This week your basket contains: radishes (full shares only), potatoes, Swiss Chard, salad mix (lettuce, spinach, arugula, and endive), TURNIPS (half shares) or turnip greens (full shares), baby bok choy or joi choi, and Purple Sprouting Broccoli or Chinese broccoli or cauliflower. 

Thanks to all of you that have gone to our new online garden starts store pumpkinridgegardens.square.site (link is live on the online version of this note on pumpkinridgegardens.com) and ordered the plants you need. We have started delivering the plants that are ready, but can only fit so many in the truck. If you didn’t get any of your order today, you will get most of it next week. If you got some of your order today, the rest will be coming in the next few weeks. We anticipate having everything to you by mid-May. 

In addition to offering cheese from Fraga farm, we are also partnering with Cloud Cap mushroom farm! Right now, they are offering a mix of Shitake and Oyster mushrooms that we can deliver with your basket. Visit Cloud Cap’s website and click on Pumpkin Ridge Gardens to order directly through the site (credit/debit card only) at www.cloudcapmushroom.co/pumpkin-ridge-gardens.

Thank you also to those of you who have ordered flowers each week, two weeks or month! The flowers are still mostly closed, but I look forward to making beautiful bouquets for you to enjoy! The flowers are $7/bunch.

We harvested the turnips this week with an eye to getting good roots for the half shares, who missed them last week. The full shares got bunches of greens, with some roots as well. Full shares can use radish roots in the following recipe, which is always our “Spring is here!” dinner.

MORROCAN TURNIP AND CHICKEN STEW

2 cups cooked chickpeas

2 small (2 1/2 lb) chickens

3 Tb butter

1 Tb oil

2 onions

5 cups chicken stock

1/2 tsp white pepper

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/8 tsp powdered saffron

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 lb small  turnips

2 cups chopped turnip leaves and stems

1/4 cup lemon juice

salt and freshly ground pepper

Rinse chickpeas in water and rub lightly to remove skins; drain and set aside. Cut chickens into quarters, removing wing tips and backbones; put them aside for stock. Melt butter and oil in a casserole and lightly brown chicken on all sides, cooking in two batches if necessary. Slice onions and stir into butter and oil to color. Then add the chickpeas, stock, pepper, ginger, saffron, and turmeric. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add turnips and greens and simmer 20 minutes more. Remove chicken and turnips to a covered warm dish. Boil sauce to reduce, mashing some of the chickpeas against the side of the pan to thicken the sauce; it may take 10-15 minutes to produce a nice thick sauce. Add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Reheat the chicken and turnips in the sauce and serve.   Serves 6 to 8.  From The Victory Garden Cookbook. 

We grew baby bok choy this year as a trial. We still have a bit of learning to do on this crop. We may try it in the Fall, when it will be less prone to bolting. We apologize to those of you who got Joi Choi instead; our yield was less than we had planned. This recipe would work with either of the bok choys and the mustard greens from last week. It could also be a new way to utilize the bag of salad mix:

WILTED GREENS WITH TOASTED SESAME SEEDS AND MANGO

¼ c. water

¼ c. tamari

2 Tbs. rice vinegar

2 Tbs. mirin (rice wine)

1 Tbs. dark sesame oil

1 tsp. vegetable oil

1 clove garlic, minced

6 c. mixed Asian greens

1 mango, pitted, peeled, julienned

¼ red onion, thinly sliced

Toasted sesame seeds

Whisk together water, tamari, vinegar, mirin, and sesame oil in a small bowl. Set aside.  Heat vegetable oil in medium saucepan over medium heat.  Cook garlic 1 minute.  Add vinegar mixture; heat 2 minutes.  Toss greens, mango and onion in a large serving bowl.  Pour warm dressing over salad; sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds to taste.  To toast sesame seeds, heat seeds in a small dry pan, stirring often, until lightly browned.  Immediately remove seeds from pan to stop cooking.  From Fooday adapted from Chef Suzy Crofton of Crofton on Wells.

RHUBARB is ready. We’ll send along approx. 1 Lb. for $3.  Just email to order.