Week 21 of the Extended/Flex CSA and Other Farm Updates!

Saturday was the last day for the Main Season CSA, as well as the last regular day in the farm stand! Extended and Flex CSA members have 4 weeks left to the season, with the last pick-up on Novmber 23rd. While the farm store is officially closed for the season, we do expect to hold a pop-up on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, as well possibly a second one in December. We have been working on quickly turning over our high tunnels in order to plant winter hardy greens like spinach and kale mix for just that purpose, so stay tuned!

In addition to turning over our tomato high tunnel (which involves taking down trellising, pulling out plants, rolling up landscape fabric, prepping beds by hand and transplanting spinach), we dug up all of our dahlia tubers and planted our 2025 tulips and daffodils last week. In anticipation of a harder freeze Sunday and Monday nights, we also laid out row cover on many crops that we’ll be relying on this fall and next spring. This week we plan to turn over the pepper tunnel for kale mix, plant out all of our 2025 garlic and take down our CSA tent. We’d also love to get out all of the trellising stakes, landscape fabric, drip tape and plastic mulch from our field tomatoes and peppers, but that may be a bit ambitious!

In the CSA this week:

• Brussels sprouts - These are distributed on the stalk.

• Butternut - from Atlas Farm in Deerfield, MA. Certified Organic.

• Sweet potatoes

• Carrots

• Beets - from Atlas Farm in Deerfield, MA. Certified Organic.

• Green peppers

• Colored peppers - We picked out the high tunnel right before the frost, so this will be the last colored peppers for the season!

• Broccoli

• Mini Daikon

• Watermelon radishes - These have a similar level of heat as the daikon. The insides are magenta, so it’s visually stunning!

• Storage turnips

• Cabbage - Green storage cabbage, plus there might be a few of savoy sprinkled in on Wednesday.

• Kale

• Lettuce or Salanova

CSA Pick-Your-Own:

• Parsley

Available for sale during CSA pick-ups:

• Leeks

• Keepsake Apples from Long Run Orchard in Boxborough, MA. These versatile apples are suitable for cooking or fresh eating. They have great storage qualities and are crisp and sweet. Certified Organic.

• Honey from Double B (from hives on the property). Not organic.

• Raspberry vinegar and jam from Silferleaf Farm in Concord. Certified Organic.

Bean Soup With Cabbage, Winter Squash and Farro

By Martha Rose Shulman from NY Times Cooking

Ingredients

• ½ pound borlotti or pinto beans, soaked overnight or for six hours in 1 quart water

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 1 medium onion, chopped

• 1 medium carrot, chopped

• 1 small celery stalk, with leaves, chopped

• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage

• 4 large garlic cloves, minced

• 1 pound green cabbage, cored and shredded

• Salt

• freshly ground pepper

• 1 pound butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced (about 2 cups)

• A bouquet garni made with a few sprigs each thyme and parsley, 2 sage leaves and a Parmesan rind

• Generous ½ teaspoon dried rosemary, crumbled

• 1(14-ounce) can chopped tomatoes, with liquid

• ½cup farro (spelt), cooked

• Freshly grated Parmesan for serving

Preparation

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy soup pot or Dutch oven. Cook the onion until it begins to soften, about three minutes. Add the carrot, celery and sage, and continue to cook, stirring, until the vegetables are tender, about five minutes. Add half the garlic. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about one minute. Add the cabbage and a generous pinch of salt, and cook, stirring often, until the cabbage is limp, about 10 minutes. Drain the soaked beans, and add them to the pot, along with the squash, bouquet garni and 2 quarts water, or enough to cover by two inches. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, add salt to taste and simmer 1½ to 2 hours until the beans are tender. Remove the bouquet garni, and discard.

2. While the soup is simmering, heat the remaining olive oil over medium heat in a medium-size nonstick skillet. Add the remaining garlic and the rosemary. Cook for a half-minute to a minute until fragrant, and stir in the tomatoes. Add salt. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring often, until the tomatoes have cooked down and the mixture is thick, beginning to stick to the pan and delicious. Stir into the soup along with the cooked farro. Continue to simmer for another 30 minutes. Taste and adjust salt, and add lots of freshly ground pepper. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan.

Tip: Advance preparation: The farro can be cooked three days ahead. The finished soup keeps well and gets even better over two or three days.

