Roasted root vegetables make for a sweet and savory side dish. Roots great for roasting are carrots, turnips, celery root, rutabagas, parsnips, kohlrabi, and fingerling potatoes. To these you can add garlic bulbs and thick slices of butternut squash if you like. Toss root vegetables with a bit of olive oil and salt and set…
Side Dishes
Whole Winter Squash Roasted
Small winter squashes such as butternut, Delicata, and acorn can be roasted in halves to serve right in the shell. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Halve the squash and scoop out the seeds. No need to remove the skin. Place the halves cut side up on an oiled rimmed baking sheet or shallow roasting pan,…
Whole Brussels Sprouts Steamed, Stir Fried, Roasted
Cook Brussels sprouts until the insides are just tender, not soft, and the flavor will be sweet, mild, and delicious. Choose Brussels sprouts that are dark green, tightly formed, and of uniform size–smaller, not bigger is best. Cook the same day they come off the stem or use the sniff test to tell you they…
Glazed Carrots Simply Made
PrintGlazed CarrotsAuthor Steve Albert Don’t miss out on this simple carrot recipe. It’s delicious! InstructionsPeel the carrots and cut them into rounds or sticks. Be sure the pieces are about the same size so that they cook evenly. (If you use baby carrots, don’t bother to peel them.)Put the carrots in a saucepan or heavy…
Pumpkin with Coconut Curry
Pumpkin with curry combines the sweetness of the winter squash with the savory-spiced flavor of curry. It is a warming match appropriate for the crisp days when pumpkins and other winter squashes come to harvest. Pumpkin and other yellow-fleshed winter squashes such a kabocha or butternut squash are best cooked until they are just tender…
Grilled Corn with Seasoned Butter
Grilled and roasted corn is most flavorful when it is cooked fresh—very fresh. As soon as an ear of corn is picked, its sugars start converting to starch. As the sugars turn to starch, the sweetness of corn is lost—though it is true that some new breeds of corn will retain their sweetness for days….
Cooking Turnips
Turnips can be boiled, steamed, and stir-fried. Cook turnips until they are just tender-crunchy–less than seven minutes or so for a young turnip. The flavor will be mildly sweet and crisp. Steamed and boiled. Toss steamed small turnips with butter and parsley and serve. Boiled turnips can be mashed with butter and cream or puréed…
Tomato Sauce—Basic, Herbed, or Vegetables Added
Tomato sauce—basic, herbed, or with vegetables added—is easily made from tomatoes fresh from the garden or tomatoes frozen last harvest. Use tomato sauce on pastas, pizzas, vegetables, or soups. The key to flavorful tomato sauce is ripe, juicy tomatoes—the fresher the tomatoes the more flavorful the sauce, but that’s not to say you can’t make…
Cabbage Colcannon
Cabbage colcannon is a traditional Irish dish of mashed potatoes with milk, butter, and cooked finely chopped onions and cabbage. Easily you can substitute leeks for the onions and kale for the cabbage. Colcannon is a warming and hearty dish commonly served alongside corned beef, boiled pork, or bacon. The Irish often serve colcannon on…
Vegetarian Black Bean Chili
This all vegetable and black bean chili is warming and filling. I serve this chili over a hot baked (and buttered) potato. Chili and chunks of potato are perfect after a winter afternoon in the garden. This recipe calls on dried black beans—but you could also use pinto beans, navy beans, kidney beans, cannellini beans,…