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It’s impossible to miss the plump organic tomatoes in this week’s Dogma Boxes because they’re the first locally grown tomatoes we’ve seen in a very long time.

It’s still way too early in the season to get our hands on any local field grown tomatoes, but these beauties come to us by way of Deep Root Organic Coop’s geothermally heated greenhouses.

One of Deep Root’s member farms grows a mix of juicy red tomatoes and “pink rose” tomatoes, which are slightly paler but full of vibrant tomato-y flavors that will have you itching for summer.

Locavore Recipe of the Week

The weather’s warming up, but with a few April showers in the forecast this week it still feels a lot like soup season.

This week’s recipe for Carrot-Parsnip Soup with Sunchoke Chips combines a few of the winter’s finest root vegetables in one delicious blend. Winter Moon Farm intentionally left a few rows of parsnips in the ground over the winter and the lengthy frost has made these spring-dug parsnips particularly sweet!

This soup can be made entirely out of locally sourced organic vegetables and the addition of lightly fried sunchoke chips adds both a complementary crunch and a rich, umami flavor.

This Week’s Local Produce

Radish Medley Spring Dug Parsnips

Turnips

Sunchokes
Hot House Tomatoes

All of the fruits and vegetables we deliver are grown without synthetic pesticides and are USDA certified organic. Interested in receiving produce that’s both organic and locally sourced all year round? Check out our Local Dogma Box.

Similar to a CSA or farm share, our Local Dogma Box is filled with the best organic produce from local and regional farms and brought right to your door each week. It’s the easiest way to eat like a locavore!

Spring is a season of change. First the time changed. Then the weather changed. Now, as the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, the variety of fruits and vegetables in your boxes will start to change too.

The Citrus Cycle

You may have noticed that the varieties of citrus in your boxes were different throughout the winter as particular mandarins and oranges came in and out of season. The Cara Cara and Blood Oranges, which are two of the most colorful fruits available in the winter, are winding down and Valencia oranges are starting to take their place.

Valencia oranges aren’t the prettiest of the bunch (some even turn a little green after they ripen), but they’re one of the sweetest varieties of oranges. Their thin skins and bold flavors mark a delicious end to the citrus cycle. Juicy plums are starting to make an appearance in a few boxes, and soon stone fruit will replace citrus as the fruit du jour.

Meyer lemon season has come to a close, but we’re now offering 1 lb. bags of organic juicing lemons for all of your cooking needs in the seasonal produce section of our grocery add-on webpage. You can also get organic strawberries this week and organic asparagus starting next week.

Various Veggies

Over the next few weeks you’ll see our selection of root vegetables being replaced with the likes of green beans and artichokes – both of which can be found in this week’s boxes!

Almost half of the Boston Organics Community will find fresh green beans in their boxes this week, which means it’s the perfect time for us to share our recipe for Greek-Style Braised Green Beans. The recipe calls for large Roma tomatoes, but cherry tomatoes will work too if you slice them in half. Using quality ingredients is essential for this recipe, which relies on fresh tomatoes, garlic and lemon to build a succulent, slow-cooked flavor.

Speaking of tomatoes, this Cherry Tomato and Cucumber Salad is a simple yet excellent recipe for those getting the 2/3 Vegetables boxes. It can be enjoyed as a springy side dish or mixed with feta cheese and scooped onto a bed of organic red leaf lettuce for a more filling meal.

The Small Box and the All Veggie Boxes get to experience the delightful flavor of organic baby artichokes from California this week. Most of the baby artichokes haven’t even developed a “choke,” which makes preparing them a breeze. Just remove a few of the outer leaves, slice them in half, drizzle them with olive oil and throw them on the grill. This recipe for Grilled Artichokes with Parsley and Garlic is just the excuse you’ve been looking for to fire up the BBQ, but a grill pan will work if you want to stay indoors.

