Wednesday, December 12, 2018

December 13, 2018 - This Week's Box Contents, Featuring Cipollini Onions


Cooking With This Week's Box



Covington Sweet Potatoes: Breakfast Hot Dish; Sweet Potato Buttermilk Pie





Red Savoy Cabbage: Cabbage & Mushroom Lasagna
  
  

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 DressingIt’s simple, but interesting and will be good for a light lunch or a holiday potluck.

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!

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
  1.  Preheat oven to 375°-400° F. 
  2. 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. 
  3. 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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