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‘Taste Winter!’ cookbook shows how to make the most of your cool-season harvest

Enjoy winter fruit and vegetables with these home-grown recipes

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED FEB 1, 2024

Fresh-off-the-tree oranges mean winter to those of us lucky enough to live in California. Find several citrus-based recipes in the "Taste Winter! cookbook. Kathy Morrison

Beat the winter blahs with cool-season aahs!

Elsewhere around the country, snow and freezing weather shuts down garden-minded cooks. But here in Sacramento, we make full use of year-round gardening – and our cool-season harvest.

See how in “Taste Winter!,” the latest in our collection of seasonal e-cookbooks.

In this Sacramento Digs Gardening recipe collection, discover almost 70 delicious ways to enjoy our local harvest of winter fruit and vegetables. Packed with nutritious fresh produce, these recipes will help you eat healthier, too.

Start your day with a hearty, fruity breakfast treat such as fluffy lime scones or triple apple coffee cake. In this collection, find 18 breakfast recipes to wake up your taste buds.

Leafy green vegetables such as kale, spinach and bok choy come into season at the same time we’re trying to eat healthier – at the start of the new year – and when we really need that added dose of antioxidants. Enjoy vegetable-forward main dishes, salads and soups that are packed with nutrients and great taste. (There are several vegetarian options, too!)

Asparagus – a seasonal treasure – sprouts with the first warmth of late February or March. It’s been a local favorite for generations in such recipes as baked asparagus a la Sacramento.

What about fruit? Citrus – California’s star winter crop for generations – adds zest and juicy flavor to a wide range of winter recipes from blood orange mimosas and grapefruit-roasted beet-avocado chopped salad to fresh lemon pasta and Meyer lemon crème brûlée. Simple kumquat sauce can go sweet (as a dessert-like topping for yogurt or pound cake) or savory as a tart complement to grilled chicken or pork tenderloin.

Apples and persimmons may be holdovers from late fall, but they add sweetness and flavor to hearty desserts and baked goods.

In late winter, the season’s first strawberries can be showcased in old-fashioned desserts such as strawberry fool or strawberry spoon cake.

So many possibilities! These recipes prove that – even in the dark days of winter – you still can eat local, in season – and fresh. (That’s another reason why we dig gardening – and cooking – in Sacramento!)

Find this new e-cookbook at: https://sacdigsgardening.californialocal.com/article/83747-taste-winter-recipes-from-your-garden/

What’s cooking in this collection?

Featured vegetables include: Asparagus, beans (dried), beets, bok choy, Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, cabbage, cardoon, carrots, cauliflower, chard, fava greens, fennel, garlic, greens, kale, leek, onion, potato, pumpkin, spinach, sweet potato and turnip.

Featured fruit and nuts include: Almond, apple, avocado, grapefruit, kumquat, lemon, lime, mandarin, orange, rose hip, persimmon, pomegranate and strawberry.

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GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

cooking baking recipe recipes e-cookbook winter citrus oranges appetizers soup salad main dishes dessert Sacramento gardening backyard produce farmers markets farm to fork

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Flowers in My Back Yard Series

May 12: Know your coreopsis from your bidens

May 5: Mums the word on Mother's Day weekend

April 28: Majestic Matilija poppy is worth a look

April 21: Celebrate roses, America's favorite flower

April 14: Small flowers with outsized impact

April 7: Calendulas do double duty

April 3: Make Easter lilies last for years to come

March 31: In praise of a pollinator magnet (small-leaf salvias)

March 24: Azaleas brighten shady spots

March 17: The perfect flower for beginners? Try zonal geraniums

March 10: Keep camellias happy for years to come

March 3: Fruit tree blossoms are a fleeting joy

Feb. 27: Are your roses looking rusty?

Feb. 24: Treasure spring daffodils now and for years to come

Feb. 17: How and why to grow wildflowers

Feb. 10: Let's talk Valentine's Day roses

Feb. 3: Why grow flowers?

Local News

Taste Spring! E-cookbook

Find our spring recipes here!

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Garden checklist for week of May 17

With an eye on warmer weather to come, continue to work on the summer vegetable garden:

* Remember to irrigate your tender transplants. The wind can quickly dry out young plants. Seedlings need consistent moisture. Deep watering will help build strong roots and healthy plants. Water early in the morning for best results.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. (You also can transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.)

* Plant dahlia tubers.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, calibrachoa, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Put your veggie garden on a regular diet. Set up a monthly feeding program, and keep track on your calendar. Make sure to water your garden before applying any fertilizer to prevent “burning” your plants.

* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.

* Don’t forget to weed! Those invaders are growing fast.

Send us a gardening question, a post suggestion or information about an upcoming event. sacdigsgardening@gmail.com

Taste Summer! E-cookbook