Turnips and Radishes...Unappreciated Gems

Turnips, like radishes, are a very versatile, easy to prepare or cook vegetable that is appreciated by many cultures but often forgotten in American cuisine.  Fall/winter turnips or storage turnips (the typical being the half purple/half white round root, although we grow several different varieties) are best used for roasted mixed veggies, soups, gratins, tarts, and other long-cooking preparations.  However, spring turnips (we grow Des Vertus, a French heirloom, but Hakurei turnips are the most commonly recognized) are sweet and tender and don’t need or really benefit from such effort.  They are so delicately flavored that they really make a great raw snack, but they can also be added to salads, stir-fries, sandwiches, tacos, and even quick-pickled.  Here are a few recipes to get the creative juices going.  Try using radishes in similar ways.  I really like radishes in salads with early spring lettuce, scallions, white beans, oregano, and a lemon or red wine vinegar vinaigrette or stir-fried with equal parts soy sauce and balsamic vinegar with a dash of maple syrup or agave.  They also make a great addition to tabouleh or salsa (tomato and mango based).  or just eat them instead of snacking on carrots (or cookies)!

Nutritional benefit: both are a very good source of Vitamin C and Potassium and also provide Vitamin B6, Fiber, and Calcium.

Turnip and Egg Tacos

This recipe could easily be adapted for other eating styles - replace the egg with shrimp, fish, steak, chicken, or marinated tempeh.

Adapted by Farmer Dave’s  from Trusted Earth Farm and Forage

Ingredients:

• 1 small bunch hakurei turnips (4 Des Vertus turnips)

• 2 garlic scapes – diced (use garlic, garlic scapes aren’t in yet)

• 2 tablespoons butter

• 1/4 tsp cumin

• salt and pepper to taste

• 2 eggs

• 6 small tortillas of your choice

• 3 oz queso fresco

• chopped cilantro to taste, if desired

• Salt & pepper

Directions:

Remove the turnips from their greens. Dice the turnips and mince the greens. Dice the garlic scapes. In another bowl crack your two eggs and whisk like scrambled eggs.

Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat in a large pan. Once the butter has melted, add in the turnips and scapes – toss to coat them thoroughly with the butter. Cook for two – three minutes.  Add the cumin, salt and pepper. Toss everything again to make sure it’s all coated with butter and evenly seasoned.Cook another minute. Set aside – and in the still hot skillet – add your eggs and scramble quickly.  Warm your tortillas.

Assemble your tacos with the remaining ingredients!

Turnip Salad, like Potato Salad

Ingredients:

1 cube vegetable bouillon

1 cup water

3 cups peeled, cubed turnips

1/4 cup minced onion

2 cloves garlic, minced

salt and black pepper to taste

1 1/2 tablespoons sour cream

1/2 cup shredded sharp white Cheddar

cheese

chopped fresh parsley for garnish

(optional)

Directions:

Place the vegetable bouillon cube into a saucepan with the water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the bouillon cube dissolves, about 1 minute. Stir in the turnips, onion, and garlic, return to a boil, and cook the mixture until the turnips are tender, about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook until most of the liquid has been evaporated, 10 to 15 more minutes.

Lightly stir in the sour cream to coat the turnips. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and top with shredded Cheddar cheese and parsley.

Asian-Style Greens from rasamalaysia.com

The original recipe used bok choy, so if you have your bok choy from last week you can use that or a mix.  It will work with any green or cabbage.

Ingredients:

Your favorite Chinese greens (baby bok choy, turnip greens, mustard greens, Napa cabbage or a mix)
1 tablespoon oyster sauce (Lee Kum Kee brand preferred) or a mix of soy sauce and rice vinegar or sherry
1 tablespoon water
1/4 teaspoon cooking oil
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 dashes of white pepper powder

Garlic Oil:

2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
1 teaspoon oil

Prepare the garlic oil first by heating up your wok and stir fry the minced garlic until they turn light brown. Dish out and set aside.

