Edition 171

March 19, 2010

• Local Box Contents
• News & Updates
• Recipe Corner
• Greenling Tidbits

• Back - Italian Sausage, from Organic Prairie
• In Nepal -Kala & her fresh pico, she'll be back in the kitchen in April
• New -Grains & Mixes, local from Homestead Gristmill
• Gone - Local Avocados, from G&S
• New - Soft cheese & Spreads, local from Humble House in San Antonio
• Peak Season - Spinach, Chard, Carrots, & Beetsfrom local sources

Food Talks Abound in TED Conferences

TED conferences are simply gatherings of people with amazing ideas and stories. 'Ideas worth spreading' is their new tag line and I keep seeing incredible talk after incredible talk (they're usually 15-20 minutes). A recent talk, by Jamie Oliver, won the coveted TED Prize...basically they said his talk was the best of the year. Jamie's Idea -

Teach every child about food! Simple, yet so powerful. Watch the original talk here, and see the progress of the idea here. Apparently he's going to get a prime-time TV show about it! We're so excited.

See a bunch of TED talks about food here.

A couple of my favorites are by Dan Barber cause he's pretty hilarious -

See how he fell in love with a fish (and learned about sustainable agriculture)

See his story on Foie Gras

Also, Michael Pollan gave a talk on a plant's eye view - and asks if we're really the culmination of evolution or if we're just a pawn in corn's plot to rule the earth...

Finally, TED came to Austin in February with it's TEDx series. There was another great talk about food by Rip Eppelstyn that they haven't posted yet, but hopefully will soon. Pretty sure they'll do it yearly and We'll let you know when the next one comes.

Beet Storage

Trim the leaves from the root as soon as you get the beets and store them separately in plastic bags (or Debbie Meyer green bags). If you leave them attached, the greens will suck moisture and goodness out of the roots. Use the leaves within a few days and the roots within a couple of weeks.

You can also freeze the roots fresh or cooked and those can last up to 10 months. You can freeze them whole, sliced, or cut into pieces. Pretty versatile.

Gammon & Spinach

Not just non-sense, spinach is a complex and rich food. Whfoods.com says that calorie for calorie spinach has more nutrients than any other food on the freaking planet! That's a big claim. After they talked about cabbage actually upgrading our DNA I didn't think they'd try to top that, but ooohhhhh, was I wrong. Researchers have found at least (what, they're not done?) 13 different flavonoids! Altering your 'If I can't pronounce it I won't eat it' reality, these flavonoids are in the category methylenedioxyflavonol glucuronides, but actually important to you is that they protect you against osteo-anything bad, cancer, arthritis, and 'other diseases.' Apparently we'd have to pull out the Physician's Desk Reference to find all the things it protects us against.

But there's a storm a-brewin' around spinach. Up at Penn State they say you need to eat this magical food within a week or these flavonoids start disappearing in some cruel twist of nature! It might actually happen in other foods, too. The results could have major implications for the produce industry. This, THIS, is a big reason why Greenling's local and Organically grown food is so important and so much better than store-bought food. Our local produce can be just hours out of the ground so you get spinach while it still has it's pixie dust.

Also, there's a horrible rumor that raw spinach hordes these nutrients, even in your belly, making them unavailable to you and that you have to cook spinach to get at them. Well, this seems to be a half-truth. I haven't run my own tests on spinach, though with chemistry in my background I'd like to (still waiting for that chemistry set, mom), but apparently spinach actually has too many nutrients and they can work against each other. Much like a multi-vitamin, you can't possibly absorb all those nutrients at once (so save the $$ and eat spinach instead). You do get some amazing nutrients when you eat it raw. You also get some amazing nutrients when you steam them. And spinach has enough to go around, so have that spinach salad and a side of steamed spinach (with garlic & olive oil is my fave)! Just don't over-cook them...oh wait, even then you still get some amazing nutrients just not as many or as much. What I meant to say was just don't wait to long to eat it.

Come to the Slow Money Austin Showcase

Slow Money Austin is a newly formed non-profit I'm helping launch with the goal of bringing our money back down to earth and into our backyard. SMA is hosting a pair of events this April to talk specifics on how to do this and how to help the local food system thrive! On April 21 is a conference at City Hall featuring a keynote by Woody Tasch, author of Slow Money, experts from around the country joining local leaders to help us envision the future of the local food system as well as Showcase companies that are using or in need of Slow Money (if you know someone needing money for local food ventures, please send them to the Slow Money Austin website).

Then on April 22, Earth Day, SMA has teamed up with the award-winning Dai Due supper club and Barr Mansion Organic events center for an amazing local food fundraising dinner. Join us and help support this cause.

Register for either event here

This Week's Box Contents & Local Items

Sunshine and rain are a farmer's best friends. If we keep this cycle up we're in for a super-treat this spring! The cold-front this weekend luckily won't get us to freezing so all the budding peaches & berries will be in good shape this year. The historical last frost is March 15th so we are probably out of the frost-bitten woods and ready for a strong growth season.

