Summer Vege Bag - Week 5
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.
Bring 2-3 containers this week!
We’re doing “fill your own container” on microgreens, salad and coriander this week, so you’ll need one more container than usual.
We’ve got avos from local spray free growers, Sharon & Matt this week, and some new season beets from our friends at Live2Give.
This week we have:
Carrots (Ahoaho māra kai)
Cucumbers (Ahoaho māra kai)
Zucchini (Ahoaho māra kai & Crooked Vege Ōtaki)
Salad Mix (Crooked Vege Ōtaki)
Microgreens (Crooked Vege Ōtaki)
Herbs - lemon sorrel, dill or fill your own container with coriander (Crooked Vege Ōtaki)
Beetroot (Live2Give Organics)
Avocados (Sharon & Matt)
Vege highlights + suggested uses:
Beetroot leaves
We leave the beet leaves on when we can (sometimes the leaf quality isn’t good enough), as they’re very useful as a green. Beetroot and silverbeet are very closely related (and I assume were bred from the same wild plant). In some places, beets are grown primarily for the leaves - a Polish ex-colleague would save many of the beet leaves from the beetroot we grew at a former job.
You can use beet leaves much like you would spinach or silvebeet.
Zucchini
Zucchinis will be around a while! We throw them in most meals, but if you need some inspiration or have a back log, a couple of suggestions:
- Cut in half and roast or grill them until brown on one side. They should be quite “gooey” in texture. Serve them with other roast veges and a squeeze of lemon. They also go nice with a yoghurt-y sauce (e.g. yoghurt + dill).
- Zucchini kasundi. There’s inevitably a point of peak production where we have far more zucchini than vege bags or our other outlets need - this recipe is my go to preserve what we don’t donate elsewhere. Kasundi is an indian chutney, typically made from aubergine.
Herb preserving
If you’re getting a backlog of herbs, a very quick way to preserve them is to blend them in oil and freeze them in ice cube trays (then put the frozen herb cubes into a freezer bag). We don’t have this problem, as we cook with herbs pretty much every day - but this is our easy go-to for preserving basil after its short season!
Ka kite,
Jon
