Produce Report: Parsnips, Chard, Kiwi and more!

Hello all and Happy Monday! There’s no better way to start your week than with a big serving of some awesome New Roots Organics produce! This week is full of great items and they are looking beautiful! With bright colors and bold flavors, this week’s produce will warm up your gloomy fall days. Check them out!

Our produce spotlight item of the week, the parsnips are picture perfect! Parsnips are an ivory-colored root vegetable, very similar to carrots. Parsnips have a nutty, sweet flavor. Their sweetness is often enhanced by apples, orange zest and spices such as cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.

Parsnips are good in soups, stews and vegetable side dishes. They can be eaten raw or they may be steamed, sautéed, baked or boiled. After cooking, parsnips are often mashed or pureed.

Always gorgeous, this week’s chard is even better! With bright red and rich green colors, its look matches its versatility and taste. A heart green, chard is perfect for soups, stews, salads, casseroles, or even sautéed on its own. Sweet, tangy, and creamy things help temper the mineral edge of all chard. A bit of balsamic vinegar, a squirt of lemon juice, or a bit of crème fraîche or goat cheese are all fabulous with chard.

Are you looking for something unique for your next dinner? Try this week’s fennel! Fennel is a bulbous vegetable with a tall, wispy, fronded top that looks rather like dill. The fronds can be used in salads, but the main attraction of fennel is the bulb itself. It’s very firm and crunchy, and it tastes a bit like licorice and anise. It has a fresh, bright taste and it’s one of our favorite vegetables for salads and slaws. It can also be grilled or braised until tender.

The bulb is made of overlapping layers of vegetable, almost like a cabbage — but very firm and hard. To be used in salads, fennel should be sliced very thin.

Perfect for snacking or appetizers, try our flavor popping peppers! They are perfect for stuffing with cream cheese and baking for a delicious side dish that will keep you and and your stomach happy. Mellow, juicy, sultry, crunchy—all words to describe these little sweet peppers that we love. Our unique red, yellow and orange sweet mini peppers are bursting with flavor and nutrition. They’re naturally fat free, high in vitamin C and a great source of fiber.

And finally, some of our favorite fruits this week are the kiwi and persimmons! Both sweet, unique and exotic, they are the perfect snack to keep you going throughout the day!

Technically juicy berries, Fuyu persimmons are firm, crisp fruit. The Japanese pollinate Fuyu flowers by hand, believing that persimmons with seeds taste better and do not drop prematurely.

It can be difficult to describe the taste of a kiwi. The sweetness of the flesh and the slight crunch of the seeds are similar to a strawberry in many respects. Its texture also suggests a hint of banana, with a slight firmness to the flesh, although it has a citrus bite similar to pineapple.

What are your favorite items this week? They’re pretty awesome! Share your favorites on our Facebook wall!

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