Heat up a pot of water and bring it to boil. Add two small drops of cooking oil into the water. Drop your vegetables into the boiling water and quickly blanch them for about 20-30 seconds (depends on the quantity). As soon as they turn slightly wilted, transfer them out and drain the excess water off the vegetables. Arrange the vegetables on a plate.

In a wok, heat up the cooking oil, and then add the oyster sauce, water, sugar, and white pepper powder. As soon as the sauce heats up and blends well, transfer and drench it over the blanced vegetables. Top the vegetables with the garlic oil and serve immediately.

Cook’s Note:

For the garlic oil, the garlic will continue to cook in the oil so as soon as they turn light brown in the wok, you should dish it out. Eventually, they will turn golden brown.

Bok Choy and a Cooler, Wetter Spring

Bok Choy and a Cooler, Wetter Spring

Bok Choy (a quick, Asian cabbage or brassica that prefers stable cool temperatures and    a significant amount of rain) is not really suited for our climate.  It is one of the “wish list” vegetables that always gets tossed out during our winter planning sessions as completely illogical in our climate, marked by instability, long periods without rain, and in recent years an almost complete absence of those wonderful growing temperatures called the 60s (you may remember them, if you have lived here for many years!).  This winter, though, we were enticed by an organic, heirloom variety “Prize Choy” that some organic farmers in Virginia have grown as baby bok choy in the spring and fall.  We liked that it was darker green (higher vitamin content), had some purple accents, and could be harvested without significant losses in a climate one zone north.  We decided we would try it, on a limited basis.  Well, we lucked out.  March and April were significantly cooler than past seasons (sometimes more than 40 degrees), and we have had plenty of steady rain.  Really, to be honest, although the cooler weather has put us behind other seasons (by about 2 weeks), it has been the IDEAL spring for growing cool-weather, spring crops.  It is the first spring we have been here that we have not had losses (sometimes complete losses) of crops due to hot, dry weather (peas, spinach, carrots, radishes, cold-weather lettuces, early broccoli, and arugula being the typical victims). And, our crops are also much more on-schedule in relation to each other and in terms of expected days to maturity than they have ever been.  The farm really looks GREAT!  Now, we just have to keep the grass and weeds under control!  Spring growth is never really limited to what you choose.  If the bok choy grows, well, so does everything else!  Just to give you an idea of how delicate bok choy is, the one day that it hit 85 this spring, we lost about 15 plants to bolting (the process of going to seed which can be triggered by day lengthening or warming).  In any of the previous springs here, we would have probably lost all of our bok choy by mid-March.  The reason that it has flea beetle holes is directly related.  Our best defense against flea beetles is row cover.  However, even the thinnest row cover will heat up the soil and plants underneath it, as much as 5 degrees on a sunny day.  Here, those 5 degrees can mean the difference between bok choy that survives (although with holes) and bok choy that bolts.  We opted for the holes.

So what do you do with bok choy?  It is a very quick cooking Asian cabbage.  It can be eaten raw, lightly steamed, sauteed, or stir-fried or integrated into a huge variety of dishes from miso soup to egg rolls or wontons to steam buns to curries.  Below are a couple of recipes to try. 

Bok Choy Steam Buns (from Baker Creek Seeds)

Steam Bun dough:

3 c. flour

1 c. milk, your choice, room temp

1/2 c. warm water 

1 T. agave or sugar

2 1/4 t. active yeast

1/4 t. salt

Mix yeast, agave, and water.  Let sit 10 minutes.  Add dry ingredients.  Knead 5 minutes until dough is no longer sticky.  Let rise in an oiled bowl, cover with damp cloth, in warm place for 45 min.  

