Enjoy winter fruit and vegetables with these home-grown recipes
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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Garden Checklist for week of Jan. 12
Once the winds die down, it’s good winter gardening weather with plenty to do:
* Prune, prune, prune. Now is the time to cut back most deciduous trees and shrubs. The exceptions are spring-flowering shrubs such as lilacs.
* Now is the time to prune fruit trees. (The exceptions are apricot and cherry trees, which are susceptible to a fungus that causes dieback. Save them until summer.) Clean up leaves and debris around the trees to prevent the spread of disease.
* Prune roses, even if they’re still trying to bloom. Strip off any remaining leaves, so the bush will be able to put out new growth in early spring.
* Clean up leaves and debris around your newly pruned roses and shrubs. Put down fresh mulch or bark to keep roots cozy.
* After the wind stops, apply horticultural oil to fruit trees to control scale, mites and aphids. Oils need 24 hours of dry weather after application to be effective.
* This is also the time to spray a copper-based fungicide to peach and nectarine trees to fight leaf curl. (The safest effective fungicides available for backyard trees are copper soap -- aka copper octanoate -- or copper ammonium, a fixed copper fungicide. Apply either of these copper products with 1% horticultural oil to increase effectiveness.)
* When forced bulbs sprout, move them to a cool, bright window. Give them a quarter turn each day so the stems will grow straight.
* Browse through seed catalogs and start making plans for spring and summer.
* Divide daylilies, Shasta daisies and other perennials.
* Cut back and divide chrysanthemums.
* Plant bare-root roses, trees and shrubs.
* Transplant pansies, violas, calendulas, English daisies, snapdragons and fairy primroses.
* In the vegetable garden, plant fava beans, head lettuce, mustard, onion sets, radicchio and radishes.
* Plant bare-root asparagus and root divisions of rhubarb.
* In the bulb department, plant callas, anemones, ranunculus and gladioli for bloom from late spring into summer.
* Plant blooming azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons. If you’re shopping for these beautiful landscape plants, you can now find them in full flower at local nurseries.
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