Home sweet potato...

Today our wwoofers did a bit of harvesting. Natalia, a Dutch wwoofer who stayed with us a few months ago, had planted some sweet potato on the lower side of one of our swales. Our English wwoofer Liz dug one up today and we were speechless by the size of it! It weighed in at over 3kg!

 Of course, we had to eat some for lunch, and will have some more for dinner (yes, it is good for 2 meals for 5 - 7 people!)
Sweet potato which is said to be an excellent source of vitamin A (in the form of beta-carotene), a very good source of vitamin C and manganese, and a good source of copper, dietary fiber, vitamin B6, potassium and iron. Purple-fleshed sweet potatoes have the highest antioxidant activity among sweet potato varieties. If you are interested in the nutrient content of sweet potato, have a look here: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrientprofile&dbid=128

I also had the wonderful surprise today of walking in the door after having been out this morning and seeing all this wonderful produce laid out on the table. Strawberries, mandarins, broccoli, yakon, lots of spinach and asian greens, lots of lettuce, chokos, cherry tomatoes and other beautiful foods. It was a gorgeous look seeing it on our table, and very inviting to cook with.
For lunch we chopped up all the spinach, endive and asian greens, put it into a pot with a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes and put it onto the woodstove with a sprinkling of tamari before I put the lid on. Half of the huge sweet potato was cut into pieces and put into a pot with a small amount of water, enough to steam the potato without running out of water.
We had this served with lettuce from the garden and home made rocket pesto. It is so satisfying eating from your own garden, and to know that we have low food mileage and organic, nutrient rich produce makes you feel great!
I am looking forward to our next great vegie find!!

Liz with home sweet potato...