CSA Week 20 and last week of the farm store!

We all may be feeling a sense of whiplash from the swings in temperature in the past week. You wouldn’t know it from the summery weather of the past couple of days, but we had multiple frosts last week that finished off our tomato and pepper plants for the year. We cleared fruit off the plants right before the hardest frost, so we’ll still have peppers as well as green tomatoes this week, but the versatile fall crops are the real stars of the show now! I’m looking forward to more roasted vegetables, soups, stir fries and pickled radishes to garnish some of my favorite staples!

This is the last week for the Main Season CSA (Extended and Flex members still have 4 more weeks after this one). This is also the final week for regular store hours, but we do hope to have a couple of pop-ups before the end of the year. We have a couple of spots left in the Extended Season Add-on CSA if you want a more weekly veggie fix: http://www.barrettsmillfarm.com/online-store/2024-extended-season-add-on-4-weeks

We are finalizing our CSA plans for 2025 right now and current members should get an email within the next couple of days with information about sign-ups. We’ll open up sign-ups to everyone else soon as well! The biggest update this year is that we’ll be offering a smaller CSA option (in addition to the large CSA membership size we currently offer).

In the CSA this week:

If you usually collect your CSA on Wednesdays between 6 and 6:30, please email the Shopkeeper (shopkeeper@barrettsmillfarm.com) to arrange a pre-packed bag this week. It is getting too dark to see under the CSA tent after 6pm. We will move CSA pick-up into the lit greenhouse once we have room in there (hopefully next week!).

• Sweet potatoes - We have some monster-sized ones that could feed a family of 10 (which means less peeling)!

• Leeks - The variety were now harvesting is larger than the type we harvested earlier in the season.

• Watermelon radishes - These have a similar level of heat as the daikon. The insides are magenta, so it’s visually stunning!

• Storage turnips

• Autumn Frost Squash - This is a type of butternut that has the appearance of a decorative squash. It has ribbing similar to an acorn squash. Very sweet flavor and the skins are edible

• Beets from Atlas Farm in Deerfield, MA. Certified Organic.

• Fennel

• Green peppers

• Colored peppers - We picked out the high tunnel right before the frost, so this will be the last colored peppers for the season!

• Broccoli

• Mini Daikon

• Savoy cabbage

• Kale

• Bok Choi

• Mustard greens

• Lettuce

CSA Pick-Your-Own:

Please note that its getting dark earlier and earlier, so we will close the PYO at 6pm.

• Parsley

• Possibly also some sage

In the farm store:

In addition to the items listed in the CSA, we will have:

• Asian Pears (Korean Giant variety) from Long Run Orchard in Boxborough, MA. We got a delivery at the end of the day on Friday and they had all sold out by the end of the day on Saturday, so we got some more! Certified Organic.

• Keepsake Apples from Long Run Orchard in Boxborough, MA. These versatile apples are suitable for cooking or fresh eating. They have great storage qualities and are crisp and sweet. Certified Organic.

• Spinach

• Arugula

• Salanova

• Green tomatoes

• Butternut

• Pie pumpkins

• Potatoes

• Carrots

• Salad turnips

• Cranberries from Fresh Meadows in Carver, MA. Certified Organic.

• Honeycrisp Apples from Westward Orchard in Harvard, MA and Cortland Apples from Autumn Hills Orchard in Groton, MA. Not organic.

• Honey from Double B (from hives on the property). Not organic.

• Mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm - Farmer’s Mix and Shiitake. Certified Organic.

• Raspberry vinegar and jam from Silferleaf Farm in Concord. Certified Organic.

Mushroom CSA:

It is the final week of the 8-week Fall Mushroom CSA. This week is Lion’s Mane!

Best Buddha Bowl

from Love & Lemons

Ingredients

• 1 large sweet potato, cubed

• Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling

• 1 watermelon radish

• 2 medium carrots

• 1 cup shredded cabbage

• Lemon wedge, for squeezing

• 8 kale leaves, chopped

• 2 cups cooked brown rice or quinoa

• 1 cup cooked chickpeas or cooked lentils

• ¾ cup sauerkraut or other fermented veggie

• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds or hemp seeds

• Turmeric Tahini Sauce, for serving

• Microgreens, optional

• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Toss the sweet potatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and spread onto the baking sheet. Roast for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

3. Thinly slice the radish into rounds (this is best done on a mandoline), and use a vegetable peeler to peel the carrots into ribbons.

