Baked Pasta with Tomato, Sausage and Greens

This is one of those simple meals that can be thrown together at the last minute or assembled in advance and baked just before serving. It can be adapted for a crowd, and even frozen before baking. This is more of a technique than a recipe, since it is adaptable to a variety of ingredients. I came across the idea in a great little everyday cookbook called Seriously Simple.

I tend to like to include something green – uncooked arugula or baby spinach or cooked broccoli. Adding a little grated or cubed mozzarella to the dish helps it hold together, and a little spicy sausage gives it zing and body without adding much meat to the meal.  I typically keep individually wrapped sausages in my freezer, which can be defrosted quickly. With home-canned tomato sauce ready to go, this couldn’t be any easier.

Baked Pasta with Tomato, Sausage and Greens adapted from Seriously Simple

½ lb shaped pasta (such as penne, ziti, farfalle)

1 onion, chopped

Olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1-1 ½ c tomato sauce

Salt and red pepper flakes

2 hot or sweet Italian-style sausages, casings removed (or use bulk sausage)

Handful of uncooked arugula or spinach leaves (or 1 c chopped cooked broccoli)

½ c cubed mozzarella cheese

1/3 c grated mozzarella cheese

Grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Oil a baking dish.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook the pasta. Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, sauté the onion in olive oil until translucent and add the garlic. As soon as you can smell the garlic, add the tomato sauce and cook it for a minute at high heat. Turn the heat down and let simmer while the other ingredients are cooking.

Also meanwhile, remove the sausage meat from the casing (if you’re not using bilk sausage) and sauté it until browned and cooked through, Drain off the extra oil.

When the pasta is cooked, toss it with enough tomato sauce to moisten it without being soupy. Add the sausage, cubed mozzarella and the greens, mixing well. Pour into the prepared baking dish. Top with grated mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until bubbly.

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Roasted Winter Squash Muffins

The abundance of long-lasting winter squash this year has led me to cook it in as many ways as possible, including using it as a substitute for pumpkin. While many recipes for baked goods using pumpkin suggest that the canned version is more reliable in flavor and moisture content, the roasted buttercup squash that we’ve had is so rich and flavorful that I wouldn’t hesitate using it for any pumpkin recipe.

This recipe comes from Dorie Greenspan’s famous Baking from My Home to Yours, who in turn was inspired by Sarabeth Levine. The trick to this or most other quick breads and cake is to cream the butter thoroughly until light and continue to cream it after the sugar is added. Since pumpkin and squash can create a dense crumb, that step is particularly important here.  Also, while the batter seems too great for a standard muffin tin (since most recipes call for filling the tins only ¾ full), it’s just perfect for well-rounded muffins. I used pepitas (squash or pumpkin seeds) instead of Dorie’s suggested sunflower seeds.  It may seem like gilding the lily, but these were delicious with orange marmalade.

Roasted Winter Squash Muffins adapted from Dorie Greenspan

2 c all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp fresh ground nutmeg

Pinch of ground allspice or cloves

1 stick (1/2 c) unsalted butter, room temperature

½ c white sugar

¼ c firmly packed brown sugar

2 eggs

¼ c buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla extract

¾ c packed puree of roasted winter squash (buttercup)

½ c raisins

½ c chopped walnuts

2-3 tbsp unsalted pepitas

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a regular 12-compartment muffin tin (or use paper cup liners) and place it on a baking sheet.

Mix together the dry ingredients and set aside.

Cream the butter with a mixer for several minutes, until it is light and fluffy. Add the sugar and continue to beat until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and then the buttermilk and vanilla. With a large spoon or spatula, mix in the flour mixture, combining thoroughly but lightly.

Spoon into the prepared muffin tin and bake in the center of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes and remove to a rack to finish cooling. Store in an airtight container.

