What’s News at the Market this Week?
Are you keen to reduce the chemicals in your home? Melo from Wild Organic Wash – WOW – is joining our market this week with four cleaning products based on camphor laurel and mineral rich water and another two products that also include aloe vera. The aloe vera is grown by Melo on her farm at Burringbar.
The idea behind Wild Organic Wash has been incubating for a long time with the very original version produced in the Burringbar garage of the Jenal brothers’ father Alfons who sadly passed away before the recipe was released.
The Jenal brothers remember their mother being very impressed by the cleaner Alfons created and so eighteen months ago they began developing this product. Using a unique extraction process to obtain camphor laurel in its purest form, they now have products using this ubiquitous local weed as a natural anti-bacterial base across their range. WOW is also the comment they most often get from people testing out the products.
To find out more visit Melo this week in the pavilion next to Barry at Caldera Honey.
What’s GREAT at the Market this Week?
So much is great right now – all our tropical fruit – mangoes, dragon fruit, papaya, passionfruit, bananas and more as well as some of the more unusual greens such as Egyptian spinach and Timor lettuce (in the photo at the top of this week’s newsletter). I will write about these two unusual greens next week with recipes for both to inspire.
This week though we are shining the spotlight on CORN as it is available at all our farm stalls right now … and don’t you love the photo above taken at one of Jumping Red Ant’s plots at Bilambil – corn with a view and newly planted beans (thanks Briana).
Corn on the cob is such a wonderfully versatile food and it is at its peak in the summer months. Did you know that combining raw corn with cooked beans gives you a meal that has a complete protein?
For those of you fascinated by the classifications of our food, corn (zea mays) belongs to the Poaceae family, and while eaten sometimes as a vegetable and sometimes as a grain, it is actually classified by botanists as a fruit, as are tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, zucchini and other squashes that we refer to as vegies.
Although you may be more used to the traditional ways of preparing sweet corn cobs, including grilling, roasting, boiling, or steaming – all very enjoyable ways to eat corn, did you know that one of the nicest ways to eat fresh, young sweet corn is raw? Fresh young corn cobs are so tender and especially sweet. I find raw too hard to resist.
Choose only the freshest looking cobs, shuck the corn and remove all of the silk. It’s important to eat the corn as soon as possible after harvesting, because the longer it is stored the more the starches break down and it takes on a much more dense flavour.
The simplest and most basic way to eat raw corn is straight from the cob or slice the kernels off with a sharp knife, and make them into a salsa, salad or raw soup. Any uneaten kernels can be refrigerated for 3 days…but I recommend steaming them first, so as to keep their flavour.
Raw corn soups are one of my favourite ways to enjoy corn, so simple and quick so we’ve included a raw corn chowder for your to enjoy this week. You will find it in the recipes section below in our weekly newsletter.