It’s always exciting when the first crops of spring-grown vegetables make their way to the farm stands, and this week’s delight was the tender, sweet Hakurei turnips. These mild turnips are nothing like the turnips I grew up with, which were larger, with extremely strong flavor, and could be unpleasantly bitter, especially the tops. Plus,…
Tag: Root to Stem
6 Chilled Summer Soups
We have a dilemma – with all the wonderful vegetables available right now, it’s just too hot to cook! Chilled summer soups solve the problem, and can take only moments to prepare.
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Brown Rice Risotto with Peas and Potatoes
A celebration of the beautiful spring pea, with a healthful twist on my regular recipe, and full of flavor! When the peas start coming fast and furious, we’re all happy. Few vegetables are more perfect and versatile as the pea, and none more fleeting in its season, all the more reason to cherish. The sugar…
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Ramp and Spring Radish-Top Pesto of Possibilities
Spring is here with great flourish, and we’re celebrating every minute. It’s been a cold spring, so we’ve had to wait a little longer than we’d like for our early seasonal delights. Wild ramps and fiddleheads are now here in abundance, spring-dug parsnips of course, and the first of the seed-planted radishes and their beautiful…
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Sweet Pea and Leek Risotto
It’s pea season! Make something fresh and lively, but don’t throw away those pea pods, turn them into stock for your risotto! I love that old-fashioned term “mess of peas.” It reminds me of grandmothers on porches with children at their feet shelling peas (or shucking, depending on region) while talking about everything wild and…
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Let’s use every inch of the carrot – roast them and create a luscious Carrot Top Pesto
Save these gems from the compost bin, add some maple syrup and ginger, and you have a delicious pesto! I have to admit, most of the time I have used carrot greens, or tops, as an addition to the stock pot so as not to waste them, or occasionally added a few leaves to salads….
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Quick Braised Spring Vegetables with Mint
Rhubarb adds the tart, spring radishes and turnips the savory, and a touch of honey balances it all out. Spring is finally here and we are now getting a steady supply of lettuces and tons of other greens, radishes, asparagus, and little turnips. Ruby red stalks of rhubarb have also made their debut, and together…
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Finding your roots, and saving them!
It is the Season of Root Crops! But how much of these treasures can you store yourself? It is Autumn, and the farm stands are offering bulk supplies of winter roots: potatoes, carrots, beets, and onions. Some store easily, others not so much. I’ve had my share of onions that rotted, carrots that turned to…
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Beets are the Color of Fall
Roast them, sauté them, grill them, pickle them, steam them…from root to stem, it’s all good! Open just about any New England menu in the Autumn and you’ll find beets! These colorful vegetables are especially loved by chefs because they are one of the easiest to use “root to stem” every part of them edible, even…