4. Toss the radish slices, carrots, and shredded cabbage with a squeeze of lemon. Set aside.

5. Place the kale leaves into a large bowl and toss with a squeeze of lemon and a few pinches of salt. Use your hands to massage the leaves until they become soft and wilted and reduce in the bowl by about half.

6. Assemble individual bowls with the brown rice, chickpeas, kale, carrots, radishes, cabbage, sweet potatoes, sauerkraut, sesame seeds, and microgreens, if using. Season with salt and pepper and serve with the Turmeric Tahini Sauce.

Sweet Potato Soup With Ginger, Leek and Apple

by Martha Rose Shulman, from NY Times Cooking

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons canola oil or butter

• 2 leeks, white and light green parts only, cleaned and sliced

• 4t easpoons minced fresh ginger

• 2¼ pounds orange sweet potatoes (like jewel yams or garnet yams), peeled and diced

• ½ pound Yukon gold or russet potatoes, peeled and diced

• 1 to 1¼ pounds tart apples, like Braeburn or Granny Smith, peeled, cored and diced

• 2 quarts water

• Salt to taste

• Fresh lime juice and medium-hot chili powder or chipotle chili powder for garnish

Preparation

1. Heat the oil or butter in a heavy soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the leek and cook, stirring, until it is tender, about 5 minutes. Add the ginger and stir together until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the sweet potatoes, regular potato, apples and water and bring to a simmer. Add salt to taste, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 45 minutes to an hour, until all of the ingredients are thoroughly tender.

2. Using an immersion blender, purée the soup (or you can use a regular blender, working in batches and placing a kitchen towel over the top to avoid splashing) until very smooth. Return to the pot, heat through and adjust salt. Ladle into bowls, squeeze a little lime juice and sprinkle a little chili powder over each serving and serve.

Advance preparation: You can make this a day ahead, but it's best freshly made.

CSA Week 19 and Farm Stand Updates

Last week we successfully completed our sweet potato harvest. It’s a multi-step process involving mowing the foliage, pushing the vines out of the pathways in between beds, rolling up the landscape fabric that covered those pathways, cutting the vines, and then pulling the vines off of the bed and out of the way of our mechanical digger. We then run our tractor mounted digger, which cuts underneath the soil and lifts the tubers up a conveyor belt, which sifts the soil out the bottom and then drops the sweet potatoes on top of the soil (We used to also dig both sweet potatoes and regular potatoes by hand, loosening the soil with a pitchfork. The mechanical digger has really saved us a lot of time!). After running the mechanical digger, we then come through and harvest the sweet potatoes into buckets, which we then transfer in to bulk crates in our greenhouse to cure for a week or two before they are ready to eat! Sweet potato harvest is always a time intensive project, but this year it was especially so, thanks to excellent yields. We had to make a lot of trips shuttling buckets back and forth from field to greenhouse. Not only were the sweet potatoes plentiful, but many were huge - two sweet potatoes weighed in at over 8 pounds each!

For those of you with a Main Season CSA membership, this is the second-to-last week of the Main Season CSA. For our store customers and Barrett’s Bucks members, this is also the second-to-last week that the store is open (2024 Bucks expire October 26th). If you are a Main Season CSA member or a regular store customer who would like to keep the bounty coming, you can sign up for the Extended Season Add-on CSA here:

http://www.barrettsmillfarm.com/online-store/2024-extended-season-add-on-4-weeks

While summer field crops are finished thanks to two frosts last week, we are looking forward to even more delicious fall veggies and comfort food in the weeks to come!

In the CSA this week:

If you usually collect your CSA on Wednesdays between 6 and 6:30, please email the Shopkeeper (shopkeeper@barrettsmillfarm.com) to arrange a pre-packed bag this week. It is getting too dark to see under the CSA tent after 6pm. We will move CSA pick-up into the lit greenhouse once we have room in there!

• Broccoli - This year we pushed back all of our broccoli plantings later due to consistently having problems with heat during the head formation stage (which leads to malformed heads and rot). So while we are harvesting broccoli later than in years past, the heads look nicer and we are saved the frustration of having to discard half the heads in the field!

• Autumn Frost Squash - Appropriate timing considering we just had our first two frosts of the fall! This is a type of butternut that has ribbing and

• Yellow Potatoes from Atlas Farm in Deerfield, MA. Certified Organic.

