Radishes come in many varieties – the colorful Easter radishes with white, pink, red, purple; the huge long red ones that appear to be carrots, at first; the tiny sausage-shaped rose and white set.  I’ve seen others, too, but these are the radishes we collected recently.  The turnips were white, salad turnips, perhaps Tokyo turnips.  They are texturally a little bit like radishes with only a dimly pungent taste of a turnip.  Most of the radishes and the turnips had all their greens intact, thankfully!  So, how to make use of these rarely used vegetables and have a great meal?

Pasta with Turnips, Radishes, and Greens

1 lb. brown rice pasta

2-4 bunches of radishes and turnips, with greens removed and saved

1 green pepper, seeded and thinly sliced

1 red pepper, seeded and thinly sliced

Olive oil

1 T. sesame oil

2 T. soy sauce or tamari

1 garlic clove, thinly sliced

Salt and Pepper, to taste

Grated cheese or toasted bread crumbs

Clean the radishes and turnips and cut them into bite-sized pieces so that all are about the same size.  Soak the greens and discard any that are discolored.  Drain the greens and remove any large stems.  Chop roughly and set aside.

Sauté the radishes and turnips in a big sauté pan with some olive oil.  When they are starting to cook, after about 2-3 minutes, put the lid on the pan and turn down the heat.   Pan roast them for  about 10 minutes.  Stir occasionally.  The radishes and turnips will be a bit soft, a bit brown, and more translucent.  Add the peppers, stir well, and continue cooking for another 3-5 minutes.  Stir in the sesame oil, soy sauce, and garlic.  Stir well.  Turn off the heat and let the vegetables sit.

Boil water for the pasta and add the pasta as the package directs.  After you add the pasta, salt the water well.  As soon as you add the pasta to the water, turn on the radishes and turnips again and add the chopped greens.  Stir well over high heat and let the greens wilt.  Cover the pan for a minute or two if you want to speed the process a bit.

When the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the vegetables, stirring gently and thoroughly mixing the pasta with the vegetables. 

NOTE:            If the vegetables are dry-ish when you finish adding and cooking the greens, add some hot pasta water, about a cup, to the radishes and turnips just before you drain the pasta.

TO SERVE:    Serve the pasta with grated cheese such as Locatelli Romano or toasted bread crumbs.

Serves 4-6 depending on how much you like it, and how much you eat at one sitting.

Options?  You could start with a lot of onions and garlic before sautéing/roasting the radishes and turnips.  You could use other types of greens, too.  We were trying to use what we had, and only the big, carrot-like red radishes  lacked their greens, so the greens were plentiful, lush, and tasty.

LinK

This is a recipe with lots of variations feasible:  Add a thin layer of corn and black beans between the cheeses; add to the sliced poblanos some very thinly sliced truly hot peppers; or add a layer of sauted mushrooms between the two cheeses.

Chili Rellenos Deconstructed and Reconstructed

1-2 poblano peppers for each person – 2 medium/small or 1 very large

¼ red pepper, sliced very thinly, for each person

1 oz. Monterey Jack cheese, shredded, for each person

Ricotta cheese

Olive Oil

Topping:

Per person:

¼ c. Bread crumbs, approximately

1-2 mushrooms, sliced thinly

1 clove garlic, sliced thinly

Olive oil

Remove the stems, cores, and seeds from the poblano peppers.  Try cutting them in half lengthwise and using a sharp knife to remove the seeds and ribs.  You might want to wear protective gloves since hot peppers leave their heat behind on hands and fingers for a long time, and poblano peppers can be hotter than expected.   Slice the peppers very thinly and layer half in a pie tin, 8x8 pan, or 9x13 pan depending on how many people you are serving.  The peppers should cover the bottom of the pan without a lot of open space, although there cannot be total coverage.  Drizzle with olive oil.  Season with salt and pepper to taste (lightly is a good choice).

Sprinkle the shredded Monterey jack cheese on top of the peppers.  Put small spoonfuls of ricotta cheese on top of the Monterey jack cheese.

Layer the remaining peppers on top of the cheeses.

In a small sauté pan, sauté the mushrooms with the garlic in some olive oil.  When the mushrooms have wilted, add bread crumbs and keep cooking until the liquid is gone.  Spread the crumbs mixture on top of the peppers.

Bake 350° 30-45 minutes covered.  Uncover and keep baking 15-30 minutes until the crumbs are browning.

We enjoyed this a lot because it was a satisfying mix of cheese and peppers with just enough heat and a sense of crispy breading without the heaviness of something fried.  Hope you like it.

