237: Beet and Carrot Latkes

One of my more favorite things about beets is how ...bloody they are. Cut up a bunch and it looks like you murdered someone. Make a batch of pickles and dye your onions a lovely shade of pink. And, as I demonstrated with me beet burgers a while back, make the rarest veggie burgers ever. 

So no, those aren't raw meat patties with my eggs, they're beet and carrot latkes, which I made for thanksgivukkah, despite the whole not being Jewish thing.

It was as easy as grating a few medium beets, carrots and an onion, then binding with an egg and some flour, adding salt and pepper to taste. Fry them up in a pan with oil, then let them dry out in a low oven a bit. As always I am impatient and could've stood to leave mine on a little longer to get some color and crispness, but I didn't realize my family was expecting them for breakfast and I was in a rush to get them out.

Totally recommended. Fritter all the things. 

Delivery 24

Potatoes - 2 pounds

Beets - 2 pounds

Carrots - 2 pound

Collards - 1 bunch

Turnips - 2

Garlic - 4 heads

Celeriac - 2 heads

Brussels Sprouts - 2 stalks

Kale - 1 bunch

Red Kernel Pop Corn - 2 cobs

Yellow Kernel Pop Corn - 2 cobs

Arugula - 1 bunch

Carrots

Carrot soup. Indian style carrots (mustardy). Root veggie stew (bonus for potatoes). Puffed carrot casserole.

Garlic

Celery Root

A few recipes via NPR. Remoulade with apples. Slaw with apples. Rotsi with potatoes.

Collards

Gratin. Italian veggie stew (bonus for kale, carrots, garlic). Collard and cheese pasties.

Popcorn

Arugula


Baby batch. Potato salad. Tartine with egg. Autumn panzanella!

Potatoes

Swedish hasbrowns (I know I have the wrong kind of potatoes, shhh), curry potato salad,

Beets

Smashed beets with goat cheese, soup!, beet and carrot latkes, beet and garlic tart, beets and eggs.

Turnips

Souffle, with tomatoes and yogurt, galette.

Brussels Sprouts

Yay! Chips with sweet chile sauce, sprouts and pecans, curried!

Kale

Salad with brussels sprouts, bread soup, gratin with sweet potatoes, with garlic and cranberries.

228: Kohlrabi Carrot Soup

Not a pretty soup, but a sweet and tasty one. I sort of used this recipe from Eat, Love and Be Happy! When skimming it seemed fine, but upon the reread I was generally confused as to what I was supposed to do, so I did my own thing.

Ingredients:

2 kohlrabi
3 carrots
1 head garlic
1 onion, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
~ sage, thyme, parsley
~ chiken stock
~ salt, pepper, olive oil

I peeled, cut into chunks, and roasted the kohlrabi and carrots until soft and browned. I also chopped the top of the garlic off the head, drizzled a little olive oil and wrapped in foil. That was also roasted until soft.

Meanwhile, I diced my onions and celery and started those in a pot with a little olive oil and salt. Once they got soft, and the onions started to brown, I added in the rest of the ingredients. The chicken stock was added until it just covered (I like my soups full of "stuff", not super brothy), and I let that simmer for a while, until the flavors had a chance to mingle and the herbs had some time to do their thing. Tasting, adjusting seasoning as necessary.

Roasting the kohlrabi and carrots brought out their sweetness, which extended out into the soup. Last night it seemed unpleasantly sweet, but I dug it a lot more for lunch. Next time I'd probably add roasted potatoes, but I totally forgot until it was too late to prep them.

225: Spicy Indian Carrot Soup

So Tuesday it snowed. It didn't stick, but they were decently fat flakes, accompanied by wind and a general desire to stay in bed- or at the very least get hot chocolate. I'd been wanting soup for a while now, but that set me over the edge. I settled on a carrot soup, and this recipe, because ginger. The only thing I didn't have was heavy cream...and I'm in a healthy-as-possible mindset, so I didn't feel right about buying any.