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Mushroom Risotto with Rosemary

Whenever I make mushroom risotto or its cousin mushroom pilaf (the difference being the technique), I make extra so that it can be shaped into little fried cakes, stuffed into cabbage rolls, or used in numerous other ways.  I cook the mushrooms first, making a chunky version of duxelles with minced onions and a little fresh rosemary, and add them to the rice when nearly cooked to let the flavors become acquainted.  The mushrooms can be seasoned with various woody herbs such as savory or thyme, and are good eaten on their own.

Mushroom Risotto with Rosemary

1 tbsp butter

1 small onion, minced

1 c Arborio rice

¼ c white wine

3 c homemade broth or stock ( I used chicken)

Pinch of salt

Fresh ground pepper

1 recipe sautéed mushrooms with rosemary (see below)

1/3 c freshly grated Parmesan cheese

To make the risotto, saute the onion slowly in the oil and/or butter. Add the rice and stir to coat. Add the white wine and stir to allow it to evaporate. Add 1/3 cup of stock, turn the heat to medium low or low (so it just simmers) and stir until the stock is absorbed. When the liquid is absorbed, add another 1/3 cup of stock, wait until it’s absorbed, stirring occasionally, and then repeat until the rice is tender but still al dente. This process will take about 20-25 minutes.

About 5-8 minutes before the risotto is done, add the sautéed mushrooms.

When the risotto is done (the rice will be creamy and slightly more cooked than al dente, but not mushy), add the cheese and adjust the seasonings.

Sauteed Mushrooms with Rosemary

1- 1 1/4 lb mushrooms

1 small onion, minced

A few tsp butter or oil

¼ white wine

A few blades of rosemary

Salt and pepper

Cut the mushrooms into ¼-inch dice. (Trim the stem, split the cap in half horizontally and place the mushroom flat side down on the cutting board. Cut ¼-inch slices in one direction, turn and slice in the other direction.)

Melt a little butter in a pan and sauté the onions until translucent. Remove and set aside. Place half the mushrooms in a wide pan with a little melted butter, more or less in a single layer and let them cook for a few minutes undisturbed before tossing them to cook the other side. The mushrooms will start to exude liquid. When the liquid is evaporated, add half the onions and half the rosemary, then the wine, cooking to evaporate. Set aside, clean out the pan and cook the second batch. Adjust the seasonings.

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Crock of Ages: Confiture des Vieux Garçons

Tigress started it. She posted a picture of her new preserving pot – a crock like the one I used to use for sauerkraut – and a preserving process for fruit that spans the entire growing season. She called it by its French name, which means “old bachelors’ preserves,” whereas I know it by the German “rumtopf.” From early strawberries and cherries to late muscadine grapes and Seckel pears, new harvests go into the crock in undisturbed layers, doused with sugar dissolved in brandy (or kirschwasser or rum).

I typically used 12-16 oz of fruit to 6 oz sugar and ½ c brandy, though I made sure the first layer was completely covered in liquid. My crock has heavy ceramic inserts to weigh down ingredients for pickling but I thought that would crush the fruit, which should stay submerged. So I used a circular silicone potholder and wedged it in the crock.  This year I added about two different fruits a month, but I could have added three or four based on the size of our crock.  They all came from local orchards.

By the time the year-end holidays came around, we had a delicious and not too boozy concoction to eat as a compote, to spoon over ice cream, to add to an aperitif. Strawberries are only a few months away, so we are working our way through the rest of the fruit in time to start this adventure again.

June 2010: strawberries and several varieties of cherries

July 2010: apricots and red sugar plums

August 2010: Italian prune plums and small yellow nectarines

September 2010: purple figs and Seckel pears

October 2010: giant muscadine grapes

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Dark Days Week 12: No-Salt Tarragon-Braised Turnips or Chicken

With all of the recent talk from the government about reducing sodium intake, I started to think about what I make without adding salt. This is one dish – either version — that has no added salt and doesn’t need it. Of course natural ingredients, in this case cream, have sodium content, so this isn’t sodium free.