Lin K

But now -- a great crop that is just starting to be readily and abundantly available is kale.  We love Tuscan (Lacianato, Dinosaur) and Red Russian.  So few recipes seem to be available that make great use of kale, and even worse, so many recipes require that we first boil the kale and then sauté the kale.  I am unlikely to use two pans where one will do.  So try some kale with feta – a great main dish since it has protein.  It’s easy.  Serve with bread or rice and/or a salad.

Kale and Feta

1-2 bunches of kale (Tuscan, Red Russian, or Curly), stems removed

3-4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1-2 red peppers, cored, seeded, and very thinly sliced

3-4 oz. feta, crumbled

Olive oil

Salt and Pepper

Finely slice the de-stemmed kale and put it in a sauté pan.  If it’s still wet, that’s great.  If it’s pretty dry, add ¼ - ½ cup water.  Bring the kale to a boil and stem it with the lid on for 3-4 minutes.  When it wilts a bit, remove the cover, add oil and the garlic, and sauté until the kale is cooked – another 5-8 minutes depending on how soft you prefer kale.  Spread the kale around the pan.  Distribute the pepper rings on top, and cover for 2-3 minutes while the peppers wilt.  Season to taste.  Top with crumbled feta.

We use 2 bunches of kale for 3 people as an entrée.

Lin Kroeger

But we wanted something different the other night, so we combined the items in our refrigerator and were very pleased.

Cauliflower Tomato Cashew Curry

Serves 4

3-4 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

1 tsp. fresh ginger, peeled, julienned or grated

1 large onion, peeled and thinly sliced

2-3 T. Olive oil

2-3 tsp. curry powder (red curry, yellow Madras curry, or curry)

1 cauliflower, cleaned and separated into bite size florets

Salt and pepper, to taste

28 oz. can crushed or whole tomatoes

½ c. raw cashews, toasted in microwave 2-3 minutes until lightly browned

Add garlic, onion, and ginger to sauté pan with 2-3 T. olive oil.  Salt lightly.  Sauté until the onions wilt and add curry.  Saute 2 minutes, stiring to prevent sticking.  Add tomatoes and cauliflower, stirring gently.   Fill tomato can with water and add to cauliflower.  Cover and simmer 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Once cauliflower is cooked, remove cover and simmer until sauce thickens a bit.  Season with salt and pepper.

Serve with rice.  We prefer brown rice.  Top with toasted cashews.

This turned out to be fast and easy, and it was such a nice change without providing a lot of spicy heat.  That is something we're saving for a different evening.

LinK

Beets in Black Bean, Garlic, and Ginger – a side dish

Serves 4

4 medium sized beets, peeled and julienned

2-3 large shallots, peeled and sliced thinly

3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thinly

1” fresh ginger, peeled and sliced thinly

3 T. Black Bean sauce

2—3 T. olive oil

Salt & Pepper, optional

Prepare the garlic, ginger, and shallots and put in sauté pan with the oil.  Sauté on low, stirring to distribute the oil.  If using salt and pepper, add them after the vegetables start to cook.  Once the vegetables are starting to cook, add the beets and stir into the mixture.  Cover the pan and turn the heat to low.  Pan roast 15-20  minutes until beets are fork tender.

Stir in the Black Bean sauce and serve.

Options:  Serve on top of steamed or sautéed spinach or other greens.

We found that this recipe made the strong beet flavor much less but didn't lose the sense of a tasty root vegetable.  And of course, if you don't have shallots, just use a large red onion, very thinly sliced.

It's still root vegetable season, and why not go for a different flavor combination while you can?

LinK

One of the great discoveries of this past summer is that I can gather Swiss chard, fold it gently in half, and wrap it in a big plastic bag.  It freezes beautifully, and then when I go to use it now, frozen, I use a very sharp knife and slice it, stems and all.  So far, each time I've used Swiss chard this way, it has been excellent.  Of course, substituting a big bag of frozen, chopped spinach, thawed, always works as a replacement for Swiss chard.