The seasons are definitely changing, but if you find yourself waxing nostalgic for more root veggies, you can always stock up on fresh sweet potatoes and russet potatoes in our add-on produce section.

Enjoy your box and have a delicious week!

We hope everyone had a happy Easter, a meaningful Passover and a wonderful spring weekend.

As those fabled April showers start to kick in, we’re finally able to say goodbye to this historic winter and look ahead to an abundant local season. Winter Moon Farm, one of our most prolific organic farm partners during the winter months, is starting to slow their deliveries to the Boston Organics warehouse, but they’re bringing us a special harvest of spring dug parsnips for us to enjoy this week.

The first harvests from our summer farm partners, including Atlas Farm, are still several weeks away, but Red Fire Farm in Granby, MA and Deep Root Organic Coop in Johnson, VT are keeping our boxes full of fresh, organic fruits and veggies in the meantime.

This Apple and Beet Charoset is a marvelous seasonal recipe that can be made with the organic produce found in many of the Boston Organics Community’s boxes this week. Though it’s traditionally associated with the Passover holiday, it’s a great spread for toast and a delicious topping to organic Greek yogurt.

One of our favorite new recipes to make this spring is Baked Pasta with Swiss Chard. Every 2/3-Vegetable and All-Vegetable box will get a single bunch of chard this week (unless it’s on your No-List), the mainstay of this savory dish.

Check out the +50 chard recipes on our website and don’t forget to order Kimball Brook Farm Half & Half and Neighborly Farms Raw Milk Cheddar from our add-on section. You can also always stock up on pasta, onions and garlic if your pantry is running low.

Enjoy your box and have a delicious week!

The ground has thawed in central Massachusetts and that can only mean one thing…it’s time for spring dug parsnips!

Every fall, Winter Moon Farm harvests most of their parsnips so that we’re able to enjoy them during the harsh New England winter, but Michael Docter always leaves a few rows of parsnips in the ground to “overwinter.”

Once the snow covers the soil, the plants lose their shoots and leaves and the root begins to naturally convert its starches into sugars. In the spring, Michael pulls these super sweet and delicious parsnips from the cold, hard ground and brings them to share with the Boston Organics Community!

Locavore Recipe of the Week

The organic rainbow carrots from Deep Root Organic Coop and the fresh cut rosemary from Happy Valley Organics’ greenhouses add an extra splash of color to this week’s Dogma Boxes.

Combine these goodies with the local spring dug parsnips, a knob of butter and a drizzle of honey and you’ve got yourself one delicious locally sourced dish.

Check out this amazing spring recipe and if you’re able to obtain the perfect glazing, be sure to snap a photo and tag @BostonOrganics on Twitter or Instagram.

This Week’s Local Produce

If New Yorkers were carrots, parsnips would be the Bostonians of the vegetable world. For no discernible reason, parsnips are inhibited by a bit of an inferiority complex despite being much friendlier to the palate than the more popular orange root.

Lots of TV shows and movies portray New Yorkers happily eating carrots. And while we couldn’t find any famous movies with scenes about parsnips, rumor has it that Good Will Hunting had some promising deleted scenes.

Parsnips and carrots can both be harvested in the fall and eaten all winter long, but much like Bostonians, the ivory-skinned root has a love-hate relationship with the cold. Parsnips and Bostonians are both hardy enough to survive even the bitterest of winters while carrots and New Yorkers wither at the first sign of snow.

In fact, parsnips can be kept in the ground all winter long, allowing the cold weather to convert the root’s starches into natural sugars. So spring-dug parsnips, much like Bostonians, literally become sweeter as the ground thaws.

Parsnips have a solid core, which can be easily popped out when the cylindrical root is cut into quarters and are also a little nutty, much like any true diehard Pats fan.

Parsnips could also beat the Yankees in a seven game series without breaking a sweat.

Parsnip Recipes

Alright, enough with the extended metaphor already. Here’s some of our favorite parsnip (and carrot) recipes:

Spring is the season of seedlings, baby bunnies and all things new. Quite suitably, our local farm partners are harvesting lots of crisp, young vegetables for us this week.