Tangy, licorice-like tarragon makes great vinegar. Rather than decant the vinegar, I store the leaves and stems in it and fish them out to add to other dishes (as I did with the mushroom and cheese salad that I made for Dark Days Weeks 9 and 10). Here, I made two dishes – one vegetarian and the other with chicken – using the same method and ingredients. I made the chicken a few days before the turnips or I would have combined them, adding something colorful like carrots and possibly potatoes. This is creamy but flavorful, and our excellent local cream is so thick that a little goes a long way. You could add a little broth but the liquid exuded from the chicken or veggies is enough. This shouldn’t be soupy. While this dish needs no salt, a little black pepper is nice.

The method is terrific since it creates a flavorful sauce by infusing the onions with the tarragon. After browning the chicken or vegetables in a little homemade butter and setting them aside, you slowly cook the onions in the same pan. When translucent, turn up the heat, add the vinegar to deglaze the pan, scraping up the brown bits, and cook until the vinegar has evaporated. Turn down the heat, return the vegetables or chicken to the pan and add a little cream and some sprigs of preserved tarragon. Cover and braise on low heat until cooked through, 20-30 minutes.  The cooking time for the vegetables could vary significantly depending on how young they are and how completely they are cooked in the first stage. I served the chicken with cubed steamed potatoes but noodles would be good too.

Note that we eat smallish portions of meat, so the number of people this will serve varies significantly. This served 6-8 in our house and was made from local chicken, expensive but worth it.

Braised Chicken and Onions with Tarragon

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

1 tbsp butter or half butter and half olive oil

2 medium onions, halved vertically and sliced pole-to-pole in moon-shaped slivers

Optional: 1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

2-3 tbsp tarragon vinegar

2-3 sprigs vinegar-preserved tarragon (do not use dried but fresh is okay)

¼ heavy cream

Black pepper

Dry the chicken breasts and brown them on both sides over medium heat in the butter or butter-oil mixture, 6-8 minutes. Remove to a plate and cover to keep warm.

Add the onions to the pan, adding a little more butter or oil if necessary, and cook slowly, covered, until translucent, about 4-5 minutes. Uncover, add the garlic and stir until it becomes aromatic. Turn the heat to high and add the vinegar, stirring to scrape up the brown bits, until the vinegar is absorbed. (Don’t put your nose right over the pan when you add the vinegar since the fumes can be pretty intense.). Turn the heat down and add the cream. Return the chicken to the pan, coating it with the creamy onion mixture. Add a couple of sprigs of preserved tarragon and a quick grind of fresh pepper. Cover the pan and braise over low heat until tender, 20 minutes or so depending on the thickness of the chicken.

Braised Turnips and Other Roots with Onions with Tarragon

12 small white turnips (such as hakurei)

Optional: carrots cut in chunks (I used 2)

Optional: potatoes cut in chunks (I used 2)

1 tbsp butter or half butter and half olive oil

2 medium onions, in rough chunks

Optional: 1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

2-3 tbsp tarragon vinegar

2-3 sprigs vinegar-preserved tarragon (do not use dried but fresh is okay)

¼ heavy cream

Black pepper

Brown the vegetables in the butter or butter-oil mixture, 10-12 minutes until crisp tender. Remove to a plate and cover to keep warm.

Add the onions to the pan, adding a little more butter or oil if necessary, and cook slowly, covered, until translucent, about 4-5 minutes.  Uncover, add the garlic and stir until it becomes aromatic. Turn the heat to high and add the vinegar, stirring to scrape up the brown bits, until the vinegar is absorbed. (Don’t put your nose right over the pan when you add the vinegar since the fumes can be pretty intense.). Turn the heat down and add the cream. Return the vegetables to the pan, coating them with the creamy onion mixture. Add a couple of sprigs of preserved tarragon and a quick grind of fresh pepper. Cover the pan and braise over low heat until tender, 10 minutes or more.

