Radish Harvest!

The garden is full of excitement and anticipation once things start to really take off and grow to maturity. Today the Garden Club harvested a medley of delicious radishes just as the raindrops started falling on our heads. Radishes are often considered little more than a condiment or something spicy to throw into a salad, a sandwich or a taco. While we love radishes for the crunch and their kick and often enjoy them these ways ourselves, we're hoping to discover some new favorite preparations in our class.

So, we will be sampling radishes three ways in our cooking class on Wednesday: raw, pickled, and roasted. If you've never had a roasted a radish, it's definitely worth the effort (minimal) to taste the remarkable transformation that this tiny little veg undergoes in the bathing warmth of the oven--it actually because kind of rich and sweet, or even "succulent" to borrow the word from a recent New York Times article. Several of the food blogs we read compared a roasted radish to the flavor of a turnip, something the students will be tasting later in the harvest this summer so we'll have to make a mental note and compare the flavors ourselves. We are going to roast the radishes with their greens to add even more nutrients to our little After School snack.

Here are a few of the best recipes circulating around the web for roasted radishes:

• Roasted Radishes with Radish Greens
• Roasted Radish Salad
• Roasted Radishes

Before you can roast a radish you've grown yourself, you have to pick. Be careful of the leaves which can be a little prickly, grab the base of the greens just about the root, wiggle the radish in the soil to loosen it, and then simply pull it up. You'll want to wash these babies off before eating them, but they are great for snacking just as is, or with a sprinkling of salt. Radishes are related to cauliflower and broccoli and are a nutritional powerhouse--despite the fact that they are very low in calories. They are very high in Vitamin C. The greens are also a great source of iron, thiamin and calcium. So, find yourself a radish, eat up and enjoy!