What on earth is a rutabaga? You may have asked yourself this question as you fondled these lovely round vegetables at pick-up today, trying to decide which one to choose. Perhaps a better question is what in earth is a rutabaga, since this mysterious vegetable is a root! Rutabaga is part of the Brassica family, which includes turnip, cabbage and kale.  The rutabaga is of European and Siberian origin, and it was introduced to this country in the early 19th century. They are available in the Northeast in the fall and early winter.

Storage

• Rutabaga will keep for up to a month in the refrigerator drawer.

Preparation

• Rutabaga must be scrubbed well and can be eaten with or without the peel (the peel is packed with nutrients!)
• Raw rutabaga can be sliced and added to salads or vegetable platters
• Rutabaga can also be steamed (30-35 minutes for 1 inch chunks), boiled (20-25 minutes for 1 inch chunks), baked (40-50 minutes at 400 F), sautéed, stir-fried, or mashed (try combining with potatoes).
• If your rutabaga came with leaves, you can eat these too. Prepare them like collards, turnip, or other cooking greens.

Nutrition Information
Rutabagas are high in Vitamin C. Vitamin C is important in immune response, wound healing, and allergic reactions. Vitamin C also helps with iron absorption.

Rutabaga Recipes
Root Roast
White potatoes, rutabagas, sweet potatoes, and/or beets
Canola oil
Chili powder
Salt & pepper
Garlic cloves, chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Use whatever amount of each root vegetable that you want or have. Cut the vegetables into strips like french fries. Put them in a bowl and toss with enough canola oil to coat them lightly. Sprinkle with chili powder, garlic and salt & pepper to taste. Toss to combine. Spread vegetables on a baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees until tender. Serve with vinegar or ketchup.

Oriental-Style Rutabaga and Carrot Slaw
3 cups grated rutabaga
3 cups grated carrots
3 green onions, chopped
Dressing:
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon hot oriental chili paste (optional)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil

salt & pepper to taste
1/2 cup sunflower seeds or chopped nuts

In a large bowl, whisk all of the dressing ingredients together. Add rutabaga, carrot and green onion and toss to combine. Season with salt & pepper and sprinkle with seeds or nuts to serve.

Peppery Rutabaga Treat
2 teaspoons butter
2 tablespoons honey
1 lb rutabaga, peeled and finely diced
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
salt to taste

In a medium saucepan, over medium heat, melt butter. Add honey, the rutabaga and pepper. Cook covered until rutabaga is tender and lightly browned (about 10 minutes). Sprinkle with parsley and salt and serve.

By Jing Shan


Dear CSA Members,

Hope you've been enjoying your fresh organic veggies.

Did you get to try your bok choy? How did you prepare it? Since I'm a big
bok choy fan, I'd like to share things I know and things I just discovered
with you.

Bok choy (or pak choi) comes from Cantonese pronunciation. In Mandarin
Chinese it is pronounced "bai cai", which literally means "white vegetable".

So I've always known bok choy originated in China, but I didn't know it's been around for more than 5000 years. I also didn't know you can eat it raw.

Here is a list of 10 Fun Facts.

Since I've never tried it raw, the easiest way for me to prepare it is to boil it:

1. Strip the leaves off the roots. Wash thoroughly (I like to wash each leaf individually).

2. If the stems are too thick and leaves are large, I usually just break it up with my hands, and chop the stalks into pieces. Otherwise I just leave the whole laves alone.

3. Bring a pot of water to a boil then add the bok choy. Boil for a minute or two. Allow the water to drain out and place cooked bok choy in a bowl.

4. To season, I like to use flax seed oil or olive oil, and add salt & black pepper.

My family likes it stir-fried as well. Satué the bok choy in vegetable oil with garlic and ginger and then add a little bit of salt before turning off the heat. This is great with mushrooms too. Here is a recipe I found online.

Bok choy is also popular in Chinese or Asian soup. It makes the soup looks great, plus you'll have all the fiber and nutrients. Speaking of nutrients, bok choy is packed with vitamins A, C, and K as well as folate and calcium. It also has polyphenols, antioxidant phytochemicals that are shown to have anti-cancer properties. Click here to read more.

Hope this was helpful. Feel free to share pictures of your bok choy dish.

Enjoy your bok choy!!


With joy,

Jing

by: Leah Smith

At this week's pick-up, half share members had to pick two of either lambs quarters, spinach, or cilantro. I grow cilantro at home, so I decided to go with the lambs quarters. There was just one problem... I had never seen lambs quarters before, and I didn't know what to do with them. I called up my aunt who is an avid gardner and asked her, but she didn't know either. She thought I was talking about lamb chops. 


As it turns out, lambs quarters are a leafy green in the spinach family, and are found all over the Northeast. They are often thought of as weeds because they spread quickly, however they were long used by Native Americans, and are highly nutritious. These greens can grow as tall as 2-6 feet, and they often have reddish-purple stems and jagged, triangular leaves. Lambs quarters are also known as pigweed, and can sometimes be confused with purslane, a low-growing weed that is also called pigweed.


STORAGE

• Store unwashed and wrapped in a damp cloth or paper towel in your refrigerator drawer
• Store washed leaves in a vegetable bag in your refrigerator drawer; lambs quarters can keep for more than a week this way

PREPARATION

• Use lambs quarters leaves as you would spinach. Try replacing spinach with lambs quarters in your favorite recipe!
• When the plant is young, lambs quarters leaves can be eaten raw in green salads, coleslaw, or on sandwiches
• As the plant ages, cooking the leaves makes these delicious greens tender; steam or sauté them as you would other greens
• Add to omelettes, stir-fries, soups, casseroles, or lasagna
• If you don't like the texture of cooked greens, you can dry lambs quarters leaves as you would parsley and crumble them into foods as a mild-tasting, colorful seasoning

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION

• Lambs quarters are high in vitamins A and C as well as calcium, potassium, protein, and fiber
  

LAMBS QUARTERS QUICHE
This recipe came out super well when I tried it at home, but I found that the filling was a little too much, and it overflowed when I poured it into the crust. I also used a graham cracker crust to add a little bit of sweetness, but a pastry pie shell will work just as well (and in fact that's what the original recipe calls for). I am adding the original amounts here, but play around with them depending on the size of your pie crust.

9" unbaked pie crust (If you are using a graham cracker crust, you can skip the first step and just preheat your oven to 325 degrees)
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped onion (approx. one small onion)
4 cups lambs quarters leaves, chopped
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 cup milk
2 cups grated swiss cheese (try using 1 1/2 cups, or even just 1 cup to avoid overflowing.  I also made my quiche with monterey jack instead of swiss and it was delicious!)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. When oven is hot, partially bake pie crust for 5 to 7 minutes or until light brown. Remove from oven and reduce heat to 325 degrees. Meanwhile, in medium sauté pan, heat butter. Add onion and cook for one minute. Add lambs quarters and cook until tender and limp. Stir in flour and salt, and set aside. In a small bowl, beat eggs and milk. Stir in greens. Sprinkle cheese into pie shell; pour in egg-vegetable mixture. Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until knife comes out clean when inserted in center. (This will vary depending on your oven, but I ended up needing to raise the temperature to 350 and baking my quiche for about an hour and a half). Let stand ten minutes before serving.