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Comments on the Dark Days: Butternut Squash Soup with Pear Compote

I know, I know. This is Week 11/12 but the official Dark Days Challenge was cut short this year.  Who cares about official. The conversation continues. The organizer of this blog event, (not so) Urban Hennery, has been urging all of us across the country to eat locally during the most challenging period of the year, from December to April. BRAVO! With very few exceptions (mostly in hoop houses), fresh local produce where we live was harvested months ago. While we’ve always favored local organic and responsibly raised ingredients, this challenge made me scrutinize what really is available nearby. Before, it was just too easy to pick up those beautiful and relatively expensive organic greens from California, or favor whatever meat, poultry or fish was on sale, no matter the origin. It’s not that I wouldn’t fall for a delicious bunch of fresh chard right now. I’m not that much of a purist, but this exercise has been revealing.

Expanding the Local Sources. First, we discovered many more local sources of excellent food. Our CSA and a local organic farm and apple orchard are at the edge of a geographic area that we rarely exceed, a circle of about 12-15 miles from here. We discovered additional farms within this area and an astonishing number to visit within a reasonable distance beyond, including creameries with amazing cheese, vineyards, orchards, farms that raise livestock and poultry and sell eggs as well as meat, vegetable producers, mushroom farms, and sources of honey and maple syrup, not to mention foraging.

Knowing your Farmers. From the local chapter of NOFA, we’ve gotten to know many farmers. We concentrate on veggies at home but visiting those who raise goats, sheep and cows for cheese is very special. I went to pick up a week’s worth of cheese and eggs and had the privilege of meeting nearly two dozen baby goats, between one and seven days’ old. How sweet is that. Where there are kids, there will be cheese later on.

Re-thinking Frozen Food. I’ve changed my attitude about frozen food. I can’t bear the aisles of frozen food at the grocery store, and I’ve looked down my nose at freezing, other than as an intermediate step. For example, we typically have vegetable, chicken and fish broth/stock in the freezer, extra soup, cooked beans and sometimes grains, roasted tomatoes, blanched greens, and herbs.   All things we’ve made and frozen. In the future, I would squeeze a little more from the garden, particularly condensed veggie broth and greens.

However, Dark Days led me to discover that local free-range meat and poultry is typically sold frozen. Hrmph, I don’t buy anything frozen other than puff pastry. Why was this a surprise? It’s too cold for the chickens too, duh.  Our closest pasture keeps its meat at minus ten degrees, whereas my German home freezer is reliably at 0 degrees (and most home freezers are typically higher). With limited freezer space, I don’t buy in bulk, but now find I need to plan ahead to defrost if we’re going to eat locally.

However, Dark Days led me to discover that local free-range meat and poultry is typically sold frozen. Hrmph, I don’t buy anything frozen other than puff pastry. Why was this a surprise? It’s too cold for the chickens too, duh.  Our closest pasture keeps its meat at minus ten degrees, whereas my German home freezer is reliably at 0 degrees (and most home freezers are typically higher). With limited freezer space, I don’t buy in bulk, but now find I need to plan ahead to defrost if we’re going to eat locally.

Home Canning and Fermenting. We always have a lot of home-canned stuff and so far, there’s little I’d do differently, other than can more whole tomatoes instead of mostly sauce or soup bases. I’d increase and diversify the pickling and fermenting, although those 10 pounds of sauerkraut remain daunting. Mostly, the pantry needs management to make sure everything is consumed (or given away!) within a year.

Cellar and Fridge. What amazes me for the second year in a row, however, is how many stored fresh vegetables I still have in the cellar and fridge in late February. At this rate, we’ll still be eating them until May and they’re in remarkably good condition. Squashes, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, white and red potatoes, onions, shallots and garlic in the cellar, and rutabagas, turnips, beets, leeks, carrots, daikon and cabbage in the fridge.  We even have scallions still in their muddy clump and some radicchio. I don’t shop for much any more.

