Beets and greens

I'm trying to be creative in my use of the various share items so today I did a take off on this recipe at Epicurious.


What did I change? Several things. First, rather than rice I used the seven grain mix from the share. I added a couple of cloves of garlic and I used Parmesan cheese rather than goat cheese. Then I sprinkled the final dish with fresh basil. And I liked it a lot, in fact, I liked it a lot better than the squash risotto I made awhile back. The problem with beets is that everything cooked with beets ends up looking like beets. Here is what it looked like right after I added the beets:

At the end, it was quite a lot more dramatic:



I also made a puree of the the rutabagas from the share. I boiled them with the remaining two parsnips, two accidental turnips (I couldn't tell they were turnips until after I peeled them) and three peeled and cored apples.

I mashed them with my new and wonderful toy, the immersion blender. Oh how I love using that thing for smoothies in the morning.

I mixed them until they looked like this:
Then added some butter, salt, and maple syrup.


Now, that was a decent side but it wasn't as good as the beet pilaf. The funny thing though? My favorite part of the meal was the salad I made with the lettuce from the share, some of the topping from the Judyboo's Bok Choy salad recipe, a generous handful of dried cranberries and a simple dressing of vinegar, sunflower oil, hot sauce, sugar, and salt.


I served everything above with a roast whole chicken but who wants a picture of a chicken? And why were there pictures today anyway? Ben broke my cheapie tripod so he bought a new one on eBay and it's an amazingly complicated professional tripod. I'm still trying to figure out which controls move the camera and tripod in which direction however, I make no promises to take more pictures as I'm cooking. But I might.

Miso Roasted Root Vegetables

This recipe was in the share newsletter a couple of weeks ago and since I'm swimming in beets at the moment I thought I'd give it a try. I did NOT regret it one bit.


Miso Roasted Root Vegetables

Mark Bittman's book, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, has a lot of good information about miso, as well as suggested recipes. Although he extols the health benefits of uncooked miso, his book also includes a few recipes where the miso gets some heat. The recipe for the Miso glaze below is adapted from one of them. You can also use the glaze when grilling vegetables or tofu. The roasted vegetables would make a great side dish for the tofu recipe below. Leftovers can be brought to room temperature and tossed with mesclun and Asian dressing and garnished with chopped dulse for a light salad supper.


1/2 cup miso
1/4 cup honey
1 clove minced garlic
1 hot pepper minced, or 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
2 TB sunflower oil

4 lbs mixed root vegetables, such as turnips, rutabagas and beets
salt to taste

Preheat oven to 375F. Whisk together glaze ingredients, miso through sunflower oil. Heat slightly if your honey has crystallized and the mixture is too thick. Peel, slice and chop vegetables into 1/2" pieces. Toss veggies with glaze on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with salt. Roast in the oven for 45 to 60 minutes, tossing every 15 minutes, until vegetables are caramelized on the outside and soft on the inside. Serve hot or at room temperature.

I used a mix of beets, rutabagas, and parsnips and followed the recipe as written. I used a jalapeno pepper and it really didn't add any significant heat so feel free to add a couple of them.

Ben and I loved this recipe as did our neighbor who was here as I pulled it out of the oven. Sam? Not so much.

Rutaroni and Cheese

Ben's not home and I technically don't feel pressed to cook but my friend Lisa raved about this recipe so I decided to give it a try but of course I modified to make it less healthy and to use some of the infinite rutabagas in my fridge. First I cooked the rutabagas and pureed them in the food processor which seems as though it would be an easy thing but took three separate attempts due to visitors and side trips and other good reasons related to the distractingly beautiful weather.

Here is my modified version of the recipe:

Rutatoni and Cheese

1/4 pound dry pasta
10-ounces cooked pureed rutabaga
1 cups milk
3 ounces extra-sharp Cheddar, grated (about 3/4 cups)
1.5 ounces Monterrey jack, grated (about 1/2 cup)
1/4 cup cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon powdered mustard
dash cayenne pepper

Topping:
2 tablespoons unseasoned bread crumbs
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan
1 teaspoon olive oil

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Coat casserole pan with cooking spray.

Cook pasta.
Mix rutabaga and milk into a large saucepan and cook until the mixture is almost simmering, stirring occasionally. Stir in cheeses and spices. Combine sauce and pasta, transfer the macaroni and cheese to the baking dish.

Combine bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese and oil in a small bowl. Sprinkle over the top of the macaroni and cheese. Bake for 20 minutes, then broil for 3 minutes so the top is crisp and nicely browned


My verdict? Ok, but not terrific. The rutabaga flavor comes on loud and strong so you've got to like it. The texture was more problematic. It was a little gritty rather than smooth and creamy the way macaroni and cheese should be.

Sam's verdict? "I don't like this macaroni and cheese."

I won't be making this again but I'll eat the leftovers for lunch without complaining. So much for the thought of hiding vegetables in other foods.

Tasty Glop

I just don't know what to call this recipe and it looks like glop -- a pile of relatively unappetizing stuff but still quite tasty. There must be a trick to recipe naming that I don't know.

My inspiration was the result have having lots of rutabagas in our last share. Oodles of them. Now, I could probably just have cooked them and mashed them with butter to make a side dish I could freeze for those nights I'm short a veggie but I wasn't in the mood to peel and cook them all. Instead I thought I'd try out my mandolin and do a small dice for the rutabagas and potatoes. It worked great for the rutabagas because they're hard but not as well for the potatoes.


Hamburger Rutabaga Potato Lentil Spinach Glop

1 lb hamburger
1 onion, diced
2 large rutabaga diced into 3/16" pieces
4 small potatoes diced into 3/16" pieces
1 c lentils
1 package dried french onion soup mix
1 package frozen spinach
1/4 tsp white pepper
1 tsp salt
Water as needed

Brown hamburger, add the onion and cook until soft. Add the remaining ingredients with enough water to nearly cover. Cook until the veggies are soft, approximately 30 minutes in the oven at 350, probably less if on the stove top.

Verdict:

Anne: Very tasty. This would probably make a good meat pie or dumpling filling but I'm too lazy to do that although I could do that with the leftovers I froze.

Sam: I want it for lunch tomorrow.

Beware the unknown root vegetable

I'm not too up on the various types of root vegetables because I've not eaten a wide variety of them in the past and some are very similar in appearance to others. The share a week and a half ago listed five lbs of "rainbow roots" and when I recognized some beets, some radishes and rutabagas. I've had those "rutabagas" hanging around for a bit so I found a recipe for rutabagas and carrots that sounded pretty tasty and decided to make it this morning. The first couple of rutatagas I peeled and sliced looked normal but then I started on these:

So these aren't exactly rutabagas, they're valentine radishes! Oops! That means they gave us about 2 lbs of radishes in this share and all those monster daikon radishes in the most recent share...oh, and radish sprouts too.

Did I mention that I'm not overly fond of radishes?

I decided that since I'd already started my rutabaga and carrot purée I should just punt and see what I could come up with. I subbed a small cabbage (only one left of the five now) and some potatoes for the remainder of the rutabaga and you know? It tasted terrific.

Approximate recipe:

1/2 lb rutabages peeled, diced

2 small potatoes, diced

5 carrots, peeled, diced

3T butter

3 T brown sugar

1 tsp salt

(I don't know why blogger insists I double space that, sorry)

Simmer veggies about 30 minutes until tender. Puree in food processor (thank goodness I've got it back!) and add remaining ingredients.

Rating: Mmmmm