How could any dish with potatoes and peas not be delicious? This is my new favorite side dish. First, the centerpiece is potatoes, my desert island food, so no dish could start off better. I’ve used colorful baby potatoes here, but you can use any potato you love, just cut them into bite-sized pieces. This…
Category: Vegetables
Weeknight Mushroom Tetrazzini
If you like a Tetrazzini, you will love this vegetarian version that is filled with mushroom flavor. There’s a baked version with crispy top as well! Like much of the east coast, we had a beautiful snowfall this week. I love a snow day of cooking or baking, making a big mess in the kitchen…
Braised Golden Beets and Winter Radishes with Meyer Lemon
We’re deep in winter, and that means not only root vegetables but luscious Meyer lemons as well! Do you like beets? Many people love them, but I have to admit that I’m not a fan of the big fat red beets, perhaps because I had so many as a child. I want to love them,…
Winter Veggie Stew: A study in orange
This soup is flavorful and warming, and on a cold winter’s night, a welcome supper. It has been grey here in Vermont. Tuesday, we had a bit of sun for a while, but for the most part, the last two weeks have been black and white with a bit of holiday red tossed in. The…
Tomato Rice with Broccoli Rabe and Roasted Garlic
It’s tasty and economical, and with a few additions this humble dish can star at a dinner party! From Mexico to Malaysia, and just about everywhere else, there are recipes for simple rice and tomato dishes that offer a wide variety of flavors and options. A base for the simple or the complicated, they create…
French Lentils with Hakurei Turnips and Sweet Potatoes
This recipe is delicious on a cold autumn night. Lentils are hearty and satisfying, and the addition of the turnips and sweet potatoes round out the flavors, textures, and nutrition in this dish. You can serve it straight up, or dress it up for company with a piece of fish or tofu. The base of…
Seven Roasted Autumn Vegetables and One Exquisite Sauce
Pick a rainbow of autumn vegetables, top a bed of wilted greens, and enhance with a simple Maple, Miso, and Mustard Sauce. It is the perfect time of year to think about a big platter of roasted vegetables, especially the delicious roots of the season. I feel truly blessed to live in a beautiful and…
Salad Niçoise with Sesame Ginger Dressing
A little French, a little Asian, and a lot delicious! I love a composed salad! It is like creating a miniature salad bar on a platter, everyone gets to pick out what they like best, take a little of this or that, and make their own creation. These salads are also quite beautiful! The classic,…
Charred Pak Choy Salad with Apple Cider and Miso Dressing
Flavors of the season unite for a delicious and healthful dish! When I was growing up, my dad was the gardener in the family and my mom the cook. He loved puttering with his tomatoes and potatoes, and I think it was probably the only time in his life, besides fishing. when he was alone,…
Three Sisters Succotash
Corn, Beans, and Squash are a timeless combination, and especially delicious in this classic New England dish. We just about live on vegetables this time of year. There are so many wonderful delights just asking to be taken home from the farm stand. Red swaths of tomatoes are everywhere, squashes are turning up in their…
Sweet & Sour Brussels Sprouts
You don’t have to be a fan of Brussels sprouts to like this dish! When I was a child, Brussels sprouts were not my favorite, and I could tell we were having them for dinner the second I walked in the house. The aroma that permeated the house, cooking them to death, and serving them…
Totally Tomatoes!
Red, yellow, orange, purple, green. They’re here! “What’s for dinner?” “Tomatoes.” “Didn’t we have tomatoes for lunch?” “Yep. Guess what we’re having for breakfast?” We wait all year for that blush of red in the garden, and the first few are precious. Nothing beats the flavor of fresh tomato, unadorned except for a sprinkle of…
Stuffed Napa Cabbage Leaves with Peanut Sauce
We love the ease of feeding ourselves a rainbow of nutrition in high summer in Vermont! You never know what you will find at the farm stands and farmers markets in July in Vermont, but it’s a sure bet there will be lots from which to choose and enjoy. This week, I found everything I…
Herbed Fingerling Potatoes with Mustard and Lemon
I have met very few potatoes I didn’t like. There was a casserole my mother made when we were camping that used canned potatoes. I’ll spare you the details. There was also the gummy blender mashed potatoes I made in high school; I’d been practicing the new Oster with just about everything. Any way you…
Ramp, Morel Mushroom, and Potato Chowder
This is the taste of the season, welcome on the chilly nights of spring. But if you have a heat wave, you can also eat this soup chilled. As a New Englander, I love a chowder. But at this time of year, I’m not thinking clams or corn, but the beautiful greens of spring. Greens,…
Spring Pea and Asparagus Salad with Radish Top Dressing
If you love peas, you’ll love this salad! Spring means the return of fresh, local green things! Fiddleheads, ramps, spring lettuces, radishes, pea shoots, and the much-anticipated asparagus. How we love those first spears, pulled fresh from the earth! There will be grilled and steamed asparagus, asparagus soup, asparagus in stir fries and salads, served…
Tempting Trio of Spring Treasures
Could there be anything more perfect than finding wild fiddlehead ferns, ramps, and asparagus all in the same day? The blossoms on the trees are just popping out in lacy, pale green wonder. The grass in the fields is beyond green as well, and the odd freshly tilled field scents the air with earth and…
Stuffed Swiss Chard
It’s the end of our Winter CSA, but we still have lots of veggies to use! It is the end of our winter CSA, so I stocked up on a few favorites to tide us over until the farm stands open and the season begins anew with radishes and lettuces from our fields, plus a…
Spring Parsnip and Leeks Au Gratin
It is a happy day the first time we see local spring-dug parsnips for sale! Sometimes you find them at the co-ops, a neighbor might bring you a few, but more often you’ll see a pick-up truck at a parking area on the side of the road. Usually, the same person year after year, and he…
Roasted Carrots and Blood Oranges
The secret ingredient? Kombucha! When I head to the market, especially these days, I try to have a list or at least a pretty good idea of what meals I am shopping for, a plan! However, sometimes we find something beautiful and need a little course correction. I was looking for some fresh broccoli, and…
Cherry Tomatoes and Grilled Artichokes over Couscous
A quick meal that is filled with flavor and nutrition! I love sauces made from cherry tomatoes. They are easy to make, sweet and delicious, and taste quite a bit different than their larger cousins. When shopping this week, I found some beautiful yellow and red cherry tomatoes, stems and all, and they just begged…
Refrigerator Vegetable Stew
With just a little hint of the warmth of Provence, this simple vegetarian stew is quick to put together and will make your house warm and inviting while it simmers. This has been a winter of cold and grey, with frequent snows and rains or sleets. Lots of time to stay in the house, light…
Zucchini with Garlic, Lemon, and Hazelnuts
The humble zucchini moves from quiet weeknight sidekick, to dinner party pretty, and it’s quick and easy too! My grill has reappeared from the snow, and while I seldom hesitate to fire it up in the middle of winter, it was just been a little too cold this week to stand there for any length…
Grilled Endive Salad with Carrot Dressing
Endive is usually chopped into a salad or filled with a dip of some sort creamy filling as an appetizer. But grilling brings out the best of this vegetable, and topped with a carrot dressing, it is a memorable meal.
Spaghetti Squash with Fennel, Chard, and Potatoes
Fall vegetables combine to add flavor and texture to the lovely little winter squash that disguises itself as pasta. It’s a funny vegetable. A squash that thinks it’s pasta, offering up spaghetti-like strands when scraped with a fork, or, a plastic pumpkin scraper. As winter squashes go, this one has a mild flavor, almost bland…