Steam bun filling: (Can be used for wontons or egg rolls or eaten on its own with brown rice)

6 cloves garlic, minced

6 c. mushrooms

2 carrots, grated

2-3 baby bok choy 

2 small shallots or scallions or diced onion

3 T. oil, your choice

1-2 T. sweet chili sauce or use the spicy kind and add a dash of agave to it

1 T. soy sauce

Thai basil or cilantro to garnish

Saute veggies in oil.  Add sauces.  Garnish with herbs.

Divide dough into 16 balls.  Flatten.  Add 2 T. filling to each one.  The thinner the dough, the more filling you can put it (and the better the result in my opinion).  Pleat circumference of dough and twist close.  Add to steamer lined with parchment paper, and steam in batches for 10 minutes.

Sweet Potato, Bok Choy Curry (from elspetheatsyumyum.blogspot.com, Deborah Madison has a very similar recipe as well)

Serve with rice, any other grain, or a good Indian bread.

“All you need to do for the sauce is warm a can (or two if you like a lot of sauce) of coconut milk with a few teaspoons of curry paste. Adding a ton of finely chopped cilantro and a thinly sliced Thai red chili or jalapeno to the sauce will make it more flavorful and pretty, but you don't really need that. While you warm the sauce, you can prepare the veggies you want to use. I used sweet potatoes, baby bok choy, sauteed shallots or garlic and onions, and mushrooms. Steam or saute the vegetables you want to use.  Do not overcook them because you will be adding them to the sauce to cook for another 5 minutes or so. 

For added protein, I used tofu. You do not need to use a lot of oil with the tofu. A couple of teaspoons is plenty if you have a nice non-stick griddle. Slice your tofu into 1" cubes, and use some paper towels to blot out a little of that water. Spread the cubes so that they are flat on your pre-heated griddle. Then flip after about five minutes or when the bottoms are a light golden brown. Repeat on the other sides so that you have nice crispy cubes.

When all of your veggies and tofu are done you can add them to the sauce. Coat and cook for 5 minutes. Serve over rice and you have a hearty and healthy meal!”

News from the farm, a brief synopsis, and then on how to make a wonderful Mexican meal out of tomatillos and lots of lettuce.

Farm brief: it continues to be hot and dry, so most veggies and fruits continue to mature between three and four weeks early.  Garlic and onions have been harvested for curing, and the potatoes are almost ready - enjoying their two week in-ground curing prior to harvest the second week of July.  Garlic and onion harvest appear to be great - it can always be deceiving as both can rot during storage for a variety of reasons.  Potato harvest will likely be much less than last year due to very early heat.  Almost everything else is growing very well, and we are enjoying watching the success of many local heirloom varieties of tomatoes, melons, green beans, limas, corn, and cowpeas.  Our only real bust of the season so far seems to be eggplant - our first succession was slammed by flea beetles (the farmer mill calls this the worst season in recent history - it is for us) - and our second succession is now being eaten by the "second" or "Southern" wave of Colorado Potato Beetles, which I think for timing reasons have never seemed to cause our eggplant and potatoes many problems but have been awful the past 7-10 days or so.  We are currently handpicking to control in second and third successions in hopes to keep them at bay.  The second succession already has small fruit on it, which probably would have been ready by the end of this week if not affected by beetles.  Our tomatoes look the best they ever have.  We made a few changes to the timing of some varieties based on past seasons' results as well as adding a couple of new-to-us heirlooms and that seems to have made a significant difference.  We also added in an organic fertilizer to their potting soil this season to improve root development and prevent nitrogen deficiency prior to transplanting.  The peppers also look great.  I think we will have ripe peppers by the end of this week (before we would typically have even green peppers)!  Also coming along are the dry beans (black, cannellini, Tiger Eye, and Jacob's Cattle), pumpkins and winter squash, melons, sweet corn, and dry corn.  We just finished hand pollinating one of our dry corn varieties, Cherokee White Flour (very much endangered) in order to save pure seed for following seasons.  

