Monthly Archive: October 2023
Hello folks, Happy Halloween! No time for trick or treating for us – we are busy covering crops to protect them from a series of cold nights this week. We have been picking a lot of peppers because they can be stored for a couple of weeks and covering the plants will probably not be sufficient protection. Soon we will have to abandon the more tender crops and concentrate on protecting the hardier ones, which can still sustain some damage if the temperatures drop below 28 degrees. (more…)
Sunchokes, of the sunflower family, are native to North America where the natives called them “sun roots” before European settlers arrived. Samuel Champlain, a French explorer found them in Cape Cod in 1605 and pronounced them similar in taste to artichokes. But why “Jerusalem artichokes”? They don’t come from Jerusalem nor do they look like artichokes. There are a few theories: when first discovered people started calling them “girasole” (or flower that turns looking for the sun) which eventually became “Jerusalem”. Another possibility is that as sunchokes became the staple food of the first European pilgrims in North American soil they named it as food for the “new Jerusalem”. (more…)
This recipe, found on allrecipes.com is an easy way to cook these vegetables. Sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichokes) are starchy tubers like potatoes and turnips. When roasted, the skin becomes flaky and the flesh becomes tender, but the taste of a sunchoke is slightly nutty and sweet. (more…)
This recipe is from the Betty Crocker Cooking for Two cookbook and is a perfect pairing of fall crops. Buttercup squash, like acorn squash, isn’t always easy to peel – this makes it a great squash for stuffing with other things. With brown sugar and apples, this recipe makes for a sweet side dish. Serves 2. (more…)
If you have left over sweet potatoes—and you probably do, these are so fantastic, even your pickiest eater will probably like them. (more…)
Try this with any of your favorite veggies! Keep them raw or lightly steam them for a softer bite. (more…)
Hello Folks! So, there will not be any sweet potatoes in the share this week (they will be back in the mix next round). There will be a tuber that looks a lot like a sweet potato but is not. It is called Yacon and is a member of the sunflower family native to South America. It is sweet and juicy and has a slight orange color (carotene). The sweetness comes from a sugar called an FOS (fructooligosaccharide) which is not digestible and hence does not affect blood sugar level. It is known as a prebiotic and contains beneficial antioxidants. (more…)
Easy to grow and store, high-yielding, supernutritious and crunchy like an apple, yacon root (pronounced ya-kon) is one of the many “new” vegetables coming to us from South America. In reality, this fruitlike vegetable has been cultivated throughout the Andes for more than a millennium. South Americans eat it as a fruit; they also use the huge leaves to wrap foods during cooking, in the same way cabbage leaves are used in Germany, grape leaves in the Mideast and banana leaves in the tropics. Only recently – thanks to some adventurous green thumbs – have North Americans begun to see yacon in produce markets. (more…)
Yacon is commonly enjoyed raw. It’s really easy to prepare yacon, just peel off the brown skin and shred it or chop it into dishes, such as salads and slaws. Here’s a citrus salad found on Sharon Palmer’s plant-powered dietician blog. The yacon gives this salad a slightly sweet, juicy crunch. (more…)
Peppery mustard greens shine in this simple greens recipe found on the cooking website Simply Recipes. Sauté with onions and garlic, then serve with most any meal that can use a good dose of mustardy bite. The recipe serves 4. Enjoy! (more…)