Squash Somehow

(Serves 8-10)

This recipe is easy to cut in half to serve 4-6

1-2 lb. winter squash (Uchiki Kuri, Buttercup, Kabocha, Butternut), seeded, peeled, diced and pan roasted (4-6 cups before roasting)

1 lb. dry white beans (cannellini, navy), soaked, drained, cooked, cooled

2 medium onions, halved and then sliced thinly

3 large cloves garlic, sliced or chopped

1 bunch Swiss chard, cleaned

          Separate stems from leaves; Slice stems ½”, Slice leaves thinly

½ - 1 tsp. dried rosemary

½ - 1 tsp. dried marjoram

Olive oil

Topping:

3 cups plain, no fat yogurt or 1 ½ c. yogurt + 1 ½ c. cottage cheese

4 eggs (large)

½ - ¾ c. freshly grated parmesan cheese

Oil a 9x13 pan.  Preheat oven to 375ºF.

Sauté onions and garlic in some olive oil.  When the onions are soft, add herbs and Swiss chard leaves and stems.  Sauté 1-2 minutes and add cooked, partially drained white beans.  Sauté/Simmer until there is not much water left (3-5 minutes).  Mix in the squash.

Pour mixture into the 9x13 pan.  Stir together the topping ingredients, distributing the eggs thoroughly.  Put spoonfuls on top of the bean mixture and spread to cover.

Bake 45-60 minutes until the topping is browned.

This is excellent with a salad. 

While we were waiting for the Squash Somehow to cook, the smells were wonderful -- preparing us for the comfort food needed as the temperature keeps dropping in to the teens and twenties.

Enjoy!

Lin K

Squash is an incredibly inexpensive, easy to work with, non-processed food.  We lose a few each year, but we keep our winter food bills way down by investing in a lot of different kinds of winter squash and using them inventively.  So far, we've created about 100 recipes.

Squash “Souffle” – with options

Serves 4-8

6-8 cups winter squash, pre-roasted and pureed (Hubbard, sweet meat, golden delicious) – measure after pureeing

NOTE:  Choose a squash with some moisture versus a buttercup type that is quite dry

NOTE:  Most squash will puree easily if roasted and then stirred well.  Sometimes, a hand beater or hand-blender or even a food processor will work, depending on whether the squash is fiber-y.

5 large eggs

8 oz. gruyère or other Swiss cheese, shredded (medium cheddar will also work)

If squash puree is not smooth when you begin, stir or beat squash until it is smooth.  Add eggs and beat by hand or with mixer until eggs are fully incorporated.  Stir in the cheese.

Place mixture in oiled 9x13 pan.  Bake 350°F, 45 minutes, until set.

Options:

Sprinkle with lemony-y gremolata before serving.

Gremolata is an Italian way to add flavor:

Remove the peel of a fresh, washed, and dried lemon.

Mix the lemon peel with finely chopped parsley (2-4 Tablespoons), either flat leaf or curly.

Mix with 2-3 cloves garlic, chopped.

Chop the three items very finely and sprinkle on top of the dish just before serving.

You can add very finely chopped toasted nuts.

Serve with cranberry relish on the side.

Add 1-2 tsp. cumin when mixing.  Serve with some chutney on the side.

Add 2 tsp. ancho, chipotle, or cayenne pepper spice to the mix with the cheese and make sure it is mixed in well.  Top the soufflé with dollops of plain, no-fat Greek yogurt.

Enjoy!

LinK

I started to aim for putting a lot of veggies – turnips and potatoes and beets and fennel – into a nice sauce and cooking on low for an hour or so, and then I remembered I had chard stems, lots of gorgeous rainbow chard stems.  It’s gloomy lately, and they tend to be excellent.  How to make a dinner of chard stems?

The approach was quick and satisfying.  I will do this again with lots of variations:  hot peppers, or not; more varieties of vegetables such as daikon or regular radishes sliced; cabbage; radicchio.  Herbs would add a lot, as would some nice pesto mixed with plain yogurt to dollop on top.

Chard Stems Dinner

Chop coarsely a lot of onions and garlic, about 6 small to medium onions and half a head of garlic.  Sauté in olive oil while chopping chard stems (1”), fennel bulb (thinly, thinly sliced), 3 medium potatoes (thinly sliced but not peeled ), 3-4 red and green peppers (thinly sliced).   Once the onions have wilted a bit, add the potatoes and stir well to coat them with the oil already in the sauté pan.  Put the lid on and keep on low heat 10-15 minutes.   Add everything else and stir well, again distributing the oil.  Cover and cook on low 15-20 minutes until chard stems are tender.

Serve with grated cheese.  We used aged provolone, and it would work well with goat’s cheese, mild blue cheese, romano, or parmesan. 

Now, the challenge is to select from many options what to do with the gorgeous turnips, the last of the collard greens, and the thick bundle of curly kale.  There are probably some mustard-y stews and soy-saucy mixes just ahead.