Searching the interwebs, a few people suggested yogurt, though with the caveat they'd only really used it in Indian dishes...and then the lightbulb went off.

I followed the recipe better than I tend to, adding about 1/8-1/4 tsp of coriander, cumin and turmeric. I also halved a jalapeno, removed the seeds, and tossed that in towards the beginning. Oh and I tossed in a few garlic cloves, roughly chopped, assuming that once everything got buzzed with the immersion blender it wouldn't really matter.

After I took the soup off the heat I swirled in a little yogurt, which looks super pretty in addition to amping up the creaminess. Let's pretend that parsley leaf is cilantro, ok? And that I'd actually wiped down that bowl properly.

Were I to do it again I'd take the jalapeno out sooner and add a bit more Indian flavor- it was very high on the spicy but low on the spices. And I'd also start off with a little hing. But I'm really loving this soup, and would definitely do it again. Any excuse to play with Indian flavors.

Delivery 23

Potatoes - 2 pounds

Orange Carrots - 1 pound

Yellow Carrots - 1 pound
Kohlrabi - 2

Sage - 1 bunch

Garlic - 2 heads

Celeriac - 1 head

Collards - 1 bunch

Beets - 2 pounds

Radish - 1 bunch

Collards

Lots of extras but here's a curry. A soup with grits. Creamed. Not sure I'd follow the filling but I could use the leaves for a wrap.

Carrots

A few soup ideas: with ginger or a little more plain.

Celeriac

Aka celery root. Smashed, gratin with potatoes, salad with parsley, root veggie slaw.

Potatoes

I can't even...

Beets

Moroccan stew (bonus for radish and excuses to buy squash), beet and radish slaw, or another round of picked beets. Beet ketchup. Borscht.

Radishes

These guys are tiny. White bean and radish salad. Roasted. Savory toast (with yogurt?!).

Garlic

Garlic confit. Honey lemon garlic tea (I'd throw ginger in there, too). Turkish poached eggs with yogurt and spicy sage butter (!!!).

Kohlrabi

Love these guys! "Ceviche" with radishes and carrots. Lots of extras, but crostini with mozz. Pickled with carrots. Nommy looking soup with carrots, potatoes, herbs I have kicking around.

Sage

Carrot and sage soup.

221: Mashed Carrots with Orange and Ginger

So this was the dish I mentioned the other day, that I used up my pound of carrots on. It was one of those rare occurrences- I follow a number of food blogs, but they never seem to have recipes I can actually use with my share. So I pounced on this recipe posted by The Bitten Word, boiling carrots then mixing with mint and orange zest. I omitted the hot sauce in that initial butter melt, just to see what the final results would be like. It wasn't unpleasant, though a little too orange-y for my tastes. It reminded me of that cauliflower cous cous. 

With the hot sauce though? Mmm. Really lovely on the first really cold day of the season. Next time I'd probably roast (of course), to bring a little more depth and caramelization to the party, but this was still lovely.

Delivery 22

Potatoes - 2 pounds

Beets - 2 pounds

Carrots - 1 pound

Red Russian Kale - 1 bunch

Purple Globe Turnips - 2

Flat Leaf Parsley - 1 bunch

Garlic - 2 heads

Acorn Winter Squash - 1

Popcorn - 4 cobs

Hot Peppers - take if you like

Red Russian Kale

Gorgeous! Kale with pecans. With smoked paprika. Kale chips. With buckwheat noodles.

Garlic

Guess. You'll probably be right.

Turnips

Believe it or not, I went for the smaller turnips, hoping to avoid the weird bitterness I had with the last big one. Slaw with carrots and apples. Slaw with carrots (bonus for parsley).

Acorn Squash

Soup with turnips. Soup with turnip chips. Soup with kale and bacon. What? I'm cold.

