Hello

It's that time of the year for the family to pitch in and make homemade pizza. This is personally one of my favorite meals at home. I'm too spoiled by Allyson's pizza skills to ever eat pizza out. Pizza at home is loaded with veggies, unique flavors, and isn't greasy at all. I think it is one of the healthiest meals we make as it's an easy way to use up all the bits of veggies in the fridge.

This week's bag does require some work on your part. We have a Pizza Guide put together HERE. The most important things to remember:
1) Let your dough thaw and rise at room temperature before using.
2) Preheat your oven (including pizza stone, tiles, or even cast iron pan) to 450 or hotter before beginning.
3) Parbake the crust without toppings then add the toppings. This keeps the crust crunchy.

For the sauce, we have provided roma tomatoes. Making homemade sauce is simple.
1) Blanche and peel the tomatoes.
2) Stew the tomatoes down, adding herbs and spices as desired
3) Blend in vitamix, immersion blender, or through a food mill

A version of a tomato sauce recipe can be found here on our website. Remember, our belief is that recipes are for guidance and technique; feel free to modify as you see best or based on the ingredients you have on hand. Pasta Con Pomarola

More news this week
Winter Season Registration Open: details can be found HERE on our website

This past week I was out helping make silage. Silage is a feed made from the entire corn plant, stalk and all, that his chopped and fermented. The corn silage is then fed to animals; in this case, dairy cows. See the story below for more details about how it is made.

Sale items this week. We know frost is coming soon and the smoker and grill may get stowed away for a while. So let's celebrate one last time with SPARERIBS on sale. $1 off per lb, making them only $3.5 per lb.

Eggs are back. But not unlimited supply. We suggest that you purchase your eggs online to be guaranteed that you get them. Demand at the back of the truck is unpredictable for us and we can't guarantee that there will be enough there for everyone.
Corn Silage
It's the first sign of fall when silage gets put up.
There are milestones in farming communities. There is the spring when the plow hits the ground and the corn planter comes out.

There are the sites of shocks and caps in the fields in July, just weeks before the wheat is threshed in a traditional "threshing circle."

Then in fall the farmers are busy cutting and reaping corn to make silage. This is usually early September. Following that, corn is picked (harvested) for either ear corn or kernel corn for animal feed.

This past week my neighbors were putting up silage. I stopped in and got in the way - I mean helped - for a little while. I did bring donuts, so that has to count for something!
Step 1: Wait for the corn to dry down.
Two weeks ago I talked about the difference in sweet corn and field corn - also known as dent corn.

This is a good example of dent corn and what it is used for.

The photo to the right shows the milkline in an ear of corn. At this point, the corn is quite hard to the touch. The kernels have started to dry down and have a dent in the top of them. The yellow represents the hard part of the corn; the white represents the soft milky part. The milkline is about 1/2 to 2/3 up the kernel. This is the ideal time to harvest the corn for silage.
Step 2: Cut the corn plant and bind it into a shock.
This is the really old fashioned way to do it. The Amish use antique reaper binders that are obsolete. These old machines cut the corn plant about 3 inches off the ground. About 5 stalks are collected together and tied off with a piece of twine.
Step 3: Shocks are loaded onto the wagon.
The shocks of corn are usually transferred up a conveyor from the reaper binder onto a wagon that rides beside the reaper.

In this photo, I'm collecting all the ones that fell off the wagon on the way back to the barn.
Step 4: The corn is fed into a chopper
The chopper is driven off of the PTO (power takeoff) shaft on a tractor. The driveshaft powers the machine where a belt pulls the stalks of corn into a blade that chops it up and blows it out the side.

The farmer manually feeds the corn stalks onto the conveyor.
Step 5: The chopped corn is packed into a silo.
The chopped corn is still green and wet. It is packed into the silo like making sauerkraut. The sugars in the corn start to ferment in the anaerobic environment. This preserves the corn and makes certain nutrients more available.

The silage also smells and tastes good to the cows. Marion, here, uses the silage to supplement his dairy ration in the winter. It is high in energy and nutrients, making it ideal and affordable way to feed a dairy cow (which requires a very rich ration to produce milk and carry a calf).
The men work in teams:
Reaper/Binder: 1 man driving two horses to run the reaper binder. This is the loud job.
Wagon Teams: 1 man drives and 1 catches/loads the corn onto the wagon. 3 wagons were in motion at once to provide continuous flow to the chopper.
Chopper: 1 man feeds the chopper as he unloads each wagon. The wagon teams switch wagons and horse teams when they drop the loaded wagons off at the barn.
Packer: Usually the chopper blows directly into a vertical silo. In this case, the silo was already full and a "bunk bag" was being filled. One man drives the skid loader to transfer the chopped corn to the bunk bag and pack it in tight.

All together there were 9 men working on this project last Thursday.
Still Time To Join this Season - Prorated
As our season continues, please tell a friend to join us for the remainder of the season.

All subscriptions are prorated for upfront payments or on the weekly payment plan, so you only pay for the remainder of the season.
Katie and Emily's New Puppy
I know this has nothing to do with food. And in fact, I'm jealous of this dog...

On my Instagram page, the posts with the most interactions are those with my pups in them. When we do farm tours, the barn cats are more popular than the planned agenda.

The furry and cute are always more popular than my educational agenda, so I had to make you scroll all the way down to see this adorable guy.

This is Olly, aka Oliver Wallace, the new puppy of Katie and Emily, siblings, who both work at Fresh Fork. This little guy is the subject of many photos these days. He looks like a stuffed animal, doesn't he?
Bag Contents
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Small Omnivore
Italian Sausage Bulk
Pizza Dough Balls
Mozzarella Cheese
Spaghetti Squash
Garlic
Onion
Hot Banana Peppers
Eggplant
Zucchini
Green/Sweet Peppers
Sauce Tomatoes
Small Vegetarian
Pizza Dough Balls
Mozzarella Cheese
Spaghetti Squash
Garlic
Onion
Hot Banana Peppers
Eggplant
Zucchini
Green/Sweet Peppers
Sauce Tomatoes
Asian Greens (baby bok choy tatsoi mix)
Apples
Mini
Eggplant
Zucchini
Green Peppers
Garlic
Onion
Large Omnivore
Italian Sausage Bulk
Pizza Dough Balls
Mozzarella Cheese
Spaghetti Squash
Garlic
Onion
Hot Banana Peppers
Eggplant
Zucchini
Green/Sweet Peppers
Sauce Tomatoes
Cauliflower
Lunchbox Peppers
Green Beans
Bacon
Large Vegetarian
Pizza Dough Balls
Mozzarella Cheese
Spaghetti Squash
Garlic
Onion
Hot Banana Peppers
Eggplant
Zucchini
Green/Sweet Peppers
Sauce Tomatoes
Asian Greens (baby bok choy tatsoi mix)
Apples
Cauliflower
Lunchbox Peppers
Green Beans
Black Beans
Small Vegan
Pizza Dough Balls
Spaghetti Squash
Garlic
Onion
Hot Banana Peppers
Eggplant
Zucchini
Green/Sweet Peppers
Sauce Tomatoes
Asian Greens (baby bok choy tatsoi mix)
Apples
Pears
Watermelon
For more recipes, visit our archive at https://freshforkmarket.com/recipes/
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