Roasted Bok Choy

Have I mentioned that just about any plant tastes better roasted? I put this notion to the test a few nights ago with a big head of bok choy from our CSA box, and was delightfully surprised at how well it turned out.

Ingredients
Olive oil
1-2 heads of bok choy
Salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Slice the bottom inch off each head of bok choy, separate the leaves, and rinse carefully. Dry well, slice crosswise a couple times if desired, and toss on a baking sheet that you've lightly drizzled with olive oil. Toss the greens to coat lightly with the oil, then stick in the oven.

Roast for 8 minutes, turn the leaves, and roast for 6-8 minutes more or until stems are tender and tops of the leaves are just starting to turn a little crispy. Sprinkle with salt, and serve hot.

Serves 2-3.

Variation: Half bok choy and half dino kale works well, too -- cut both crosswise a few times first, and reduce the cooking time by a couple of minutes.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Carrots and Parsley

Found in our produce box: Purple (!) sweet potatoes
Found at the coop: The freshest, crunchiest carrots imaginable


Ingredients
2 orange or purple sweet potatoes, peeled
3-4 purple, white, or orange carrots, peeled
A handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Salt and freshly-ground white pepper*
Olive oil


Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Cut the sweet potatoes crosswise into 3/4-inch thick slices, then halve or quarter each slice into bite-sized pieces. Cut the carrots crosswise into 1-inch pieces. Toss with olive oil and a pinch of salt, and throw in a small roasting pan (I used a loaf pan, so that they were several layers deep and crowded together).

Roast in the oven for 40-50 minutes, stirring every 10-15 minutes. About halfway through, turn the heat down to 400 and add a little more olive oil if the pan has gotten dry.

When the sweet potatoes are very soft and the carrots are just tender and a little browned, remove from the oven and toss with a little more salt, a liberal dousing of freshly ground white pepper, and some parsley. Serve hot, with a little parsley sprinkled over the top.

Serves 2-3.

*If you don't have a grinder full of white peppercorns, get one. I'm swiftly become a white pepper fanatic, but freshly ground versus not is just as different in this case as it is for black pepper, which actually never occurred to me until my husband brought home a bottle of white peppercorns. It's particularly good with squash, pumpkin, and sweet potatoes, because it gives sweet things a hint of pepper that blends with the sweetness instead of overpowering it.

Spaghetti Squash with Peppers and Greens

I know this shouldn't come as a shock, but plants, it turns out, have leaves. Or in other (slightly less obvious-sounding) words, we often ignore the leaves of non-leafy plant foods, like beets or amaranth grain, and are for some reason surprised when they turn out to be both edible and delicious (or in the case of amaranth greens, to exist in the first place).

Case in point: Fava greens, which turned up in our CSA box this week for the second time, and which are my new favorite throw-a-handful-into-just-about-anything vegetable. They're similar in this way to spinach or amaranth greens, with a very mild, fresh taste and a lovely fava beany scent when raw.
If they come in clumps, like ours did, you may want to separate the individual leaves from the stem before cooking. We added them to a new recipe for spaghetti squash last night, while we continued our search for oven leprechauns.

Ingredients
1 medium spaghetti squash
Olive oil
Pasture butter
1 large shallot, chopped
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
A big bunch of fava greens, amaranth greens, or spinach (all will cook down quite a bit, so use more than you think)
1/2 tsp ñora pepper
2 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Grated Parmesan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Halve the spaghetti squash and brush cut surface with olive oil, then place face down on a baking sheet. Bake for 35-50 minutes, depending on size, until a fork inserts with little resistance (you want it to be tender but not mushy, or the noodles won't retain their shape). Let cool for a few minutes, then gently remove seeds with a fork.

Meanwhile, heat a glug of olive oil in a wide pan over medium heat. Add the shallot and saute until it softens, then add the garlic and a small pat of butter and cook for a minute more. Stir in the peppers, cook for a couple of minutes, then add about half of the fava greens and fold in with the peppers until they begin to wilt. (If you need a bit more liquid in the pan, add just a little chicken broth or white wine). Next, add the ñora pepper, half the parsley, a pinch of salt, and a liberal dousing of black pepper.

