This week we are featuring Hakurei Turnips!! Have you tried them?

Though they may be hard to say (we’ve heard it pronounced “hawk-ur-eye” or “hah-kur-ee”), these turnips are not your run-of-the-mill average turnips!

For those in the know, Hakurei turnips are some of the most versatile of vegetables – both their root (the turnip) and the greens (which do not have the small hairs that are found on other turnip greens) are edible and delicious. They can also be eaten raw, as salad turnips.

They are not spicy and bitter like the standard purple top turnips. Their sweetness is often a surprise to those tasting them for the first time. In fact, kids love Hakurei turnips raw on a salad plate! It truly needs a different name than “turnip” as it is nothing whatsoever like the typical mashed turnip you may have grown up with.

Check out our FAQ page on these turnips, as well as a trying a couple of tasty recipes: Hakurei Turnip Salad and Sauteed Hakurei Turnips. We think you’ll agree these turnips should not be overlooked.

What’s Available This Week

The following items will be available on Thursday, September 11 at Hattie’s Garden from 2 – 5 p.m. and at the Historic Lewes Farmer’s Market (HLFM) on Saturday, September 13 from 8 a.m. to noon. You can also email Hattie to make an appointment to stop by Hattie’s Garden at another time.

• Young Arugula – truly delicious in salads, sandwiches, and pureed into pesto.
• Spicy Arugula – we always try to cut some larger and more pungent leaves for those who like to cook with arugula or who simply prefer arugula as spicy as it gets!
• Loose Leaf Lettuce – cut at a young and tender stage of growth and includes a delightful variety of colors, shapes and textures.
• Mesclun – a mix of arugula and loose leaf lettuce.
• Pak Choi Joi Choi – This Joi Choi variety has nice succulent leaves and stems. Yes, you eat the stems as well as the leaves.

  

  Pak Choi is a wonderful vegetable for the uninitiated. Although in the same family as a mustard green, pak choi is never stringy, never tough and cooks in just a few minutes. If you are using it alone, cook lightly. If you are using it as part of a stir-fry dish, be sure to have it as one of your final ingredients as it requires less cooking than meat or most greens or other types of vegetables. Great alone or in combination with other stir-fry ingredients.

• Fun Jen Chinese Cabbage – Sweet and delicate when lightly cooked and can also be eaten raw as a salad ingredient with a much less pungent flavor than most “brassicas.”
• Hakurei Turnips – This is one tasty and lovely little root vegetable you’re not likely to find in your grocery store, so come on down and try them out!
• Rudolph Radishes with beautiful young greens. These are rich, bright red roots with a crisp and tasty flavor. Nice and mild radishes are young and delicious.

  

  Do not throw away your radish greens. These Rudolph Radish greens are bright green, young and tender and full of nutrients. Often scorned, radish greens are simply misunderstood. Sure, they have a prickly leaf–nature provided them with a means to ward off invaders so they could produce seed and propagate themselves! But that prickly leaf is quickly tamed with just a little heat. Use them in stir-fries, soups, omelets, or any dish requiring “greens.” For a nice side dish, saute them for a couple of minutes with garlic and olive oil.

• Cherry Tomatoes – although dwindling in supply, we are still harvesting beautiful tiny Jasper cherry tomatoes and a nice-sized great tasting heirloom called Tommy Toe. In addition you will find a few mixed pints with a variety of sweet delicious cherries.
• Larger Tomatoes – we still have some nice medium sized slicing tomatoes and just a few Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes.
• Lemongrass – brings a distinctive, pleasant citrus aroma to a wide range of Asian cuisine, adding its unique flavor to everything from marinades, stir-fries, salads, curry pastes and cold drinks.

  

  See our Lemongrass FAQ sheet which gives some helpful information on how to prepare, use and store. We have a couple of recipes: lemongrass tea and lemongrass miso soup.

• Fresh cut Italian Parsley – Also known as flat-leaf parsley, Italian parsley is the best variety for cooking.
• Flowers – These flowers are cut and conditioned to last all week for you and come with a packet of flower food. The flowers this week are Zinnias, Gomphrena, Ageratum and Lisianthus. Yes, the Lisianthus are beginning to “flush” again! The second growth of the summer on our Lisianthus is always a nice surprise. Although somewhat shorter than the first flush, they are no less spectacular.

Yours at the market and garden…