Here's what will be available from local farms on our website this week (the best selection of local produce in the state - guaranteed):

In Local Boxes ($34.99) this week (Mar 22-26):

• Green Shallots, Acadian
• Swiss Chard - Acadian
• Red or Green Lettuce - Acadian
• Green Garlic - Green Gate
• Beets - My Father's Farm
• Bok Choy - Naegelin or Animal Farm
• Spinach - Various
• Citrus - G&S
• Dinosaur Kale - Tx Natural
• Herb - Pure Luck
• Whatever is super-fresh on Monday - Wonderful Farmer

Last Week's (Mar 15-19) Local Box Video:

In Farmstead Boxes this week (Mar 22-26) - Chocolate Festival:

• Decadent, Fresh Chocolate Brownies - Green Brownies
• Chocolate-covered Krackers - Dr. Kracker
• Chocolate cupcakes w/ Chocolate Buttercream Icing - Little Bluestem
• Fine Columbian Single-Origin Organic Dark Chocolate Bar sprinkled with Caramelized Organic Cocoa Nibs - Fat Turkey

Order Here

Fresh, Prepared Meal Selection for this week:

Dish #1 - Black Bean Soup w/ Spinach (1 pint - serves 1 for lunch) - Velvety black turtle beans and hearty Texas spinach simmer together to create a highly nutritious, definitely delicious meal in a bowl. Based on a homey Mexican dish from Veracruz, this simple soup is great as a side for 2 or a lunch for 1 with a side salad.

Dish #2 - Cauliflower "Couscous" w/ Feta & Cranberry-Almond Dressing (1 pint) - A fun and delicious way to taste the season's best bounty. Sweet Texas cauliflower florets are finely chopped into "couscous" and gently sauteed in olive oil, then finished with tangy feta and an herbed-almond dressing with sweet cranberries. Great as a healthy side or perfect for lunch..

Produce from Local Farms

• Herb, Asst. - Pure Luck
• Herbs, Basil, Live - Bella Verdi
• Sunflower Sprouts - Groovy Greens
• Lettuce, Baby - Animal Farm and My Father's Farm
• Lettuce, Bibb - Bella Verdi
• Meyer Lemons - G&S Groves
• Kale - Naegelin
• Mars Orange - G&S Grove
• Grapefruit - G&S Grove
• Limes - G&S Grove
• Green Leaf Lettuce - The Farm Patch
• Romaine Lettuce - The Farm Patch
• Red Leaf Lettuce - The Farm Patch
• Spinach - Naegelin
• Baby Spinach - Animal Farm
• Green Shallots - Lundgren and Acadian
• Pea Shoots - Bluebonnet
• Watercress - Bluebonnet

Produce from Local Farms

• Microgreens, Arugula - Bella Verdi
• Microgreens, Broccoli - Bella Verdi
• Mushroom, Crimini - Kitchen Pride
• Mushroom, Portabella - Kitchen Pride
• Mushroom, Shiitake - Kitchen Pride
• Mushroom, White - Kitchen Pride
• Potatoes, Sweet -Naegelin
• Red Radish - My Father's Farm
• Daikon Radish - Green Gate
• Green Garlic - Green Gate
• White Spring Onion - My Father's Farm
• Onion, Yellow - Naegelin
• Arugula - Acadian
• Baby Arugula - Acadian
• Green Cabbage - Naegelin
• Tomatoes - Village Farm
• Broccoli - Various
• Collard Greens - Naegelin
• Mustard Greens - Naegelin
• Cilantro - My Father's Farm
• Kohlrabi - My Father's Farm

Events & Local Food Happenings Around Town

Local Food Tasting Soiree

-March 28th, 4pm-7pm

-Beets Cafe (map)

A super-cool new raw food restaurant in town, Beets creates some amazing vegan dishes. My favorite is the asian salad. They also have this amazing chocolate almond milk that is only sweetened with dates. But anyway, they're going to share some of their awesomeness with us for our next Local Food Tasting Soiree.

Bring you favorite local ingredient recipe (with a focus on VEGAN) and get voted into our cookbook! The group will decide which recipes are good enough to go in our seasonal cookbook. So bring your best dish and let Greenling make you famous. As an additional reward, all recipe winners will get a free Local Box! With all these local food potlucks asking you to bring food, we figured we could give a little back to you.

RSVP by emailing jevans AT greenling.com or clicking here.

Check out pictures from the last one.

Stone Soup Party

-April 10th, 3-6pm (kid friendly)

-$10 donation to Sustainable Food Center

-1 vegetarian ingredient

You know this story! It's time to share it with your kids. David Ansel (aka The Soup Peddler) and Mason Arnold of Greenling are throwing a party on April 10th from 3-6pm for friends and families to celebrate together for a cause: healthy, local, affordable food for all - the mission of Sustainable Food Center! Bring a vegetarian ingredient, no more than will fill your belly, to contribute to the pot. Soup Peddler provides the stones and Greenling brings the libations. We’ll have a reading of Stone Soup story for kids. Outdoors, weather-permitting.

RSVP here

Slow Food Austin Farm Tours

-Throughout March

-$16 - towards food from farm

The Yonder Way tour was a huge success so Slow Food Austin has created several more farm tours from Urban farms like the relatively new Springdale to the Stryk Dairy farm where you can learn more about raw milk regulations (and why we can't sell you raw milk). Slow Food Austin also puts on great happy hours. Click here to follow Slow Food Austin on Facebook and stay up to date on their events. Or just check out http://slowfoodaustin.org

Recipe Corner

Beet & Carrot Slaw

Ingredients:

• 1/4c fresh orange juice
  
• 2T extra-virgin olive oil
  
• 2tsp red-wine vinegar
  
• 1 1/2tsp dijon mustard
  
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
  
• 1 medium bunch beets with greens (about 1 pound)
  
• 2 medium carrots, grated
  

Instructions:

In a large bowl, whisk together orange juice, oil, vinegar and mustard; season with salt and pepper. Cut greens off beets; discard stems and cut leaves into 1/4in wide strips. Peel and grate beets; place in a strainer and rinse until water runs clear, then squeeze dry with a paper towel. Add to bowl along with beet leaves and carrots. Toss to combine. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

For More Recipes Check Out The Eating Out of the Local Box Blog. Also make sure to become a fan of Greenling on Facebook to get weekly recipes from Woman With A Whisk & The Best of Thymes food bloggers.