This week’s recipe takes advantage of members of the allium family, baby leeks (one-inch diameter max), and steams them in a microwave oven before grilling them with a Parmesan cream. Use a baking or gratin dish that holds the leeks snugly and that can travel straight from microwave to broiler. Done in a flash, with a minimum of washing up. […]
Read moreThis week’s recipe is plucked from “Cooking from the Farmers’ Market,” (Weldon Owen Publishing 2011) which is available through Eight Cousins Bookstore. By Tasha De Serio and Jodi Liano, the book isn’t just a nicely photographed recipe collection. Each fruit and vegetable gets its own shopping, storing and prepping tips, basic instruction many cookbooks omit, but handy if you’re tackling, […]
Read moreThis week’s recipe combines butter-poached peas, scallions and garlic scapes, which become a quite different vegetable when cooked–bean-like and sweet. Spring Vegetable Ragout 10 oz sugar snap pea-pods, trimmed (about 4 cups) 8 oz shelling peas (about ½ cup shelled) 8 garlic scapes, tender parts only, top-knot discarded 8 scallions, trimmed back to six inches 1 cup pea-cooking water, plus […]
Read moreSweet strawberries have a faithful companion in tart rhubarb. They’re often called the first two fruits of spring, although rhubarb is strictly speaking a vegetable. Rhubarb was introduced to America by Benjamin Franklin and was commonly called pie plant, supposedly because of its use in pies. Here it joins strawberries in a crumble – humbler than pie, and even easier! […]
Read moreThe 2012 growing season got off to a quick start with unseasonably warm weather in early spring. This week, while it lasts, we’re taking advantage of local asparagus . Roast Asparagus with a lemony cream 1 lb. asparagus 1 scant Tbs olive oil 2 ½ tsp. strained fresh lemon juice lemon parings from ½ a lemon salt and white pepper […]
Read moreOur recipe this week is for a large whitish botanically-enigmatic knob in the turnip family. The Macomber turnip. also known as the Westport turnip, was introduced to Westport by the Macomber brothers in 1876. It’s crisp as a radish, sweet as rutabaga, white as a turnip, and winsomely smooth and mellow when cooked. Turnips suspiciously like these are also called […]
Read moreWinter squashes, the tough-skinned ones, usually keep well, but are harder to peel. If you’ve a tried and true way of peeling squash, stick with it. But if the job seems daunting, try tackling it in small bits. Take butternut, for example. First truncate the squash where the neck meets the body. Next slice the body longitudinally in half, then […]
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