Popcorn

Note with the popcorn: let dry for three more weeks for best results. Um, thanks? I'll probably wait to bring this home to my parents', where there is a microwave.

Beets

Went for a bag with smaller beets. Salad with ginger. Salad with kale. Beet chips. Salad with potatoes.

Carrots

Boo orange carrots! Here's a slaw with beets (and beet greens, but I could use kale or something).

Potatoes

Ugh, potatoes. Part of me just wanted to swap these guys out for more garlic on the swap table. Here's fritters with turnips. Potato pancakes. Potato pizza dough. Or this potato cake (bonus for parsley).

Hot Peppers

Flat Leaf Parsley

I just kind of want to do wilted parsley on toast again.

211: Rainbow Carrot Salad with Coriander Yogurt Dressing

I wanted another simple salad, but something a little more interesting than what I'd been coming up with lately. This recipe from Bon Appetit was perfect. Carrot ribbons as a base (and gorgeous rainbow ones at that), radishes, scallions and lightly candied walnuts. Dressing of yogurt, vinegar honey and coriander. Really gorgeous.

My only subs were to use less sugar than the recipe called for on those walnuts, and garancha wine vinegar in lieu of sherry (what I had). 

Were I to make this again I'd save adding walnuts until the end, but as it was I just mixed everything together and it turned out well enough.The leftovers held up pretty well, too, though ideally I would've stored everything separately and mixed it up at work.

Delivery 21

I'm very much behind on this post, apologies. Many recipes are pulled from previous posts.

Potatoes - 2 pounds

Carrots - 1 pound 

Chiogga Beets - 1 pound

Garlic - 2 heads

Lacinato Kale - 1 bunch

Mustard Greens - 1 bunch

Radishes - 1 bunch

Thyme - 1 bunch

Romanesco Cauliflower - 1 head

Mustard Greens

Salads are tempting, but it's hard for me to turn down an Indian dish.

Chiogga Beets

Will take a picture of this pretties when I actually cook them, but in an effort to save plastic I didn't want to tear open the bag. They have bag of 15 lbs of beets for sale from my CSA. It's bad how tempted I am. Definitely want to preserve the color on these, so will likely use one of these recipes from the kitchn. Here are more raw beet recipes.

Rainbow Carrots

Raw salad to showcase the colors. Roasted with honey ginger butter. Salad with walnuts and radishes.

Potatoes

Roasted (bonus for rainbow carrots).

Radishes

Mango and radish salad. Radish curry. Oh man, maybe I'll actually make this crazy crazy bread.

Romanesco Cauliflower

Really want a recipe that keeps the cauliflower looking pretty, so a roast seems ideal.

Thyme

Roasting herb. Will throw it in where I can. Maybe I'll try drying it out? I can never use these things up in time.

Garlic

Used in other recipes, most likely. Can't afford to be precious.

Dinosaur Kale

All the salads, please. Here's one with balsamic vinegar and pine nuts. One with ricotta. Super simple with breadcrumbs and garlic.

205: Charred Veggies

Originally I titled this post Roasted Veggies, but realized how different this was from the batch that started this week's share, so I adjusted. The first set was diced then roasted rather slowly until pillowy, soft and sweet. These were big chunks, just barely seasoned with salt, pepper and oil. I didn't cook them nearly as long as the first set, but at a much higher temperature (on sheet pan directly on the pizza stone at the bottom of my oven). They still had a lot of bite, the roasting just took the edge off and gave them a bit of caramelization. Different but good.

194: Roasted Veggie Salad

Cop out? Kinda. I'd say to really be a cop out it'd be an automatic home run, and I did have some issues with how it turned out, so there's something to talk about here.

Overall it was about a half a head of lettuce and about 3/4 cup of roasted veggies. And two scallions sliced thin for a little more oniony-ness. The dressing was just oil, vinegar, sage and pepper. I tried to make up for the lack of herb flavor from the roasted veggies themselves by adding some chopped sage to this, but it still didn't come through. I'd even left it to steep overnight- maybe I'd needed to heat the oil for it to infuse?

