I brought these black radishes home from the market for the precise reason that they were so difficult to love. Do you have a friend or family member like that, who constantly seems to wage war with you in a bet to lose your loyalty? We have relationships with food all the time, believe it or not. Maybe you’ve been having an affair with the same chicken salad sandwich from that deli for weeks, and maybe you’ve long since parted … Read More
So maybe you consider yourself an aficionado of Chinese dumplings. Maybe you’re a sucker for hearty, all-American food, too. Maybe you’re just searching for a vegetarian dumpling filling that isn’t a mosaic of brown-green ingredients with an ultimately bland, nondescript taste (mei wei dao! if you speak Mandarin, that is). In actuality, you don’t need to hail from any of these persuasions to enjoy the unexpected delight of these dumplings — because it’s so unexpected yet delicious.
I’ve warmed up to baked, savory dips lately, the kind you schmear onto a cracker or crisped piece of bread at parties. I love cracking the golden crust like a creme brulee, revealing an oozing interior and steam. On Thanksgiving, I mustered my first-ever artichoke dip, a simple concoction using tangy Greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise or cream cheese. Last weekend, it was this creamy blend of white beans and spinach, pulsed just enough to create a velvety texture but … Read More
Crisp, sweet cabbages, nutty, gnarly-looking roots — who said winter wasn’t a good season for salads? I thought I’d give myself an extra-special treat this morning, since my birthday is around the corner (can you believe I’m turning thirty-one?!). So instead of the new boots I’ve been ogling, I went for some sunchokes at the farmers market, because they’re charmingly rustic-looking, too.
Sometimes you’ve just got to eat something ooey, gooey, and rich. That doesn’t mean it can’t be vegetables, layered with all that good stuff and little else. It occurs to me now that whoever drafted that recipe for green bean casserole and sold it to millions via labels on condensed soup cans was probably trying to come up with a “healthier” alternative to most casserole recipes. In this recipe, I’ve probably found the most decadent way of preparing a side … Read More
Probably one of the last foods I hear talked about what when talking about Thanksgiving are turnips. It’s probably one of the last foods you’ll hear about, period. But it’s something I see in so much variety this time of year at the farmers market, and looking into the turnip’s many virtues, this is not so surprising. They’re an exceptionally useful and easy crop, adaptable to many climates and types of soil, and able to be left in the ground … Read More
Winter squashes can seem intimidating to cook. They have thick, hardened skins often scuffed with dirt, and their dense flesh can make for quite a dangerous job of cutting it if you’re not careful with a big knife. Their seed pockets are stringy and stick to your fingers. They take a long time to soften — or do they? Not when using these red kuri squashes, in thin slices for instance.
Just because cool weather and fall produce have arrived doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a good salad. I’m not sure if there’s anything that mandates a “salad” but the simple treatment of fresh ingredients, and the clean feeling you get from eating it. This salad, for instance, is served warm thanks to crisp, lightly roasted cauliflower and romanesco florets — and it has no lettuce greens. However, I like to roast the leaves from these brassicas along with them until … Read More
Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart. I won’t finish that familiar rhyme but the first part is thankfully very much true. Each of the three components in this concise side dish are beans or bean products. This doesn’t include the drops of vinegar, which was made with rice. However, if you served this with steamed rice to make for a complete meal, you’d essentially be eating a typical Eastern version of “beans and rice.” (See what I meant about … Read More
I can never really get bored with cooking zucchini and other summer squash when they’re fresh, firm and in season. I generally grab a couple bright, cheerful varieties any given time I’m at the farmers’ market all summer, but this often leaves me with a surplus of squashes that aren’t so terribly awesome-looking later in the week. But a few age spots on the outsides doesn’t mean they’re any more austere; I went ahead and baked these ones, in a … Read More