It’s here! The final delivery week of the Veggie Lovers’ Club Summer Session. We’re sad to see it over, though it’s not really over as the Fall Session begins next week. We’ve been very happy with how the program went this summer, and especially happy with all the excellent people we have gotten to know over the past 4 months! So, thank you for being a part of our first Club, we couldn’t have done it without you, your support, and your conscientious participation in the program!
Big thanks to those of you who filled out the end-of-season survey! We’d love to get as much feedback as possible, so please do fill it out if you haven’t already– Thank You!!
After this week, I’ll post some general findings from the survey on the blog, in case you are interested.
After placing the “Easter Egg” in the Week 13 Newsletter, hearing from you at the pickups, and reading the feedback from the survey so far, I realize how much many of you love this weekly blog post! I love doing it so much that I was sure it couldn’t be of any value to anyone else, but to hear that it is makes me really happy! This will definitely be a part of future programs, so if it’s an important part for you, rest assured that the blogging will continue!
I’m spoiling things before the spoiler alert here, but as I have mentioned numerous times: you are getting a carving pumpkin this week. As the van is already over-full on delivery days, we will be bringing our veggie trailer and so you can come right inside and choose your pumpkin! Both Mom and I will be there this week, and we hope to be able to offer hot drinks to you as a special last-pickup Thank You. So, if you have time to come and visit for a bit, plan to!
**SPOILER ALERT** If you want to keep the contents a surprise, stop reading NOW!
In your Veggie Lovers’ Club Bag this week:
Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin
Choice of Squash
Baby Carrots
Parsnips
Celeriac
Red Onion
Teri’s musings, recipes, and more info about the veggies in your Veggie Lovers’ Club Bag this week:
Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin!
A.k.a. Carving Pumpkin or Halloween Pumpkin– this is a large pumpkin that you can use to carve for Halloween or fall decor, or even just eat it! The only difference between this kind of pumpkin and the pie pumpkin that you received for Thanksgiving is that if you are going to use this one for cooking and baking, you will need to cook it and then puree it with a hand blender or food processor, as the flesh inside is stringy. Same orange flesh, same pumpkin taste, though a little less sweet than the small ones.
You’re never too old to stick your hands in the gooey pumpkin guts and carve one yourself! I carved the one in the photo on the left last year, it expresses the value which is most important to me in life!
We grew a pumpkin that is a standard size this year, and so they are all in the 10 – 16 lb range, which I think is the perfect size. Large pumpkins are fun, but these ones are enough effort to lug around! They are ripe (fully orange), cured, and ready to go! Last year we had some questions about why our pumpkins don’t rot (after a few customers confessed to buying them in the store and having them rot). An important part of our process is curing our squash and pumpkins. They hang out in the greenhouse for about 3 weeks so the heat and sun will make the skin harden and then they last much longer. Also, they don’t go far– A critical piece in the longevity picture with fresh veggies. Pumpkins shipped all the way from the US just have an understandably harder go of it!
One more quick pumpkin story and then I’ll move on: It makes excellent pet food! Jon and I have a rather special house tiger named Samson that we are very fond of. He was getting fat last fall, but he was always crying for food and so I didn’t know how to make him stop but not overfeed him. A market customer suggested trying feeding him pumpkin, so I did, and the rest is history! Samson ate about 15 large pumpkins last winter. I cook them whole in the oven (poke a few holes, bake until it falls in on itself, cut in half and scoop out the stringy middle — some puree it all with the seeds (good worm treatment), but that makes Samson barf) and freeze them in containers for pumpkin all winter: Though last winter I could barely keep up to him!
Choice of Squash!
We have given you quite a few squash already, so this time you can choose which one you want! We have a wide variety of choices left and so if you’re not sure which one to get, that’s what we’re here for: Mom and I will make sure you go home with the best one for whatever purpose you have in mind.
By the way, Jon made that Butternut Squash Macaroni & Cheese for me on Wednesday night, and it was D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S!! You may be skeptical about the caramelized onions, but the combination of that flavour and the squash with the pasta and cheese is out of this world! Highly recommended. Honeynut would make an excellent substitution for Butternut. Jon’s only feedback was: “I don’t know what kind of oven that woman has, but it takes longer than 20 minutes to roast a squash!” Expect about 40 minutes or even more to achieve the same kind of caramelized roasted squash as in the photo. Our oven is temperamental and so I can’t tell you exact times!
My most favourite use for squash is in soup. My go-to recipe is in my head and I can’t quite find a recipe online that is the same as what I do, but these ones come close:
Carrot & Squash Curry Soup (sub winter squash for summer in this recipe)
Thai Curried Butternut Squash Soup (I think this recipe is a little over-complicated, but close to how I make mine — I use less ingredients by far!)
Maybe this will be the recipe I share with you this week!
Storage Tips: For pumpkins AND squash: Keep them above 10*C, or they will rot more quickly. If you are using your pumpkin as decoration on your front step, it will need to be brought in at night if you want it to last.
Baby Carrots!
