In Your Box : The Hearty Staple

FARMER UPDATE: Due to last minute changes between the paddock and your plate, the boxes will now contain:

• Butternut pumpkin instead of Japanese pumpkin.
• Swedes instead of turnips
• Zucchini instead of tomatoes
• Yellow Squash instead of mushrooms
• Extra potatoes, pumpkin and bananas instead of apples
• Large boxes will get a bunch of coriander

Sorry to all those that had this week’s shopping all planned.

In your box this Monday: On the proviso that all is delivered.

FRUIT: Apples, bananas. Kiwifruit, Limes, Oranges

VEGGIES: Potatoes, Corn, Turnips, Beetroot, Pumpkin, spring onions, Chinese broccoli and Tomatoes.

The medium and large boxes will get mesclun salad packs and mushrooms.

The large boxes will get a bunch of silverbeet.

The Hearty Staple

I speak here of the summer growing annuals that won’t tolerate frosts and originated in North America (although there is evidence that seeds were discovered in Mexico earlier). You cut them into odd faces and put candles into them once a year, still guessing? Pumpkins of course. This extremely versatile vegetable offers an abundance of culinary choices. The flesh is popular in soups, curries, pies, breads, scones and in salads. The seeds are a nutritious snack and pumpkin seed oil is used in cooking and wonderful as a salad dressing.

Pumpkins are full of vitamin A and Antioxidant Carotene, a good source of vitamin C, K and E and lots of minerals including Magnesium Potassium and Iron.

I have included pumpkins this week into your boxes as I felt you could all use a dose of the above vitamins and minerals and since the weather is cooling it’s definitely pumpkin time. The farmer I am sourcing our pumpkins from is near Orange he also grows the lovely tomatoes, turnips and corn. His name is Greg and he is incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to organic farming. He grows three types of organic pumpkins butternut, jap, and jarrendale. He’s expecting to harvest a crop of heirloom pumpkins next year, called ‘Marina di chioggia’ which is an old Italian variety with thick dimply grey skin that dates back to the late 1800′s. The pumpkins you’ll be getting on Monday should be a lot fresher than that.

Note: This weeks and last weeks oranges are Valencia’s and they are coming close to the end of the season, therefore you may experience a lack of juice. I’m hoping to get Navel oranges in by late May, and these, being the beginning of the season will be juicy and sweet which is what you want from an orange.