Fresh from Wellspring charitable Gardens - December 5, 2024

Fresh Today… Beets, Broccoli, Napa Cabbage, Red Butter Lettuce, Rutabaga, Red Radishes, Delicata Squash, Peppers, Celery, Chives, Pomegranates & Lemons 

Using your Produce… by Julie Moreno

This week we have more Napa Cabbage, Broccoli, and Rutabagas. Napa cabbage is perfect in winter salads. You can also sauté it. I like to use it to make chow mein noodles. Shred the cabbage and then sauté it with a sliced onion, add cooked chow mein or my hack, spaghetti noodles. Season with soy sauce or tamari. Serve it with teriyaki chicken. You’ll be surprised at how much cabbage you can eat. It disappears into the noodles. I like to make pickled vegetables to have on hand as an addition to a simple salad. Try this recipe for roasting the beets and then marinating them in a vinaigrette. It will seem like a lot of vinegar, but it helps to balance the sweet beets.

Pickled Roasted Beets

3-4 beets

¼ cup cider vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

* Remove the greens from the beets, save for future use. Scrub the beets free of any dirt. Rub the beets with olive oil and put them in a covered baking dish or wrap them in foil. Roast in a 400°F oven for about an

Relishing Christmas

Celebrate the colors of Christmas by using red onion and/or red bell pepper to make this tangy sweet green tomato relish, Nancy Berrens’ favorite burger condiment.

Sweet Green Tomato Relish

8 cups chopped green tomatoes    

2 chopped green bell peppers       

2 cups chopped onion                      

1 pint vinegar                                               

¼ pickling or kosher salt

3 cups sugar

½ cup pickling spices (from Winco bulk foods)

* Place pickling spices in a paper coffee filter and tie with butcher string.  Place ingredients in pot and bring to boiling, reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes.  Remove spice bag.   Place in 4 sterilized pint canning jars. Bring water to boiling in a canner and water bath 5 minutes or simply cool jars and refrigerate. Enjoy on burgers, sausages, and dogs or as a sweet and tangy Christmas salsa with tortilla chips.

My Favorite Salad…

I love this salad for many reasons: it tastes great, it uses all of the parts of the broccoli plant, it’s easy to make, and it’s a great make ahead dish. Double the recipe if you need more, or if you have extra broccoli.

Broccoli Salad 

3 cups chopped raw broccoli, leaves, florets and

    stems (peel the thick stem pieces as needed) 

¼ cup chopped cooked bacon 

¼ cup roasted sunflower seeds 

¼ cup finely diced red onion

¼ cup dried cranberries, coarsely chopped 

¼ cup mayonnaise 

1 tablespoon vinegar, red or white wine or apple

    cider vinegar (balsamic is not recommended) 

1-2 teaspoons sugar (optional)

½ teaspoon salt 

½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper 

* Combine all ingredients and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before eating

Metaphors of Soil and Soil…

Zest for Life

by Ronda May Melendez & Keith F Martin

Lemons are now ripe. A delicious rind surrounds the one resting in my left hand. My right raises and readies a zester to gently remove its outer layer. Circular blades draw precious strands from its surface. Lemony oils mist forth, gather, and rise in a fragrant cloud. They reach and tickle, then burn my nose. Long, thin threads fall in curls to the cutting board below. The zest is piquant, delicate, enticing. I look forward to the taste and tang it adds to the piccata, yet I am keenly aware that the lemon is being deconstructed at every draw of the sharp tool. Its offering of fragrance and flavor comes at great expense. The lemon will never be whole again, but its sacrifice is needed.

So often we feel like a lemon in the hand of God.  He holds us securely, it is true, but often allows the ragged rasps of others to penetrate deeper than the delicate, fragrant outer flesh of our lives. Those instruments may at times cut indelicately into the tender flesh of our hearts and minds, leaving us pain in places where our zest was removed. I ponder what my life produces when their course rasp removes pith along with my more desirable peel. Do I, like the lemon, still offer something fragrant and enticing, or does my hurt, like pith, make the zest too pungent, even bitter? What delicate threads of insight, perspective, or understanding may have fallen untainted to the cutting board surface below? Will others still find the zest fragrant and flavorful, despite the pain it cost in the offering?

I do hope so, even if my pungent oils burn a few noses and my pith is sour to the taste. I trust that the LORD holds me securely in His hand and allows my life to be zested, and at times rasped, for the benefit and well-being of others. May the LORD show them how to use the fragrant fallen strands to add tang and enticing flavor to their lives.

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.”  2 Corinthians 2:14