Roasted Beet Salad

1 bunch beets (3/4 pound without greens or 1 1/4 pound with), trimmed

1/4 cup sliced almonds
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon minced shallot
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups lettuce or arugula or baby spinach or other mixed salad greens
+ or - ¼ cup goat or feta cheese
optional: 1 cup cooked wheat or spelt berries or quinoa

Preheat oven to 400°F. Wrap beets in foil and roast in middle of oven until tender, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Unwrap beets and cool.

While beets are roasting, roast almonds on baking tray in toaster oven or lower shelf of oven for 6-10 minutes until just beginning to toast.Cool almonds & then slice into thin pieces.

Stir together shallot, lemon juice, vinegar, sugar, salt, and oil from almonds in a large bowl.

Slip skins from beets and halve large beets. Cut beets into 1/4-inch-thick slices and add to dressing, tossing to coat.

Arrange salad greens (and cooked grain) in individual bowls, place dressed beets atop salad base, drizzle with any dressing remaining in bowl. Top with spoonful of goat cheese or feta. Sprinkle with almonds.

How to Not Hate Beets

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! We had a fun party this weekend where you had to come in costume as "something you love." Ben and Natalia dressed as each other were fantastic.... I was a tree, Rachel was the night sky. Luke was the Virgin Mary.

I also love BEETS. And I thought I hated them for most of my life. So I would like to share with you... how to love beets (or at least not to hate them).

#1 Cut them up and admire their beautiful colors! Look carefully at the beautiful intricacy of the chiogga beets!


#2 DON'T OVERCOOK THEM. I say 12 minutes at a low boil - and this is in small pieces. If you cut larger pieces cook them a LITTLE bit longer but not much.
Also you can put interesting things in the water to make it more like broth. Salt, for one, but bay leaves or a big slice of onion and some cabbage never hurt either.


Then eat them straight up, plain, admiring their beetiness, or

#3 make a salad!
This is a "hot salad" i.e. the greens are sauteed kale, but you can also make it cold with spinach or lettuce. The important part is (a) goat cheese, (b) balsamic vinegar, (c) strawberries. You can add whatever leftover salady things you want, like walnuts from last week's box, or green beans from Saturday's dinner, but be generous with the balsamic and the goat cheese. MMMMMM good - enjoy!

Spaghetti with Sausage and Mustard Greens

I used to make a dish with a delicious Italian vegetable called rapini. It's kind of like a cross between mustard greens and broccoli. Rapini has a short season and is sometimes difficult to find, but we did get mustard greens AND broccoli in our last veggie box. What better substitute for rapini?

Ingredients:

1 lbs spaghetti or fettucini
1/2 lbs italian sausage
1 lbs rapini (Or 1/2 lbs mustard greens & 1/2 lbs broccoli)
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tsp salt

Prepare the spaghetti according to package directions. I like to season the water with salt, garlic powder and a bay leaf, but this is optional.

While you are waiting for the water to boil, you can prepare the other ingredients.

Roughly chop the mustard greens into 2-inch pieces and thinly slice the broccoli.

Add the olive oil to a large saucepan and put over high heat. Once the oil is hot, brown the sausage. You can squeeze the sausage out of the casings to do this. I had to use chicken sausage because I'm allergic to pork. This was pre-cooked, so I cut it into thin slices.

Once the sausage has browned, add the vegetables and salt. Stir occasionally until the mustard has wilted and the broccoli is tender.

Add the sausage mixture to the drained pasta and combine.

Bon Apetit!

Carrots and Tops

STOP!

DO NOT THROW AWAY THOSE CARROT TOPS!!!

After receiving carrots with their tops several times, I decided to research the edibility of carrot tops and was quite surprised to find out they were edible! No wonder they kept sending them with the tops on! Carrot tops are rich in protein, vitamins and minerals, especially potassium and can be used as substitutes in many places where you would use parsley. They do kind of have a "carroty" flavor, so you may want to do half parsley and half carrot tops.