My standard practice of making my dressing uber vinegary didn't work well here, either. It was nice to have some contrasting acidic bite, but it was just a little too much.

Tasty salad, but a little refinement needed.

193: Roasted Veggies

So I didn't entirely enact the crazy plan I mentioned in my delivery post, but close. I took a little bit of a number of veggies from this week (butternut squash, potatoes, carrots, and turnips) and a few things that were not (onions, garlic), and tossed those with olive oil, salt, thyme and chopped sage.

Roasted them for ages (stirring every 15 minutes or so), and would've kept it going longer had my knife skills been better and my bits actually chopped the same size. As it is there's a good bit of browning and caramelized sweetness (the turnips are surprisingly sweet), but not the crispy crust you can achieve leaving them in longer.

I thought I'd added a ton of herbage, but I forget some of these things will just fall off in the cooking/stirring process. They're still lovely eaten as is, but would be good with some pasta, quinoa or another preparation I'll have for you all soon.

Delivery 20

Butternut Winter Squash - 1

Turnips - 2

Lettuce - 2 heads Lettuce Smettuce, went for another bunch of radishes again

Broccoli - 1

Radish - 1 bunch

Potatoes - 2 pounds

Garlic - 2 heads

Kohlrabi - 1 bunch

Sage - 1 bunch

Carrots - 1 pound

Hot Peppers - Jalapenos

Cauliflower - 1

I have a bit of a crazyplan this week, just to chop everything up and roast it with the sage. But then I don't have enough sheet trays/oven space/etc.

Turnips

Kinda giant turnips this week. Here's a soup. Fritters with potato and scallions. Frittata. Simple roast.

Cauliflower

Heyyy I got one that wasn't moldy this time! Faux cous cous looks neat (and I love excuses to use the food processor). Spicy roasty cauliflower steaks. Creamy curried soup. And a curry with potatoes.

Jalapenos

Part of the reason I was able to build up so many habaneros for that jelly was they were too spicy to use in normal dishes. Happy to have a few milder everyday peppers to just use as needed.

Garlic

Every time I look at this thing, I just keep thinking of Eraserhead. I'm sorry if that's now stuck in your head. I use garlic all the time, but don't want to just toss this in with a bunch of other flavors. One of my favorite things about the CSA is subtly but profoundly different ingredients taste when they're this fresh. Most likely this will just get roasted and spread on bread like butter.

Butternut Squash

Yay! Butternut squash is one of those foods I adore, but don't order it at restaurants as it's a borderline food. It can be sweet or savory, and I want none of the sweet. Or rather, additional sweet. So no cinnamon or maple syrup please, the squash brings enough of that to the party as is. Roasted squash soup. I have my own favorite soup recipe with rosemary and onions, may try that out. These wontons sound neat, if a little sweet.

Potatoes

Salad with salmon. Pizza dough. First batch that appear to have been cleaned before sending.

Carrots

Roasted carrots and avocado salad. Carrot cake pancakes. Carrots with potatoes and dill. Spoon bread.

Sage

Crispy sage. Pizza with butternut squash. If I didn't still have pate in the freezer I'd make that again.

Radishes

There was a lot of sage (and I mean a lot) on the swap table today, but thankfully my radish-hating friend left an extra bunch for me to swap out. It's more than a little ridiculous that I traded two heads of lettuce for a baby bunch of these radishes (especially when I'm on a salad kick lately), but it happened. Pickles, with cheese and chives on bread, or just with butter and salt. Or I'll just make a bunch of radish roses, and throw them at people.

Broccoli

Broccoli grilled cheese (healthy wha?). Hummus with white beans. Chilled soup (bonus for dill, which I still have from last week).

Kohlrabi

Salad with apples. Slaw with apples. Slaw with turnips.