Just a reminder about the local Easter services that are happening – do pop over and check them out at St Dunstan across the road from Stepney City Farm, or at St Paul’s Shadwell.
During Easter and Passover we reflect on renewal, a perfect time to celebrate the spring harvest. So it’s great to see the return of some local greens with land cress from Perry Court in the small box this week. Easier to grow as it requires less water than watercress, it has tons of iron, calcium, beta carotene and vitamin C.
Flavourwise it’s peppery and definitely fiery stuff with a real earthiness so it’s often served with other salad greens to temper it. This bite works well as a garnish for other dishes especially meats. For fish, add it finely chopped to a mayonnaise with some capers or make a kind of pesto to serve on the side. If you want to use it straight up as a salad adding honey to your dressing will balance the flavours nicely. Try it with some pecans and goat’s cheese. Or try making this land cress fritatta with parmesan and ricotta, and throw in some mushrooms whilst at it. After all, you can’t really have Easter without eggs…
As for the standard box we have a return of the Kentish wild garlic (check out our previous blog post for recipe ideas) along with local radishes. How about pairing radishes with mushrooms for a slightly less usual combination – slice them up and try one of these suggestions:
- Grilled mushroom with radish tossed in honey vinaigrette on toast
- Pan-fry with chopped garlic, thyme and butter
- Dress with salt, lemon juice, some balsamic, olive oil and chopped parley – let it stand for awhile to let the flavours really develop
- Add stir-fried mushrooms and grated radishes to a soba noodle salad
Most of these suggestions would also work with either mushroom or radish only, and perfect accompaniment for your Easter eggy brunch.
Meanwhile on the farm-side, the seed sowing is going well and it’s almost beginning to get challenging for space! The propagation tunnels are overflowing and the growing tables outside will soon welcome more plants ready to experience their first few days in their new environment.
For more ideas on how to eat the vegetables in this week’s box, try searching on our webpage for past blogs!
This Week’s Bounty
* Bambino Potatoes, Perry Court
* Onions, Norfolk
* Carrots, Scotland
* Mushrooms, Suffolk
Radish Bunch, Kent
Wild Garlic, Kent
Spring Greens, Lancs
Broccoli, Spain
No-Potato Substitute
Chard TBC
Fruit Supplement
Apples – Topaz, Kent (standard only)
Oranges, Spain
towergreenhamlets.com 
[…] As for your spring greens, summer is perfect weather for some garlicky chilli prawn linguine with spring greens. For more details on land cress (great substitute to the more familiar summer watercress, and hardier so grows right through the winter) and suggestions for how to eat it, have a look at our Easter post. […]
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