On to tomatillos and lettuce: Megan's Mole Verde.  So what exactly are tomatillos?  They are a member of the Physalis genus like ground cherries and part of the nightshade family like tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and eggplant.  They typically are green, although they can also be yellow and purple.  They come from Mexico, supposedly grown by the Aztecs, and are common in Mexican, Tex-Mex, and many Latin American cuisines.  First things first, remove the husk and wash them.  This is the best way to store them and also removes the sticky substance in between the fruit and the husk.  Mole verde: mole verde is a sauce common in Mexico typically used for pork or beef ribs but that also goes really well with chicken, seitan (my favorite), and tempeh.  It is also good with pork chops, cheese enchiladas, and even just as a dip with chips.  Traditionally, it incorporates acuyo leaves or leaves from chayote squash.  Neither of these are readily available here, so I have come up with a CSA friendly version.  

Ingredients:

3 heads of lettuce or 2 heads of lettuce and a bunch of chard (or an combination of the two, or you may substitute spinach, amaranth leaves, lamb's quarters, etc.)

2 small onions, quartered

3-6 cloves of garlic, depending on the garlic and your tastes, whole

4-6 chiles, roasted and peeled (poblanos, jalapenos, and Anaheims are a nice choice)

1/2 c. pumpkin seeds

1 lb. tomatillos, dehusked and washed

2 small, ripe tomatoes

1 bu. cilantro

1/2 t. cumin, optional

1 sprig oregano, optional, or epazote

1 t. organic, raw sugar

salt

Boil tomatillos and tomatoes for 5 minutes, until tomatillos change color.

Add 1/4 c. olive oil to pot.  Warm.  Add onions, garlic, chiles, and pumpkin seeds.  Cook 2-3 minutes, until seeds begin to brown.  

Add tomatillos, tomatoes, and mixture to a blender.  Blend with 1/2 c. broth or water.  Add back to pot.  Blend lettuce and/or greens with herbs.  Add to pot.  Add sugar and salt to taste.  Stir and bring whole mixture to boil.  Cover and reduce - it will splatter.  Cook for 20 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.  Add more broth or water if it is too thick.  Use right away or freeze (freezes really well).

  

Broccoli: Boon or bust?

Two seemingly unrelated things coincided this past week: rethinking how we do our veggie donations and an early broccoli harvest (our second succession, which came along with the first, is 3 weeks early).  Waste.  There is a significant amount of waste in "our" (the US) food system.  The USDA estimates that 25% of the food grown in the US never makes it to consumers and another 96 billion pounds of food annually is never used once purchased.  We came to farming, originally, from a a food systems perspective: how do we get out of the industrialized food system? how do we stop and reverse the social, environmental, cultural, and economic damage it causes? and how do we make healthy, locally-grown, organic food available to more people?  Harvesting hundreds of heads of early broccoli, I started thinking about these questions again, and much of what we do on our farm and through the CSA felt very much affirmed.  One great advantage of a CSA is that there is less waste.  We don't grow broccoli for a distributor-middle man or a chain grocer or a large "agricultural" company.  If we did, all of our broccoli that we are harvesting right now would be trash - too small to meet their specifications.  Instead, through the CSA, approximately 100 families per week (maybe 400? people) will eat broccoli for at least 4 weeks this spring.  And it is beautiful broccoli.  It is exactly what food really should be: yummy, packed-full of nutrients, fresh, vibrant, and free of insect-damage.  Sure, if it hadn't been so hot and the broccoli had come more on schedule, we would have had more broccoli overall and for a longer period of time, but we have been through enough springs here to know that we should celebrate any broccoli that we are able to harvest and that is exactly what we plan to do!  Enjoy your early-broccoli.  If you are bored with plain boiled or steamed broccoli, try these recipes.

Roasted Broccoli

4 c. broccoli florets

3-4 T. olive oil

salt to taste

Toss florets in olive oil and salt. Place on baking sheet.  Broil on low for 10-12 minutes.