As I said to Mom, it’s a weird time of year to give you baby carrots. Last year we grew some incredible ones in the fall and this year we tried to replicate the planting, but Mother Nature didn’t cooperate (it was too dry in August). We are in the throws of carrot harvesting right now– There’s tons at mine and Jon’s place and likely equal amounts at Mom’s place that we have yet to get out of the ground. As we harvest, we sort. The little ones are delicious and highly sought-after, but they don’t store well. So, it makes sense to share them with you this week, and put the big ones into storage! (Psst: If you want in on those, registration is still open for our Fall Session of the Veggie Lovers’ Club for a few more days!)
Storage Tips: Keep in the fridge in the plastic bag they come in, or store in a container.
Parsnips!
In case you didn’t get enough at Thanksgiving – more of these delicious sweet & spicy roots! Last night we had company and I made the Glazed Carrots & Parsnips recipe from the Thanksgiving card. Our friends showed up with a bunch of honey and I was almost out, so it was perfect! I have a confession that I’m not the hugest fan of parsnips (but I still eat them!!), but I find the best way is to just embrace the sweetness and go with it! They are excellent sauteed in butter and brown sugar until sticky and caramelized. I avoid adding them to soups unless the recipe calls for it or I think they would complement the flavours: an out of place parnsip flavour can be disconcerting, to me at least.
You don’t need to love every vegetable and eat it all the time, but as they say, variety is the spice of life! Parsnip season is relatively short, they grow well in our climate, and I appreciate the hard work that goes into growing them, so I still find ways to enjoy them though they aren’t my favourite. Local eating is about catering your expectations and taste to suit what’s available, rather than trying to always have everything all the time. Fresh Tomatoes in January? I could care less, it’s not really a tomato anyway, more the “idea” of a tomato. I joke that I’m frugal (but it’s true) and I only eat our vegetables, so the winter becomes a monotonous parade of an ever-decreasing selection of root vegetables. (I actually like winter veggies best because that’s when I have more time to cook and experiment with them!) The monotony is punctuated by occasional local produce finds in the grocery store. If I find a cucumber grown in Winnipeg in the store in February, I buy it to show that I support local production and would like to see more of that in the store (though the cucumber is inevitably flavourless and watery!).
Eating in season really is about embracing the best flavours that are available at the time, and I’m all about tastiness!
Storage Tips: Store parsnips covered in the fridge, in a plastic bag or container.
Celeriac!
This ugly, gnarly vegetable is absolutely delicious and fully worth tackling. Here’s a link to a Celeriac Chips Recipe which also shows you how to peel it. Do me a favour and don’t call it “Celery Root”, and correct your friends when they call it that. It is not the root of the celery plant: “Root Celery” is a more accurate description, as it’s like the root vegetable equivalent of celery. Think if a celery and a potato had a love child, and you have Celeriac!
You can try the chip recipe above, we’ve made them in the past and really liked them! We did them in the oven, but frying works, too– just don’t overcook and watch them very closely, as they can burn quickly. I use celeriac anywhere I would use celery– to flavour mirepoix for stocks, soups, and stews; on raw veggie plates (yes, you can!), and I love it added to mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, root vegetable roasts, etc.
Storage Tips: Store in the fridge for up to a month, though as ever– Better to eat it sooner rather than later!
Red Onion!
Onions are an essential ingredient in flavouring nearly all cooking adventures! If someone in your household doesn’t like them, try grating them – it’s the makings of really epic onion tears, but will definitely make them disappear! You all know by now that I don’t accept “I don’t like it” as an answer, that to me says “I need help adding this into my diet in a way that works for me”.
Have you ever made your own caramelized onions? A friend once told me her secret– She uses red onions, which she sautes slowly in butter with a bit of brown sugar (that’s a shortcut, if you do it slowly enough the natural sugars in the onion will caramelize it, but it takes forever!). They are amazing, the reason I had to ask her secret was because her onions made it the best vegetarian pizza I’ve ever had!
Or, buy a big bag of onions from us and try this “dead-easy” crock pot method from Wendy. I’ve done this in the past and it is incredible! Best kitchen hack ever.
Storage Tips: Your onion is cured, so it will store best in a dark, cool, dry place. The cupboard is totally acceptable, and it will even last quite a while on the counter!
That’s all for this week, but if you have become addicted to a weekly Teri ramble, make sure to keep checking our blog regularly! I love blogging and have more time for it in the winter. Some online tasks I plan to complete this winter is compiling all the blog posts from this session into a reference page so that you will have somewhere to look when you encounter a new veggie and need some recipe ideas, storage tips, or preparation instructions. All of the recipes on the printed cards from this session are already available on our “Recipes” page, so if you lose one or want to refer back, you can start there, or email me!
I’m terrible at saying goodbye, so I will instead just say Thank You for being a part of our first ever Veggie Lovers’ Club! We look forward to sharing many more years together, and you will be the first to know once registration for the next summer session opens up!
See you Wednesday in the trailer!
Teri 🙂
Brown Sugar Produce 
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