What’s In The Box with Recipe Suggestions
Purple or Yellow Cauliflower: If you are planning to make a dish with mashed potatoes, adding cauliflower into the mix can be a great way to boost the nutrient density of the mash.
Mashed Cauliflower and Potatoes
Broccoli or Romanesco: This week there is either a head of broccoli or a head of Romanesco in your box. Romanesco is an exotic looking variety of broccoli that’s head is comprised of spires of immature flower buds. This “head” of the Romanesco broccoli almost resembles the skull of the dinosaur pachycephalosaurus (P. wyomingensis).
Broccoli Fritters with Marinara
Italian Garlic: Save the peals and ends of your garlic cloves and put them in a jar of water to make a natural mosquito and tick repellent that you can apply to your clothing and exposed skin.
The Best Garlic Bread You’ll Ever Eat
Red Jalapeños: Try spicing up your mixed drinks with the jalapeño peppers in this week’s box.
Pineapple & Jalapeño Infused Vodka Cocktail
Red Serrano Pepper: The word Serrano comes from the Spanish word for mountain range, sierra. This is because it was originally grown in the mountainous regions of Puebla and Hidalgo in Mexico. The fact that these peppers were grown in the relatively cooler climates of these mountains is how we can grow them here in the Midwest.
Serrano-Garlic Chili Crunch Recipe
Red and Yellow Onions: Sauteed peppers and onions are a simple way to jazz up a grilled steak, burger or fajitas! Keep the heat at a moderate temperature so the onions develop their sugars and flavors without burning.
Roma Tomato: Now is the time to savor the final BLTs of the season, make a few more batches of fresh salsa and savor the last couple weeks of fresh tomatoes.
Green Italian Frying Peppers: Despite being green and not, biologically speaking “ripe”, these Italian Frying Peppers are known to still be sweet throughout all stages of their development. Due to their higher level of sweetness compared to the Green Ace Peppers in your box, these Italian Frying Peppers can make a good substitute for the red bell pepper used in the above recipe under Red and Yellow Onions.
Green Ace Pepper: These Green Ace Peppers can also be used in the above recipe under Red and Yellow Onions, as the recipe does call for green bell peppers. Otherwise, these Ace Peppers could be used to make a meal of stuffed peppers!
White Daikon: To learn some fun facts and the origins of the Daikon Radish check out our last week’s newsletter that highlighted the Daikon Radish!
Spinach: This is nature’s fast food and a great way to put a quick salad on the table in just a few minutes. If you do meal prep, consider preparing some other vegetables in advance to make salad prep super quick. For example, you can shred carrots and cabbage, dice peppers, and prepare broccoli florets. With all the components ready to go, you can build a colorful salad very quickly!
Mixed Green Salad with Cilantro-Lime Vinaigrette
Roasting Mix: This week’s box has another great roasting mix! Another great way to use a collection of different taproot vegetables is to put them in a stew or soup.
Classic Beef Stew with Root Vegetables
Black Futsu Winter Squash: The Black Futsu Squash has a shape like that of a pumpkin, the skin texture of a gourd, and the culinary capacity of a squash. Similar to how one may commonly cook an acorn squash, you can simply cut this Black Futsu Squash in half, scoop out the seeds, cut it into wedges and bake it in your oven.
Magenta Lettuce and Green Romaine: If you have ever wondered what the white fluid is that oozes out of the cut base of a head of lettuce, you are not alone. That fluid is called Lactucarium and it is produced by the plant as a chemical defense against insects and other munching animals by giving it a bitter undesirable taste. However, our modern-day cultivar of lettuce do not have nearly the amount of this fluid as their wild ancestors, thus leaving us with much sweater lettuce varieties today.
Orange Carrots: This week make a side dish of caramelized carrots. You can slice them into ¼ thick round pieces or slice the carrot in-half down the length of the carrot and then cut the halves further to make fourths. Boil the carrots in a saucepan or pot to soften them. Then remove them from the water and place them in a frying pan on medium heat. Add some brown sugar and salt and allow these to crisp to the surface of the carrots.
Red Mustard: This is our first year growing Red Mustard and we would love to hear what you think about it.
Vegetable Feature: Magenta Lettuce
We grow many varieties of head lettuce here at Harmony Valley Farm, each of them carefully selected with specific characteristics we’re looking for at different times in the growing season. with their own special flair to keep things interesting and diverse. Lettuce can be a tricky crop to grow. In general, lettuce is best grown in the more mild, cool temperatures of spring and fall. During the heat of the summer it bolts very quickly and typically does not taste good. While spring and fall are more conducive times of the season for growing lettuce, it is still very vulnerable to field and weather conditions. There are many varieties of lettuce, but they are not all created equally. We have tried to select varieties that have greater disease resistance, are beautiful with good flavor, and have good field-holding ability which gives us a longer window in which to harvest them.
So with that background, I want to introduce this week’s head lettuce. It’s a unique variety called “Magenta.” This variety is classified as a Summer Crisp lettuce, also known as Batavia lettuce. It’s a unique type of lettuce that is kind of a mix between leaf lettuce, iceberg and romaine. The heads start out similarly to a leaf lettuce, which is loose and open, but as they mature the inner leaves start to wrap into more of a compact head. The texture of the leaves is kind of a cross between iceberg and romaine. There are several things we like about this lettuce. First of all, it is tolerant to heat so it does well even in the heat of late summer and early fall. It also has a longer harvest window whereas some varieties can quickly go “over the hill.” Lastly, it tastes pretty good, lacking the bitterness that Romaine can develop sometimes. However, we fully expect the Green Romaine that is also in this week’s box to have its own vibrant flavors. You will seldom see Magenta lettuce in a regular grocery store, but over the past few years this has become one of our favorite varieties of head lettuce to grow and eat!
When you are ready to use your head lettuce, cut out the base of the stalk and pull off the leaves. Gently swish around in a bowl of water or a clean sink of cold water to loosen any dirt, especially the lower part of the leaves near the base. Put the washed leaves in a wire basket or colander, hold it by the handle and shake vigorously over the sink so the water is spun out. If you do not have a basket, you can wrap the lettuce in a clean cloth and blot out the water, a salad spinner also works well and is relatively inexpensive.
This variety of lettuce has enough structure to the leaf to hold up to thick, creamy dressings such as a Caesar dressing as in this week’s featured recipe. You can use this lettuce in any recipe or use that you may normally reach for iceberg or romaine lettuce. Of course, you can also dress it lightly with a
vinaigrette.
Store these heads loosely wrapped in a plastic bag or stored in a covered container in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it. When storing, add paper towels to the plastic bag to keep lettuce fresher longer. Do not store near ethylene-producing fruits, like apples or bananas, to avoid rapid decay.