Hence the soup.  This squash soup is one of many made over the last months, with more to come. This was made from a combination of butternut and buttercup squash. I usually find butternut squash alone could use greater depth of flavor so I add carrots or sweet potato. I had already roasted a large buttercup squash, so I added a few scoops. This soup was sweet from the buttercup and also from an apple than I chopped and cooked with the onions, adding a mixture of spices (curry powder, garam masala, Chinese five-spice powder, all preferably ground yourself) to blend and cook before adding squash and water. I served it with a dollop of pear and port wine compote that I made for the Tigress Can Jam in December. I also made an apple version but I liked the contrast of pear with this soup. (The idea of this combination came from Erica Bone’s Well Preserved, which inspired the compote.)

Curried Apple and Butternut Squash Soup with Pear Compote

1 large butternut squash

2 tsp vegetable oil

1 large onion, diced

1 apple, peeled and diced

2 tsp mixed spices (curry, garam masala or Chinese five-spice powder)

One of the following: 1-2 large carrots, peeled and diced or 1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed or ½ c precooked buttercup squash or some cubed raw buttercup squash)

Optional: a pinch of cayenne pepper

Peel and roughly cube the squash and set aside. Slowly sauté the onions and apple in the oil until the onion is translucent. Stir in the spice mixture and cook for a minute or two to release the spice aromas and oils. Add the squash and carrot or sweet potato, and slightly cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cook until tender, about 30 minutes. Puree, return to the pot and adjust the seasonings. Serve with a compote of pears or apples, or chutney.

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Simple Supper: Cabbage Soup, Grilled Cheese and Pickled Okra

I posted this for the pickles. Last summer, I made a batch of okra pickled with vinegar, dill, garlic and red pepper, and we finally got around to eating it.  These babies are great!  The texture stayed firm and the flavor is rich but piquant. A perfect accompaniment to grilled cheese sandwiches made with rustic sourdough and local cheddar. The soup is one of those throw-it-together-and-it-takes-care-of-itself types. I recall that its origin was a three-day cleansing diet some of my friends swore by. I scratched the diet because it involved eating bananas with the soup and I thought that was creepy. The soup endured, and that’s a good thing.

Cabbage Soup

1 small head of green cabbage, cored and shredded

1 medium onion, diced (or a large leek, sliced)

4-5 carrots, diced

6-8 stalks celery, diced

Optional: 2 c green beans in ½-inch pieces

Optional: a  handful of chopped parsley

1 qt + home-canned whole tomatoes and juice or 2 28-oz cans, chopped

Water

Salt and pepper

Optional: rind of Parmesan cheese

Place all of the vegetables, including the tomatoes and their juice, in a large stockpot. Add salt and pepper and water to come up the side of the pot about 1/3 of the way. Add the cheese rind, if using. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook, boiling, for about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat, cover the pot and simmer until tender, about 45-60 minutes.

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New England Clam Chowder, My Way

I’m not claiming this chowder is authentic but it uses classic ingredients, leans heavily on vegetables, goes lightly on the salt pork or bacon if using it at all, and much more lightly on cream. I wanted the chowder to be white but not rich or gummy. I get irked when I suspect that clam chowder been thickened with flour (as the ones in the grocery store takeout sometimes seem to be). The flavor of the clams and other ingredients shines when presented in a light broth rather than being buried in béchamel. Make your own. It’s easy and fast.

Obviously, fresh summer steamers or other varieties in their shells make great chowder but I have no objection to the shucked fresh claims in broth coming from reputable nearby purveyors.  A new source for clams from Cape Cod showed up in our market recently so I decided to try them. The trick to chowder, as with most soups, is to cook it gently. I also used waxy potatoes since the floury ones could make the broth murky. After sautéing onions in rendered bacon/salt pork fat (butter or butter and oil if you’re not using pork), add the onions, celery and herbs and cook gently. Then add broth and potatoes and cook gently until tender. Finally, add the cream and bring nearly to a boil. Then add the clams, turn off the heat and let the clams cook in the liquid, covered, for a few minutes. If you cook them over high heat, they turn into pencil erasers.