Gently scoop the spaghetti squash out of its rind with a big spoon, and add to the peppers and greens mixture. Use the spoon and a spatula to gently pull apart the strands of the squash and mix them into the greens. Add the rest of the greens and more parsley to taste, stir until the greens just begin to wilt, sprinkle with some Parmesan, and toss one last time. Serve hot, topped with some more Parmesan and parsley.

Serves 2-3.

Beet Reprise

Curiouser and curiouser. Apparently, beets can be...well, I can't quite bring myself to say it. I'll just note that we polished this off much more quickly than I would have expected.

The secret seems to be to leave them raw, and to offset the sweetness with something tangy (in this case, a mustard vinaigrette). I found this recipe on the NY Times website, and tweaked it just a bit:

Ingredients
1 large shallot
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
Small spoonful grain mustard
Salt and black pepper to taste
A small handful of parsley, finely chopped (about 1 tbsp)
2 small to medium beets, peeled and grated



Quarter the shallot lengthwise, turn it 90 degrees, and slice. Saute in a little olive oil over medium heat for 1-2 minutes till just soft, and set aside. In a smallish mixing bowl, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, and mustard, then add the shallots, salt, pepper, and parsley. Add the grated beets and mix to coat evenly. Let sit for 5 minutes to let the flavors blend, and serve.

Serves 2.

The Rehabilitation of the Beet

We are not exactly a beet-loving household. We tolerate them from afar -- in Spain, for example, they sometimes place a beet on an otherwise perfectly acceptable veggie sandwich, and we are fine with that (as long as we are not actually in Spain). But up close -- in the same country, for instance -- they become decidedly more troubling. Let's put it this way: there are only three things in the world that my husband won't eat, and the beet is one of them.

But we knew they were coming. It's that time of year. So when they showed up in our CSA box this week, we did not jump, or scream. We calmly extracted them from the box, turned, and stuffed them safely in the back of the vegetable drawer, buried under a heap of parsley, carrots, radishes, and about six other things we managed to cram in on top of them. We returned to our lives, and did not think about beets. Or rather, we thought about not thinking about beets. We tried not to think about not thinking about beets. We thought about beets.

We could, we reasoned, try the beets. A little, tiny, modicum of beets. A beetlette. We could try a beetlette, mixed in with other things, and see if maybe it wouldn't be quite so beety. And a fellow beetophobe had suggested trying them raw, rather than cooked, which would make them less beety as well. We could try a raw, practically infinitesimal, highly camouflaged bit of a beet, and see. Yes. We would do that. We would do that, and see, and then we could never ever ever eat beets ever again.

Except that after all that, we kind of liked them.

Ingredients
Baby greens
Olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Sherry vinegar
2-3 lemon cucumbers, peeled, quartered, and sliced
1 cup cooked chickpeas
2 radishes, halved, sliced, then turned crosswise and sliced into thin strips
1 beet, peeled and grated
1-3 carrots, peeled and grated
2 medium- or hard-boiled pastured eggs, quartered

Whisk together a generous dousing of olive oil with about a third as much vinegar to form an emulsion, and add a pinch of salt and black pepper to taste. Toss the greens with enough of the vinaigrette to lightly coat them (you'll also want a little more vinaigrette to drizzle over the salad, so save a bit or make more if necessary).

Arrange a heaping bed of greens on each plate, then layer on the cucumbers, radishes, and chickpeas. Sprinkle liberally with the grated beets and carrots, and drizzle a couple more spoonfuls of vinaigrette over the top. Add the egg on top or on the side, sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Serves 2 hungry beetophobes as the main part of a meal, or more as a side salad.

Simple Chickpea Spread

This could easily be made in larger batches and stored in the fridge. You would think that using "home-grown" versus canned chickpeas wouldn't matter for something like this, but the home-grown ones surprised me yet again -- they give the spread a deeper, fuller, nuttier flavor.

