Cooking with the Box
Overwintered Parsnips:
- Gluten-Free Spiced Oat Flour Pancakes with Parsnips (See Below)
Carola Gold Potatoes:
Chives:
- Walnut Crusted Roast Asparagus with Zesty Chive Sauce
- Chive and Chicken Orecchiette in a Rosemary Lemon Sauce
Wild Ramps:
Nettles:
- How to Work With Nettles
- Indian-Spiced Stinging Nettle Soup
- Chickpea and Nettle Burgers
- Nettle Ginger Ice Cream
- Dairy Free Nettle Berry Ice Cream
- Spring Pasta with Nettle Pesto
Watercress:
- Kim-chi Pork and Scallion Pancake with Watercress-Radish Relish
- Salmon and Watercress Tart
- Vietnamese Beef with Watercress
Asparagus:
- Charred Asparagus with Horseradish Dip
- Parmesan Asparagus Pastry Twists
- 25 Delicious Asparagus Recipes
Horseradish Whips:
- Prepared Horseradish
- Horseradish Cream Sauce on Charred Asparagus
- Smoky Oven Baked Salmon with Horseradish Sauce
Green Garlic:
Overwintered Spinach:
Cooking with the Box
Welcome to the second week of our 2023 CSA delivery season and this week’s Cooking With the Box article! If you are joining us for the first time, welcome! Every week I will use this space to provide you with recipe suggestions and ideas for how to use every single vegetable in your box as well as 1-2 featured recipes! This week we’re going to start with our featured vegetable, overwintered parsnips, and this week’s featured recipes. The first recipe is for Gluten-Free Spiced Oat Flour Pancakes with Parsnips. Whether you choose to eat a gluten-free diet or not, these pancakes are quite tasty and an excellent way to start the day! They have a nice texture, and the combination of spices complements the unique flavor of the parsnips. They also reheat well, so leftovers are a bonus! The second recipe is for
www.dishingupthefirst.com
Parsnip, Potato & Horseradish Gratin: This is a hearty, comfort food type of recipe, but well-suited for spring given it is infused with the flavor of horseradish and uses chives in the breadcrumb topping. I used 3 Tbsp of freshly grated horseradish whips to yield a mild horseradish essence. If you like a stronger horseradish flavor, you may wish to use more like 4-5 Tbsp of fresh horseradish.
We are nearing the end of overwintered spinach and ramp season. This week’s spinach is full of flavor, but the leaves are a little less tender than our earlier harvests. As such, I recommend you cook the spinach which will make it nice and silky, perhaps in this recipe for Creamed Ramps & Spinach! Before ramp season closes, may I suggest a few of our longtime farm and member favorites? In our private Facebook Group several members have already shared that they made Ramp Pesto and Ramp Butter! These are two simple recipes to capture the full essence of ramps and may be used in a variety of ways plus you can freeze them for later use! The other recipe I want to mention is this delicious recipe for
Nettle & Mushroom Pizza with Ramp Cream. You will not be disappointed, trust me!
It’s our first week for asparagus! If you’re looking to try some new recipes, check out this collection of 25 Delicious Asparagus Recipes which includes this recipe for Parmesan Asparagus Pastry Twists. I bet even your picky eaters might try these! We also just started harvesting green garlic. Green garlic has a bright, vibrant flavor that is excellent in either of these two simple preparations for Alice Water’s Spaghetti with Green Garlic and
Green Garlic Risotto. Sometimes keeping it simple is the best approach.
As we look ahead to next week, we have more delicious spring vegetables to add to the mix. Our first little red radishes will be ready along with our first crop of baby arugula! Our sorrel crop took a bit of a hit with the repeated frosts we had this spring, but I took a peek at it this week and it’s coming. Hopefully, we’ll be able to send some your way within the next few weeks. Rest assured, there’s always something delicious to look forward to! Have a great week—
Chef Andrea
Vegetable Feature: Parsnips
by Andrea Yoder
Parsnips fill an important place in our seasonal Wisconsin diets. We harvest parsnips both in the fall to sustain us through the winter months, but we also harvest them in the spring as “Overwintered Parsnips!” Earlier this spring, we dug these parsnips from the field where we left them from last fall. It’s a little risky to do this as you never know what may happen over the winter, but it’s well worth it to have these unique, sweet and delicious spring-dug, overwintered parsnips! Over the course of their winter in the ground, they develop more sugars to act as an antifreeze. The side effect is that overwintered parsnips are even more sweet and delicious than they are in the fall. Parsnips are often described as being a white carrot and, while they do resemble carrots, they are not just a white carrot! They have a distinct flavor that is much different from a carrot.
Parsnips are a versatile vegetable that can be prepared in a variety of ways. Their sweetness really comes out when they are roasted, which is one of my favorite ways to prepare parsnips. They also make a nice addition to a root mash or mix them with other vegetables in hearty soups and stews. You can also use them in baked goods such as cakes, cookies, and bread, similar to how you might use carrots.
Parsnips pair very well with other root vegetables, wine, shallots, apples, walnuts, and a variety of spices including cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, and ginger as well as dairy products, toasted nuts and maple syrup. Some people really like the distinct flavor of parsnips, while others may still be learning to like them. If you’re in the latter group, I’d recommend that you start by using parsnips in a baked good or in this week’s recipe for Gluten-Free Spiced Oat Flour Pancakes with Parsnips.
Store parsnips in the coldest part of your refrigerator in a plastic bag. They will store for several weeks under these conditions, so don’t feel like you need to eat them all right now. When you are ready to use them, Scrub the outer skin with a vegetable brush and trim off the top and bottom. Peeling is optional and totally up to you.
