THIS WEEK YOUR BASKET CONTAINS: carrots, bunching leeks, shallots, beets, January King cabbage, parsnips, radicchio mix, Thelma Sanders winter squash, and cooking greens (mustard and Swiss chard) .

We hope you all have come through our recent extreme weather well and unscathed.  We received many positive and supportive messages from subscribers in the past week which we greatly appreciate.  All in all, we feel like we just may have dodged a bullet on this one.  As we’ve uncovered the gardens we are cautiously pleased with how good things look.  We’ll see in the coming weeks if that assessment holds.  In the meantime, this week’s basket is made up with many things we threw into the cooler to keep them warm (beets, the pink radicchio, cabbage) and some things we covered (mustard and Swiss chard).    While we love radicchio salad, we know that many don’t like its bitter edge (soaking in ice water will reduce the bitterness).  The recipe below is a great alternative for using radicchio.  We made this a while back using slices of the neck of a butternut squash to make “burgers” , but it can easily be done with rings or wedges of pretty much any winter squash.

ROASTED SQUASH SANDWICH WITH RADICCHIO JAM

4 butternut squash rounds or equivalent
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tiny sprigs sage
4 tiny sprigs rosemary
I head radicchio
1 orange
1 tablespoon honey
Manchego cheese or similar, shredded
4 seeded hamburger buns
Mayonnaise
Salt and pepper

Cut squash in 1” slices, place each piece on square of parchment paper, sprinkle with olive oil, add a sprig of sage and rosemary, wrap and bake at 350 degrees until fork tender. Meanwhile chop radicchio crosswise into ribbons. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in sauté pan, add radicchio and sauté over medium heat until wilted. Add juice if 1 orange and 1 tablespoon honey. Continue to cook until starting to become jammy. When the squash is tender, unwrap the pieces, sprinkle with some cheese and place under broiler until cheese is browned and bubbling. Take seeded buns, cut in half, spread each cut side with mayonnaise and place in hot frying pan until browned. Construct the sandwich by spreading radicchio jam on one half of each bun, topping with squash and other half bun. You could add a little fresh mustard green for a little bite!

The chard and mustard were harvested with an eye toward helping the plants be more productive in the future.  By taking off leaves that may have slight damage to their stems now gave us a small harvest now and will stimulate the plants to produce more new leaves in the future.  For the recipe below, you can bulk out the greens with cabbage.

SAVORY BREAD PUDDING

4 large egg whites

4 large eggs

1 cup skim milk

2 Tbs. Dijon Mustard

1 tsp. minced fresh rosemary

4 cups whole grain bread cut into 1” cubes

5 cups chopped greens, wilted

1 cup diced ham

¾ cup shredded Gruyere

To wilt the greens rinse thoroughly in cold water.  Transfer into a large microwaveable bowl with a cover.  Microwave on high 2-3 minutes until greens are wilted.  Squeeze out any excess moisture before using greens in recipe.  Preheat oven to 375^o.  Grease an 11 x 8 inch baking dish or 2 qt. casserole.  Whisk together egg whites, eggs and milk in a medium bowl.  Add mustard, rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste.  Toss bread cubes, ham and wilted greens together in a large bowl, add egg mixture and stir well to coat the bread.  Transfer to baking dish and push down to compact.  Cover with foil.  Bake until custard has set; 40-45 minutes.  Uncover, sprinkle with Gruyere and continue baking until the pudding is puffed and golden on top; 15-20 minutes.  Adapted from Eating Well April/May 2006.

As you may remember, we had some issues with leeks this past year one effect of which is that we have many smaller-than-anticipated leeks.  The recipe below is a perfect way to use these bunching leeks.  Rest assured there are many good sized leeks in your future!

MIDDLE EASTERN LEEKS

Try splitting them in half to clean and then chopping into one or two inch lengths and simmering  until tender in olive oil with some lemon, salt and pepper, dried mint, crushed garlic, a little bit of water and a tiny bit of sugar.  They are supposed to cool and then be topped with chopped parsley but they usually don’t last that long here.  They can also be boiled and the other ingredients (minus the water) poured over as a dressing.   See Claudia Roden and The New Book of Middle Eastern Food for more.