Broccoli with Peanut Butter or Cashew Butter Sauce

4 c. broccoli florets

1/2 c. peanut butter or cashew butter

1/4 t. salt

1 T. curry powder (or to taste)

2 T. olive oil

enough water to make peanut butter into sauce

Mix peanut butter through olive oil.  Add enough water to make it a thick sauce.  Toss broccoli in sauce.  Place on baking sheet.  Broil on low for 12-15 minutes, until browned.  Stir half way through.

Broccoli Pesto (from Heidi Swanson’s super natural every day)

2 c. broccoli florets, cooked for 1 minute in boiling water, dunked in cold water, and 

drained

2 cloves garlic, peeled

2/3 c. pine nuts, toasted (or I like walnuts, too)

1/3 c. grated Parmesan cheese

2 T. lemon juice

1/4 c. olive oil

1/4 c. creme fraiche (or anything like it)

1/4 t. salt

Put it all in a food processor and blend.  Mix into pasta or make into a pizza sauce or put on sandwiches.

Ideas for broccoli stems: (1) peel, cut into strips, and dip in hummus; (2) peel, cut into strips, and make into refrigerator pickles; (3) blanch and freeze and use in broccoli-cheese soup when it isn’t so warm out; (4) bake like french fries

Fennel

Fennel is probably the most under-appreciated vegetable we grow.  I like to believe it is because most people have only had it raw or baked, both of which make for an unpleasant experience, in my opinion.  Slow-cooked, fennel is one of my favorites. Fennel (like celery and arugula) is at its best when you think of it as an herb: it is sort of strong and unappealing when eaten raw and fresh from the field but develops layers of wonderful flavors when coked and even takes on the “hmm...that is really good, what did you add to that?” role.  Many years ago, I found the following recipe in a cookbook that I have.  I have never actually made it in its entirety and instead have taken bits and pieces of it to make various meals depending on what we had at the time.  I strongly suggest taking a stab at it.  It has been tested many times amongst the “fennel-haters.”  If not, try fennel chopped small like celery in any soup.  I particularly like it in split pea soup (I don’t make it without it anymore) and white bean soup.  It is also good slow-cooked with green cabbage.

Potato Ragout with Fennel and Tofu 

from The Big Book of Vegetarian (Farrell-Kingsley) with my suggestion in italics

1 T. olive oil

1/2 c. onion, chopped  (1 c.)

1 fennel bulb, cored and chopped (I like it sliced and diced)

1 leek, chopped (leeks and fennel don’t always coincide here, so I eliminate)

1/4 c. parsley, chopped

2 T. rosemary, chopped

2 t. fennel seed 

2 T. balsamic vinegar

2 1/2 c. chopped tomatoes (I often make without tomatoes, in which case, also eliminate fennel seed)

2 pounds tofu, drained and cubed (use, eliminate, or substitute with meat - sausage is good choice since fennel is often used in sausage)

2 c. cooked white beans

a pinch of saffron (not necessary, only use it if you have it on hand, don’t go buy it for this)

2 c. broth or water

2 c. new potatoes, quartered

salt and pepper

Heat oil in dutch oven.  Add onion, fennel, leek, parsley, rosemary, and fennel seed (if using). Salt.  Cook 10 minutes on medium.  Add vinegar, cook 2 minutes.  Stir in tomatoes (if using).  Cook 6-8 minutes.  Add beans and tofu.  Dissolve saffron into broth, if using, and add to mixture.  Add potatoes.  Bring to a boil.  Cover and reduce to a simmer.  Cook approx. 45 minutes, until potatoes are cooked and ragout is thickened.  Season with salt and pepper.

What do I do with those fennel fronds (the frizzy part on top)? a few options: you can use a little bit as garnish or in a yogurt-garlic sauce; they work great as filler in flower arrangements; and I recently learned that a wash of fennel fronds (boil water, add fennel, boil a couple of minutes, cool, and strain) is very good for the skin, particularly your face!

