Fresh Today from Wellspring Charitable Gardens - January 23, 2025

Fresh Today… Butternut Squash, Carrots, Swiss Chard, Green Onions, Salad Mix, Celery, White Salad Turnips, Parsley, Lemons, Tangerines, Grapefruit, Blood & Navel Oranges

Using your Produce… by Julie Moreno

After harvesting our butternut squash in the fall, we cure them. This is a process that dries and toughens the skin to help prevent the squash from rotting. Curing also naturally sweetens the squash by removing excess water. It also allows us to send out squash in January. You can roast the squash in the oven or try cooking it in an air-fryer. The air-fryer is faster, but you might be limited by its space. You want to make sure that the squash is only in a single layer for either oven or air-fryer. If you like, try adding a teaspoon of your favorite spices or herbs.

Roasted Butternut Squash

1 medium butternut squash,

    cubed, about 4-6 cups

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon salt

fresh ground black pepper

    to taste

* Preheat your oven to 425 °F or cook in an air-fryer set at 400 °F.  Toss the butternut squash cubes with the oil, ½ teaspoon salt and fresh ground black pepper.  Spread out on a parchment-lined baking sheet and cook in the oven for about 25 minutes, or the air-fryer 12-16 minutes, tossing halfway through cooking. Serve right away.

How and Why We Serve – WCM & WCG

Yesterday we received a call from a heart-broken parent seeking help for a hurting 6-year-old child who was sexually abused by her father.  This is precisely the service that Wellspring Counseling provides. Skilled professional child counselors are limited in number and those who are practicing are booked out for months. We reach out for support from our network of trusted professional therapists with whom we have developed relationships over the last 21 years. Cindi phoned a child therapist and former Wellspring Counseling Intern who graciously rearranged her tight schedule to provide care for the wounded child.

Thank you, Subscribers, for your faithful contributions through purchases of WCG produce and you, Volunteers, for faithfully working the fields and offering your time, effort, and talent with remarkable care and love. This is how you bind up wounds and bring healing to the hurting, and this family is so grateful! Gratefully, Cindi J Martin, Wellspring Counseling Ministries.

“He heals the brokenhearted

and binds up their wounds.”

                                   Psalm  147:3

Parsley Highlights…

Parsley often takes a back seat to the rest of the dish or is added for a pop of color on the plate. This simple pasta dish highlights parsley as a main ingredient. Serve as a side dish or a light lunch with crusty sourdough baguettes.

Garlic-Parsley Pasta

2 teaspoons salt

½ pound pasta

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

¼ cup chopped parsley

2-3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Fresh ground black pepper

* Heat a large pot with 6-8 cups of water and the salt. Bring to a boil and add the pasta. Stir well, reduce the heat to medium and cook the pasta, stirring occasionally until al dente.

Metaphors of Soil and Soul…

Seeds, No Doubt

Cindi J Martin

Elizabeth Elliott, wife of slain missionary Jim Elliott, is quoted as saying, “Don’t dig up in doubt what you have planted in faith.” These are encouraging words to hear in the dead and dark of winter, especially from one who had endured such incomprehensible loss. When our hopes and dreams grow cold and no signs of growth show above ground, it is easy to doubt, or even despair, that the seeds we have sown still live. Utterly disappointing is how our best efforts have not produced the results we eagerly expected.

Perhaps you imagine yourself in another season. You are facing stifling heat in your life. Seeds you have sown are scorched or, perhaps, have gone up in smoke. Do not despair. Turn to the California Sequoia for encouragement. It produces hardened cones that need fiery heat to open and release their precious seeds to the soil so they may take root.

It is tempting, though, when we see no growth to become disappointed or even to stop believing in the seeds we planted in faith with hope. It is tempting to dig them out of their dark bed or to remove them from the fire to find out what is happening to them. Master Gardeners, however, tell us to not disturb the seeds but to wait patiently and continue nurturing what we have planted. I find comfort in that advice. It affirms what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 5:3-5 about how to respond when we encounter dark or fiery trials.  He encourages us to stay the course and endure in faith, the very same faith, by which we planted:

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.”

Remaining rooted in dark or heated adversity produces strength of character and confident hope, the fruits of endurance and remedies to doubt. In faith with hope, Elizabeth Elliott returned to the Auca tribe of Ecuador to tend to the seed sown by her husband’s sacrifice. It did not disappoint but bore eternal fruit in time.