Book Review

Deborah Madison’s The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
Reviewed by Andrea Yoder

Deborah Madison has been one of my favorite chef-authors for many years.  She has written over 10 cookbooks including Vegetable Literacy and her most recent cookbook, The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  I have a weakness for her cookbooks, so when I saw a copy of her most recent book on the shelf at the bookstore I couldn’t resist.  Deborah has focused her career on preparing simple, seasonal, vegetable-based cooking.  In her early days she worked at Alice Water’s well-known San Francisco restaurant, Chez Panisse.  She later opened her own restaurant, Greens, which focused on vegetarian cuisine.

   The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone was preceeded by an earlier cookbook Deborah published in 1997 entitled Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  Her original work is considered a classic cookbook in the realm of vegetarian cuisine and has won several awards.  Her new cookbook is “for everyone interested in learning how to cook vegetables creatively, healthfully, and passionately.” The recipes are simple & written with the intent that they will be prepared at home, as opposed to being chef-y restaurant recipes. Since Deborah is cooking in a different region of the United States, there are a few times when you might need to make a minor substitution for an ingredient that we may not have available in a given season in Wisconsin.
   Deborah takes the time throughout the book to include her own personal commentary on most of her recipes.  She offers suggestions for making substitutions or slight alterations to recipes to give the cook more options to choose from.  She also makes suggestions for other recipes in the book that might pair well together so you can easily put together a full meal.  I also appreciate that she takes time in the beginning of the book to include some basic information about how to go about cooking in an approachable way.  She also includes a section on basic cooking fundamentals that enable any cook, no matter how much experience you may have, to become more savvy in the kitchen.
   While the list price for this book is $40, it is a value when you consider the book includes over 1600 recipes featuring many of the vegetables we grow on our farm over the course of the season.  If you’re looking for a good vegetable-centric cookbook to guide you through a CSA season, I’d encourage you to consider Deborah Madison’s The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  Her simple recipes & vegetable storage information will be helpful to those who may be new to CSA and are learning to cook new vegetables.  Her book also may be appealing to cooks with more experience who are looking for simple recipes that highlight the delicious vegetables they’ve grown to love.
   I selected 3 simple recipes from her book to feature this month.  If you have some of these vegetables remaining from the late season 2014 shares, perhaps you can find a use for them with some of Deborah Madison’s ideas.

Roasted Beets, Apples, and Onions with Cider Vinegar

“This is a bold dish, far greater than the sum of its parts. Any leftovers make a great little

salad or item on a composed salad plate. Use any color beet or a mixture.”

Recipe borrowed from Deborah Madison’s cookbook, The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

Yield: 4 servings

4 medium beets, steamed, peeled and cut into ½ –inch dice

2 cups diced apples, skin on

½ onion, diced

¾ tsp sea salt

2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

⅛ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1 Tbsp brown sugar, optional

1 ½ Tbsp butter or sunflower seed oil

Freshly milled pepper

Apple cider vinegar or horseradish, for serving

1. Heat the oven to 350°F. Lightly butter or oil a 4-cup casserole or

gratin dish.

2. Toss the beets with the apples and onions, season with the salt,

vinegar, and nutmeg. If you favor extra sweetness, add the sugar as

well.

3. Slide the vegetables into the baking dish and dot with the butter or

drizzle with oil. Cover and bake for 1 hour.

4. Serve warm or even chilled. Season with pepper and have extra

vinegar or horseradish on the table, if you like their extra bite

Roasted Onions with Vinegar & Rosemary

“Serve these easily prepared onions as a side dish, or add them, chopped, to arugula or

spinach salad or spoon them over bruschetta with slivered Manchego cheese.”

Recipe borrowed from Deborah Madison’s cookbook, The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

4 to 5 onions, sliced into ½-inch rounds

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp balsamic or aged sherry vinegar

1 Tbsp finely chopped rosemary

Sea salt and freshly milled pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.

2. Toss the onions with the oil, vinegar, and rosemary. Season with salt and

pepper. Put them in a baking dish with a few tablespoons water.

3. Cover and bake for 30 minutes, then uncover and continue baking until the

onions are browned around the edges and tender, about 30 minutes more.

Give them a stir every 10 minutes or so toward the end.