• Beets from Atlas Farm in Deerfield, MA. Certified Organic.

• Carrots

• Fennel

• Green peppers - Many of these will now be coming from our high tunnel, as the field peppers died in the second frost on Saturday night. We’re going to clean out the green peppers from our high tunnel as well this week in anticipation of a harder frost in a few days.

• Colored peppers

• Salad Turnips

• Mini Daikon - multiple colors, including more Red King, plus purple and white varieties too.

• Savoy cabbage

• Kale

• Bok Choi

• Mustard greens

• Salanova

CSA Pick-Your-Own:

A second frost killed off most of the PYO crops this weekend, but we will have some herbs for picking. Please note that its getting dark earlier and earlier, so we will close the PYO at 6pm.

• Parsley

• Possibly also some chives, sage or thyme will be open as well

In the farm store:

In addition to the items listed in the CSA, we will have:

• Tomatoes - The last from out high tunnel. There may be a frost this week that is hard enough to kill our high tunnel plants!

• Spinach

• Lettuce

• Dahlias - We harvested the last dahlias right before they were frost-killed Saturday night, so we should have a couple of bouquets Tuesday, but that is it until next year!

• Cranberries from Fresh Meadows in Carver, MA. Certified Organic.

• Honeycrisp Apples from Westward Orchard in Harvard, MA and Cortland Apples from Autumn Hills Orchard in Groton, MA. Not organic.

• Yellow Onions from Picadilly Farm in Winchester, NH. Certified Organic.

• Honey from Double B (from hives on the property). Not organic.

• Mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm - Farmer’s Mix and Shiitake. Certified Organic.

• Raspberry vinegar, jam, and occasionally fresh raspberries from Silferleaf Farm in Concord. Certified Organic.

• Eggs from Codman Farm in Lincoln. Not Organic.

Mushroom CSA:

It is the fifth week of the 8-week Fall Mushroom CSA. This week is Blue Oyster.

PYO Flowers

After multiple frosts, the field is now closed for the season!

Superfood Bibimbap with Crispy Tofu

by Tieghan Gerard from Half-Baked Harvest

Ingredients

• 1 block organic extra firm tofu

• 1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce or tamari

• 1-2 tablespoons Gochujang (Korean chili paste)

• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

• 1 inch fresh ginger, grated

• 2 cloves garlic, grated

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 1 cup broccoli

• 1 cup shiitake mushrooms, sliced or torn

• 1 bunch curly kale, roughly torn

• juice from 1 lime

• kosher salt

• 2 cups cooked barley, farro, or quinoa

• 4 fried eggs

• 1 avocado, sliced

• 1 cup fresh or pickled carrots and radishes

• toasted sesame seeds, for sprinkling

Instructions

• 1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

  2. Press the tofu with paper towels to remove as much water as possible. Slice into 1/4 inch thick slices and add to a gallon size ziplock bag. 

  3. In a small bowl, combine the 2 tablespoon water, the soy sauce, Gochujang, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic. Add half the sauce to the tofu bag (reserve the remaining for serving), tossing gently to combine. Let sit 5-10 minutes. Remove the tofu from the sauce and place in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet. Transfer to the oven and bake 10 minutes. Flip and bake another 10-15 minutes, until the tofu is crisp.

  4. Meanwhile, toss the broccoli and mushrooms with 1 tablespoon oil and a pinch of salt. During the last 10-15 minutes of cooking, add the veggies to the pan with the tofu.

  5. In a bowl, massage the kale with the remaining 1 tablespoons olive oil, lime juice, and a pinch of salt. 

  6. To serve, divide the grains among bowls. Add the tofu, kale, broccoli, mushrooms, fried egg, avocado, carrots, and radishes. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve with the reserved sauce. Enjoy!

CSA Week 18 and Farm Stand Updates

With daylight hours and crew size both shrinking, we are proportionally spending larger chunks of our days on harvesting crops for the same or next day. On Tuesday last week we didn’t do anything other than harvesting. Part of that was related to the particular mix of crops last week (spinach, leek and potato harvest are time consuming for us). With this week’s crop list looking a little less time-intensive, we plan to tackle some other projects, though admittedly the top priority project is still harvest-related!