Here's a fun way to use the whole vegetable in one go:


Carrots and Tops

6 carrots with tops
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp salt, or to taste

Cut the carrot tops off the carrots and wash well. They tend to be quite dirty, especially near the base. Finely chop the garlic and carrot tops. Cut the carrots into 1-inch chunks. Heat the olive oil on high a large skillet. Add the garlic and stir constantly until the garlic just begins to brown. Add the carrot tops and the salt. Once the carrot tops have wilted, add the carrots and cook until just heated through, or longer if you like your carrots softer.

Bon Apetit!

Butternut Leek Pasta Sauce

I used the butternut squash in the last box and the leeks in this week's box to make a pasta sauce. I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but I brought it to a potluck today and it got all eaten up, so I think it worked! This has a few more steps than a lot of the recipes I've been posting lately, but i think it's worth it.

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash

2 leeks*

1/2 cup butter

1 tsp each salt & nutmeg

1 can evaporated milk (12 oz)

Cut the stem off of the butternut squash if it has one and then cut it in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and place the 2 halves cut-side down on a baking sheet. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

While the squash is baking, clean the leeks well.** Thinly slice the leeks crosswise. Over high heat in a large sauté pan, melt the butter. Stir constantly to prevent burning. Just as the butter begins to brown, add the leeks, salt and nutmeg. Stir constantly to prevent burning. When the leeks have begun to brown, turn the heat off and add the evaporated milk. Stir to combine.

When the squash is cooked, scoop out the flesh into a large bowl.*** Add the leek mixture and mix well. Toss with cooked pasta.

This makes enough sauce for 2 pounds of pasta.

* I threw in 1 stalk of green garlic that I had left from the last box. I imagine this recipe would work quite nicely using just green garlic, about 4 stalks total would do I think. Also, 2 regular onions can be substituted for the leeks.

** See the "Roasted Root Vegetable Salad" entry for instructions and pictures on cleaning leeks.

*** I had roasted some root vegetables while I was baking the squash. Instead of throwing the squash skins away, I tore them up into bit-sized pieces and tossed them with the roasted vegetables. Butternut squash skins are very tender and quite tasty, and this way there's no waste!

Potato Celeriac Mash

Ingredients:

about 2 pounds potatoes

1 large celery root (celeriac)

1 tbsp butter

1 tsp sea salt (or to taste)

Wash and peel the celery root. The skin is quite thick; make sure to get rid of all the tough, fibrous bits. Cut it in half lengthwise.

Wash the potatoes and leave whole.

Toss everything in a light coating of olive oil and put on a baking sheet. Cover with aluminum foil.

Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Transfer vegetables to a large bowl, add the butter and salt, an mash everything together.

If you just got a veggie box, I used all the potatoes we got this week, and the celery root that was in there. Perfect combo! Sorry, no pictures. I roasted the beets at the same time and they tinted everything red, so my mash is pink O_o.

Bon Apetit!

Guatemalan Potatoes

This recipe is kind of late, busy with the holidays and all. Luckily, potatoes are readily available at any time of the year, not just veggie boxes, so here we go! A friend from Guatemala taught me how to do this, so I'm not sure if it's actually a Guatemalan thing or if was just her family thing. This is probably one of the easiest recipes I will ever post on this blog, but it is just so tasty and satisfying, I had to include it. Bonus: there's only 4 ingredients, no measuring, and there is absolutely no fat in this AT ALL! Also, totally vegan. Usually when you think potatoes, you think butter and cream, but trust me, these taste so good you won't even miss the extra fat.

Ingredients:

potatoes

lemon

salt

pepper

Wash and boil the potatoes whole with the skin on. Once the potatoes are thoroughly cooked, removed them from the water and cut them into big chunks. Drizzle with lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.

Sea salt is best, but regular table salt is fine. Please, please, please try to use fresh lemons for this! There's just no substitute for the real thing. If you absolutely have to, juice from one of those plastic lemons will work, but the juice always tastes off because of the preservatives they use. I hope you like this!

Bon Apetit!