Our winter hero

The winter of 2014 was the first cool season we spent at the farm. We had a steep learning curve about how difficult growing can be when soil temperatures are low. We were still experimenting with crops but were pulling our hair out when the carrots were not germinating, the cabbages were getting smashed by white moths, and the peas and beans were rotting in the ground. One rainy day, we were struggling through the mud to harvest produce, and were getting increasingly frustrated when nothing was to size.
Then, one of our junior staff’s hands struck gold when he uncovered a patch of huge, white crispy daikon radishes!
Daikon Radish was famously used by Japanese natural farming pioneer Masanobu Fukuoka to break up
compacted soils with their deep taproots. They grow prolifically in the Illawarra, in the cold season when a lot of other produce struggles. Anyone who was a customer back in the early years of our veg boxes would agree that for the first couple of winters we were a bit over-enthusiastic about daikon, so we’ve planted much less than we
used to. But we still think it’s worth celebrating this hero of winter every now and again, so this week is daikon week!
Enjoy
Cal ChampagneWilde Cafe
Green Connect Farm Manager

Have you checked out Wilde café in Thirroul? They’re a new pick-up hub for our boxes and are open for collections between 1:30-4pm and it’s right next to our other veg box hub
Taylor’s Healthy Grocers. They offer specialty coffee, fresh smoothies, yummy breakfast food, and desserts. Definitely a solid local business to support in the northern suburbs!

Whats that in my box: Sometimes known as Korean radish or Japanese radish, Daikon is famously used in East
Asian cooking , often fermented or pickled. But it can just as easily be shredded into a salad, chopped into a stir
fry or a curry, or used as starch in a pumpkin soup.
For more information on how to store cook any of our vegetables, visit: https://draxe.com/ and type in the veggie you’ re
looking for.

Vegan Daikon radish cakes

https://veggiesociety.com/best roasted broccoli recipe with lemon garlic/
Ingredients
1 large daikon radish, shredded
1 bag (400g) rice flour, as needed
3 tbsp vegetable oil + more for greasing pans
1 shallot, finely diced
6 shiitake mushrooms, diced daikon cake
1 small carrot, finely diced
2 green onion, diced
2 to 3 tsp sea salt
¼ tsp ground white pepper
Hoisin sauce or hot sauce, for serving
Method
Grease a deep large round pan (roughly 20cm wide, 5cm deep) liberally with oil. Set aside. Put the shredded daikon, and all its water, in a large mixing bowl. Add half a bag of rice flour (approximately 200g) to the radish and mix thoroughly. Keep adding rice flour until there is very little water at the bottom of the mixing bowl and the mixture becomes thick and gooey (the amount of rice flour needed will depend on the size of the radish and how much water was naturally in it). Heat 3 tbsp of vegetable oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, sauté the shallot until fragrant. Then add the shiitake mushrooms and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Finally, add the diced carrot and cook for another 1 minute or so. Add all the cooked veggies, and the oil that it was cooked in, into the radish mixture. Add the green onion then season with salt and white pepper. Mix until everything is combined. Transfer the radish cake batter into the greased pan and cover loosely with aluminium foil (this is to prevent any water from dripping onto the cake while it steams). Steam for 1 hour & 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool to room temperature then cover and refrigerate overnight. Slice chilled radish cake into rectangles. Heat a dribble of oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Sear both sides of the radish cake until golden brown. Serve hot with hoisin and hot sauce.

Roasted Broccoli with lemon & garlic

https://veggiesociety.com/best roasted broccoli recipe with lemon garlic/
Ingredients
1 broccoli, cut in florets
1/3 cup bread crumbs or panko for gf
2.5 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 lemon halved
1 tsp garlic powder
1.5 tsp onion pow derbroccoli
1 pinch red chili flakes to taste
1/2 tsp sea salt +more to taste
1/4 cup parmesan for serving
Method
Preheat oven to 220 C In a large baking tray toss together the broccoli florets with the olive oil, sea
salt, pepper flakes, garlic and onion powders. Sprinkle with the breadcrumbs then spread in one
layer preferably without touching each other Roast in the preheated oven for
20 to 25 minutes or until the florets are tender (but not mushy) when
pierced with a knife. Toss once halfway through cooking. Serve promptly with a good squeeze of
lemon juice and a sprinkling of parmesan over the top