Fresh from Wellspring Charitable Gardens - February 13, 2025

Fresh Today… Romanesco, Butterhead Lettuce, Spinach, Carrots, Kale, Watermelon Radish, White Salad Turnips, Parsley, Cilantro, Lemons & Navel Oranges

Using your Produce… by Julie Moreno

This week we have Romanesco in our baskets. Romanesco is a cultivar of cauliflower, meaning that it has been selectively bred for the characteristics that give it the green color and fractal pattern to the buds. You can cook it the same as cauliflower, although I like to try to maintain some of the pattern when cutting it into florets. This recipe combines the roasted Romanesco with chickpeas to make a flavorful salad with tahini, lemon juice and our fresh herbs.

Romanesco and Chickpea Salad

1 head Romanesco or cauliflower, cut

    into small florets 

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon salt

1/3 cup chopped pine nuts or walnuts

1 can or about 2 cups chickpeas, rinsed

    and drained

½ cup raisins, chopped

2 small garlic cloves, finely minced 

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 

2 tablespoons tahini 

1 tablespoons lemon juice 

2 teaspoons red wine vinegar 

1 teaspoon lemon zest 

½ teaspoon ground cumin 

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Pinch sea salt and ground pepper 

* Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Toss the Romanesco with the oil and ½ teaspoon salt.  Spread out on a parchment lined baking sheet and cook in the oven for about 20 minutes, until tender.  In the same oven, while cooking the Romanesco, toast the nuts until fragrant, about 5 minutes.  In a large bowl, combine cooked Romanesco, chickpeas, nuts and raisins. In a small bowl, whisk together garlic, tahini, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, zest, cumin, parsley and cilantro. Season with salt and pepper. Toss the Romanesco with the dressing; season with additional salt and pepper as needed.  Enjoy at room temperature or cold.  

How Your WCG Produce Purchases Help the Hurting

We donate 100% of your WCG produce purchase price to Wellspring Counseling Ministries to help families find skilled, professional counselors in our community.  Though we are a faith-based charity, we help all families, regardless of faith orientation.  While my husband Keith and I attended a school related community event, a woman asked me if Wellspring Charitable Gardens was related to Wellspring Counseling Ministries. When I told her “Yes!”, her eyes lit up, and she thanked me for our staff who helped her find a therapist for her foster daughter.  Staff screen calls, identify the type of therapist needed, and make calls to confirm the therapist is accepting new clients. We find counselors who accept the client’s insurance and / or can provide a reduced fee for services. It is not unusual for a client to request a counselor with a particular gender, ethnic, or faith orientation.  We do all we can to match our clients by their requests and needs.  One need that continues to be greater than the resources  available is faith-based Medi-Cal providers. We are working hard to develop this resource in our community through expanding our WCM network of skilled, professional psychotherapists.     Gratefully, Cindi J Martin, LCSW

Wellspring Counseling Ministries -

Bringing Healing Relationships to the Hurting

Citrus Salads…

Citrus fruit, with its natural acidity, helps to bring out the flavor and balance the bitterness in fresh leafy green salads. This recipe uses lemon juice in the dressing, and one of the sweeter citrus fruits, like oranges or tangerines, in the salad itself.

Spinach Salad with Citrus and Goat Cheese

1 Tbsp. lemon juice                       

2 Tbsp. olive oil                            

1 shallot, minced or 2 Tbsp. minced red onion                     

¼ tsp. salt                                       

4-6 cups spinach, washed and chopped

1 tangerine, chopped, seeds removed

¼ cup chopped toasted almonds 

¼ cup crumbled goat cheese

Freshly ground pepper 

* Combine lemon juice, minced shallot, salt and olive oil, whisking together in a large bowl. Add in the remaining ingredients, except the cheese, and toss to coat with the dressing. Taste and add salt and fresh ground pepper if needed. Top with the goat cheese and eat right away.

Metaphors of Soil and Soul… 

Beauty Unfolds in Failure

Keith F Martin

Romanesco, a hybrid of cauliflower and broccoli, is an edible “flower” from the Brassica family and a relative of cabbage, kale, chard, and Brussels sprouts. Also called Roman cauliflower or Broccolo Romanesco, it has a slightly sweeter, nuttier taste than cauliflower and can be enjoyed raw, roasted, steamed, or seared.

Even more appealing than Romanesco’s delightfully nuanced taste is its striking beauty. Its fractal structure - the spiral bud pattern that reaches upward and outward - depicts the Fibonacci Sequence, a recursive series of numbers in a sequence where each is the sum of the two preceding numbers (e.g.: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89…). As the sequence progresses, the numbers become larger, the distance between them becomes greater, and the ratio between adjacent numbers persistently approaches, but never quite reaches, the constant of 1.618. That ratio - depicted by the Greek letter phi Φ – was called the Golden Mean by Aristotle, the Golden Ratio by Euclid, and the Divine Proportion by Leonardo da Vinci. That value is considered the ideal aesthetic for proportion since it creates the most visually pleasing relationship between parts to a whole and to each other. Thus, a proportion found throughout all creation (from the double helix of DNA to an immense spiral galaxy) reveals the Divine Design of beauty and portrays the ideal form for aesthetics found in Classic Greek and Renaissance art.

Romanesco derives its striking beauty from its persevering buds. It forms a bud that tries, but fails, to unfold and fully flower. These failed flowers then sprout new buds to make new flowers, which also fail to fully form. Upward and outward perseveres Romanesco through the process of failure that creates its spiral floret pattern and displays the Divine Design in Beauty and Proportion described as the Fibonacci Sequence. So, Romanesco’s unparalleled beauty develops in its striving, not in its succeeding.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.  Romans 1:20