Chicken Braised with Carrots and Oranges

January, an orange fetish. The color orange in carrots and sweet potatoes. The citrus fruit orange in just about everything. Maybe it’s a vitamin deficiency or just the hankerings of a season. Having been basically flat on my back for over a week with a version of the dreaded flu, I woke up to the urgency of putting dinner on the table. Rallying, what I had on hand were some boneless chicken thighs and a few orange-colored ingredients.  

So I made a quick chicken braise with sliced onions, carrots, red-orange peppers, slivered orange peel, sliced oranges and rosemary. This whole dish goes together in under 30 minutes and tastes and looks fresh and healthy.

Chicken Braised with Carrots and Oranges

1 lb boneless and skinless chicken thighs

1-2 tbsp flour

Salt and pepper

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp diced prosciutto, optional

1 small or half a medium onion, cut longwise and sliced crosswise

1 clove garlic, chopped

½ small red or orange bell pepper, sliced

1 carrot, sliced

½ c white wine

½ c chicken stock

Flesh from 1/2 small orange, without the membrane

1 tbsp slivered orange peel (without the white pith)

1 tbsp rosemary leaves

Trim any fat from the chicken thighs. Add salt and pepper to the flour and dredge the chicken in it, shaking off any excess. Warm the oil in a braising pan or sauté pan with a lid, large enough to hold the chicken in one layer. Sauté the chicken over medium-high heat until brown on both sides and remove it to a platter, covering it to keep it warm.

If using prosciutto, sauté it lightly to brown on all sides and remove to the platter with the chicken.

Add the onion to the pan and sauté slowly over medium heat until it starts to soften. Add the garlic and stir. Add the pepper and carrot and sauté for a minute or two.

Add the white wine, turn up the heat and let the wine reduce a bit. Add the chicken stock, the chicken, the orange flesh and peel and the rosemary. Nestle the chicken among the vegetables so that it is at least partially covered. Bring the mixture to a simmer, lower the heat and cover the pan. Cook slowly until the chicken is done, about 15-20 minutes.

Serve over rice or quinoa.

Serves 4.

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Cauliflower and Carrot Soup with Garam Masala

Super-Storm-Sandy soup. A combination of melting vegetable broth from the freezer and seasonal vegetables saved from flooding or freezing fields.  Between our CSA and our own garden, crops are being harvested with today and tomorrow in mind. The same goes for the refrigerator and freezer section of my pantry.  Premature harvests.  Long-term storage cut short.  Given the devastation of places in New York and New Jersey closer to the shore than we, this is only a minor inconvenience. Turned to advantage, it gave me the opportunity to assess the usefulness of what I’ve been storing and why.  It’s resulted in soup after soup, at least.

While we’ve been harvesting beautiful Nantes yellow carrots from our little kitchen garden one by one, the whole row was yanked last week.  Then there were the two heads of cauliflower from our CSA. And the need for soup on an uncharacteristically balmy day as we cleaned out the garden and planted cover crops for the winter. I started out considering a curried cauliflower soup but the defrosted broth – corn broth with a hint of smoky ham hock – beckoned the sweetness and lingering spice of garam masala. Any broth or stock would work so long as it is light enough not to overwhelm the delicate cauliflower.

Note that you can use the core of the cauliflower, not just the florets, much like you should use broccoli stems. Discard the woody parts and slice the centers thin, adding them to the aromatics – onion and carrots – to tenderize them before adding the florets. As with other light pureed vegetable soups, I added a small potato for texture and creaminess.  While I wouldn’t freeze this because of the potato (which would transform in texture), the soup improved in flavor after a day or so.

Cauliflower and Carrot Soup with Garam Masala

½ medium-large head cauliflower

1 medium onion, chopped

1 tbsp butter or vegetable oil or a combination

1 tsp garam masala

1 large carrot, chopped into ½-inch pieces, dicing some for garnish

1 medium potato, peeled and cubed

Salt to taste

4 c vegetable broth or chicken stock (I used corn broth cooked with ham hock)

Cilantro

Cut the florets from the cauliflower, reserving a few tiny ones for garnish. Remove the woody portions of the stem and core, and dice the remainder.

Lightly cook the onion in the oil or butter in a large saucepan until translucent. Add the garam masala and stir to combine well. Add the carrot, potato and diced cauliflower stems and cores, stir the mixture to coat the vegetables with oil and cook very slowly, taking care not to brown the vegetables, for about 4 minutes to soften them slightly. Add half the liquid, cover the pan, and simmer until the vegetables are nearly tender, about 15 minutes. Add the cauliflower florets and addition liquid just to cover the mixture and continue to simmer until the cauliflower is very soft, about 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, lightly cook the reserved diced carrot and tiny cauliflower florets in a little salted water until tender.

Puree the soup with an immersion blender or in a food processor. Return to the pan and adjust the seasonings.  Serve hot.

Serves 4-6.

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Giardiniera

Garden in a jar. A light and delicious appetizer salad is as picturesque as it is piquant.

