Recipe sheets: You can find this week’s recipe sheet here. You can find all previous weeks’ recipe sheets on the Anathoth website. Click the “Recipe Sheets” tab on that page, and find pdf files of harvest lists and recipes, week by week.
The theme of the week is cold, sweet, and tender! In these days of cold temps and less sunlight, the plants grow slooooowly. This time of year, for example, if we harvest the biggest leaves from a kale plant one week, the next round of leaves takes many times longer to reach that same big size. The upshot is that at this point we are gathering the delicate, small, tender, frost-kissed leaves for you. Why do so many crops like carrots and greens sweeten up in cold weather? It’s actually a defense against the cold, even using a protein structure that is similar to antifreeze (which, you may know, is also supposedly sweet but not a good experiment to try!). Read more about this fascinating process here: http://www.motherofahubbard.com/sweet-winter-vegetables
Bok choy: This delicious leafy “green” (though we mostly grow the purple version in the fall!) back for the full boxes! It’s is traditional in Chinese cooking. You can cook it just like the kale/collard/chard group, except that it’s silkier in texture, cooks down a little faster, and has an extra soft and juicy stem that should not be discarded, but instead incorporated into the meal, ideally to soak up any delicious flavors like garlic, onions, ginger, and various sauces. You can sub bok choy for Napa cabbage in the recipe in your recipe sheet — and we’d love for you to feel empowered to research more on your own (even using links in this newsletter!) and let us know your favorites!
Baby purple carrots, turnips, and potatoes! All full boxes and some half boxes receive some combination these small-but-sweet veggies. The white turnips (see harvest photo below with Aaron and Angel!) are deliciously juicy, mild, even sweet — eat raw or cooked, and use the tasty greens! You can find a recipe for caramelize-roasting mini carrots whole (or bigger carrots quartered or halved) on your recipe sheet.
And here is my mama Liz’s advice for the best roasted potatoes ever: “Roasted potatoes! Turn oven to 400 degrees. Wash potatoes and cut into the size of chunks you’d like to eat. Boil a pot of water and add potatoes. Boil for about 10 minutes, until potatoes are done. (Test potatoes for doneness with a sharp knife — it should slide easily into the potato.) Put potatoes into a large bowl. Add about 1/4 cup of oil (I use olive oil) and stir to lightly cover the potatoes with oil. Spread potatoes across a large roasting pan. Salt them with sea salt or kosher salt and sprinkle on an herb such as rosemary, if you’d like. Place the roasting pan into the heated oven. Roast for about 20 minutes or longer, until the potatoes are browned and crispy. If you want, you can check them when they’ve been in the oven for 20 minutes, and turn each chunk over when it’s browned on one side. After you turn over the potato chunks, cook them for a few more minutes until they’re browned on the other side. Enjoy!”
Broccoli leaves: They’re back again, in both full and half boxes! They look like a deep green version of collards. (See a photo ID to the right.) These are actually starting to trend as a new “super food,” and in my opinion are better-tasting than the current contender, kale! We harvested the most tender leaves from plants that, due to the extra-cold weather and temperature swings, won’t produce broccoli heads before the end of the season. The leaf, and especially the stem, taste sweet like sugar snap peas (so don’t throw the stem away!), and provide 100 percent of an adult’s daily vitamin C and calcium. Find a delicious recipe here (result pictured below). Once again, let us know if you find another great recipe!
Tender Napa cabbage: What is that frilly thing that looks like bok choy? Half boxes and some full boxes got it. It’s very small Napa cabbage! The crinkly, crunchy leaves are delicious raw in a slaw, or sauteed. The crinkles do a great job soaking up flavorful sauces, especially soy-sauced based. There’s a delicious recipe on the recipe sheet — and once again, please let us know if you find any other winners!
