Some updates

After receiving this week’s produce we have a few small updates to share.

Purple Carrots and Dutch Carrots

Unfortunately Rita simply couldn’t manage to fill our whole order for purple carrots. She therefore brought us lots of bunches of the small orange dutch carrots, which are also great tasting. Definitely don’t peel these by the way! Just wash them under the tap and enjoy them cut up into a salad or as a great dipping item. There’s a wider point here about meeting orders as Food Connect expands – we do our best to plan ahead so that things run smoothly, however we are stretching some farmers to capacity now, with the size of our orders. As Produce Coordinator I’m working tirelessly to expand our list of suppliers and am signing up a new farmer on average once every three weeks. This increases the variety of produce available, and hopefully its reliability. A spell of bad weather can have a sudden dire effect on farms, sometimes on just certain small regions. We’ve had situations in the past where an order is cancelled on a Monday due to weather damage. By ensuring that we get produce from a broad range of producers in different locations we reduce the risks associated with such unforeseen events.

Rainbow Chard

Rainbow chard is like a more colourful version of Silver Beet. Dont mistake its red stems for Rhubarb! Bunches in the boxes will be a mix of rainbow chard and Silver Beet, again so that Rita could make up a large order. Use it all like any other green. The stems are great eating too and quite tender. If you want a dish that focuses upon the leafy tops then I recommend saving the stems for the stock pot.

Green Bananas

Due to a problem at the farm, the bananas arrived down in Sydney two days later than usual. This means they had less time to ripen up and so are still quite green. Paul, our banana ripener, tells me that they’ll definitely ripen up but they may take a couple more days than usual. He recommends placing them on a sunny window sill. For best results you can put them in a clear plastic tub or large glass container – anything that lets the light and heat in but traps the ripening ethylene gas that the bananas produce.