This Week in Produce

By Mandy Catlette

Updated every Friday

Last Updated: February 26, 2010

It is possible that by the time you read this I will be sitting in an Infinity whirlpool poised above from the rocky cliffs of the Pacific shore of the Baja peninsula of Mexico. That is, if I'm even awake yet. Or it is possible that as you read this, I will be dining on fresh lime-inflected ceviche, papaya nectar, and homemade tortillas. In short, I'm going on vacation, friends, so here are my produce suggestions for the next two weeks.

Cilantro

Since I mentioned ceviche, really I think an argument can be made that what makes ceviche taste good is, in a word, Cilantro. Well that, and the seafood, but I'm not crazy about seafood so to me it's just another excuse to eat salt, limes and cilantro on something. That triumvirate of fresh Mexican food, salt, lime, and cilantro will take you everywhere from tomato salsa to guacamole, and back again to fancier salsas made with tropical fruits. Which is my suggestion for this week—make yourself some fresh Pineapple salsa! Instead of tomatoes, cube up two cups of fresh pineapple. Squeeze an entire lime on top. Add a bit of minced red onion, or you can use scallions if you have them. Don't forget a Tablespoon of cilantro, and throw a minced Serrano chili in there to spice things up. Salt this to taste and then marinate it for at least fifteen minutes. The longer you let it sit, the more it will meld together and become a unified flavor—but it is truly good at any stage. Eat it with chips, on tacos, on fish, chicken, or pork, or resort to my favorite method: with a spoon.

Yuca Root

Along a similar vein, we've got a new vegetable that bears mentioning this week: fresh Yuca Root. Yuca is a large starchy tuber that grows in tropical climates and is used like potatoes. Yuca has a slightly more fibrous character, however, so takes longer to cook than potatoes, but the result is a highly nutritious, versatile vegetable that hits the sweet spot of satisfyingly familiar and engagingly different. My advice for Yuca is to steam or boil it until tender, and then pan-fry it in coconut oil until golden and crispy on the outside. Finally, dust it with superfine salt (popcorn salt if you have it, or you can make it by putting sea salt in a spice grinder) and squeeze one lime and one orange over it. For as simple as this is, you will be feeling the island cuisine vibe of it all, I promise you. Your eyes will be saying French-fry, but your taste buds will say Mexican hat dance.

Another favorite that bears mentioning this week: clamshells of colorful organic mini-peppers. Mini-peppers are today's answer to the expensive (for some of us, prohibitive) cost of imported organic bell peppers during the winter months. For the price of one red pepper from Holland, you can get a whole container of multi-colored baby bell peppers. This is thanks to the magic of Hollywood. No, actually I don't know why it is this way, but let's just be glad that it is so. Enjoy these sweet, almost seedless, tender orange, yellow, and red peppers sliced raw into salads, sautéed with onions, or my favorite: stuffed with shredded pepper-jack cheese and baked for 15 minutes in a hot oven (try 400 and keep an eye on them). It is the slacker's version of...what...jalapeño poppers? I think jalapeño poppers ARE the slacker version of jalapeño poppers...but nevertheless these are really good.

Trusty Old Carrots

Scarlet Turnps

I hear you, I hear you—enough with the fancy stuff already. Let's get back to basics with the trusty old carrot. Rave reviews have been pouring in of late about our late-season locally grown Featherstone Farms carrots—available in bulk or economical 5# bags. Yeah, they're good and all if you think sweet, crunchy, flavor-saturated super nutritious root vegetables are good. Which...I do. These carrots will see you through stews, braises, and salads—but are dying to be the center star in a fresh carrot-dill soup or caramelized carrot sauté.

Bold colors are not just for carrots this week, though—scarlet turnips have returned. If you haven't tried these yet, these turnips have the power to change minds. If you think you don't like turnips or have the memory of a musty, kinda sharp and twangy flavor in your turnip paradigm—try these! Scarlet turnips are genuinely sweet, with a light, juicy texture. These are a huge hit when roasted and they don't require much preparation. The magenta skin is thin and non-bitter so you can just scrub it well and cube up the whole turnip.

Still local—still amazing—lovely heads of green cabbage. Cabbage slaw is a good thing to eat this time of year, especially in tandem with the heavier, starchy foods of winter. Plus that one "holiday" in March is coming—the cabbage holiday, you know, the one where we celebrate green stuff? Mmm cabbage holiday. No offense to ye Irish in the readership...

Kent Mangoes

Kiwi

Cara Cara Oranges

Fruit is in a state of constant transition these days—you might call it "tropical" season, as the consistently good stuff tends to be our pineapple, mangoes, and papaya this time of year. Our current Kent Mangoes are really nice—sporting a gentle and innocent sweet summer mango flavor, nothing like their peak-season diva status flavor that is not for the faint of heart.

Late February, early March is a time I champion those produce stand-by fruits that are always here and so never really get their day. Kiwi fruit is an excellent example of this. Kiwi has more potassium than a banana, more vitamin C than an orange, and here's the stunning new information I got today: there is alfa-linolineic acid in the kiwi seeds. So when eating a kiwi, crunch those seeds up—it will help you get more Omega-3 essential fatty acids in your diet. You can also eat the furry skin of a kiwi; I think it tastes rather good actually. Just wash it well so it isn't so prickly.

Cara Cara Navel oranges are still the nicest, seedless sweet thing in the land. These are ripe, heavy, robust oranges that are a pretty shade of sunset pink inside. Also known as "Red Navels" Cara Caras are the result of Navel oranges that have been crossed with a red Brazilian orange cultivar to produce a seedless, sweet, slightly tropical-flavored orange that is simple and bold and fun to eat.

Until March, faithful readers, and until then--every time I sip a pina colada, every time I pick out the freshest of locally grown fruits from the market stall—I will be thinking all the while about just how I would describe it to you.