February 1st, 2012 by Margie

February 1st, 2012

Dear Vegetable Husband Customer,

It is February 1^st and I am running the air-conditioning to pick up our food.  Weird!  This wacky Georgia weather has speeded the growing process so that many of our winter crops have already grown and gone to seed.  Today you will notice that your collards from Serenbe are the entire plant harvested for us, rather than just the leaves.  This means they are ready to plow under and plant a spring crop.  Normally the collards are around much longer.  We also have the broccoli leaves again.  Try to notice how they differ from your collard leaves.  I love both but I can almost eat the broccoli leaves raw shredded as salad!

The sweet potatoes are from Steve Miller Farm.  He also harvested the delicate green onions for us again.  With the green onions and this week’s cilantro, I am seeing a taco night in my near future.  I wonder if I could make sunchoke and onion tacos?  As you might guess, we still have to borrow an item or two from a neighboring state farm.  This week we have celery and navel oranges from two wonderful organic growers in Florida.  The oranges are sweet and large.  I hope you enjoy.  Last week I was disappointed by the grape tomatoes I had.  Let me know if yours were better.  For now, I will look for other choices for us.  Remember early spring strawberries are right around the corner!

Below is your list of goodies:

Sunchokes – Serenbe Farm

Collards – Serenbe Farm

Green Onions – Steve Miller’s Farm

Celery – Bryson Farm

Sweet potatoes – Steve Miller’s Farm

Broccoli Greens with flowers – Steve Miller’s Farm

Red Navel Oranges – Uncle Matt’s Farm

Cilantro – Steve Miller’s Farm

We are working hard to add some great new treats to our veggie experience in 2012.  You will see announcements in the next couple of weeks in your letter as well as on the website so keep reading.  We want to make it even easier for all of us to keep eating seasonally, and enjoying the process.  Part of that is knowing what to do with the food and having the items on hand to use along with the vegetables.  Would a pantry list for each season help you?  How about a menu-list each month with recipes?  Let’s keep chatting and I will keep you posted but please remember, I am always happy to TALK FOOD!

Margie Thorpe

January 25th, 2012 by Margie

January 25th, 2012

Dear Vegetable Husband Customer,

It is late January and we are out in the fields today with no coat on – Crazy!  Even with our mild weather, we are seeing the transition of the season play out in the fields.  This week the only thing Serenbe had available for us was the sunchokes.  Hopefully we have not seen the last of the beautiful carrots but the rows definitely had to take a break from us!  They will have some winter greens soon and other early crops.  Steve Miller still has an abundance of salad greens.  We have arugula and lettuce again this week!  The lettuce is once again turning a little red or brown on the end when we harvest it from the change in temperatures.  He also had broccoli greens with small flowers for us.  Some of the flowers have some yellow to them,  I cook these just as the green – if it turned in the field, it is not yellow from being old but from a change in temperature.  This is fine to eat.

We also had to borrow a couple of items from our neighboring states and this week one of them is grape tomatoes!  Hopefully they are tangy and deelish!  It’s not summer so be kind – nothing tastes like a summer tomato.  An arugula and tomato salad would be a great treat to my dinner table, though. Since we have young lettuce again, I am going to make a classic Caesar salad tonight!  We will post a recipe to the blog so check it out and if anyone would be interested in how to make fresh Caesar with your green onions, and lettuce, feel free to email or call me.  Garlicky goodness!  Remember that all these dark greens give us so much that other foods just do not offer, loads of iron, calcium, antioxidants, just to name a few.

Below is your list of goodies:

Sunchokes – Serenbe Farm

Green Onions – Steve Miller’s Farm

Acorn Squash – Bryson Farm

Grape Tomatoes – Alderman Farm, FL

Lettuce – Steve Miller’s Farm

Broccoli Greens with flowers – Steve Miller’s Farm

Arugula – Steve Miller’s Farm

Curly Parsley – Steve Miller’s Farm

Since I was away last week, I missed seeing the beautiful food and all of our great driving community that helps get the food around town on Wednesdays but I heard all went well.  New Orleans gave me plenty of ideas about food and ways to prepare it.  I was also inspired by how strong the community is there post Katrina.  You will hear more and more in the coming weeks.   For now, please have a happy and healthy week and as you know, I am

always happy to TALK FOOD!

Margie Thorpe

January 18th, 2012 by Margie

January 18th, 2012

Dear Vegetable Husband Customer,

Here we are in January and because of such a mild season, one farm is providing most of our harvest.  Serenbe has harvested almost everything we will eat this week.  The star for me is the bunch of beets!  We also have fresh thyme as our herb for this week.  Thyme is wonderful to add to your root veggies.  I remember getting a root vegetable gratin from Miller Union that had thyme as the prominent flavor, well other than butter and cream.  I didn’t say it was low calorie, but it was amazing.  I have tried to copy it but never gotten it quite right.  Let me know if you find a recipe.

The turnips are back but with the recent low temperatures, the green tops are gone.  We also have lettuce and arugula from Steve Miller Farm this week.  We looked over the lettuce and a couple of them might have some brown coloring to the stem.  This is the effect of the freeze.  The leaves are freshly harvested and tasty as ever.  The arugula is a bit larger this week so enjoy the abundance.