Oh Crazy Weather

This is not a long, thoughtful post, just an update.  We did have a freeze (30 degrees) here at the farm last night, but it seems almost everything has survived just fine.  Only losses were herbs and grains that we had planted early because of warmer weather (basil, rice, and amaranth) and annual flowers, which I neglect terribly.  We have extra trays of basil, rice, and amaranth in the greenhouse, so it will be easy to re-plant.  I didn't really think we would get through April without at least a frost!  The really good news is that the strawberries (some of which have begun to blush) survived under frost cover! This sudden, and short-lived, burst of cold will also sweeten up greens and lettuces that become slightly bitter in hot weather.

What's growing this season

Welcome to the 2012 CSA Season!  The spring season for us has been consistently inconsistent.  Our best spring was 2010, cool to mild and fairly wet.  This is by far the warmest late winter and early spring that we have had so far, and despite the storms, the first spring that we have had to irrigate.  Due to dry spells and warm temperatures, we have irrigated off and on since our first plants went in the ground in early February.  We even lost some of our earliest (coldest weather) crops to the heat.  

However, this spring has allowed earlier plantings of many crops and our earliest CSA yet.  The chard, beets, lettuces, and spinach all look vibrant, and the strawberries are covered in thousands upon thousands of early blooms and developing fruit.  Because of the heat, we are also trying a few new herbs, vegetables, and varieties (new to us).  We have expanded our herb selection to include cutting celery, cumin seed, chamomile, epazote, purslane, holy basil, thai basil, chives, and garlic chives in addition to our most popular herbs (basil, cilantro, dill, parsley, thyme, rosemary, and oregano).  We switched green pea varieties to Green Arrow peas, which are supposed to be more heat tolerant, and are trying fava beans (in case they aren't!).  We are also trialing several new to us lettuce varieties - all of which seem to be doing really well.  We have already taste-tested two varieties (buttery Tennis Ball and crispy Red Sails), and we really liked both of them.  Also, because our arugula was struggling so much (first knocked out by a heavy storm and then toasted in the 85 degree heat), we have added a brassica mix to our spring selection as well as Yukina Savoy - a spoon mustard that is used a little bit like spinach.  We wish there were more varieties and vegetables that we could experiment with in the spring.  Our spring temperatures tend to be too warm for many traditional spring vegetables, and yet we have just enough cold nights to keep us from planting frost-sensitive crops.  After our really warm winter, it is tempting to think about planting some crops in the fall for spring harvest as is done in more temperate climates.  We definitely still have much to learn about growing early spring crops here in east TN!

The summer offers a lot more flexibility, especially in terms of the diversity of varieties available for each crop.  In addition to our standard varieties, we are trialing a lot of new summer varieties (mostly heirlooms), as well as more grain crops.  We are growing four heirloom dent corn varieties this season, including TN Red Cob (our standard), Cherokee White Flour, Bloody Butcher, and Black Aztec.  We are also growing several green bean and dry bean varieties, in search of varieties that produce well in hot, dry summers.  Similarly, we are planting a variety of heirloom tomato varieties throughout the season, looking for varieties that do well in our hot, dry summers and ones that continue to produce once it cools off in the fall.  Oh and melons...we were really frustrated last summer watching most of the Little Baby Flower watermelons we planted be eaten by skunks.  Although they are much loved and the perfect size for CSA bins, their rinds are just too thin.  Instead, we have planned to plant several new cantaloupe and watermelon varieties, as well as the other varieties that we planted last season.  After you all received last season’s pumpkins and rare winter squash varieties with such enthusiasm, we have also expanded our pumpkin and winter squash planting to include 8 heirloom varieties. 

The fall in TN, unlike our springs, tends to be bountiful and accommodates an enormous variety of vegetables and a significant number of varieties within those vegetables.  We are particularly excited about Romanesco cauliflower/broccoli, two heirloom varieties of cabbage, and several storage crops (an heirloom storage beet, as well as rutabagas, turnips, and parsnips).  Hopefully this season will be as abundant as the last!