break her rule about not using a pot.

Recipe:

-Drop tomatoes in boiling water for a minute, then peel off skins and chop

-Brown and discard fatback pork in a sauce pan or large frying pan, not a pot

-Sautee chopped onions until golden, then add diced garlic

-Simmer all afternoon

- Add chopped basil at the very end and you're done!

 

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