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

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

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

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 Beets: Spiced Beet Salad with Citrus Ginger Dressing

Red Cipollini Onions: Balsamic Roasted Cipollini Onions (see below)

Gold Turnips: Chicken Pot Pie with Biscuit Topping; Sesame Noodles with Seasonal Variations

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.

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

Vegetable Feature: Shallots, Onions and Cipollini

by Sarah Janes Ugoretz

We hold tightly to the conviction that daily, year-round consumption of onions is not only a health benefit, but also an easy way to improve the flavor profile of the foods we prepare. Between the regular onions we pack throughout the season, to the shallots in the last box to this week’s cipollini onions, I’d say we’ve got you covered on all fronts!

There are many situations where you might use these three alliums interchangeably, however the last thing we want to do is lump these three distinct culinary ingredients into an undifferentiated mass. So, here goes a brief crash course on their unique attributes. To begin, yellow and red storage onions are just that—ideally suited to keep through the long winter.  Whether you sauté them along with beef or mushrooms or feature them in their own French onion soup, these onions will be your workhorses in the kitchen.

Shallots, which were included in your first extended season box, have been awarded a more fanciful designation.  Shallots have long been recognized as having a rather delicate flavor and, when used raw, they bring a subtle pungency to a dish. When cooked, however, shallots become rich and sweet tasting.

Finally, lets talk about those dark red cipollini onions. Of Italian decent, cipollini onions appear flattened and saucer-like. They are known for being an excellent onion for caramelizing and roasting, as both cooking procedures develop their natural sugars.  One of my favorite destinations for these onions is whole roasted in a balsamic glaze. Cipollini onions can be a bit of a challenge to peel, but don’t worry…there’s a trick.  Using a paring knife, trim away the roots just enough to take a thin layer off the base of the onion and mark the base with a very shallow “X” cut.  Trim the neck part of the opposite side.  Boil a pot of water and drop the onions in the water for just a few minutes.  Drain off the hot water and rinse with cold water.  When they are cool enough to handle, just pop the skins off.

All of these alliums will keep longer if stored in the right environment—typically, dry and dark is ideal, with good airflow. If stored properly, onions and shallots will store for several months.

Roasted Cipollini Onions with Sherry Vinegar

Yield:  4 servings
1 ½ pounds whole cipollini onions
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp thyme leaves
1 tsp sugar
¼ cup plus 2 Tbsps sherry vinegar
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the cipollini onions until just tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and cool under cold running water. Trim and peel the onions and pat dry.
2. Transfer the onions to a large ovenproof skillet and stir in the olive oil, thyme leaves, sugar and ¼ cup of the sherry vinegar. Bring to a simmer over moderate heat. Cover the skillet with foil and roast the onions in the upper third of the oven for about 20 minutes, until soft. Remove the foil and roast the onions for about 10 minutes, basting a few times with the juices, until lightly glazed.
3. Transfer the skillet to the stove. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of sherry vinegar and stir over moderate heat until the onions are richly glazed, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and plenty of pepper and serve.

NOTE:  The glazed onions can be made ahead and refrigerated overnight. Reheat gently.

Recipe borrowed from foodandwine.com.  It was originally published in March 2009 and was contributed by Matt Molina.