We have been putting off our sweet potato harvest for the past couple of weeks in favor of other more urgent tasks. This hadn’t been a huge concern because it’s been so warm and the plants still looked good, but the tubers require a week to cure before eating, and temperatures are dropping, so we are going to make a real push in the coming days! Sweet potato harvest goes more quickly since getting a potato digger a few years ago. However, before we can use it we still need to clip the plant vines and pull up the landscape fabric that we put down between the beds to keep the weeds down. If all goes well, all of our sweet potatoes will be curing in the warmth of our greenhouse by the end of the week!

In the CSA this week:

• Yellow Potatoes from Atlas Farm in Deerfield, MA. Certified Organic.

• Pumpkin, acorn or delicata

• Carrots

• Celery

• Fennel

• Garlic

• Green/purple peppers

• Colored peppers

• Salad Turnips

• Red King Radishes - This is a type of colorful daikon that is a more manageable size than traditional daikon.

• Cabbage - We’ll have tendersweet and savoy varieties this week.

• Kale

• Bok Choi

• Arugula

• Mustard greens - This is a new variety for us called Wasabina. It is fairly mild for a mustard green, and also has a hint of sweetness!

• Escarole

CSA Pick-Your-Own:

With the exception of some of the herbs, a frost could impact the availability of all of these crops this week. Please also note that with the shortening of the days, we will begin closing the PYO fields when it starts to get dark, which will likely be before 6:30 this week.

• Hot peppers

• Cherry Tomatoes

• Husk Cherries, Shishito or Tomatillos

• Herbs: basil, chives, dill flower, parsley, sage, thyme.

In the farm store:

In addition to the items listed in the CSA, we will have:

• Tomatoes

• Broccoli

• Salanova

• Lettuce

• Cranberries from Fresh Meadows in Carver, MA. Certified Organic.

• Honeycrisp Apples from Westward Orchard in Harvard, MA and Cortland Apples from Autumn Hills Orchard in Groton, MA. Available starting on Wednesday. Not Organic.Yellow Onions from Picadilly Farm in Winchester, NH. Certified Organic.

• Dahlias

• Honey from Double B (from hives on the property). Not organic.

• Mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm - Farmer’s Mix and Shiitake. Certified organic.

• Raspberry vinegar, jam, and occasionally fresh raspberries from Silferleaf Farm in Concord. Certified Organic.

• Eggs from Codman Farm in Lincoln. Not Organic.

Mushroom CSA:

It is the sixth week of the 8-week Fall Mushroom CSA. This week is Shiitake!

PYO Flowers

The field will remain open until a frost, but the selection has dwindled quite a bit.

White Bean Soup with Mustard Greens and Parmesan

from Bon Appetit, December 9, 2012

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 1 small white or yellow onion, thinly sliced

• 1 small fennel bulb, thinly sliced

• 3 cloves minced garlic

• 1/2 bunch mustard greens, torn into 1-inch pieces

• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese, plus more

• 1 15-ounce can white beans, such as canellinni

• 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock

• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

• Lemon wedges

Preparation

In a large heavy pot, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add onion and fennel and cook, until fragrant and fennel is softened, 7–8 minutes. Add garlic and mustard greens and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until greens are wilted, about 5 minutes. Add beans and stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer gently, being careful not to break the beans, until flavors meld and soup is thickened slightly, about 10 minutes. Add Parmesan and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Divide among bowls, topping with more Parmesan if desired. Serve with lemon wedges to season.

CSA Week 17 and Farm Stand Updates

Although Tuesday is the first day of October, we have plenty of yummy veggies to enjoy! While tomatoes are slowly making their exit, we will have them this week, plus some more classic fall veggies like potatoes, pumpkins and leeks. We still have a lot to look forward to this fall, including more types of squash (butternut, Autumn Frost and Tetsukabuto), sweet potatoes, beets, broccoli and Brussels sprouts. We’ll also continue to have potatoes, carrots, cabbage, leeks and a wide array of greens through the end of the season.

There are 4 weeks left of the farm stand and Main Season CSA. The last day for both is October 26th, which is also the day that Barrett’s Bucks expire for 2024. Extended, Flex and Back to School CSA members have 8 weeks left (so until November 23rd). We are starting to work on our plans for next year, so look for info about 2025 CSA sign-ups in the next couple of weeks!

