The week of November 10, 2008 we got winter squash, cauliflower, Russet potatoes, cabbage (either Chinese or green), apples, broccoli, radishes and turnips.

Recipes:

When looking for tasty recipes that will incorporate all my CSA vegetables, internet search engines are my friend! This week I searched for “recipe cauliflower cabbage,” “recipe radish turnip,” and “recipe radish cabbage,” and found lots of fun results.

Here’s a recipe for hearty country soup that looks like it uses many of the vegetables from this week’s box: broccoli, potatoes, cauliflower, turnips, and cabbage (and even leeks and carrots if you have them left over from previous weeks!)

This one was unique: cool and crunchy radish and spring turnip salad. This is one that would come around again in the spring, too.

Since I just picked up a couple of catfish fillets at the Kensington farmers market (and since I still have some farmers market tomatoes from a few weeks back), I may try pan-fried fish and tomatoes with cabbage radish slaw.

Here’s my other favorite of the recipes I found: cauliflower and potato curry. Gotta love a recipe that just requires me to throw everything in the crockpot for 6 hours!

Food For Thought:

Root cellars aren’t just for pioneers anymore.

This past Thursday’s New York Times featured an article on root cellaring, a seemingly rural standby for food preservation now being practiced by urbanites and suburbanites in their own homes.

For me, tough economic times bring thoughts about saving money. Among other things, I think about growing food, and then soon find myself thinking about preserving and storing food. I wonder whether I will turn part of our own basement into a root cellar. This website by Organic Gardening seemed like a good place to start.

Perhaps it’s the impending onset of winter that brings on this squirrel-like desire to create my own little cache of winter food – or perhaps it’s getting all these great CSA fall foods, like winter squash, cabbage, turnips, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and apples, all of which hold a traditional place in a root cellar.

In this season of shorter days and cooler nights, I wish you all your own happy fall and winter thoughts and dreams, whatever they may be.

Jen

Growing our own veggies was great when I was younger, but I must admit I hated pulling the weeds for my parents. I look back now and am ashamed for all the cucumbers I ate, yet did hardly any of the work. — Bryan Helmig