Ingredients
2-3 cups cooked chickpeas
Olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 large garlic clove, pressed
Salt
Pinch or two of saffron
Ground cumin
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/3 cup vegetable broth
Small handful cilantro, chopped

Saute the onion with a pinch of salt in olive oil over medium heat until soft. Add the garlic. Stir a few times, then add the chickpeas, saffron, and a liberal dousing of cumin. Saute for another minute or two. Add the turmeric and veggie broth, stir, cover, and turn the heat down slightly. Simmer for 10 minutes or so to let flavors blend, stirring once or twice and adding a little more broth or water if it starts to dry out. Turn the heat off, and add the cilantro.

Blend the chickpea mixture in a Cuisinart or blender until smooth, adding a little olive oil and/or broth if it's too dry. Serve warm or at room temperature on bread, toast, or crackers.

Serves 2-3 as part of dinner, or more as an appetizer.

Braised Turnips with Apple and Nutmeg

It's a turnipy time of year, and if you get a CSA box, you're likely to find them soon and find them repeatedly if you haven't already. We've been experimenting with different ways of cooking them, and here's a new one -- the sweetness of the apple offsets the slight bitterness of the turnips, and the whole thing tastes very autumny.

Ingredients
1/2 tbsp pastured butter
1-2 tbsp olive oil
3-4 turnips, peeled, sliced, and cut into 3/4 inch pieces
Pinch salt 
1-2 apples, peeled, sliced, and cut into smaller pieces
1/4-1/2 cup veggie broth
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
Liberal dousing of freshly ground white pepper
Pinch brown sugar

Heat butter and olive oil in a wide pan over medium-high heat. Add the turnips and stir to coat. Cook until lightly browned on one side, then mix in the apples. Cover the pan and continue to cook for another minute or two to brown, then stir, cover, and let brown again. When the turnips are a nice golden brown on all sides, turn heat down to medium, add a little veggie broth, and cover the pan to let simmer for about 5-7 minutes or until turnips are tender (you should check the pan every 2 minutes or so, stir, and add more broth if it's starting to dry out). Last, add the nutmeg, white pepper, and a pinch of brown sugar, and season with salt to taste.

Serves 2-3.

Best. Squash. Ever.

We're completely addicted to Delicata squash, but roasting it and filling it with sauteed leeks and sage and toasted pine nuts takes that obsession to a whole new level.

Ingredients
Olive oil
2 Delicata squash of similar size
A small handful of pine nuts
1 small to medium leek, white and light green parts, minced
8-10 fresh sage leaves, sliced into thin ribbons or chopped
Salt and freshly ground white pepper

Preheat oven to 375. Rinse and dry squash, cut in half lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds. Rub cut face with a little olive oil and place face down on a foil-lined baking sheet. Roast for 25-35 minutes until they just start to soften slightly.

Meanwhile, heat a small pot over medium heat. Add the pine nuts and toast, stirring or tossing occasionally, until they begin to turn golden. Push to the side and add a generous glug of olive oil. Wait for a few seconds till it heats, then stir to coat the pine nuts. Add leeks and continue to cook for several minutes, stirring, until they soften. Add sage and a pinch or two of salt, cook for another minute, then add white pepper to taste and turn off the heat.

Turn squash cut side up on the baking sheet. Spoon the leek mixture into the squash halves, spreading it evenly along each one, then return them to the oven for an additional 5-10 minutes until the squash is just soft enough that it gives easily when a spoon is pressed into it.

Serve hot. I just found out that you can eat the skin of a Delicata squash and it's often delicious (thanks, Dad), but we thought this version was even better just scooping out the insides. This would be a good dish for a dinner party -- fancy-looking and fancy-tasting, but pretty much a breeze to make.

Serves 4 as a dinner party side dish when everyone is on good behavior, or 2-3 if you're unconstrained by social norms and can't help but go back for seconds.

