As we headed into fall, Matt and I came face to face with one of our dilemmas that we knew was coming. We had no idea how to cook most root vegetables. The thought of turnip, parsnip, rutabagas, and beets filling up our basket frankly terrified us. We muddled through a few recipes (beet spaghetti was a fabulous find!) before we were presented with a cookbook: Roots – The Definitive Compendium With More Than 225 Recipes. It is half encyclopedia, half cookbook and fully awesome. Thanks Mom.
Highlights from July 27th delivery
Some of the more interesting items we’ve received over the last couple of months are as follows:
- Romanesco – Mandelbrot anyone?
- summer squash and patty pan squash – These were ridiculously cute and tasty just grilled with olive oil and garlic on them
- garlic – this garlic is potent (some Russian variety). Our first head of garlic contained only 4 cloves. 4 GIANT cloves
- beets (golden, chiogga, red) – I have been converted, I love beets now.
- heirloom tomatoes – I can’t get enough of these. If you’ve only ever had tomatoes shipped from Florida, you are missing out!
- mustard greens – a nice change from the beet tops and turnip tops we’d been having recently. Nice spicy flavor.
- turnips – so far, the baby turnips are my favorite. We are still experimenting with various recipes though
- bok choy
- corn – Matt proclaimed it to be just like roadside corn. Good, but nothing special.
- shallots – you know the trick about pressing the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth to stop crying while cutting onions? Doesn’t work with these.
- fall squash