Generally, it is preferable to use fresh clam broth for the liquid. The distributor of the clams I bought also sells fresh broth. You can use bottled clam broth but honestly, if you don’t have fresh clam juice, a light homemade chicken stock is the best alternative.  Water’s okay too but you’ll end up fortifying the chowder with other ingredients (more salt, for example) to make up for the feeble taste. Like the old stone soup story.

New England Clam Chowder, My Way

1 lb chopped clams in their liquid

1 slice thick bacon, diced in 1/3 inch pieces

A few drops of vegetable oil (or a combination of butter and oil if not using bacon)

1 onion, diced in 1/3 to ½ inch pieces

2 stalks celery, diced in 1/3 inch pieces

1 bay leaf

½ tsp dried thyme or more to taste

3-4 peppercorns

1 medium–large waxy potato

1 ½-2 c broth (I used a combination of fresh clam juice and light homemade chicken broth)

1/3 – ½ c heavy cream

Chopped parsley (or other seasonal herbs like chives, chervil, young lovage)

Drain the clams, reserving the liquid.

Render the bacon in a little vegetable oil over medium-low heat until crisp, and remove to a paper towel to drain and crisp.

Saute the onion and celery slowly in the bacon fat (or use butter or a combination of butter and oil) until the onion is translucent. Add the bay leaf thyme and peppercorns and stir.

Add the potatoes to the pot and pour in broth to cover. Cook slowly over medium heat, covered, until the potatoes are nearly tender.

Add the cream and increase the heat, bringing the mixture nearly to a boil. Add the clams, turn off the heat and let the chowder stand for about 5 minutes until the clams are lightly cooked.

Warm again, stir in the reserved bacon or salt pork, and serve garnished with parsley or other herbs. Crackers are a traditional accompaniment but make croutons if you have none.

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Orange Parsnip Soup with Orange Marmalade

With the Spice Rack Challenge featuring citrus this month, I had to stop and think how I preserve and use citrus peel in my cooking. I was tempted to dip into the jar of preserved lemons that I keep as a sparky standby to make a Moroccan chicken dish or simply to add some tang to roasted cauliflower or broccoli.

Since I have a fridge full of root vegetables and the remains of a crate of citrus that we received for Christmas, I decided to make an orange and parsnip soup, garnished with roasted parsnip chips and marmalade that I just made from beautiful organic red Cara Cara oranges. It’s simple, quick, subtle and delicious. Last winter, I made a root vegetable soup that badly needed some kind of contrasting garnish. Complete serendipity led me to the jar of marmalade sitting in front of me. This turned out to be such a good idea that I’ve repeated it many times since with marmalade and other fruit jams.

When I have really good oranges or lemons without waxed skins and am using them only for juice, I first peel the skin in one long piece, like peeling apples, and hang it over a string, or tack it to the wall. In a matter of days, it curls up into a twisted ribbon. I store the dried peels in an airtight bag and pull them out to add to something liquid, that I’m cooking, like a stew or a Provencal tomato sauce or soup, as I did here. The peels rehydrate and exude their citrus flavor into the liquid. (If your citrus fruit is waxed, you should scrub it lemon under hot water to get rid of some of the wax before peeling, grating or cooking.)

Alternatively, you can take the dried orange ribbons and grind them. Just before I made the soup, I roasted parsnips and carrots in ground dried orange peel, which gave depth. When done, they were sprinkled with fresh zest and a little juice.