Dogma Box customers will be introduced to Lebanese cucumbers, one of the most adorable spring vegetables. These tiny cucumbers are a special variety that is meant to be harvested at a young age.

They have very few seeds and edible skins that don’t need to be peeled at all. This makes them ideal for tossing into a simple salad or for making quick pickles!

Grown by one of Deep Root Organic Coop’s member farms, L’Abri Vegetal, these mini cukes were grown in a greenhouse heated with geothermal power. Though the farm is located across the border in southern Quebec, it’s actually about as far away from us as Bangor, ME.

The Lebanese cucumbers are joined by freshly harvested organic alfalfa sprouts from Jonathan’s Sprouts in Rochester, MA. One serving of sprouts contains 3 grams of protein and a whole bunch of essential vitamins and minerals!

Locavore Recipe of the Week

This Smooth and Crunchy Sandwich probably looks familiar to vegans who commonly rely on the natural proteins in chickpeas and whole grain breads to maintain a balanced diet.

Perfected by the acclaimed New York chef and restauranteur, Marcus Samuelsson, this sandwich will gratify any veggie loving omnivore with its perfect blend of flavors and textures.

The sliced avocado can be omitted by committed locavores, but we find that it adds an important element to the sandwich’s overall composition. Those wanting to keep it really close to home can make their own hummus with the Boston Organics Hummus Meal Kit.

This Week’s Local Produce

There’s a lot to celebrate this week! Whether you’re preparing for an Easter brunch, a Passover seder or simply reveling in the start of spring, we have plenty of delicious organic goodies for you to enjoy.

Alfalfa sprouts, leeks and collard greens are just some of the many gorgeous spring vegetables going in our boxes this week.

If you’re trying to sneak some vegetables onto a loved one’s plate this Easter you might want to try Southern Style Creamed Collards. Cooked in bacon fat and butter, then sprinkled with bacon and more butter, this is about as indulgently gluttonous as collards can get.

Those looking for something a little less heart attack-inducing might opt for a Smooth and Crunchy Vegan Sandwich. This sandwich features locally grown alfalfa sprouts and it’s a great meal for veggie lovers of all ages. Organic sprouts are also a very healthy addition to soups, salads and wraps.

Spring is a difficult time of year for organic fruit growers. We’re starting to transition out of citrus season and into the very beginning of stone fruit season. Usually we would see the first harvest of plums and pluots from Mexican growers by the first week of April, but difficulties with pollination has drastically limited the amount of organic stone fruit growing south of the border.

We’ll hopefully see more stone fruit in May, assuming California can sort out their issues with the historic drought. In the meantime, we have juicy organic strawberries and a few other treats to tide us over.

We tested out this Heirloom Apple Salsa last weekend and loved the way the sweet honey and spicy jalapeno peppers combined when paired with salty blue corn multigrain chips from Late July. We might even make it again this Friday as a modern twist on the traditional Passover dish, charoset.

Almost any organic apple can be added to this salsa, including the Empire apples from Dwight Miller and Son Orchards. This salsa’s a guaranteed crowd pleaser at parties, but it can also be used as a healthy addition to your late-night snacking routine.

Want to dye eggs for Easter but don’t want to bring a bunch of synthetic chemicals into your kitchen? Make natural dye out of organic beets, onions, cabbage and more! Click here for easy step-by-step instructions.

Enjoy your box and have a delicious week!

It’s official—we’ve made it through one of the worst winters in Boston’s history. Spring is here and while it will still be several weeks before the official start of the “local season,” our organic farm partners are sowing seeds and prepping their fields for a new set of crops.

Signs of spring are all around us. For instance, the first berries of the year are on their way from California right now. You can already place an order for a 1lb container of organic strawberries to be included in your next delivery.