LinK

Courgettes, our zucchini, is often under-cooked and can lack flavor, particularly when it is late season or overgrown. This zucchini was tender, flavorful, and very zucchini-ish. The mustard sauce was creamy and a great setting for the vegetable. It was such a simple preparation, and I’ve wanted to re-create it ever since.

It doesn’t sound like much of a challenge, but research gives dismaying results. Mustard sauce appears to be heavy cream with mustard added. Heavy cream is not exactly healthy, and I avoid using it except when it’s the only option, and those tend to be treats. Zucchini in heavy cream is hard to justify when there are so many wonderful ways to cook and enjoy zucchini without heavy cream. But the wish to re-create the courgettes I tasted in the south of France remains.

How to cook zucchini – without cream?

Sauté very thinly sliced zucchini in olive oil with several sliced cloves of garlic and as the zucchini softens and becomes transparent, cook the pasta. If you love butter, add a tablespoon with the oil to create a buttery taste without adding tons of butter itself. Drain the cooked pasta and combine with the sautéed garlic. For 4 people, use 4-8 medium zucchini, or as much as you enjoy.

Zucchini is full of water, so you can use a lot of zucchini to start and end up with not so much zucchini to consumer. If you use yellow zucchini or yellow summer squash, expect more liquid from the vegetable as it cooks and be prepared. You can pour off the extra liquid, add some bulgur wheat and let it sit a while the pasta boils. The bulgur will soak up a lot of liquid given time.

Variation? Add 1-2 cups of ricotta cheese and some of the pasta cooking water as part of the mix.

Variation? Crumble 4 ounces of feta cheese on top of the zucchini, add some pasta cooking water, and toss with the pasta.

Variation? Add 1 /4 - 1/3 cup of lemon juice when mixing the zucchini with the pasta.

Variation? Top any version with freshly grated cheese and/or toasted bread crumbs.

How can you go wrong?

Well, we went “right,” finally, last week and created the Courgettes and Creamy Mustard Sauce (I wonder if that would be Courgettes en Sauce Moutarde? My French is pretty rusty). It’s as good or better as any zucchini dish I could imagine. Yum. It is the heavy cream abuse for the summer.

Zucchini in Mustard Sauce

4-6 medium zucchini, cleaned, sliced ½”

2-3 T. olive oil

½ c. heavy cream

2 T. Dijon mustard

Toss the zucchini slices in the oil and sauté them, letting them a bit brown and also soft. You should be able to smell the zucchini, and they will be somewhat transparent.

Place the zucchini in a 9x13 or other casserole dish – to allow the zucchini to cover the bottom but not be in thick piles. Mix the cream and mustard and pour on top of the zucchini, distributing the sauce all over. Bake at 450° for about 15 minutes, or until the sauce reduces and thickens and starts to brown at the edges.

Enjoy! And if the guilt is too much, adapt with less-high fat yogurt:

Zucchini in Mustard Sauce – with less guilt

4-6 medium zucchini, cleaned, sliced ½”

2-3 T olive oil

½ c. high fat plain yogurt (4-10% milkfat, a lot less than 35-45% milkfat in heavy cream)

2 T. Dijon mustard

Follow the instructions above.

The alternative has some fat, but less fat, and lots of flavor. I tried it with Greek yogurt, no fat, plain, also, and it was nice, but not creamy enough. I’d use the no fat Greek yogurt again, but given a chance, I’d set my compromise on high fat yogurt and enjoy every taste.

Who could complain about excess zucchini?

LinK

Actually, shelling the peas is not very hard, and if I work with friends and family, it's a great social moment that leads to great eating, too.

Pea – Feta – Israeli Couscous – Mint Salad

4-5 quarts of fresh peas, shelled

4-5 oz. feta, crumbled

2 c. Israeli Couscous (cooked in 2 c. water until just cooked)

3 T. olive oil

2 T. rice wine vinegar

2-3 T. dried mint or 1/3-1/2 c. fresh mint, in bits

Cook the peas very briefly, just until they turn bright green. Let them cool off the heat.

Stir the olive oil and rice wine vinegar into the couscous gently to distribute and stir in the mint. Stir well, but gently.

When the peas are cool, gently stir the peas into the couscous and then stir in the feta.

If for some reason you can't find or don't want to deal with Israeli couscous, use a small pasta shape, about a half pound.  We found that adding a bit more olive oil and rice wine vinegar at the last minute dressed it up with a fresh taste and didn't make it oily or sharp.

Enjoy!

LinK