Root Cellar Soup

On this frigid Saturday evening deep into February, I'm warming us up with a soup made from some of our stored fall harvest veggies. Into chicken stock seasoned with tamari, sesame oil and kombu seaweed I tossed some lentils, potatoes, beets, carrots, winter radishes and garlic. I could have added some onions too, but the kids always pick them out with wrinkled noses, so I decided to pass for tonight and challenge them with onions another time. All but the lentils came from our basement storage and all were fresh and ready to be used.

Yum! I hope everyone out there is staying warm and dreaming of spring!

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Recipe: Winter Radish Salad

Strikingly beautiful black radishes are larger and spicier than your usual May radish, but the long, cool nights of fall give them a sweetness and soft texture. They get milder tasting when cooked and are pretty intense raw, however rubbing slices with salt and letting them sweat for 10 minutes or so takes some of the heat off. Grating or cutting into thin slices or matchsticks is the best way to prepare raw winter radishes, and they go fantastically well with salads of all sorts. A simple vinaigrette is the finishing touch.

Ingredients:
Salad:
- 3 medium size black radishes
- 1 large or 2 small carrots
- 4-5 stems of parsley
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp sesame seeds
Dressing:
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp maple syrup
- ½ tsp minced ginger
- 1 garlic clove, minced

Steps:
1) Grate radishes with largest size grater and place in a small bowl. Add salt and mix well. Leave to soften while you prep the other ingredients.

2) Grate carrots with largest size grater. Finely chop parsley and combine with carrots.

3) Mix dressing ingredients.

4) Squeeze excess water out of radishes and move to a colander. Rinse well and add to salad bowl with carrots and parsley.

5) Add sesame seeds and dressing and mix well. Let rest for 5 minutes to allow flavours to mix and then serve.

This is our final recipe of the 2015 season. We will start up again with weekly recipes featuring the seasonal bounty of the farm in June 2016. Until then, we'll be blogging about life on the farm in the off season - the work never ends!

Thanks to all our CSA members for supporting the farm this year!

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Garden in Transition

Despite the continuing heat wave that is making September feel more like July, the garden has noticed the shorter days and the hot weather crops are slowing down. Fortunately, fall crops are stepping in. While still baby sized and immature, fall veggies are lying in wait for their chance to take over once summer has ceded control of the garden.

Filling buckets with excess tomatoes for canning.

Some summer veggies are on their last legs. Tomato vines are dying back, even as the fruit is still ripening, but we're hoping for another month of tomatoes.

Peppers and eggplants are thriving in this late summer heat, and may stick around until the frost.

Summer squash are nearly done. They continue putting out bright orange blossoms right up until the end.

Meanwhile, the fall crops are moving in and starting to come up.

Butternut squash, still tiny and attached to its flower.

It's hard to imagine when the temperature is hovering around 30 and the humidity is thick in the air, but fall is just around the corner. Are you ready?

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Eva Mae Farm