For a cocktail party fundraiser in New York last weekend, I was planning to take a large antipasto platter centered on ravioletti (mini raviolis) with sundried tomatoes, tiny balls of mozzarella, and salami, and needed a vegetable counterpoint. While I was fishing the ravioletti from the bottom of the freezer at our posh local Italian deli, I spied giant jars of giardiniera, pickled peppers and mushrooms on top of the freezer cases. Aha. That would be it. 

Giardiniera is a combination of lightly pickled vegetables, usually containing cauliflower, peppers, celery and carrots, and spiked with mustard seeds and hot pepper. It goes together in a snap, cures within a day and keeps for weeks in the fridge. I couldn’t find my notes from the last time I made it but I recalled that the recipe came from Gourmet magazine, and luckily Deb at the Smitten Kitchen blog reproduced a similar recipe, which I used as my guide. Like Deb, I omitted the olives. I was considering omitting the jarred pepperoncini, but added them at the end since their hotness re-balanced the sweetness of the pickling liquid.  My organic veggies were from our CSA and very fresh, so my cooking time was considerably less than the original recipe. Pay attention at the stove!

Giardiniera adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Gourmet

Pickling liquid (see below)

1 large head cauliflower (at least 2 lbs before trimming, about 2 after)

4 medium carrots

4 stalks celery

1 red bell pepper

1 yellow bell pepper

About 8 oz jarred pepperoncini (3/4 of a 12 oz jar, selecting the smallest ones)

Pickling liquid:

2½ c white vinegar

3 c water

¾ c white sugar

5 tbsp Kosher or other coarse salt

1 tsp yellow mustard seeds

½ tsp red pepper flakes (or crushed whole red peppers)

Clean a large (2 quart) jar.

Make and cool the pickling liquid. Bring the ingredients to a boil over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar and salt. Set aside to cool for about 30 minutes.

Prepare the fresh vegetables. Cut the cauliflower into florets of about ¾-1 inch,  saving the large stems and core for another use. Peel the carrots and slice on the diagonal into ½-inch pieces. Trim the celery, pulling off any long strings and slice it on the diagonal to a similar size as the carrots. Remove the stems, seeds and ribs and cut the peppers into 1-inch squares.

Cook the vegetables. Bring a large pot of water (not salted) to a boil. Place a bowl of ice water in the sink.  Cook each vegetable separately until it is crisp tender (err on the side of crisp). Cauliflower and carrots take 3-4 minutes, celery and peppers about 2 minutes. Remove the vegetables quickly to a colander and dunk it in ice water for a few seconds to stop the cooking. Drain well and spread the vegetables on towels to remove as much water as possible.

Assemble the giardiniera. When the vegetables are dry and thoroughly cool, place them in layers in a large (2 quart) jar, adding in the pepperoncini as you go.  Pour the cooled pickling liquid over the vegetables to cover. Cap the jar and refrigerate.  The pickled vegetables will be ready in 24 hours and will keep for a week or two in the refrigerator.

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Waste Not Want Not: Carrot and Celeriac Roots and Greens as Puree and/or Soup

When the first fresh carrots and celeriac show up at our CSA or Farmers’ Market, the greens are young and tender and can be used as herbs or combined into purees and soups. The carrot greens can also be turned into pesto. Last year, I unwittingly created a family joke when I served carrot greens pesto with roasted baby carrots, declaring that I haven’t met a vegetable that I didn’t want to roast. Well, I don’t want to repeat my exaggeration by saying that I turn an amazing variety of green into pesto, but it’s true.

 Last year, I also made a delicious celeriac soup that used not only the bulb but also the stalks and leaves, and a carrot soup with its greens. This year, I made a carrot and celeriac soup base that was so thick that I first served it with roast chicken as a puree and then thinned it out into a soup, combined in both cases with pesto made from the leaves.  I had first thought to make this a creamed soup but chickened out. The thickness and creaminess were contributed by a couple of small potatoes. You could use water or chicken stock to make the puree or soup, but I used vegetable broth brewed from the trimmings of the ingredients and a few stray veggies.

Carrot and Celeriac Roots and Greens: Puree and/or Soup

3 medium carrots, with greens

1 small onion, diced (reserve the trimmings)

1 bulb of celeriac with greens

3 small yellow or red potatoes

Water and or vegetable broth (optional substitution: chicken stock)

Salt

Butter or olive oil

Make the vegetable broth. Trim and peel the carrot, reserving the peels. Trim and dice the onion, reserving the leftover pieces. Cut the greens from the celeriac and chop the stems and a few leaves. Peel the potatoes, reserving the peels, and place the peeled potatoes in cold water to keep them from discoloring. Place the trimmings in a saucepan and cover them with vegetable broth or water (add additional trimmings if using water or the broth will be weak). Salt it lightly Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. You will need 3-5 cups of liquid depending on whether you are making a puree or soup.

Prepare and cook the vegetables for the puree or soup. Cut the peeled carrots and potatoes into small dice. Peel and cut the celeriac into small dice. Heat the butter or oil in a large saucepan and add the vegetables until they start to soften. Add the vegetable broth (or water or chicken stock) and simmer for 20 minutes or until the vegetables are very soft. Puree in a food processor or in the pan using an immersion blender.

