From Wellspring Charitable Gardens this Week - Jan 19, 2023
From the Garden this Week… Purple of Sicily Cauliflower or Flame Star (Yellow/Orange) Cauliflower or Romanesco, Broccoli, Kale, Cilantro, Flat Leaf Parsley, Carrots, Salad Mix, Watermelon Radish, Dill, Grapefruit & Lemon
Using your Produce… by Julie Moreno
Cauliflower has a neutral flavor that can be manufactured into pizza crusts and rice substitutes and other carbohydrate replacements. I will occasionally chop it in the food processor and use it like couscous as the base to a salad. The easiest way to enjoy it is roasting with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Making the addition of Italian seasonings and parmesan cheese to this basic recipe transforms it. Instead of trying to turn cauliflower into something that it is not, I like to serve it instead of pasta. Top it with a meat marinara sauce or alfredo and chicken and enjoy cauliflower as the base and vegetable course for these classic meals.
Italian Roasted Cauliflower
1 head of cauliflower, cut into
florets
2 tablespoon olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
* Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place cauliflower florets in a large bowl and top with the oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and cheese; toss thoroughly. Pour the seasoned cauliflower out onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and serve.
Feathers Ruffled by Soaring Egg Prices?
Chicken Little mistakenly thought (…right, bird brain!) the sky was falling when an acorn dropped on her head. Today, after a feed store visit, she could rightly cluck, “The cost is rising! The cost is rising!” Layer mash and chicken scratch costs have soared the last year – up 22% to $18.50 a 50lb bag. The idiom “That’s chicken feed!” now means “That cost an arm and a l…”, sorry, mixed metaphor, “… a wing and a drumstick!” Are you able to help? Please contribute to our “Buy a Bag & Feed a Chicken” fundraiser. Your gift will help keep egg costs down and make a happy hen. Margaret Thatcher once stated, “It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the egg.”
The Whole Plant…
With our cruciferous vegetables, did you know you can eat the entire plant. The florets are what we are used to, but the leaves that are attached to broccoli and cauliflower are all edible and can be sautéed and enjoyed just like kale or spinach. Here is a basic recipe to enjoy these tender delicacies.
Sautéed Greens
3-4 cups chopped leafy greens, kale, Swiss chard,
spinach, broccoli, or cauliflower leaves
1 garlic clove, minced
sprinkle of red chili flakes
1-2 teaspoons butter or olive oil
salt and pepper
lemon juice
Wash the chopped greens in a bowl of water, let any dirt settle to the bottom and pull the greens out of the water and let drain, they do not need to be dry. In a large sauté pan with a lid, heat the garlic, chili flakes and butter over medium-high heat, until the garlic becomes fragrant about 1-2 minutes. Add the greens, salt, and pepper. Cover with the lid and cook for about 2 minutes. Remove the lid and stir the greens. Cook until the liquid has mostly evaporated. For tougher greens, if the pan dries up, add a few tablespoons of water and cover for a few more minutes, to help steam the vegetables. Finish the greens with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.
Metaphors of Soil and Soul…
Beauty Unfolds in Failure
by Keith F Martin
Romanesco, a hybrid of cauliflower and broccoli, is an edible “flower” from the Brassica family, which also includes cabbage, kale, chard, and Brussels sprouts. Often called Broccolo Romanesco or Roman cauliflower, Romanesco has a slightly sweeter, nuttier, earthier taste than common cauliflower. It can be enjoyed raw, roasted, or steamed.
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 - portrays the Fibonacci Sequence, a recursive series of numbers where each number 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 develops, the numbers become larger and the distance between them greater. Continue the sequence, and the ratio of adjacent numbers persistently approaches, but never reaches, the constant value of 1.618 - symbolized by the Greek letter phi Φ - which represents the Golden Mean of Aristotle, the Golden Ratio of Euclid, and the Divine Proportion of Leonardo da Vinci. This ratio is considered the ideal aesthetic for proportion; it creates the most visually pleasing relationship of parts to a whole and to each other. Thus, a proportion found throughout all creation (from the spiral galaxy to the double helix structure of DNA) reveals the Divine Design for beauty in nature and provides the ideal pattern for beauty 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 flowers, which also fail to fully form. Upward and outward repeats the process that creates Romanesco’s spiral floret pattern and displays the Divine Proportion described by the Fibonacci Sequence. Unparalleled beauty develops in its striving, not in its succeeding.
