beets

I never liked beets until I had to figure out a way to use them through our CSA last year. Turns out I'd only ever eaten them boiled, which gives them a weird texture and a sweet/earthy flavor that I didn't like. We tried roasting them, and they are PHENOMENAL prepared that way.

The basic recipe for roasted beets is to cube them - you don't have to peel them first - then toss them with oil, salt, pepper, and any herbs you think would be good. Put them in a shallow pan - you pretty much want them in a single layer - and put them in the oven at 425 degrees. Mix them occasionally while in the oven, and when a fork easily pierces the beets they are ready (usually takes about 20-30 minutes). You can mix other root vegetables with them. We tried potatoes, turnips, and carrots. They each ended up with a slightly different texture, which is not my preference, so we usually do just beets or just potatoes when we roast vegetables.

Another way that I like them is raw and shredded. We just use a cheese grater, and they shred very easily. Since they are typically in season the same time as carrots, I like a mixture of shredded carrots and beets used on salads or in macaroni and cheese. We also use shredded carrots and beets as a replacement for lettuce garnish - for example, on top of tostadas or burgers. Beets when raw are extremely crunchy, almost too hard to eat. Shredding them is the best way to eat them raw, in my opinion!

My spouse like them raw and cubed in macaroni and cheese - they are mild in flavor but as I said, too crunchy for my liking. Last night we put turnips, green peppers, beets, and zucchini in macaroni and cheese. The spiciness of the turnips and peppers with the sweetness of the beets was a great combo!

chinese cabbage

Picked up a chinese cabbage at the market last week, also known as napa cabbage. Though I'm sure I've eaten some at some point in my life, I don't believe we've cooked with them before. This one was huge so we needed two meals to use it all. First we made a lentil coconut curry. The chinese cabbage absolutely MADE this dish. The stem part ended up with the flavor and texture of celery, adding a nice crunch. The leafy part was sort of like spinach. Delicious!

Tonight we are making crunchy cabbage salad - a favorite dish of my spouse's family, but I believe they use regular cabbage. Napa/chinese cabbage is really more similar in flavor and appearance to bok choy, in my opinion. Anyway, the basic recipe is to make a dressing on the stovetop with vinegar, oil, soy sauce and sugar. Toss dressing with chopped cabbage, crunchy noodles, and sesame seeds. I'll also be including almonds, and I have some canned oranges on hand that I might throw in. People often include green onions, but those aren't in season now so I just leave them out.

EDIT: The crunchy cabbage salad was decent, but in the future I would make the dressing and mix it with the chopped chinese cabbage the night before - then add almonds and crunchy noodles right before eating. It was pretty sweet so we didn't include oranges, though I still believe they would be a tasty addition. I would probably reduce the amount of sugar if I made it again. Finally, we ate this as a main dish and it really would be much, much better as a side.

our fallback options for cooking seasonally

My entire life, any vegetable or fruit I wanted was pretty much available year-round. So when I first started seasonal eating, the limitation seemed staggering. The first year with a CSA was overwhelming and I had to throw away more produce that I'd like to admit. But I think our problem was that we were trying to find new recipes the featured each vegetable we were bringing home. Towards the end of that first year, we figured out certain standby meals that we could basically throw in whatever vegetables we had on hand. Here's a list of those meals.

1. Stir-fries

We have a fabulous wok that was given to us as a wedding present. We cut up whatever vegetables we want to use, stir-fry them with a little bit of oil, then add cream of mushroom soup (we like Amy's because it is very tasty) and whatever spices we're in the mood for. We serve it over rice or noodles and sometimes add crunchy noodles on top (not local, but we use very little so it is low on my priority list for figuring out a more local option).

2. Curries

We actually don't make curries very often, but they also can handle a lot of miscellaneous vegetables so I always mean to include them on the weekly list. A savory curry is made similarly to stir-fry, but instead of cream of mushroom soup you might add tomato paste. A sweeter curry uses coconut milk (again, not local, but we're doing what we can). Typically served with rice or flatbread.

3. Egg dishes

I'm very particular about how my eggs are cooked, so we usually either scramble eggs with several chopped vegetables or bake them in the oven at 200 degrees to make a sort of omelet (the mixture should be no thicker than one inch, so whatever size pan makes that possible for the amount you are cooking. The thinner the egg mixture, the quicker it will take...for us, four eggs will take an hour with this method). Some people might like stovetop omelettes, or other ways of preparing eggs that I'm unaware of. If you eat grocery store eggs, you will be amazed at the difference when you try farm fresh eggs! The color of the yolk is reddish orange, they smell better, and taste incredible.

4. Macaroni and Cheese

Not the most nutritious thing we eat, but it is tasty. I typically make macaroni and cheese (from a box...this is one of my priorities for finding a good quick recipe for) then add fresh vegetables. Grated carrots and beets, zucchini, tomatoes, and broccoli are some of my favorites.

5. Pizza

Again, not the most nutritious thing we eat, but completely delicious! We make the dough from scratch using flour from a local farmer. If it were as easy as macaroni and cheese from a box, I bet we would not eat anything besides pizza. We'll put pretty much anything on a pizza. A squash pizza is particularly delicious with smoked cheddar cheese. We recently tried radishes on pizza and it was incredible - this is from someone who does not like radishes. Baking them mellowed them out but they still had a bit of spice to them. This week I have some turnips that I'll put on pizza.

butternut squash

We had an heirloom butternut squash from our farmer that we needed to use this week. I was hesitant to buy it because of the difficulty in cutting it up. This time was much easier, so I think having a good knife (and being prepared to be patient) made all the difference. It weighed about five pounds, so it was the centerpiece for two meals. As an heirloom it was sweeter and darker orange than other butternut squash I've seen - it actually reminded me a little of canteloupe when I cracked it open.

The first night we made a savory squash bread pudding, making use of the pasture-raised eggs we can also get from our farm. I personally do not like french toast, so I was not a fan of the bread pudding. My spouse liked it but even he thought it needed more seasonings. The gist of the recipe was: mix eggs, milk, small chunks of cooked butternut squash, and torn-up pieces of bread, then bake until it is cooked. It also had onions and spices like nutmeg and allspice.

The next night we made butternut squash soup. I have had version of this soup made by others, and don't really like the sweetness typical of recipes for this dish. We also did not have carrots or celery at the market this week, making many recipes out of our reach. So I found this recipe which was PERFECT! The potatoes and the cayenne pepper make all the difference in turning this traditionally sweet soup into a savory meal. Loved it so much I've eaten a bowl at nearly every meal since then. I tasted the soup after putting in the level of spices they suggested and ended up tripling most of them - with the exception of cayenne, which I just dumped in whatever we had left (probably a full teaspoon, 4x the amount suggested in the recipe).