Sweet Potato Muffins with Candied Ginger

“Chunks of candied ginger make these particularly good. If you don’t have ginger readily

at hand, replace it with chopped dates, raisins or fresh pineapple. Serve these with Brie or

other mild cheese, butter, or cream cheese.”

Recipe borrowed from Deborah Madison’s cookbook,The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

Yield: 10 to 12 muffins

⅓ cup chopped candied ginger

¼ cup butter, melted

⅓ cup unsulfured molasses

1 cup mashed cooked sweet potato

or winter squash

2 eggs, at room temperature

½ cup buttermilk

½ cup packed light brown sugar

1 ¾ cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp sea salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Oil muffin tins.

2. Mix the ginger and wet ingredients in a bowl until smooth; mix the dry

ingredients in a second bowl. Combine the two, mixing gently until well

blended.

3. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins and bake on the middle rack until

lightly browned, 25 minutes

Survey Says!

 By Andrea Yoder
   It’s hard to believe our first CSA deliveries of the 2015 season are just 7 weeks away!  We’re looking forward to all the special spring vegetables including overwintered spinach, wild-harvested ramps, tangy sorrel, asparagus, and sweet overwintered parsnips.  Over the past 2 weeks we’ve enjoyed some sunny, beautiful days and welcomed warmer temperatures.  Our small year-round crew has been busy trimming the willow hedgerows & washing the last of our winter storage crops.  They’ve also worked very hard to get our first two greenhouses cleaned and sterilized.  The houses are filling up quickly and it’s refreshing to see the vibrant, new green sprouts.

Laurel & Andrea unpacking lemongrass & ginger

   Richard and I have been putting together our plans for the season.  Richard has been plotting out his field plan, planning which fields need to have minerals applied this spring, and making sure we have all the necessary supplies for the field crew to get to work when they arrive in just a little over two weeks!  I’ve been working on planting plans for greenhouse plantings and making sure we have all the seeds for the season.  There is a lot that goes into the decisions we make from year to year, including the feedback we get from you….our loyal members!  At the end of the 2014 season we asked for your feedback in the form of our end-of-season survey.  Over 600 members contributed their input and we really appreciate the information we gleaned from the survey.  We wanted to share some of the results we received and a little insight into how this impacts some of our decisions for the season.

Summer Vegetable Box

According to the survey results, 95% of members were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the box contents, overall value of their shares, and newsletter content.  The most important factors members consider when deciding whether or not to purchase a CSA share are Quality, Variety & Freshness.  This was true for not only vegetable shares, but also carried over into the fruit, cheese, & coffee shares as well.  We’re happy to see such a high rate of satisfaction and will continue to strive for producing and delivering a variety of high quality products this season.

Radish Seed Pods

 One of the challenges we face throughout the season is striking a balance with the contents of our CSA shares.  Given our long delivery season, we try to include a variety of vegetables to make your CSA experience interesting & exciting. We realize some members may be up for more of a challenge than others.  Those who are new to CSA prefer to focus on mastering their use of
more familiar vegetables such as green beans, carrots, broccoli & tomatoes.  We also find we have quite a few members who have been with us for 5 years or more and enjoy experimenting with new vegetables each year.   The feedback we received from our recent survey indicates that the majority of members are happy with the variety of the box contents.  There were some members who expressed that they would like to see some of the unusual crops we’ve grown previously included in shares again. We agree with you!  Based on member feedback several years ago we felt like perhaps members were getting tired of some of our more unusual crops.

