Crispy Jerusalem Artichokes

 By: Patrice Hall

(Note:  This recipe is from bbcgoodfood.com, I removed the mace and instead added Himalayan salt and black pepper to suit my taste, you can add the mace if you wish..)

Crispy Jerusalem artichokes with roasted garlic & rosemary

Prep:  20 minutes

Cook:  50 minutes (plus soaking)

Serves 4

Ingredients:

800g Jerusalem artichokes

1 garlic bulb, cut down the middle

1 tbsp rosemary leaves, chopped

3 tbsp olive oil

Pinch Himalayan sea salt

Pinch Ground black pepper

20g butter

2 tsp lemon juice

STEP 1

Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Soak the artichokes in cold water for 20 mins or so to loosen any dirt, then scrub them with a scourer, being sure to remove any grit. Halve the small ones and quarter the bigger ones, and put them in a roasting tin with the split garlic bulb and rosemary. Coat everything with the oil and season. Roast for 45-50 mins until tender inside and crispy outside.

STEP 2

To finish, squeeze the softened garlic cloves from their skins and toss with the roasted artichokes, along with the mace, butter and lemon juice.

CSA-The Best Way to Control Your Own Supply Chain

 By : Patrice Hall

I have been a member of Norwood CSA for 15 years, and I have never felt as fortunate to be a part of this group as I do now.  The broken food supply chain is becoming a large problem as some supermarket chains are facing shortages of all kinds of goods.  There are hundreds of cargo ships waiting off the coast of California to unload their goods, and the trucking industry is facing staffing shortages.  I am reading more and more articles highlighting the importance of buying local produce and goods as overseas shipping is not as reliable as it once was.  These factors point to one simple fact, families across the US must learn to control their own sources of food and necessities of life.

CSA’s are one way to do this, we purchase shares in a local farm and receive food shipped direct to us each week, which means we bypass the middle-man (supermarkets, store chains, etc.) who markup goods.  These stores also rely on overseas shipments and other factors, due to the pandemic staffing shortages shelves become bare when shipments are late.  Also, when the food finally arrives it is near its expiration date, or it is heavily treated with preservatives to extend shelf life.  By contrast, our weekly share from the farm is free of preservatives because it is picked fresh early that morning or canned that week, and the meat is fresh from colorants and other chemicals.

It is unfortunate that it takes a pandemic for us to realize just how fragile our supply chain is and how important local farms and producers are, but I am happy that the public is becoming aware of this.  Every week I strive to use every bit of my share and waste little, I also try to preserve as much as possible.  Maybe this will lead to more people joining CSA’s like ours in the future, and this will help local farms like Norwich Meadows thrive.

Boom...roasted

 By : Vaughan Myers-Jennings

This week's haul of vegetables gave us a rainbow of colors to eat!

Seriously, if my plate was this colorful as a child (and God bless my grandma, who was an amazing cook), I probably would have been more open to actually eating vegetables.

Radishes, turnips, beets, purple potatoes...there were so many choices.

But how do you make the most of all these radiant veggies? How can you possibly consume them all? Well, when in doubt...roast! In my many many years of vegetable eating (a whole 3 years), I've come to learn that the best way to get your proper intake AND make them tasty is to oven roast them. The process is very simple: preheat your oven to 400, chop them into similar sized pieces, place on a baking pan, season with a mixture of oil, salt, garlic powder and onion powder; put them in the oven and cook anywhere from 10-45 minutes (depends on the vegetables; make sure that you can pierce with a fork), and voila!

Now you have some tasty veggies to eat. Enjoy!