In This Week's Box

When you get this week’s box home, you’ll want to store the potatoes in a dark, cool place, but not in your refrigerator. I use a mixing bowl in the pantry with a towel over it. The dried peppers can stay in their paper bag on a shelf. Everything else goes in a bag in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator (the nettles and the cress, already in a container, don’t need another bag).

Chives - Long before anything else greens up out in the herb garden, Chives begin their rebirth from the soil. The leaves having died back completely over the winter, they look like nothing so much as a writhing mass of skinny green snakes as they clump their way out of the soil. With a delicate flavor, chives make a nice garnish for many foods, and a great addition to cooked rice.

Carrots – We stored these from last fall. They feel like a special treasure to me, saved over the winter.

Nettles - May 17—28 is Be Nice to Nettles Week in the UK, so we are a little early here but the time is right to take advantage of this delicious spring treat. Like asparagus, nettles are a true product of spring. They can sting, so be careful handling them; you may want to wear gloves, but a either a gentle or a very firm hand can prevent stinging. We’ve put them in bags to avoid unpleasant surprises. We know three ways to get rid of the sting: swish vigorously in cold water; boil; or chop very finely. All of these will burst the oil glands that contain the stinging formic acid. Nutritionally the nettle is an excellent source of calcium, magnesium, iron and numerous trace elements as well as a range of vitamins. The young shoots can be used in soups and stews and in place of spinach, or along side it to provide a bright, very “spring” flavor. Even our Norwegian farmer neighbors delight in this spring treat!

Yukon Gold Potatoes – From our neighbor Glen Elsbernd, these certified organic potatoes are very tasty. We store them in the cooler, so if you use them right away, they will taste sweet and tend to caramelize rather quickly; if you give them a day or two at room temperature, the sugars will convert to starch and they’ll taste more like you would expect out of a potato.

Dried Peppers - Use these to infuse a puttanesca sauce, or grind them up in a coffee grinder for a cayenne-type seasoning.

Cress - While cress is often treated like a microgreen and reserved for garnishing fancy dishes, I’ve enjoyed using its tangy flavor around the kitchen this spring. In general, add it last or dress it separately to keep it in top condition, and don’t dress it until you are ready to serve it.

Rutabagas - The smooth-skinned, purple-topped rutabaga was developed from crossbreeding a cabbage and a turnip; its original improvement and promotion was the work of Swiss botanist Caspar Bauhin in the early 1600’s—hence the rutabaga’s frequent appellation as a “Swede” or “Swedish turnip.” We’ve stored ours from last fall’s harvest, a traditional part of the spring table. Delicious mashed with potatoes.

Asparagus (we hope!) – I write the newsletter on Wednesday night to go out on Thursday. On Wednesday morning, we had a hard freeze that really dinged the asparagus, which was already running late due to some weed-control tillage gone slightly awry. I really hope we’ll pull a rabbit out of the hat on Thursday morning and have some asparagus in the boxes… but I don’t want to get hopes up too high, in case it doesn’t work out that way.