Spring Vege Bag - Week 6
Click on any vegetable that has a link to see previous posts with recipes and cooking tips. You can also browse and filter the whole vege bag archive by vegetable here.
As we come into spring proper, we’re entering the frantic dash trying to keep harvest ahead of bolting (when the plants go to seed - and generally become less desirable to eat) and summer crops into the ground. As such, we’ve got a pretty “green” week, as a lot of crops needed to be harvested and eaten this week - or be turned to compost. We would rather they were eaten!
We’ve got the last of Crooked Vege’s winter carrots coming through now. The final bed we’re harvesting from is quite exciting for us - our first ever purple carrots! About 6-7 months ago, Lustre (fine dining restaurant in Paraparaumu) asked us to grow some “colourful roots” for their te kōanga (vernal equinox) event to celebrate the shift into spring. We’ll continue growing them, as they’re beautiful - the flavour is very similar to the standard orange nantes carrots we normally grow.
Final pumpkins/kamokamo
This is the final share of the pumpkins and kamokamo we grew last season with Vege Bag members as part of our “carb club” project. We'll be running it again soon, so keep an eye out for that.
These kamokamo are special - an old variety gifted to us by a whānau who have been growing it in Ōtaki for generations!
This week we have:
Salad (Ahoaho māra kai)
Cavolo Nero or Salad Radishes (Ahoaho māra kai)
Rocket (Ahoaho māra kai)
Purple Carrots, Beetroot or Kohlrabi (Crooked Vege Ōtaki)
Pumpkin/Kamokamo (Crooked Vege Ōtaki) or Cauliflower (Warren)
Swiss Chard or Pak Choi (Crooked Vege Ōtaki)
Microgreens, Parsley or Dill (Crooked Vege Ōtaki)
Vege highlights/suggested uses
GREENS!
All of the greens this week can be used cooked or fresh in salads. They all work well stir-fried or thrown into a boil up, soup, stew, spinach and feta pie, a quiche, etc… I’ve linked a couple of recipes below.
Cavolo Nero is really nice in a salad when “massaged” with oil and salt to tenderise it.
Rocket is great in salads, sandwiches, toasties, quickly sauted with your eggs on toast.
Swiss Chard is very similar to spinach. This stuff was harvested quite young, as we needed space for summer plantings - so you can use it like baby spinach.
Pak Choi shines brightest when stir-fried. Break the leaves away from the centre and wash it well, and cut across the stems to avoid stringiness. Slice thinly and throw in for the final few minutes of a stir fry.
Spanokopita (Spinach and Feta pie) - replace the spinach with any greens!
Basic “saag” recipe (the green Indian curry). This recipe calls for mustard leaves, but any greens work. I like using rocket, as it has a mustard-like kick. I usually add some canned tomatoes or tamarind paste, and a few more spices (cumin, coriander, cardamom, mustard seed, fenugreek seed are all tasty additions). You can have this on its own, or use it as a base for a protein or other vegetables - paneer and potatoes are common, but nothing is stopping you from using chicken, or black beans or carrots!
Ka kite,
Jon
