Delicious Cruciferous!

Members of the highly nutritious cruciferous family include broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, collards, kale, swiss chard, cauliflower and romanesco. Each one contains unique nutrients to keep you and your loved ones healthy, and the entire family has well known health benefits.

Season: Late September to Early December

Recipes: Roasted Cauliflower
Cauliflower Mushroom Vegetarian Taco Filling (yum!) from Clean Eating Magazine

Storage: To keep your cauliflower fresh, wrap it loosely in plastic and store it in the fridge. It should keep for 5 - 7 days.

Long Term Storage – Freezing is the best way to save cauliflower to enjoy out of season. Blanch it first, by cooking it in boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Cool immediately in an ice bath, then drain excess water before placing in freezer-safe containers. You can also freeze cauliflower as a finished product, such as roasted, or soup.

Orange Cauliflower

This unique vegetable contains 25 times the level of Vitmain A of white varieties. This trait came from a natural mutation found in a cauliflower field in Canada in the seventies. Scientists have since used the same strain of mutation to develop more nutritious foods (with increased beta carotene) such as golden rice.

Purple Cauliflower

The beautiful purple color is caused by the antioxidant group, anthocyanin, which can also be found in red cabbage and red wine. Thousands of years ago, some of the very first cauliflower ever eaten was purple!

     This morning as we were packing the CSA boxes, the truck pulled up to the back of the market with the rest of the produce for the CSA shares. It was full of vegetables that had been harvested minutes before the truck left our farm in Albion:  beets with dirt still clinging to the roots and leaves; dewy heads of  cauliflower crowned with crisp leaves cropped short, brilliant purple, orange and soft white peeking through.
     There’s nothing like standing by the truck as the back door slides up and your faced with giant mounds of perfect vegetables. You immediately want to photograph them, (maybe paint their portrait,) and then cook them up into a number of dishes good enough to pay tribute to their perfection.