Happy New Year! We hope your holidays were as happy & relaxing as were ours. We are without electricity this morning (nice welcome back to harvest, right?) so our note for today is online only (hurray for cell phones!) In any case:

THIS WEEK YOUR BASKET CONTAINS: potatoes, carrots, leeks, garlic, Hamburg parsley, cabbage, beets, and celery.

We’ve been experimenting with growing and harvesting celery. We’ve settled on growing it in a hoophouse (for better climate control) and this year have been using a cut-and_come-again havest. By taking outer stalks and letting it regrow, we’ve already gotten 2 harvests from the plants and may get more as opposed to cutting the whole plant once and being done with it. We have a good cream of celery soup recipe in the recipe database of our website (https://pumpkinridgegardens.com/2018/02/23/cream-of-celery-soup/ )

When we put the list of items for this week we thought “soup!” More specifically, but not exclusively, borscht. we have a couple of versions in our recipe database, but we like this one best (https://newpumpkinridgegardens.wordpress.com/2016/01/15/russian-cabbage-borscht/ ).

We’ve come to really like Hamburg parsley a lot, even raw (it is surprisingly sweet raw). It is great as part of a fish chowder or other soup like this one:

LENTIL SOUP WITH PARSLEY ROOT

1 ¼ dried lentils, washed and drained
2 tbs.  lard, bacon drippings, or oil
1 onion or leek, chopped

1 parsley root
4 c   water
1 tsp. salt to or to taste
several whole black peppercorns
1 whole clove
1 bay leaf
1 lg potato, peeled and grated
1 smoked sausage, skin pricked with fork
1 tbs. vinegar

In a large pot, heat fat and add parsley root (and other root vegetables if used) and onions. Sauté until onions are golden. Add lentils, water, and seasonings. Grate the potato into the mixture and add sausage. Simmer covered 1 hour until lentils and vegetables are tender. Remove bay leaves. Add vinegar just before serving and adjust salt. Serve with a crusty bread and salad. Adapted from Mariquita.com

It also works well as part of a roasted root medley or even added to mashed potatoes (like we do with celeriac and/or parsnip. If you’ve come up with a favorite use for it, send it along & we’ll share it with the rest of our subscribers.