From the Garden this Week

From the Garden this Week…

Brussels Sprouts, Celery Root, Rutabagas, Kale, Daikon Radish, Broccoli, Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Continuity and Ruby Sky Lettuce Heads, Garlic, Spring Mix or Arugula

Coming Soon…Celery, Beets, Red Cabbage, Green Cabbage, Savoy Cabbage

Using your Produce… by Julie Moreno

We have been selling our produce to the Churchkey restaurant in Modesto and they have been featuring our vegetables on the menu in the beautiful salad pictured below. I have provided an adapted recipe of the salad so you can make it at home with this week’s box. I think they used butternut squash in the salad, since we have celery root and rutabagas, I sweetened the root vegetables with a little honey to complement the broccoli and lettuces. The broccoli flowers make a beautiful topping for the salad.

Honey Roasted Root Vegetable Salad with Broccoli Flowers

Roast the Vegetables

3-4 cups chopped rutabagas, celery root and carrots

2 tablespoons oil

1 tablespoon honey

Salt and fresh ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut root vegetables into approximately ¾ inch cubes. Toss vegetables with the oil, honey, salt and pepper. Arrange on the baking sheet in a single layer and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven.

Prepare the Dressing

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 large garlic clove, minced

Salt and fresh ground pepper

Combine the oil, vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper in a jar and shake well.

Make the Salad

5-6 cups washed and chopped lettuce, packed

1/4 cup fresh parsley, coarsely chopped

2 cups, chopped flowering broccoli

Salt and fresh ground pepper

½ cup toasted walnuts or pecans

2 ounces fresh goat cheese

In a large mixing bowl, combine the lettuce, parsley, broccoli (reserving a handful of flowers), the roasted root vegetables, and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and gently toss everything together. Spread the salad out onto a serving dish and top with the toasted nuts, goat cheese and the reserved broccoli flowers.

Our Wellspring Team wants to thank those of you who have been sharing your wonderful citrus fruit with us so we can in turn share it with our volunteers and subscribers!! This generosity is in the spirit of giving that we hope to cultivate in and around the Wellspring Charitable Gardens! Since I didn’t ask permission to name each of you individually, I hope you will accept this anonymous “shout out” of our appreciation for your thoughtfulness!!

If you are a subscriber and wondering what to do with your extra citrus fruit, consider the many ways that citrus can be candied and preserved! If you get the Costco magazine, you might have seen the recipe for pickled mandarin oranges!! I was surprised to see this recipe and very curious. Since I have a bunch of mandarin oranges in my refrigerator, I plan on trying it out. Another great recipe idea for a bumper crop of lemons is to preserve them with salt. I was amazed at the flavor these impart to dishes that call for lemons.

Brussels Sprouts…

This week, we have more Brussels Sprouts and I have a recipe for Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Bacon. By shredding the sprouts, you don’t need to cook them as long. You can make this a light meal, if you top it with a fried or boiled egg and serve it with fresh bread. If you are vegetarian or just don’t have any bacon, feel free to leave it out. Maybe I would add some extra garlic, for additional flavor.

Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

3 strips bacon

1 tablespoon olive oil (if needed)

½ cup chopped onion

1 pound Brussels sprouts

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1-2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

Cut up bacon into small pieces and cook over low heat in a large sauté pan (one that’s big enough to hold the Brussels sprouts). When the bacon is about half cooked, add the olive oil (add if needed, depends on the amount of fat in the bacon) and onion. Increase the heat to medium and slowly cook the onions until translucent. Meanwhile, shred the Brussels sprouts in a food processor, or cut thinly with a knife (cut in half first and then put the flat side down on the cutting board and thinly slice across). When the onion is translucent add the shredded Brussels sprouts, salt and pepper and stir well for 1-2 minutes until the Brussels Sprouts are wilted. Turn the heat off and sprinkle with the vinegar and serve.

Metaphors for the Soul from the Soil…Written by Anna Hazen

“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal (The Message, John 12:24-25).”

“ Jesus calls us to enter transformative darkness like a grain of wheat falling into the earth that loses itself so that new life can begin. That can be a kind of frightening call. To follow that wheat seed, we’re going to have to get really friendly with the darkness. In order to let the seed coat soften and open so that a new plant can emerge, we might have to let go of some things we really thought were important when we were in the light and let in some things we were trying to avoid. But while letting go and stepping into the unknown is scary, we also know this: that while seasons of darkness feel lonely and uncertain, there is nowhere we can go and nothing we can do that would separate us from God. The grain of wheat lying in the earth is not abandoned there… The seed, which lets go of the life it knows and falls into the earth, is trusting that there is more. It is not falling away from God, but into just one more form of the Creator’s transforming embrace.”