We also have delicious Bartlett and Red Bartlett pears in many of the boxes. The Red Delicious apples, which can be found in all of the half-and-half boxes this week, are also pretty tasty. This variety has earned an unfavorable reputation over the years, but after giving them a taste we felt that this batch of beautiful, organic Red Delicious apples is worth giving a second chance.

Read Miller, owner of Dwight Miller and Son Orchards and our primary local apple grower, tells us that maple season is well underway on his farm in southern Vermont. Maple season is, in fact, pretty short here in New England. To get sap from the trees, you need the temperature to warm up during the day but drop below freezing at night. You can try some of Read Miller’s grade B organic maple syrup by visiting the Pantry Staples section of our website.

Happy Valley Organics is cutting some fresh dill for the Boston Organics Community this week. Grown in their solar powered greenhouses in central Massachusetts, this dill is a wonderful addition to early spring recipes. Try it with Winter Moon Farm’s beets in this Mediterranean Beet and Yogurt Salad.

We also recommend this Potato and Radish Salad. Instead of smothering the vegetables in mayo or a heavy dressing, the mustard-dill vinaigrette provides a lighter alternative that complements the red potatoes we have coming from Nature’s Circle Farm in Aroostook County, ME.

Enjoy your box and have a delicious week!

Much like pondering a glass containing equal parts water and air, the way you look at a black radish demonstrates whether you’re a pessimist or an optimist.

For pessimistic locavores, a black radish symbolizes the depths of winter; the soft and hard rind squashes have all been eaten, the local winter greens have been buried beneath several feet of snow and the supply of more colorful storage crops are running low.

But the optimist locavore looks beneath the black radish’s thick skin and recognizes the sweet and spicy flesh just beneath the surface.

The optimist might consider this portentous root to be the very first sign of spring because wherever a black radishes appears, the first spring-dug parsnips and local asparagus harvest are soon to follow.

These hardy radishes have made it through the winter and so have you! Optimists can celebrate this accomplishment with Black Radish Chips or a Black Radish and Potato Salad.

And this Black Radish and Blood Orange Salad is so tasty that you might just convince those pessimists that the glass is half full after all.

This Week’s Local Produce

Dogma Box customers have an exciting new item in their boxes this week: Adirondack Blue potatoes from Red Fire Farm.

Unlike your common colored potatoes that look like any old russet beneath the skin, Adirondack Blues have a radiant bluish-purple flesh. This coloring indicates the presence of an antioxidant called anthocyanin, which also gives blueberries, raspberries and grapes their vivid hues.

Adirondack Blue potatoes are a hybrid variety created at Cornell University about a decade ago, but it wasn’t widely planted until Penn State partnered with Utz to create potato chips that matched the university’s colors.

There’s no need to be alarmed by this potato’s genetic history. Its lineage can be traced back to potatoes that have been grown in the Andes Mountains for over 8000 years and its organic certification verifies that it has not undergone any transgenic modification.

Adirondack Blue potatoes are celebrated for their ability to remain moist when baked, their low starch content, and most obviously for their unique coloring which has been used by adventurous chefs to create striking new dishes.

Locavore Recipe of the Week

Adirondack Blue potatoes lose their coloring a little when they’re boiled, so if you want to preserve its natural vibrant blue, its best to microwave or bake the little tubers.

This recipe for Potatoes Boulangere comes from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. The concept for potatoes boulangere, however, originated in France centuries ago when people in rural areas did not own their own ovens.

Acclaimed foodie James Beard explains that “on their way to church, women would take the Sunday roast of lamb in a dish, surrounded with sliced onions and potatoes, to the baker to be cooked in his oven while the family prayed. Afterward, they picked it up and took it home for lunch, perfectly done.”

Making a good potato boulangere requires a bit of preparation, slicing the potatoes thinly and spreading the ingredients evenly in the dish, but once you slide it in the oven the hardest part is having to wait patiently before digging into the crispy, cheesy top.