Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves,chopped or minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 3 1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

We are delivering another load of fresh spinach to Homegrown Food on Pickwick and Cherry and  Mama Jeans North,( if you would like to see it at the south store just put in a request).  You could also find some baby salad mix, and turnips for sale too.

Strawberry Vinaigrette!

1 cup of strawberries- washed and sliced

4 teaspoons rice vinegar

1 juice of a fresh squeezed lemon, or  4 teaspoons of lemon juice

1 Tablespoon of raw sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons Honey

1/4 teaspoons salt

1/8 teaspoons of garlic powder

1/8 teaspoons onion powder

1/8 teaspoons dried basil

1/8 teaspoons dried parsely

1/8 teaspoons pepper

1/4 cup of olive oil

Using Sarah’s favorite kitchen gadget, the Immersion Blender, or if not puree the strawberries in blender.  Add remaining ingredients holding back the oil.  Gradually add oil while blending at a low speed.

Use this over a bed of spinach, green or red onions, sprouts, walnuts and fresh strawberries or kiwi.  Just another idea to get your kids loving spinach as much as my girls do!

6 frozen strawberries, 

1 banana

1 cup of milk, we use raw milk

2 handful of fresh harvested spinach

Blend, need I say more, oh yea, Yum Yum Yum!

I was surprised at how much my kids loved their “beet soup”.  Be sure make plenty because it make a wonderful, easyand delicious leftover! Even freezes well! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.  Submitted by Sarah Millsap

6 tbsp butter

1 onion minced

1/2 flour

3 cups of broth (Chicken is good but Veggie is possibility if you are vegetarian or serving vegetarians in this case omit the ham too!!)

2 cups of cooked wild rice

1 cup of cooked brown rice ( I boil 3 x as much water then throw in the wild and brown, let simmer for 30-40 minutes until the wild rice pops open then drain and add to soup)

1/2 cup minced ham

1/2 cup grated carrots

1/2 head of boc choi sliced like celery, including the greens

1/2 bundle of kale, de-stemmed and sliced thin

3 tbsp chopped slivered almonds

salt if necessarily

1 cup of half and half or in our case straight from the cow milk with cream on the top

2 tbsp cooking wine

minced parsley or chives

cooking direction

Melt butter, saute oniond in until tender.  Blend in flour; gradually add to broth, cook stirring constantly until mixture comes to a boil.  Stir in cooked rice, ham carrots, boc (bok) choi, kale, almonds, salt if necessary. simmer for 5-10 minutes, blend in milk or half in half and cooking wine; heat and serve with parsley or chives                         Serves 6 cups

Waiting to Eat Fresh Vegetables Means Loss of Nutrients

Mar. 27–CHEYENNE — That bag of spinach that has been sitting in the fridge for a week looks OK. Not too many wilted pieces. Tastes fine too. But guess what? It’s missing a lot of the nutrients it had when picked.

According to research from Pennsylvania State University, a bag of spinach that has been stored at 39 degrees Fahrenheit for eight days has lost half of its folate and carotenoids, compounds known for their importance in preventing birth defects, fighting heart disease and preventing blindness and cancer. And at higher temperatures, the breakdown was even faster. At 50 degrees it took only six days to reach about half of initial levels; at 68 degrees it took four. What’s a consumer to do?

“People should just eat (spinach) fast and not let it sit in their drawers,” said Luke LaBorde, associate professor of food science at Pennsylvania State. “You have to accept the reality that it’s a living plant, and you should eat it while it’s fresh.”

The research also underscores the importance of keeping fresh vegetables cold — experts recommend a refrigerator temperature between 36 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit — and eating them as soon as possible.

Eight days. And that count started from within 12 hours of the time the spinach was packaged. Commercial spinach must be transported from the field — somewhere in the Southwest at this time of year — to the processing plant and to the store. Then it must sit on store shelves until it is purchased. This takes a few days at least, and the clock is ticking.

LaBorde said while fresh fruits and vegetables are becoming popular, not a lot is known about their nutrient loss because much of the early research was done on canned and frozen vegetables.

“We’ve got the fresh vegetables that are so popular right now,” he said.

“When you have a fresh vegetable, it slowly dies. And as it dies, the enzymes take over and slowly degrade it.”

He said the fruits and vegetables most at risk of nutrient loss are those that are crushed or cut. Apples, he said, are not going to change much because they are designed to fall off the tree.

Spinach and most greens are a different story, though.

“In this case you’re ripping it off the plant,” LaBorde said. “(Loss) would be even higher with chopped spinach.”

Broccoli, another cut vegetable, loses about half its total carotenoids after six days at 41 degrees, previous research shows.

The culprits are degrading enzymes that are normally contained inside intact cells but are released and free to cause damage when veggies are wounded. Chopped or peeled versions of fruits or vegetables also are vulnerable to nutrient loss during refrigerator storage.

LaBorde and Suzy Pelican of the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension agree that fresh veggies are part of a good diet, but a combination of fresh, canned and frozen is the best way to go.

“Don’t assume fresh is best and frozen or canned are not,” Pelican added.

Canned or frozen fruits and vegetables are relatively stable and impervious to nutrient loss. Frozen vegetables are made that way very soon after harvest, preserving almost all of the nutrients. And in canning, the enzymes that break down vitamins in fresh vegetables are inactivated.

You are reading from
www.rawfoodinfo.com

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
03-27-05
www.wyomingnews.com

You can read more here.

• Head lettuce  Magenta or butter-crunch large heads to the full shares, small ones to the halves.
• Spinach, fresh and delicious.
• Sweet Potatoes; from our own fields this time.
• White Potatoes in time for Thanksgiving
• Onions; medium sized, very tasty Candy Onions.
• Turnips
• Kale- Red Russian kale, we love kale, hopeful you are developing a taste for it as well.  We had some wonderful pickled kale from customers at the farmers market, hope to try that in the near future.Here’s how to prepare Russian Red: strip out the mature stems, no amount of cooking will soften them. Hold the lower leaf base up in one hand and pull the stem downward with the other. Simply strip away the leaf. Be sure to rinse the leaf pieces.

  Blanch Russian Red in salted water, drain then sauté. Sauté this kale in olive or nut oil, butter, bacon, or pancetta. You can season with olives, garlic, chilli, cumin, caraway, fennel, anise, or toasted sesame oil. If you want a stronger flavor, braise Russian Red in stock. Cook until tender, but remember this kale is not going to melt in your mouth like curly kale.

  The very smallest Russian Red leaves can be used as garnish or in salad. When you pick this kale up at the farm market, pick up a little extra. Once the stems are stripped away the highly lobed leaves offer less leaf surface than other kales.

• Bell peppers; sweet and crisp and still going strong in the greenhouse.
• Squash Smorgasbord;  your choice of butternut or acorn squash.
• Broccoli;  from our friend Dan Bigby, he had beautiful heads in his garden and wonderful to share
• Celery- the celery we grow in the field is more like herbal celery, use it for flavor, it has a stronger flavor, so use it in your stuffing, but you will not need as much as your recipe calls for. Try about half.

We are grateful to be your farmers, Happy Thanksgiving!