Cooking With This Week's Box
Red & Yellow
Onions: Cabbage & Mushroom Lasagna; Sesame Noodles with Seasonal Variations; Chicken Pot Pie with Biscuit Topping; Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette; Breakfast Hot Dish
Italian Garlic: Pasta Salad with Roasted Carrots and Sunflower Seed Dressing; Cabbage & Mushroom Lasagna; Simple Kohlrabi with Pistachios and Sage; Sesame Noodles with Seasonal Variations
Carrots: Pasta Salad with Roasted Carrots and Sunflower Seed Dressing; Sesame Noodles with Seasonal Variations; Chicken Pot Pie with Biscuit Topping
Celeriac: Cabbage & Mushroom Lasagna; Celeriac and Apple Soup with Tarragon; Chicken Pot Pie with Biscuit Topping
Festival Squash OR
Butternut Squash: Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette; Vegan Stuffed Acorn (sub Festival) Squash
Beauty Heart Radish: Sesame Noodles with Seasonal Variations
Red Savoy Cabbage: Cabbage & Mushroom Lasagna
Kohlrabi: Simple Kohlrabi with Pistachios and Sage
Red Cipollini Onions: Balsamic Roasted Cipollini Onions (see
below)
This is it, our final box of the season. This week’s box is packed full of storage
vegetables that will keep well into the next month. Take a moment to read this week’s newsletter
to find out how to best store each item.
Lets start this week’s cooking with the Red Cipollini Onions which are
this week’s featured vegetable. This is
a special onion that is at its best, in my opinion, when roasted. My simple recipe for Balsamic Roasted Cipollini Onions (see below) is my favorite way to
prepare these onions and is a great dish to serve alongside buttered noodles,
grilled steak or roast chicken. I
featured this recipe way back in 2007, but it’s still a keeper!
I found this recipe for Pasta Salad with Roasted Carrots and Sunflower Seed Dressing. It’s simple,
but interesting and will be good for a light lunch or a holiday potluck.
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| Celeriac and Apple Soup with Tarragon photo by Linda Xiao, food52 |
On the same website, Smitten Kitchen,
I found this recipe for Cabbage & Mushroom Lasagna. The recipe uses
thin slices of potato as the “lasagna” noodle layer. I’m going to substitute thin slices of
celeriac instead. If you don’t use all
your celeriac for this recipe, consider making this simple Celeriac and Apple Soup with Tarragon.
I love finding interesting ways to
eat root vegetables throughout the winter, including ideas for salads. I’m excited to try this recipe for Spiced Beet Salad with Citrus Ginger Dressing. In this recipe
the beets are tossed in a citrus vinaigrette that is seasoned with coriander,
mustard seeds, red pepper flakes and turmeric.
Once roasted, the beets are served topped with a dollop of yogurt, a
drizzle of the dressing, mint and pistachios.
Buy a few extra pistachios so you can try this recipe for Simple Kohlrabi with Pistachios and Sage. This kohlrabi tastes so sweet and delicious
when roasted and this simple recipe will be easy to pull off with little time
to invest. Serve it with rice or
alongside poached salmon or even just a simple fried egg.
If you’re looking for a recipe that can handle variations in
ingredients and still be delicious, this recipe for Sesame Noodles with Seasonal Variations is a good one to try. I featured this
recipe in the newsletter several years ago and it’s a good one. The recipe is written to include storage
turnips as well as carrots, but you could also include beauty heart radishes
and/or kohlrabi if that’s what you have available.
If you didn’t have a chance to make the recipe for Chicken Pot Pie with Biscuit Topping that we featured in our last newsletter, be sure to save it and give it a try
this winter. It’s a great way to
incorporate a lot of different root vegetables into a meal including turnips,
celeriac, carrots, and any other root you want to include!
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| Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette |
This week some boxes will receive butternut squash and
others will receive festival squash. If
you receive the butternut squash, or have some remaining from a previous
delivery, consider making this Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette. We featured this recipe on our blog last
winter. You’ll have to scroll to the
bottom of the blog post. This is a
delicious creation that takes a little time to make, but is really quite
easy. If you receive the festival
squash, consider making this recipe for Vegan Stuffed Acorn (sub Festival) Squash. The squash are filled with a mixture of
quinoa, cranberries, apples and pecans.
We’re one vegetable away from cooking everything in this
week’s box. We’re down to sweet potatoes
and I have one sweet and one savory suggestion.
I couldn’t resist this recipe for Sweet Potato Buttermilk Pie and for all you Midwesterners…Breakfast Hot Dish featuring sweet potatoes!
Friends, I’m signing off for a little winter rest. I hope you have fun cooking up creative winter
meals and I look forward to meeting you back here in this space again next
spring as we start another season of delicious, seasonal eating! Happy Holidays! –Chef Andrea
Vegetable Feature: Red Cipollini Onions
As you unpack the contents of this week’s box, don’t think
the beautiful red onions packed in a brown paper bag are just another red
onion. These are a special onion that
have a more flattened shape and are known for their higher natural sugar
content in comparison to other storage onions.
Cipollini onions are at their best when slowly roasted to develop these
natural sugars, leaving them silky, soft and so sweet they’ll melt in your
mouth.
This is not an onion you want to chop up— it’s one to be
featured whole in soups, side dishes, roasted alongside beef, pork or chicken,
or on kebobs. Roasted cipollini onions can be served as a side dish on their
own— flavored with balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, marinade, or simply tossed with
olive oil or butter and salt and pepper. While I think this onion is best
roasted, you can also boil or braise them. They add flavor and color when
braised in the cooking liquid of pot roast or pork roast along with other root
vegetables. Smaller cipollini onions can also be added to soups or stews.
As with any other onion, the papery skin needs to be removed
prior to cooking. They are kind of
challenging to peel by hand without peeling off an outer layer of onion
flesh. There is a trick to making them
easier to peel. The first step is to trim the stem and root ends with a paring
knife. Next, pour boiling water over them and let them set for 5-10 minutes.
This helps loosen the skin and you should be able to slip it off easily. Now
the onions are ready to be used as you wish.
Balsamic Roasted Cipollini Onions
Yield: 4-6
servings
1 pound cipollini onions
¼ cup balsamic vinegar, or as needed
2 tbsp butter
Salt, to taste
Ground black pepper, to taste
- Prepare onions by trimming both ends and removing the skin. In a baking dish, toss onions with vinegar, salt and pepper. Cover and put in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes or until start to become tender.
- Remove cover and add butter. Allow the butter to melt, then toss it in with the onions and bake, uncovered, until onions are tender and the liquid has reduced. You may need to add more vinegar if the liquid has reduced and the onions are not yet done baking. Serve hot.
Recipe by Chef Andrea Yoder
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