Tag Archives: cooking

Roasted Root Veggies

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Our week 6 CSA box had root veggies that just cried out to be roasted. Seriously – I opened the box and the parsnips sang, “Please roast us! And can you add some rosemary, too, please? KTHXBAI!”

OK, well, maybe they didn’t say that…or if they did, perhaps I should have my hearing or mental acuity checked…but the sentiment is still there. Some side dishes are just easy to put together and just make a ton of sense. These also happened to taste really yummy. Roasting brings out the sugar in these veggies, and while you can go with probably any combination of root vegetables, I went with parsnips and carrots for some nice color and a good pairing of flavors. Were the kids more in the mood for making veggies the center of the dinner, or if we had more people at the table, the beets would have gone in the oven with them.

 

Roasted Root Veggies

Roasting + Rosemary = OMNOMNOM

 

Prep Time: 5 min

Cooking Time: 30-35 min

Serves: 4-6

 

Ingredients

3/4 lb parsnips

3/4 lb carrots

1 Tb olive oil

2 tsp dried rosemary

 

Make it Happen

1. Preheat the oven to 400F.

2. Peel the parsnips and carrots, and cut them into roughly equal size pieces, maybe a couple of inches long and 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick. Place the parsnips and carrots in a glass baking dish (like a Pyrex pan) or onto a non-stick cookie sheet. [Note: I used a Pyrex dish to reduce the risk of staining my cookie sheet. A Silpat or other similar silicone sheet may do the trick, or you can use aluminum foil to protect your pan.]

2. Drizzle olive oil over the veggies. Using tongs, toss the veggies so that they can get evenly coated with the oil. Make sure that you leave them in a single layer – no veggies should be on top of other veggies.

3. Sprinkle rosemary evenly over the veggies.

4. When the oven is at temperature, place the pan/sheet in the oven and cook for 30-35 mins.

(Yes, it’s just that easy.)

Sweet Summer Squash

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Necessity being the mother of invention, and me being the mother of two hungry children (plus a wife to a hungry adult), I needed to invent some quick and tasty dish to go with dinner last night. We were piecing dinner together using the corn we got in our week 6 CSA box, and I wanted to see if we could work more veggies in. So, using the yellow (summer) squash and honey from a prior week’s box, plus carrots from this week’s box, I was able to make something that totally worked. Best of all, it hit on my primary requirements: fast, simple & tasty. That’s just a wonderful trinity.

Note: this dish doesn’t cook the carrots fully, although the squash will be cooked nicely. If you mind having carrots that have crunch to them, you may want to steam the carrots for a few min before you add them to the pan for this dish.

 

Sweet Summer Squash

Cinnamony goodness

 

Prep Time: 5 mins

Cooking Time: 8-9 mins

 

Ingredients

1 medium/large summer squash

2 carrots

1 Tb butter

1 Tb wildflower honey (sub clover if you don’t have wildflower)

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

 

Make it Happen

1. Cut the squash into small pieces. Peel and cut the carrots into small coins.

2. Melt butter in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat.

3. When the butter is melted, add the squash and carrots to the pan, stirring frequently to coat and heat evenly.

4. After about 5 min of cooking time, drizzle honey and sprinkle cinnamon on top of the veggies. Stir well to combine.

5. Cook for another 3 min, stirring frequently. Then, remove from heat and serve immediately.

Adventures in CSA (week 6): Leek-tastic!

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When I got the teaser e-mail for this week’s box, I was excited at the prospect of getting leeks. I don’t get potato-leek soup often, but so have the basic components of the same in one veggie box was like handing me one of my favorite meals that I have no reason to avoid making in the first place. So, picture my joy when I opened the box and the teaser was correct – a quartet of luscious leeks, plus a couple pounds of red potatoes…all just calling out “Make us into soup! Make us into soup!” D’okay…if you insist!

Looking over the contents and putting them into my tracking spreadsheet, I think this is the first week that I may not get a savings over the grocery store, but we’ll have to see. As I’m looking at price variability, quality may end up becoming more of an issue. as it is, color me shocked to find that the corn we got in this week’s veggie box was not only good – it was excellent. Unlike the prior weeks, when it was immature, this week’s corn was mature and intensely sweet. I’m not sued to the idea of corn in the fall, and this stuff was light years beyond what you can still get in our grocery store, so I know that – on a quality basis – the $0.60/ear stuff at our store just won’t compare at all.

 

Week 6 CSA

Potato-Leek Soup...and more!

 

This week’s veggie box contents:

  • Leeks
  • Macintosh Apples
  • Beets
  • Butternut Squash
  • Garlic
  • Parsnips
  • Red Potatoes
  • Corn
  • Carrots
  • Globe Eggplant

 

The eggplant still presents a challenge – I just don’t think that I’m ever going to love eggplant. But, I’m willing to give it a shot. I found a recipe that involves doing things to eggplant with an oven and cheese, and if there are two things that I think go great together: it’s an oven and cheese. I’ll report back later on how it all went.

In the meantime, expect this week to hear about how to make potato-leek soup in the crock pot and what to do with CSA honey and veggies to provide a simple, sweet accompaniment to any weeknight dinner. I also suspect that the parsnips and beets will meet a happy roasting end in the oven this weekend. Now that I’ve learned how good roasted beets are, I can’t WAIT to get those babies in the oven. OM NOM NOM…