Prepare the pesto. Place a handful of carrot greens and a few leaves (the most tender, please) of celeriac leaves in a food processor, mini chopper or blender. Add a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt and puree into a pesto.

Assemble the dish. Add the pesto to the puree or soup, adjust the salt level and serve hot.

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Carrot Puree with Egyptian Dukkah

This is a magical combination from Ana Sortun, the chef of Oleana in Cambridge, Massachusetts and author of Spice, Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean. It’s been high on my list of things to make at home for a while and now I don’t why I was waiting.

Dukkah is an Egyptian spice mix that, in this version, mixes toasted almonds and toasted cumin, coriander and sesame seeds. Sortun also adds toasted coconut flakes. Other versions add dried mint. While dukkah is a versatile addition to all kinds of food, Sortun serves it as a bread condiment along with carrot puree and olive oil. The carrot puree is a coarse mash with oil, vinegar, harissa, cumin and ginger added, making it smooth and bringing out the sweetness of the carrots, with a counterpoint of spice.

 

At the restaurant, you dip the bread in olive oil and then in the dukkah (or add the dukkah to the oil) and spoon on the carrot puree. Honestly, the carrot puree is fabulous on its own and I could imagine skipping the bread and oil and simply adding the spice and nut mixture straight into the carrots. Or skipping the carrots and piling the dukkah on bread dipped in olive oil. Other than halving the recipe, I made this straight from the cookbook, though I paraphrased the method and left out the unnecessary salt. To make dukkah, you should have a way of grinding the spices. I use a small former coffee grinder that I reserve for spices. I suppose a mortar and pestle would work too but the sesame seeds should be ground to a paste.

 

Dukkah, adapted from Ana Sortun’s Spice, Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean

¼ c blanched almonds

4 ½ tsp coriander seeds

1 tbsp cumin seeds

1 tbsp sesame seeds (white, untoasted)

2 tbsp unsweetened dried shredded coconut

¼ tsp or less salt

¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper

In a sauté pan over medium heat, brown the almonds, stirring (about 4 minutes). Remove to a board to cool and finely chop them.  Place in a small bowl.

Wipe out the sauté pan and add the coriander and cumin seeds, toasting them over medium heat until fragrant (about 2 minutes).  Remove to a spice grinder, let cool and then grind them, adding them to the almond mixture.

Wipe out the pan and add the sesame seeds, toasting them until lightly brown (about 2 minutes). Remove to the spice grinder.

Wipe out the pan and add coconut, toasting it until lightly brown (about 2 minutes). Add to the sesame seeds in the grinder. When cool, process to a paste and add to the spice and nut mixture. Season with salt and pepper.

Carrot Puree, adapted from Ana Sortun’s Spice, Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean

1 lb carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

2 sp harissa

½ tsp ground cumin

¼ tsp ground ginger

Salt and pepper to taste (I omitted this)

In a large saucepan cover the carrots with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat to simmer the carrots until tender but not mushy (about 20 minutes). Drain the carrots and return them to the pan for 30 seconds to a minute over high heat to dry out. (Don’t let them burn. The point is to eliminate the surface water.) Mash the carrots with a fork, leaving them a little chunky. Sprinkle the carrots with white wine vinegar and add the olive oil and spices. Season with salt and pepper if desired. (This doesn’t need salt.)

 

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Black Lentils with Roasted Carrots and Celeriac

An improvised dish that evolved as I went along, this one’s a keeper. It may not look like much, but the combination of flavors was amazing. Typically, when I cook lentils as a main course or side dish, I add diced onions, carrots and sometimes turnip to the legumes while they’re cooking. Flavored with some herbs, salt and maybe pepper, it makes a nutritious dish. However, this combination is amped up by roasting diced carrots and celeriac, and adding a dressing of walnut oil and sherry wine vinegar and a sprinkling of cress-like chickweed (really).  I had lightly salted the vegetables when roasting them, but with the oil and vinegar, I bet you could leave out the salt and not notice. I served this lukewarm with salmon and a celeriac salad also dressed with walnut oil.

Black Lentils with Roasted Carrots and Celeriac

1 c black lentils

2 c water (more if using green or brown lentils)

1 large carrot, peeled and diced in ¼-inch pieces

1 few slices of celeriac, peeled and diced in ¼-inch pieces (equal amount to carrot, sprinkle with lemon juice to avoid discoloration if not roasting it right away)

Olive oil

Pinch of salt (optional)

1-2 tsp walnut oil

1 tsp sherry wine vinegar or to taste

Herbs of choice (parsley, lovage, chickweed)

Rinse the lentils and pick them over to remove any small stones. Bring the water to a boil and add the lentils. When the water returns to a boil, lower the heat and simmer the mixture, covered or partially covered, until the lentils are tender but not mushy, approximately about 25 minutes. Check partway through and add more water if necessary.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the diced carrot and celeriac on a baking sheet, sprinkle with olive oil and a little salt and roast until tender, approximately 10 minutes. Remove to a plate and keep warm.

When the lentils are cooked, drain them and add the oil and vinegar. When ready to serve, toss with the carrots, celeriac and herbs.  Serves 4 as a side dish.

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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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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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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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