Orange Parsnip Soup with Orange Marmalade

1 small onion, diced

2 tsp butter or oil

3 large or 4 medium parsnips, peeled and cubed

Dried peel from ½ orange (alternatively use fresh)

4 c homemade chicken or vegetable broth

Salt and pepper to taste

Parsnip chips, grated orange zest or marmalade to garnish

Saute the onion in butter until translucent, add the parsnips, orange peel and broth and bring to a simmer. Cook until tender, about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, roast thinly sliced parsnip rounds, sprinkled with a little olive oil and salt, in a 400-degree oven until crisp. Place them on the hot soup, spoon on a little marmalade and serve. Makes 4 servings.

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Dark Days Weeks 9 and 10: A Trio of Winter Salads

With fresh-from-the-garden green salads and Mediterranean vegetables a distant memory of a warmer season, we crave something piquant, refreshing and raw to accompany our meals. I made three salads over the past two weeks, using organic produce stored in my fridge or newly acquired from a farmers’ market. Farmers’ markets have been great this winter. We discovered local maple syrup, and sampled new (to us) cheeses from nearby creameries. We’ve met so many organic farmers and we’re inspired, not to mention well fed.

The first salad combines shredded Brussels sprouts (mine were still on the stalk) with pecorino cheese and cider vinaigrette with maple syrup. The salad was so intense that a 1/3-cup serving seemed very generous. The second uses up a fraction of the way-too-many roots in my refrigerator by shredding carrots, kohlrabi and a couple of types of radishes and dousing them with rice wine vinaigrette tempered by home-canned mint syrup. This was adapted from a recent New York Times recipe.

The third is a classic from my mother: sliced mushrooms and gruyere-type cheese. I recall that she used a mustard vinaigrette and probably added some parsley. I used my own tarragon vinegar. During the summer, I cut back my tarragon plant periodically and plunk entire stalks in white wine vinegar. This produces not only amazing vinegar but also a terrific way of preserving tarragon for other uses (potato salad, cooked cucumbers, roast chicken, etc.)

Slivered Brussels Sprout Salad with Pecorino Cheese

10-12 medium Brussels sprouts

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp cider vinegar

½ tsp maple syrup

Salt and pepper

Pecorino cheese

Remove any bruised or brown outer leaves from the Brussels sprouts. Cut them lengthwise into tiny shreds, removing the core. Combine the oil, vinegar and maple syrup and pour over the Brussels sprouts, mixing gently. Season with salt and pepper to taste and grated some Pecorino cheese on top. Serve slightly chilled or at room temperature.

Carrot, Radish and Kohlrabi Salad adapted from Martha Rose Schulman, NYT

1 carrot

1 kohlrabi (violet)

Radishes (I used one long red one and several round red ones for color but you could use daikon)

Salt

1/3 c rice vinegar

1 c water

1 tbsp mint syrup (homemade)

1 tsp honey

Alternate: 2 tsp sugar

Optional: chopped mint or cilantro

Scrub the vegetables, peeling the carrot if necessary.  Grate on a box grater, preserving as much as possible of the colorful skin of the kohlrabi and radish. Lightly salt the vegetables and set aside to drain for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, bring water, vinegar and honey/mint syrup or sugar to a boil. Set aside to cool.  Squeeze moisture out of vegetables and pour the cooled liquid over them in a bowl, Store in the refrigerator for at least an hour or overnight. Drain and serve. Add optional chopped mint or cilantro.

Mushrooms and Gruyere Salad with Tarragon Vinaigrette

12-15 medium cremini or white button mushrooms

2 slices of Gruyere or similar hard, nutty cheese (to make a 20-24 1/8 x 1/8 x 1 inch batons)

1 tbsp olive oil

1-2 tsp tarragon vinegar

A few leaves of tarragon that was pickled in the vinegar

Pepper

Brush the mushrooms to remove any dirt. Halve them crosswise, and then cut them lengthwise into batons about 1/8 inch thick. Slice the cheese into little batons about the same size or smaller. Mix the olive oil and vinegar, including tarragon leaves if you have them. Mix with the mushrooms and cheese and let sit for about 10 minutes. Add fresh black pepper to taste. Serve at room temperature.

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