Dragon Fruit, also called Pitaya, is indigenous to the Americas. Today the cactus vine is grown around the world in sub-tropical areas for its beautiful fruits. The fruit’s texture is often compared to the kiwifruit because of it’s small, black, crunchy seeds. The taste of dragon fruit is sometimes described as bland though it is refreshing and mildly sweet. It has versatile uses in deserts, smoothies, sorbets, salads and as a fresh fruit.

Preparation:

The fruit can be sliced lengthwise and the flesh scooped out or it can be quartered and the leathery skin can be peeled back. Eat only the flesh, not the peel which is bitter.

Farms that grow Dragon Fruit:

Local Harvest

 

 

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Kabocha is a variety of winter squash, often referred to as a Japanese pumpkin. It’s sometimes described as a cross between sweet potato and pumpkin in flavor and texture. It’s sweet taste, velvety texture, massive offering of nutritional benefit and versatility, make it a prized staple vegetable in Japan. You can substitute it within recipes that call for acorn and butternut squash or pumpkin. Most forward nutritients are beta carotene, vitamin C, iron, and potassium with smaller amounts of B vitamins, folic acid and calcium.

How to select a Kabocha:

The two things to look for are weight and color. Skin should be a rich, deep green and it should feel heavier than expected. Ripeness is indicated by golden speckling and stripes on the exterior.

How to prepare Kabocha:

Carefully slice the entire squash in half, keeping in mind that it’s dense and might be difficult to cut. Like other squashes, you’ll want to scoop out the pulp and seeds, leaving the meat behind. From here you can slice it into wedges for roasting, simmering, pureing, or baking. You can also grate it to add texture to breads or other baked dishes and desserts. The skin is ok to leave on.

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Lemongrass is widely used as a culinary herb in Asian cuisine and also as medicinal herb in India. It is commonly used in teas, soups, and curries. It is also suitable for use with poultry, fish, beef, and seafood.  Research shows that lemongrass oil has antifungal properties.

Preparation

1. The softer, fleshier, pale yellow part of the lemongrass – which is what you want to use in your cooking – is located under the tough outer leaves. Peel away these layers and discard.

2. Then use a sharp serrated knife to slice off the lower bulb, which includes about 2 inches of the end. Discard.  The stalk is now easy to slice into pieces.  Stop slicing when you have cut two-thirds of the way up the stalk, or when it is no longer yellow. The upper end the stalk will be green and woody, but is still useful in cooking soups and curries.

3. Because lemongrass is so firm and fibrous, it helps to process the slices a little further. Place the lemongrass in a food processor and process well on “high”, or pound for a minute or two with a pestle & mortar. It’s possible to use the lemongrass slices as they are, but the thicker slices will be difficult to eat.

4. Your lemongrass should now appear finer – almost like yellow-green flakes. It is now ready to use in recipes such as curries or soups (note that the lemongrass still needs to cook or be boiled for at least 5 minutes before it is soft enough to be edible).

Storage: Use the lemongrass immediately, or store lemongrass by freezing it in a sealed container in your freezer. With lemongrass, very little is wasted. You can use the upper, reserved stalk to add even more flavor and fragrance to soups and curries. Simply make several cuts along the length of the stalk and bend it several times to “bruise” it. This will release the fragrance and flavor. Now throw the stalk into your soup or curry pot.

Farmers that grow Lemon Grass

• Ho Farms

Recipes

• Tom Kha Soup
• Vietnamese hamburgers
• Lemongrass chicken

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The Roma Tomato is a plum tomato. They can be egg or pear-shaped and are generally a good for canning, sautés and sauces because of their small size and firm, meaty texture. Compared to other tomato varieties, these little guys are great for cooking: they boil down faster, have more flesh, less juice, fewer seeds and have great big sweetness and acid flavor. Smaller plum tomatoes can be closer in size to cherry tomatoes and are sometimes called ‘baby Romas.’ All tomatoes are a great source of phytonutrients, several vitamins and minerals and are known especially for the carotenoid lycopene, which packs a strong antioxidant punch and gives them their red color. The Italians are thought to be the first Western society to adopt the tomato into their diets, and their word for it – pomodoro – means golden apple.

How to prepare Roma Tomatoes:

Roma tomatoes are often used in canning or sauce making. They can be enjoyed raw and eaten as any another tomato. Slicing a roma tomato is best done from the halfs: take each half face-down and anchor them to the cutting surface with your hand. From here, make several vertical slices and let the size be determined by how many slices you want. To create a dice, rotate these slices 90 degrees and slice downward, away from you.

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Papaya is native to the tropics of the Americas in the regions of southern Mexico and Central America. The papaya is a tree-like plant that can grow over 30 feet tall. The fruit is a type of berry and when ripe it feels soft and the skin turns an amber to orange hue.

Papaya plants grow in three sexes: male, female, and hermaphrodite. The male produces only pollen, never fruit. The female will produce small, inedible fruits unless pollinated. The hermaphrodite can self-pollinate because its flowers contain both male stamens and female ovaries. As a result almost all commercial papaya orchards contain only hermaphrodite papaya plants.

In 1998, in response to the papaya ringspot virus (PRV) outbreak in Hawaii, genetically altered papaya were approved and brought to market (including ‘SunUp’ and ‘Rainbow’ varieties.) Varieties resistant to PRV have some DNA of this virus incorporated into the DNA of the plant.

Preparation:

Papayas are often eaten raw. The fruit is cut in half and the seeds removed. The flesh can be scooped out or cut into wedges.

Farms that grow papaya:

Kumu Farms

Lokoea Farms

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