Lemongrass

We didn’t want to stop growing them completely, but thought we’d try rotating them in and out of the growing plan and taking a year or two off from some of these.  Some of these crops include lemongrass, Portuguese kale, Egyptian spinach, jicama, radish seed pods and some of our specialty greens.   Based on feedback from the recent survey, it sounds like it’s time to bring a few of these crops back.  This year we’re planning on growing a small amount of lemongrass as well as Portuguese kale.  I myself have missed both of these vegetables and am really looking forward to making some of my favorite dishes this year!  We are also planning to try a few new interesting greens including one called “Amara.” This is a green I read about in a cooking magazine last year, but couldn’t find a source for the seed at the time.  It originates in Africa and is also known as Ethiopian kale.  I was excited to find it in one of the catalogs we received in January and quickly added it to our order.  They are supposed to be good in salads as well as cooked and are described as having “an excellent, rich flavor.”   For those who like to keep things interesting in the kitchen, we hope you’ll enjoy some of these interesting vegetables.  If you’re not as familiar with some of these less familiar vegetables, we hope you’ll give them a try.  We’ll be sure to give you recipes and information to guide you along the way.  Who knows…you just might discover a new “favorite” vegetable this year!
   We were pleased to receive quite a few comments related to the greens we included in the boxes.  Many of the members who commented on greens stated that they really enjoyed the variety.  For many years Farmer Richard’s mantra has been…. “Eat your greens every day!” Perhaps his efforts have paid off!  Some members expressed they’d like more salad mix, spinach and some of the heartier greens such as gold & rainbow chard and kale.  Salad mix and spinach do best in the spring and fall, so their season of availability is a bit more limited.  Other salad greens such as baby arugula, sauté mix and baby kale mix are more heat tolerant and have a longer season of availability.  We will do our best to include more of these items throughout the season and try to strike a balance with the selection of greens.

Harvest Party!

   One of the basic CSA concepts is that members have an opportunity to connect directly with the farm where their food is produced.  While there are many places to purchase and source food, one of the benefits of CSA is the transparency that comes along with your food.  We encourage our members to come and visit their farm so you can see for yourself where your food is produced.  We realize it’s not feasible for everyone to visit, so we try to bring the farm to you every week through our newsletters.  We put a lot of time and energy into producing weekly newsletters to accompany each of the shares and appreciate that 70% of survey respondents who received vegetable shares read the newsletter weekly.  About 63% of respondents who received fruit shares read the fruit newsletter with each delivery.  We also received quite a few positive comments from members who appreciate the variety of content within the newsletters.  Every year we brainstorm different topics that we’d like to include throughout the season.  If you have any suggestions for topics you’d like to read about, please send them our way so we can consider them as well.
   One comment we heard frequently throughout the survey was “more recipes!” We will continue to tap into our creative culinary minds to come up with simple, tasty and interesting recipes to feature in our newsletters.  Several members commented that they’d like to see more recipes shared by our members.  So would we!  If you have a recipe you’ve tried and found to be a hit with your family, please send it our way.  We’d love to try it in our kitchen and share it with other members.

Fruit Share

   Beyond our vegetable shares, we asked for feedback regarding the other shares we offer.  With regards to the fruit share, over 75% of members who received fruit shares and answered the survey expressed that they were “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the variety & quality of the fruit selections last year.  Some members did comment that they were disappointed with the quality of some of the fruit selections last year and some members felt like the variety was greater in previous years.  Last season was a challenging year for many of the fruit growing regions we source our products from.  Due to weather challenges, there were times during the season when the supply of fruit was pretty limited and some selections we’ve received in previous years were crop failures last year.  With over 30 plus years of work in this industry, our fruit buyer, Rick, has developed many  good connections directly with the growers.  Even when the supply was tight and the challenge was high, Rick was able to secure fruit for our boxes.  When I met with Rick this winter I shared some of the survey feedback with him.  He was grateful for the feedback and will continue to work hard to meet the demands for both quality and variety.  He spent some time visiting growers on the west coast this past January.  He was able to meet some new folks and has his eye on a few interesting varieties we hope to include in the upcoming season.
   We continue to receive mixed feedback regarding the preferred size of the fruit share.  In 2014 we reduce the size and price of the fruit share based on feedback we had been receiving from members that there was just too much fruit in the shares.  Throughout the course of the season and in the survey results, some members expressed that they’d prefer to go back to the size of share we previously packed.  On the flip side, we continue to receive comments from some members that the share is still too large.  We did make the decision to continue with the same size share as last year, at least for the 2015 season.  We’ll reassess the share size in the fall before we make our decisions for the 2016 season.
   Thanks again to those of you who took the time to complete the survey.  We also appreciate the feedback we receive throughout the season through our conversations with members and email communication.  While we can’t accommodate every request or suggestion, we do value your input as to what is working as well as considering ways we might improve our CSA.  We’re looking forward to a new growing season and hope you’ll join us for another year of good food!