Fresh from Wellspring Charitable Gardens Today - January 9, 2025

Fresh Today… Cabbage, Kale, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Sweet Potatoes, Spinach, Radishes, Carrots, Celery, Parsley, Oranges, Lemons, & a Loofah

Using your Produce… by Julie Moreno

This week, with more cauliflower, I have a recipe for roasted cauliflower with raisins and pinenuts. The raisins add sweetness, and the nuts add fat and texture. I like to coarsely chop the raisins so that they don’t plump up when cooked.  If you don’t have pine nuts, walnuts make a good substitute but feel free to try almonds or cashews as well. You don’t have to worry about toasting the nuts ahead of time, because you’ll cook them with the cauliflower.

Roasted Cauliflower with Raisins and Pine Nuts

1 medium head cauliflower

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

½ lemon, juiced

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ cup golden raisins, coarsely chopped

¼ cup pine nuts

* Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut the cauliflower into florets steak-sized slices and add to a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle with the oil, lemon juice, salt, black pepper and garlic. Mix well and spread the florets on the baking sheet in a single layer. Cook in the oven about 15 minutes. The remove from the oven and sprinkle the florets with raisins and pine nuts. Return to the oven and cook for another 10-15 minutes. Serve right away.

Pillars of Creations

Beginnings! The James Webb Space Telescope has newly revealed wonders that only ancient words had so far declared:

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,

What is man that You are mindful of him,

And the son of man that You care for him?

For You have made him a little lower than the angels,

And You have crowned him with glory and honor.  Psalm 8

May your 2025 be filled with "intimidating beauty" and may you delight in the glorious awareness that the "mindful" LORD "cares for you" and has crowned you "with glory and honor!" Have a majestic New Year!

"The Webb Space Telescope has enhanced the view of the Pillars of Creation, revealing hundreds of newly born stars sparkling inside the dust clouds of the Eagle Nebula. The first image stunned astronomers with its intimidating beauty."

Not from a Can…

With all the celery that we have at the garden right now, I recommend making Cream of Celery Soup. This soup is nothing like the canned version. You have to give this delicious fresh-made soup a try.

Cream of Celery Soup

1 medium yellow onion,         ½ teaspoon fresh or

    chopped, about 1 cup                dried thyme

4 cups chopped celery             1 teaspoon salt

    stalks and leaves                   2 tablespoons flour

1 large potato, peeled              2-3 cups water

    and chopped                           ½ cup half and half

* In a large saucepan cook the onions, celery, potato, butter, thyme and salt over medium heat for 6-8 minutes, if needed add a few tablespoons water to keep the vegetables from drying out. Add the flour and stir well to coat the vegetables.  Add water, to just barely cover the vegetables, about 2 cups and bring to a boil and let simmer for 15-20 minutes until the celery and potato are soft. Remove from the heat and blend with an immersion blender. Stir in the half and half, taste for salt, pepper and adjust the consistency with water if needed.  Garnish with lemon or hot sauce and croutons or crackers if you have them.  Enjoy now or the next day, it’s great reheated.

Metaphors of Soil and Soul…

Letting Go

Cindi J. Martin

Blustery autumn winds and late fall rainstorms mercilessly stripped our fruit trees of their beautiful multicolored coats. Surprising hope remained, though, despite the storm driven loss: tiny buds grow at bare places on boney limbs once adorned in glorious leaves. Observe closely and you will notice that the new growth was already nudging those decaying leaves toward their risky plunge downward into the unknown. Nascent buds foreshadow coming spring, though on the eve of grim winter, wind and storm violently detached those beautiful leaves and summarily dispatched them toward earth below, their final resting place.

Trees endure their storm and wind driven loss by welcoming the budding hope. Soon, in the warmth of spring, those buds will burst forth into delicate flowers and verdant leaves. Then the familiar cycle repeats: glorious flower petals will wither and fade in the late spring heat. Then comes the nudge, and the fragile petals drop to earth to make room for the growth of sweet sun-ripened summer fruit. Comfort comes in knowing that the desired fruit forms despite the despised loss.

Each season of life involves some measure of letting go. In the barren grief born of that loss, we rarely recognize the hidden promise of new growth that nudges our once beautiful but now fading glories toward their final rest. We are reluctant, even loathe, to imagine that grim loss could ever make room for lasting gain. Do you sense the LORD nudging you to make room for new growth, nudging you to release something precious and once beautiful but now faded and no longer needed? Do you hold too tightly and resist release, despite the coming, inevitable free fall driven by relentless winds and severe storms? From trees may we learn to yield readily as God nudges. May we in hope let go and make room for glorious new growth. I can imagine the trees clapping their hands as you yield to Him and let go in joy and peace!

“For you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace

and the mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy

before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.”    

Isaiah 55:12-12