Root Chips Ahoy To The Rescue

I panicked when I received Joyce’s email on Monday night. She had forwarded info on that week’s crop of vegetables. I had barely touched last week’s, and some of the previous week’s still languished in the crisper. I had always failed in my efforts to grow vegetables. Now, was I failure at eating them?

Now, let’s see, what was left? The carrots, parsnips and fennel would go into the oven, after slicing with my mandolin. With lots of olive oil, they came out like Terra Chips. My root chips were sweet and warm, pleasing to the palate and fun to eat (I ate them with my hands.). The fennel was a nice accent, much lighter than the carrots and parsnips.

The spinach I threw into the easy beef stroganoff, which I had sampled at Trader Joe’s.

And then there were the leeks. These I saved for the next day.

Root chips also proved to salvage Joyce’s CSA-eating efforts. She emailed me: “I made the roasted carrots, parsnips and radishes tonight – absolutely delicious!…So I’m glad to say I’ve worked my way to this week’s box.”

Failure we are not.

Go Topless, Get Fresh

It’s no joke. Rip those greens sitting atop carrots, parsnips, radishes, and what have you, and they will stay fresh. I don’t know why. I suspect that the greens have less staying power than their underground counterparts. When I topped off a radish, I noticed a tiny brown spot at the point of connection.

Yes, all those topped carrots, beets and other vegetables at the gourmet grocery store are probably losing the stay-fresh battle. Of course, they look much nicer and more deserving of their high price tag.

Buffooned Over Cardoons

They may look like celery, but cardoons certainly aren't as crisp and delightful.

Next time I try to tackle a cardoon, I will be armed with a vegetable peeler to scrape away at every sinew and fiber.

Cardoons are like overgrown celery. Try treating them as such and you realize that cardoons prove very different. In fact, they are thistles, much like artichokes, daisies and sunflowers, according to the most authoritative sources. I surfed around and found nothing but accolades for this thistle.

I also found that I only needed to blanch cardoons for up to 20 minutes. The CSA flyer suggested anywhere from five to 20 minutes. Well, which is it? So, I decided to blanch them while checking on the tenderness every five minutes. After 20 minutes, the one-inch slices were still tough, fibrous and bland. No wonder its traditional preparation is a gratin. Everything tastes better with cheese.

But tossed into pasta? No, not gonna happen. Time to take the CSA’s recipes with a grain of salt.

The cardoons went straight into the food processor. Pureed and mixed into soup would be the only way I could benefit from the fiber, this vegetables only redeeming factor, as far as I’m concerned.

I’ll never forget what the nun at the soup kitchen once explained during a fourth grade fieldtrip: “Anything goes in a stew”. That certainly held true with cardoons. As a puree, its presence in soup was virtually undetectable, except for the gritty texture. Add quinoa, and the cover up is complete.

A Carrot of a Purple Color

I assumed that a carrot was a carrot, no matter what color. Not these purple carrots. I can’t figure out which way is up — or down, for that matter. I’m talking about the inner core, that sweet part of your average carrot. (Officially, it’s called the phloem, the part of plant that transports sugars and other nutrients from the roots, up the stems and to the leaves.)

With these two purple carrots, the core was tender and tough at random points. In some parts, the core was simply too tough for human teeth. I ended up cutting out the core entirely, rather than finding the few precious centimeters of sweet, tender flesh.

After taking the knife to the tender, outer section, I added finely sliced carrots, along with baby heirloom tomatoes (from Trader Joe’s), to a pan with sauteed onions and garlic. After throwing in some salt and pepper, I stirred, reduced the heat and then covered for about 10 minutes. Then, to complete the dish, I threw in some fusili pasta.

I’ll have to admit, the flavor of the purple carrot wasn’t very apparent. At least it added to the palate of colors created by the multi-colored heirloom tomatoes. Otherwise, I’m not sure how purple carrots would fit into my usual inventory of ingredients.

Now, the truth: The purple carrots substituted for the cardoons for what was originally supposed to be “Chef Andrew’s simplest Cardoon-Pasta Preparation”. What’s a cardoon? Good question. It’s a vegetable, one that I learned needs far more than just 20 minutes of blanching.

A Taste of Lettuce

Yes, folks, that’s right: Your taste buds have a special place for lettuce. It has flavor. True, you probably will never find a bottle of lettuce flavoring on store shelves. But, grown and harvested right, each succulent leaf of lettuce offers a distinct flavor and sensation. Think refreshing like mint or cucumber. Think crunchy yet delicate like Pringles potato chips. 

This awakening to lettuce came during my trip to the former Yugoslavia, a land where produce is mostly locally grown for quality and not quantity. The farmers pick the lettuce when its most crispy and flavorful — and not when it yields the most bulk (and the least amount of flavor). It’s no wonder that we’ve come to depend on all sorts of goos and gels for dressing to help it go down.

This experience whetted my appetite for my subscription to a produce-delivery service, otherwise known as community support agriculture (CSA). Every week, I’ll receive a bounty of vegetables and herbs grown less than 100 miles away. At $10 a week, the cost beats out the prices at Trader Joes, Safeway and Draeger’s, my usual haunts.

I’ve considered joining a CSA program since 2000, when I first heard about Westside Organics, and then Planet Organics. I never took the plunge. My neighbor, Joyce D, decided to go for it and asked me to join in. This first week, it’s cardoons, swiss chard, meyer lemons, purple carrots, celery, mustard greens and spinach from Two Small Farms.

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