Winter Vege Bag - Week 11
Click on any vegetable that has a link to see previous posts with recipes and cooking tips. You can also browse the filter the whole vege bag archive by vegetable here.
Kia ora Warren
Warren is the newest grower working with the Ōtaki Vege Bag kaupapa. Crooked Vege met Warren a couple of years ago, during our annual organics peer-review process. We are both certified by Organic Farm NZ, which is a member run certification - rather than paying thousands a year for auditors to verify our practices meet organic standards, members do the on-the-ground peer-review work. An auditor still needs to verify the process, and does on-site visits every few years.
Warren runs a farm in a way that doesn’t feel possible in 2025. If he needs to use a computer, he takes a trip into town to use the library computers. If you need to speak to him, there’s a 10 minute window each day where he might be near the landline - it’s a lot more reliable to show up at the farm and hope he’s around.
His farm is one of the most beautiful I’ve been on. He’s on a small rolling hill, with fruit trees and flowers growing right in the middle of his vegetable crops. He’s supplying this weeks onions. There’s a few pictures are the bottom of his farm - my phone didn’t really capture how beautiful the place is (and it was the middle of winter, so not much in bloom).
This week we have:
Salad (Ahoaho māra kai)
Radishes (Ahoaho māra kai)
Silverbeet or Kale (Crooked Vege Ōtaki)
Microgreens, Pea Shoots or Garlic Chives (Crooked Vege Ōtaki)
Beetroot or Carrots (Crooked Vege Ōtaki)
Onions (From Warren!)
Cabbage (Common Property)
Potatoes (Mingiroa Farm)
Vege highlights, tips & recipes
Radish
Radish are great grated (hah!) or thinly sliced or grated radish in a salad, roasted, stir fried, added to miso soup, boil up, etc.
Our favourite use is in a “quick pickle,” where the crunch and mild spiciness really works well with some sour. Here’s a basic recipe - get creative with the herbs or spices. Add carrots or beetroot if you want. My absolute favourite variation of this riffs off of Japanese pickling style with soy sauce. Something like 4 tbsp soy sauce, 2tbsp vinegar (preferably rice) or lemon/lime, 2tbsp sugar, heaps of ginger, garlic and chilli flakes.
Cabbage
There’s been a fair bit of cabbage lately. If you’re getting a backlog, maybe you want to make some sauerkraut? I’ve written a long post about the general process here before, for making sauerkraut-esque ferments out of just about anything.
Ka kite ano,
Jon
