vegetables

front and center.

delicata squash ‘pasta’ ribbons with chanterelle mushrooms

01/20/2012 | 12 Comments | Topics: entree, food., recipes, vegetables

What is this mom? Not something the boys had seen before: ribbons of delicata squash made to look like pasta. A simple squash—skip the boiling water for this faux pasta—lightly sauteed, topped with toasted walnuts and chanterelle mushrooms. I LOVE this ingenious tip: you don’t even need to peel the squash. This yummy little number was inspired by a recent night at the restaurant (I help at a neighborhood… [more]

risotto. with winter vegetables.

12/10/2011 | Leave a comment! | Topics: Italian food, starch, vegetables

Living in Italy for a year meant I had a lot of time to focus on food, roam food markets and notice which foods ‘grew together’ at different times of the year. Right now any combination of winter vegetables would happily co-mingle on top of a plate of risotto. Kale and chard, carrots, brussel sprouts and onions… winter squash, yams, sweet potatoes. Toss in some raisins or nuts for… [more]

Spotlight: Rhubarb.

05/19/2011 | 4 Comments | Topics: dessert, food spotlight, vegetables

Did you like rhubarb growing up? I didn’t. Though I find that to be true of quite a laundry list of foods: tomatoes, bell peppers, avocados, eggplant… now I love them all. I bought rhubarb the other day through my CSA; I opened the box and my eyes went straight to these long, deep-red stalks. Rhubarb is stunning—probably the envy of celery. Celery gets used more, to be sure. But… [more]

Tomato Eggplant Gratin

04/04/2011 | 4 Comments | Topics: vegetables

This was the one that got away. I made this recipe years ago, just around the time I launched this blog. I loved it, and always meant to share it: but could never find it again. Until last week. And since last week, I have made it 3 times. No joke. And despite having it up on a pedestal as one of the best recipes I ever had—and promptly… [more]

side dish twist: roasted pepitas and cauliflower

11/20/2010 | 5 Comments | Topics: vegetables

Roasting vegetables is one of my favorite ways to include vegetables on our daily table. Usually, I mindlessly toss broccoli, carrots or halved brussel sprouts with olive oil and generous grinds of coarse pepper and salt. This time, I was flirting around with pepper and sugar in my current kitchen foray into Mexican Food… many of the dishes I was eyeballing also called for pumpkin seeds. It is fun… [more]

Eggplant Bites w/Red Sauce

07/17/2010 | 9 Comments | Topics: Italian food, starters, vegetables

Bites, nibbles, crumbly blobs of Parmesan and breadcrumbs on small pieces of eggplant. This experiment made at least a dozen rounds in my kitchen before reaching this blog. It sounded good, but unless I took out duck-tape, the ‘breading’ had no inclination whatsoever to actually stick to the eggplant. I tried egg whites and whole eggs, small sized eggplant and eggplant cakes. The taste profile worked: it is a… [more]

oven-roasted broccoli

07/08/2010 | 7 Comments | Topics: vegetables

Please tell me you have tried this. We eat our broccoli this way 90% of the time. And we have it every single week. Yes I am serious. Don’t you have side dishes that are frequent visitors? The stand-by, consistently good, easy-to-make-in-your-sleep vegetables? This is ours. I was mortified when I was searching my blog-of-over-4-years and ALL THOSE POSTS and not one, not one of them talked about… [more]

marinated zucchini

06/02/2010 | 4 Comments | Topics: salad, vegetables

New favorite vegetable: grilled, marinated zucchini. It is because of this recipe, that my sons fell in love with zucchini. Francesco was a tad bit envious the other day, when I snagged some of these zucchini from the fridge, piled them on a plate and topped them with a poached egg… he even went so far as to sneak a few bites. Every time they add a vegetable to… [more]

baby artichokes

05/17/2010 | 3 Comments | Topics: food spotlight, vegetables

As a food blogger, I receive my fair share of promotional emails. It might be about a new cookbook, a kitchen tool, a new recipe application for iphone or a food product. Actually, this summer I am testing a new wire contraption for growing tomatoes; no doubt you will hear about that gadget later this year—when my tomatoes are hanging heavily from their stems. Every so often I get an… [more]

fava beans

04/26/2010 | 4 Comments | Topics: food spotlight, vegetables

The truth is, I like getting acquainted with new ingredients, foods, vegetables, products and wine. I like opening a cookbook from an unfamiliar culture. I like a culinary challenge. But mostly, I like to add to my kitchen mastery. Think wizard with a wand—only I wield a sword. My apron is my armor. I chat a bit, talk a lot, cook and learn, write about it and go out… [more]