Donating Lemons in Castro Valley

Published: Thu, 03/10/22

March News from Chetwyn

March is upon us. We hope you enjoy reading through this month's news where we share about avocado blossoms, our work with ForestR Gleaning, a wildlife camera, and a delicious cheese and asparagus tart.

March Blooms

March is a month of changes in the grove. At this time, avocado trees shed their leaves and start to burst into bloom. The resulting look is bare branches covered in bloom. Avocado flowers are very small, but what they lack in size they make up for in number. The trees are covered in so many blossoms that they look yellowish. New leaves will start to come out soon, and they will have a shiny reddish color. Next month we will have photos of the tiny avocado fruit.

Donating Lemons Locally

with ForestR Gleaning

For those of you who follow us on Instagram, you may have noticed we had an abundance of lemons to harvest. Originally, we planned to supply them to a local restaurant, which meant this excess was nothing to worry about. But when that did not end up going as planned, we had to figure out what to do with the lemons.

When we asked you for ideas on what to do, many of you responded with great ideas. We had fun experimenting in the kitchen making deserts, fermenting lemons, and freezing the juice as ice cubes. However, with only my husband and I around to enjoy the fruits of this labor, there was too much of a harvest to get through without a large portion of it going to waste.

That is when we heard from ForestR Gleaning. This great organization works locally in Castro Valley to harvest excess crops from people with fruit trees and vegetable gardens and then donates the produce to low-income individuals.

When they reached out to us through our website and told us that they could take the lemons off of our hands, we were happy to look into the offer. We were impressed to see that not only does this organization receive donations of excess produce off the hands of the gardener, which prevents food waste, but they are providing local food banks with fresh produce--a commodity that is tricky to acquire. It was decided, and we set up a time for ForestR gleaning to pick up our lemons.

My husband and I spent a day in the grove picking all the ripe lemons we could find. The harvest was quite pleasing, and we soon were hauling crates filled with lemons into the back of ForestR's van, happy to know that our lemons will go to good use.

You can visit ForestR Gleaning's website here.

We are happy our lemons will help supply local food banks

Wild Neighbors

We have a camera by our gate that takes photos of the animals that are home in the woods around our farm. Just to name a few, turkeys, skunks, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, and cows have all strolled past the camera at some point. In this past year, we even saw mountains lions a couple times, which caused some excitement. It is fun to check out what the wildlife is doing when we aren't looking.

Seeing mountain lions and coyotes pass so close to the house makes us glad our animals are safely locked up every night

Cheesy Asparagus Tart

Asparagus is back in season, which means it is time to whip out another delicious asparagus recipe. On its own, asparagus can be easily prepared by baking it with olive oil, salt, and pepper or steaming it on the stove.

We wanted to take things a step further with this asparagus tart. The richness of the fontina and gruyere cheeses is balanced by the freshness of the asparagus, and the flaky puff pastry adds the perfect texture. It may look complicated, but it is actually super simple to make.

Ingredients

1 lb asparagus, trimmed

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed

all-purpose flour, for dusting

1 cup grated fontina cheese

1 cup grated gruyere cheese

1 Tbs minced shallot

1 large egg yolks

3 Tbs whole milk

1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

A pinch of salt and pepper

2 tsp extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

Directions

- Fill a large bowl with ice water

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

- Bring about 1 inch of water to a boil in a large skillet. Add the asparagus; cook until bright green and crisp-tender (2-5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the asparagus). Drain and transfer to the ice water to stop the cooking; drain and pat dry

- Roll out the puff pastry into a 10-by-16-inch rectangle on a floured surface. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet and prick all over with a fork. Bake until light golden brown, about 12 minutes. Let cool slightly on the baking sheet

- Meanwhile, in a bowl mix together the fontina, gruyere, shallot, egg yolks, milk, nutmeg, salt, and pepper until combined

- Toss the asparagus with the olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste

- Spread the cheese mixture evenly over the baked puff pastry, leaving a 1-inch border on all sides. Arrange the asparagus on the tart and bake again until the cheese mixture is slightly puffy, 15 to 20 minutes. Sprinkle with lemon zest

- Dinner is served!

Until next month!

Warmly,

Dave and Anna

Chetwyn Farm