In the CSA this week:

• Pie pumpkins - Make your own pumpkin puree from scratch for pie filling, muffins, soup and more!

• Potatoes - Peter Wilcox variety (purple skin, white flesh). These are the last of our own potatoes, but we will have potatoes from Atlas Farm later this fall!

• Leeks

• Carrots - Rainbow and orange.

• Garlic

• Slicing tomatoes - It’s just about October now, so we are approaching the end of tomato season, but we will try to eke another week or two out of them!

• Colored peppers

• Salad Turnips - Salad turnips are a milder cousin of radishes. They are sweet and tender and are nice in salads or roasted.

• Red King Radishes - This is a type of colorful daikon that is a more manageable size than traditional daikon.

• Cabbage - We’ll have tendersweet and savoy varities this week.

• Kale

• Bok Choi

• Arugula

• Spinach

• Escarole

• Lettuce

CSA Pick-Your-Own:

• Hot peppers

• Cherry Tomatoes - Winding down, but there are still some out there if you are willing to hunt around.

• Green Beans

• Husk Cherries or Tomatillos

• Herbs: basil, chives, dill flower, parsley, sage, thyme. Basil is going downhill, but we are squeezing one more week out of it.

In the farm store:

In addition to the items listed in the CSA, we will have:

• Honeycrisp Apples from Westward Orchard in Harvard, MA and Cortland Apples from Autumn Hills Orchard in Groton, MA. Available starting on Wednesday. Not Organic.

• Sweet corn - we are getting a surprise delivery early this week, but it might only be available the first part of the week.

• Salanova

• Green and purple peppers

• Delicata

• Acorn squash

• Flowers, including mini and full-sized dahlia bouquets

• Honey from Double B (from hives on the property). Not organic.

• Mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm - Farmer’s Mix and Shiitake. Certified organic.

• Raspberry vinegar, jam, and occasionally fresh raspberries from Silferleaf Farm in Concord. Certified Organic.

• Eggs from Codman Farm in Lincoln. Not Organic.

Mushroom CSA:

It is the fifth week of the 8-week Fall Mushroom CSA. This week is Comb Tooth!

PYO Flowers

If you have a PYO Flower CSA and have bouquets left to pick, come now - there are plenty out there, but every passing day they lose a little bit of their summer glory!

Pumpkin Soup with Sautéed Mushrooms

by Giorgia Fontana from Mediterranean Living

Ingredients

For the soup:

• 1 pound pumpkin, peeled and seeds removed

• 1 small carrot, peeled

• 2 medium potatoes, peeled

• 1 small onion

• Salt, to taste

• 4 cups vegetable stock (optional)

For the sauteed mushrooms:

• 10 ounces mixed mushrooms

• 1 clove garlic, minced

• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus some more for drizzling

• 1/2 tbsp fresh parsley, minced

• Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Peel, clean and cut vegetables into chunks, around 1-inch thick.

2. Put them into a large pot and cover with water. If you desire a deeper flavor, cover with vegetable stock instead.

3. Turn the heat on high until boiling, then lower the flame and let the soup simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

4. In the meantime, prepare the mushrooms. Trim away the ends and slice thinly.

5. In a frying pan, drizzle some olive oil and add minced garlic. When it starts to turn golden in color, add mushrooms and toss them for about 8 minutes.

6. Season with salt and pepper. Before turning off the heat, add a sprinkle of parsley.

7. When soup is ready, blend it with an immersion blender directly into the pot, until it reaches a nice and smooth consistency.

8. Serve immediately, adding sautéed mushrooms on top and a drizzle of fresh extra virgin olive oil.

Vietnamese Daikon & Carrot Pickles Recipe (Do Chua)

by Huy Vu from Hungry Huy

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb (226.8 g) daikon radish

• 1/2 lb (226.8 g) carrots

• 1 tbsp salt

Vinegar Solution

• 1/2 c boiling water

• 5 tbsp granulated white sugar

• filtered room temp. water

• 4 tbsp distilled vinegar

Instructions 

• Peel daikon and carrots, then cut with mandolin slicer medium to small matchsticks. Smaller cuts will pickle faster.

• In a large bowl, sprinkle with salt evenly and toss to coat. Soak for 15 minutes.

• Rinse thoroughly to remove the salt and in small handfulls, squeeze to remove as much moisture as you can.

• Add to jars, filling almost to the top.