From the Garden This Week

From the Garden this Week…

Butter Lettuce Heads, Spinach, Carrots, Radishes, Celery, Parsnips, Turnip Greens, Fire Star Mixed Salad Greens and Reds, Spring Onions, Dill and Cilantro

Coming Soon…Bok Choi, Asian Greens, Salanova Lettuce

Using your Produce… by Julie Moreno

We had a bit of a farming emergency this morning and our greens that we were going to send out had a few too many bug holes. I had a wonderful recipe planned but made a switch last minute to this. One of my favorite recipe/farm bloggers at www.dishingupthedirt.com had this scallion pancake recipe that is perfect for our red-green onions coming your way.

Scallion Pancakes

For the Dipping Sauce:

2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1/4 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon thinly sliced scallion

For the Pancakes:

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup rice flour

kosher salt

1 large egg, beaten

1 cup cold seltzer water

1 cup greens (radish, arugula, salad) finely chopped

1-2 scallions, minced

1 fresh red chili pepper, minced (optional)

3-4 tablespoons canola oil

Prepare the dipping sauce by combining all the ingredients and whisking until well incorporated. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 300F. In a large bowl whisk together the two flours, salt, egg, and seltzer and mix well to incorporate. Add the greens, scallions and red chili pepper and stir. Heat 1/2 tablespoon of the oil in a large non stick skillet over medium high heat. Once shimmering scoop about 1/2 cup of the batter into the skillet and cook, undisturbed for about 2 minutes. Flip and cook for 2-3 minutes longer. Place the pancake on a baking sheet and keep warm in the oven. Repeat the process with the rest of the batter. Serve with the dipping sauce and enjoy!

If you are looking for a celery recipe, I found this salad recipe online. I have made something similar with bleu cheese instead of Parmesan, if you are a fan of the bleu!

Celery Salad with Almonds, Dates and Parmesan

(bonappetit.com)

½ cup raw almonds

8 celery stalks, thinly sliced across the grain

6 dates, pitted, coarsely chopped

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 ounces Parmesan, shaved

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Crushed red pepper flakes

Preheat oven to 350°. Spread out almonds on a small rimmed baking sheet; toast, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, 8–10 minutes. Let cool; coarsely chop. Toss almonds, celery, celery leaves, dates, and lemon juice in a medium bowl; season with salt and pepper. Add Parmesan and oil and toss gently; season with red pepper flakes.

More Root Vegetables

I left this recipe in for our biweekly members. This time of year, parsnips make a great substitute for potatoes. I love to roast them and bring out the natural sweetness and try to get lots of browning when I cook them. Don’t be afraid of the high heat. When you cut the parsnips, the larger ones have a woody center at the thickest part of the top. You will want to remove and discard this. Towards the bottom tip, I will just leave the center in.

Roasted Parsnip Fries

4 parsnips, peeled and cut into sticks, remove the woody center of any large parsnip

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Toss the parsnips with the oil, salt and pepper. Place on a rimmed baking sheets lined with parchment paper and cook in the oven until lightly browned and tender, about 30-35 minutes. Remove the parsnips from the oven and serve.

Metaphors of Soil and Soul….by Cindi J. Martin

This week, Christians all over the world are celebrating Holy Week, which ends with Easter and the Resurrection of Christ. Most of us have been taught a great deal about the suffering and crucifixion of Christ on Friday and the Resurrection of Christ on Sunday. But what can we learn from Saturday? Interestingly, Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath day of rest. In the book of Hebrews, we are told that Jesus accomplished the work of God for the salvation of the world and that we are able to enter into the Sabbath rest and finished work of Christ by faith. We cannot work for our salvation. In some ways, Jesus was lying fallow in the grave, awaiting the harvest of His new, resurrected, and imperishable body. When we rest, we honor what God does without human effort. That is why the Sabbath was to be honored even during the harvest time. It was a reminder that human effort is not what sustains us. It is the goodness and grace of God. Ancient Hebrew law also required a sabbatical year when all the land rested. Every seventh year, the people of God were commanded to let the land lie fallow. Right now in our garden, we have a field that is lying fallow. There is great power in rest for both soil and soul. The epic Dust Bowl in the mid-west was a result of overworking farmland. How do we overwork the soil of our hearts? Do we take time to rest? What about “crop rotation” in our own lives? Do we allow ourselves to do something new? It takes an immense amount of effort to plan ahead to have one day a week that truly replenishes instead of drains us. Much planning goes into scheduling a day retreat or a vacation from work. But nothing refreshes the soul and body like true rest. Nothing refreshes the soil like a true furlough. There was nothing like the grave on Saturday to give way to God’s resurrection power on Sunday.