Below is your list of goodies:

Carrots – Serenbe Farm

Sunchokes – Serenbe Farm

Beets – Serenbe Farm

Turnips – Serenbe Farm

Collards – Serenbe Farm

Lettuce – Steve Miller

Arugula – Steve Miller’s Farm

Thyme – Serenbe Farm

Please be sure to check the website this week for ideas on how to use your winter basket goodies.  Becky will be posting the recipe ideas today since I am out of town.  I am tagging along with my beau as he works his annual conference in New Orleans.  I am enjoying the free hotel and discovering how NOLA is creating their own locavore community.  Do not be surprised if next week you get recipes with a bit of “Creole” influence.  On a more serious note, I have talked to local farmers here and the issue of post-Katrina soil is a real concern as they rebuild in this area.  Imagine what all the cars floating around leaking fluids did to the soil in this area, not to mention other even larger explosions due to gas leaks at that time.  I am more thankful than ever this week to bring you our bounty of beautiful and organically grown goodness.  Enjoy it in good health and remember, even while lounging on the side of the Mississippi, I am always happy to TALK FOOD!

Margie Thorpe

January 4th, 2012 by Margie

January 4th, 2012

Dear Vegetable Husband Customer,

There it is in writing – we are in 2012.  Happy New Year!  I hope that you found a moment to reflect and reset your plans, your life, your energy or maybe just your calendar.  Whatever you do to begin a new year, do it in good health and with the great food we have this week that is no problem for us.  Of course we are in the green season so it is difficult to get us the variety in our diet but I think we did wonderful this morning.  We have purple top turnips along with carrots and sunchokes from Serenbe so roasted root veggies is a staple this week at my house.  It is like candy from the oven.  Your cooking greens are collards this week and you have a bag of broad-leaf arugula.

As with any community, sometimes we have to look to our neighbors for a little help.  This week we are getting some of our variety from a farm in South Carolina.  These are the beautiful acorn squash from Watsonia.  During the winter you will see an item from a neighboring area in the basket from time to time as we struggle thru the freezing weather.  This week is the first item we have brought in this season.  As soon as possible, we always bring our money back to all of our closest organic farmers.   Below is your list of goodies:

Carrots – Serenbe Farm

Sunchokes – Serenbe Farm

Purple top turnips – Serenbe Farm

Collards – Serenbe Farm

Acorn squash – Watsonia Farm

Green onions – Steve Miller

Arugula – Steve Miller’s Farm

Dill – Serenbe Farm

We have many new folks joining us this month so I want to congratulate you for committing to your local food.  If you need any tips or just a bit of encouragement, don’t hesitate to read the blog at Vegetablehusband.com or send us a note asking for help.  This week we have a couple of recipes to give us all some ideas for the menu.  In this New Year, please know you can call me with any questions because… I am always happy to TALK FOOD!

Margie Thorpe

December 28th, 2011 by Margie

December 28th, 2011

Dear Vegetable Husband Customer,

This week the weather is definitely transitioning.  The winter winds blew me around the road yesterday as I drove to Athens to get our peas for New Years Day!  If you are not from around here, we have a tradition in the South of eating as many peas and greens as possible on New Years Day; peas represent how much luck you will have in the New Year and the greens represent how much money!  Eat up!  We have plenty of greens and quite a variety.  You can even cut your daikon into cubes, roast it, and then throw the tops of it in with your collards or broccoli greens.  New Years Day is also a new beginning so whether you want to cook for superstition or just start 2012 healthier than ever, this basket is a good one.  Greens are a great cleansing veggie and the huge elephant garlic is great for your immune system in the winter weather.

The garlic will be milder than a regular bulb so think of it in the same way that a shallot is a mild onion flavor; Roasting the bulb and using the cloves as a spread is amazing, especially if you cut the top off and add some rosemary and oil before putting it in the oven.  The peas were grown for us in the later summer in Athens and then left to dry on the vine.  We kept them stored in the pods until they were shelled this week.  Treat them like any dried pea.  You can soak them overnight or just cook in one day but if they are not soaked plan to cook for at least 90 minutes and adding water all the time to the pot.  When you first heat them in water, take off the ones that clearly float to the top.  These might not have made it through the storing.  We have nine items this week instead of eight, just in case the peas did not store well.  I cooked up a sample of them last night and mine were great!

Below is your list of goodies:

Carrots – Serenbe Farm

Sunchokes – Serenbe Farm

Elephant Garlic – Serenbe Farm

Daikon Radish – Serenbe Farm

Dried purple hull peas – Mills Farm

Collards – Serenbe Farm

Green Cabbage – Steve Miller

Black-seeded Simpson Lettuce – Steve Miller’s Farm

Broccoli greens with shoots – Steve Miller’s Farm

Whatever holiday you are choosing to celebrate during this time, I hope that you are enjoying it with beautiful people.  I am thrilled to sit down to a table of salad or sautéed greens and know that we all are having a shared experience each week.  Thanks for a great year and here’s to an even better one ahead of us!  Enjoy fun and friends this week and remember I am always happy to TALK FOOD!

Margie Thorpe