This week your basket contains:  Florence fennel, salad mix (spinach, radicchio, and arugula), potatoes, onions, celeriac, and collards

We hope your Thanksgiving was as fun and relaxing as ours.  We really lucked out with lovely November weather, didn’t we?  Now we get to enjoy a true western Oregon winter!  For the month of December, your delivery schedule will be Dec. 5^th normal;  Dec. 12 & 19 will be 2-week baskets.  We will not deliver Dec. 26 or January 2^nd. We will resume normal deliveries on January 9^th.  Please email if you have questions or concerns.

Are you looking for a tasty gift for yourself or someone else? Our friends at Kenai Red Fish Company (you may have ordered salmon from them in the past) are offering Pumpkin Ridge Gardens subscribers a 15% discount on seasonal gift boxes of their products if you order from their online store by Dec. 19^th.  You can visit their web site at Kenairedfc.com to order.  There is also a fuller explanation of this offer and the gift boxes in the blog post section of our web site (see the footer of this note). 

It is unusual for us to have Florence fennel this late into the winter, but the mild weather has given us this gift this year.  We did get overnight temperatures of 24⁰ recently, and the fennel shows it.  Some of the bulbs have slightly browned or waterlogged looking patches on the outside.  We ate one of the “worst” looking ones (we made the salad from our web site with oranges and olives!) and it was crisp, sweet, and very tasty.  Another great way to use your fennel is the recipe below.

FAST SAUTÉ OF FENNEL AND MUSHROOMS

1 large fennel (with leaves)

1/2 lb whole mushrooms

2 Tbsp. butter

1 Tbsp. olive oil

salt & pepper

Thinly slice fennel, discarding any hard core.  Mince 1/2 cup of the leaves and set aside.  Slice mushrooms to same thickness as fennel.  Heat 1 Tbsp. butter and oil in a sauté pan.  Add mushrooms and cook over medium high heat until brown.  Remove and set aside.  Add remaining butter and fennel to pan.  Cook over medium heat until softened but still crunchy.  Add mushrooms, stir together.  Season with salt and pepper and stir in minced fennel leaves. (From The Victory Garden Cookbook)

Sometimes using your celeriac can be a challenge.  While we have an extensive collection of recipes on our website to help you, sometimes thinking outside the box is what is called for.  In that vein, we came across the recipe below and really like it.  It is based on the concept of making “rice” from vegetables like cauliflower.  If you froze any tomatoes this summer, this is a good time to use them in place of the tomato sauce in the recipe.

CELERIAC SPANISH RICE

1 celeriac, cubed

¼ cup tomato sauce

2 Tbs olive oil

1 leek

1 cup sweet peppers

¼ cup white wine

Salt & pepper

Microgreens for garnish

Pulse celeriac in a food processor until you achieve a breadcrumb-like texture.  Chop the leek, separating the whiter portion from the greener portion.  In a heavy skillet heat the olive oil until it starts to shimmer then add the whiter leeks and sauté until they start to soften.  Add the celeriac and continue cooking, stirring occasionally until the celeriac starts to brown.  Use the white wine to deglaze the pan, add the tomato sauce, green portion of leek, and sweet peppers (we use peppers we froze in the summer).  Cook until peppers and leeks are just tender. Add salt & pepper to taste, and adjust the moisture content with more white wine, water, or  stock to your preference.  Serve & top with microgreens garnish.

The salad mix is NOT table ready.  While we do wash and rinse the greens before we put them in the bags, we are not able to guarantee that all the soil and/or bugs are out of all the leaves.  The best way to rinse your greens to ensure that no stowaways remain is to dissolve 2 tsp. of salt in a little warm water in the bottom of your sink.  Fill the sink about half full with the coldest water and add the greens.  It is best if there is enough water to float the greens.  Swish the greens gently and let them sit in the water for five minutes or so.  Gently lift the greens from the water so as not to disturb any soil that has settled to the bottom of the sink and either pat them dry with a towel or spin them dry in a salad spinner.