Roasted Pumpkin with Cilantro, Chickpeas, and Thyme

I should be posting something from this past week, which has been stuffed, one might say, like a turkey (or perhaps, like a homemade ravioli) with collective cooking and shared food...starting with a homemade pasta party on Sunday and continuing through yesterday with a vaguely Thanskgiving-themed gourmet feast.

But all this will have to wait, because, as everyone knows, the first question that pops into your head after you've cleared out your houseguests and leftovers and emerged from your post-Thanksgiving food coma several hours or days later is: Can I eat that? And if you're gazing at the pie pumpkin you bought up at Apple Hill several weeks ago because it looked like it would make a nice autumn-evoking centerpiece, the answer is a resounding and emphatic YES.



Ingredients
1 smallish pumpkin (ours was a pie pumpkin about 8-9 inches in diameter, or substitute an heirloom or butternut squash)
Olive oil
2 small yellow onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, pressed
1 large jalapeno, minced
1/2 tsp dried thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
A big handful of cilantro, chopped
1/4-1/2 cup veggie broth
1 tbsp brown sugar (or less if using a sweeter squash)
2 cups well-cooked chickpeas

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut pumpkin in half, scoop out seeds, and rub cut sides with a little olive oil. Roast face-down for 25-40 minutes or until just tender, turning heat down to 375 if it starts to get too brown. Let cool until it's easy to handle, then cut into 1-inch slices, peel, and cube.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large, wide pan with deep sides over medium-high heat. When hot, add the onion and saute until soft. Add the jalapeno, cook for another minute or two, then add the garlic. Saute for half a minute and then add the pumpkin, thyme, a pinch of salt, and a little more olive oil. Stir to coat.

After sauteing for another minute or two, add the cilantro and 1/4 cup of the broth, turn the heat down to medium-low, and cover the pan. Simmer for 5-10 minutes to let the flavors blend, and until the pumpkin is soft, adding more broth if it starts to dry out.

Next, add the brown sugar, another pinch of salt, and a dash of black pepper, and use a potato masher to gently mash the squash to form a coarse puree. Fold in the chickpeas and cook for another few minutes until heated through. Adjust salt and pepper to taste, and serve garnished with cilantro.

Goes well with brown basmati rice simmered with cumin and saffron.

Serves 4.

Pan-fried Garbanzos with Peppers and Greens

By all rights, this should have been a disaster. Bok choy and garbanzo beans clearly don't mix, and I honestly don't understand my fascination with saffron or my inability to keep from throwing it into dishes in which it obviously does not belong. And yet instead of being disastrous, this dish turned out surprisingly well, and even bordered on addictive. Which actually probably explains my obsession with saffron...I tend to throw it in when it a dish is already moving in bizarre directions, and then when it turns out, I associate the resulting deliciousness with the pinch of fiery red strands I couldn't help but toss into the pan.

Serve this over black Forbidden rice or brown jasmine rice.

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
A couple generous sprinklings of black mustard seeds
A pinch of saffron, crumbled
1-2 bell peppers (white, red, purple, green, whatever), halved and sliced
1 jalapeno, thinly sliced
1 large clove garlic, pressed
2-4 heads of bok choy, sliced crosswise into one-inch pieces
1/4-1/2 cup veggie broth
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Heat a generous glug of olive oil in a large, wide pan over high heat. When hot, add the garbanzos and shake the pan to coat them with olive oil. Let sit for a minute, then shake again. Wait until a few start to pop, shake to stir, and wait again, adding a little more olive oil if necessary to keep the bottom of the pan coated. After several minutes, they should start to turn a little golden brown.

Next, add the mustard seeds and saffron, stir a few times, then add the peppers and cook, stirring, for a minute or two. Turn the heat down and add the garlic, wait a few seconds, then stir to combine. Add the bok choy, a pinch of salt, and 1/4 cup of broth, cover the pan, and let the greens steam for a minute or two until you can get a spatula under them to mix them in with the garbanzos. If the pan is dry, add a little more broth, stir, and cover to steam again for another minute or until greens have started to wilt. Uncover, stir-fry for another minute or so, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and serve.

Serves 2-3.