This week we welcome the harbinger of the southern Tasmanian spring – pink eye potatoes! Like asparagus, the pink eye has a short season, traditionally planted in winter for a spring harvest, and southerners go mad for them at this time of the year. South Arm pink eyes have a particular cachet, but whilst John’s pink eyes, grown south of Cygnet in Lymington, start harvest a bit later, we reckon they’re as good if not better! Pops BB (a.k.a Max, who does deliveries on the southern route) loves them when they’re only small, and I’m inclined to agree – either way, if you’re boiling up the big ones with the small ones, make sure you cut the bigger ones into a similar size, or just sort them by size before cooking – and if you don’t want them splitting, bring them to the boil then turn the heat down a bit so they cook reasonably slowly. They’re perfect boiled and covered in butter, or dressed in a potato salad – but this year I’m going to be trying them par-boiled and then roasted…
This week’s boxes are almost entirely fruit-free – we’re still eagerly awaiting the beginning of strawberry season, but due to the cold start to spring David Jennings’s strawberries are only just starting. He’s assured us he’ll have enough for us next week, fingers crossed! This week Southern Fields have switched from winter cauliflower to summer lettuces – this week we’ve got iceberg in the $30 and $40 boxes, the perfect burger lettuce – and Premium Fresh have started harvesting their asparagus, a new crop for them started last year; the large bunches in this week’s boxes are “seconds”, as they don’t meet industry specs, but there was nothing wrong with the bunch we sampled last night… This week’s $30 boxes also get a turn at spring carrots and eggplant this week – yum!
