Celeriac, Potato, and Mushroom soup

As the cold days start up here in Vermont I am ready to start experimenting with soups and stews. The farm share we have been receiving has been great in inspiring me to try new recipes.

This recipe was delicious and something I have never tried before. The ingredients in my farm share that I wanted to use up were potatoes, celeriac, and mushrooms.

Chop the potatoes and set aside.

Peel the celeriac with a vegetable peeler and chop - add to the potatoes.

Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with black pepper and salt and mix together.

Roast the potato and celeriac at 375 degrees for 45 minutes or until golden.

Meanwhile slice some (~15-20) baby portabello mushrooms - discard the stems.

 

Heat 4 cups of broth (any kind will do) and keep warm on low heat while everything cooks.

 

Right before the potato and celeriac are done saute the mushrooms in olive oil.

 Place a spoonful of mushrooms in the bowl. Top with the roasted potato and celeriac. Ladle your broth on top - Enjoy!

Cold day + lots of beets = Borscht

If you have never had Borscht before you are missing out. It's a Russian soup of beets, oats or barley and cream or yogurt. Super simple and a great way to use up all the beets we've been getting in our CSA share!

Scrub and bake 4 beets for 45-50 minutes  on 325 degrees. I leave the tail and root on and pour 1/4 cup OJ and 1/4 red wine vinegar over the beets and cover with aluminum foil first.

Once the beets are cooked through (test with a fork) let them cool, peel them, and chop into small cubes.

Use the liquid from cooking the beets (add water to make 1 cup) to cook 1/3 cup of old-fashioned oatmeal. Cook the oatmeal for 20 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed.

 Puree the beets, oatmeal in a blender or food processor (add water as needed).

Return to a stovepot, add 2 cups of plain yogurt and warm through.

Serve with a dollop of yogurt on top!

Pear and Cranberry Scones!

The pears from my very own pear tree are finally ready to eat! I had almost lost hope on these guys. I picked them in late September and waited patiently the last month for them to ripen and today they were ready!

Yesterday Brent came home from work with 2 big bags of fresh cranberries from a co-worker. I immediately thought pears and cranberry scones - yum!

The first step was to peel and chop up the pears and chop the cranberries (I used a food processor for those).

Next get the dry ingredients together:
3 cups of all purpose flour, 1 cup of whole wheat flour, 4 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp cardamom (delicious with pears), 1/2 cup sugar.

Add in 6 Tb cold butter and mix in with your hands or mixer until crumbly.

Mix the wet ingredients separately: 20 Tb buttermilk ( I used skim milk plus 2 Tb of lemon juice), 2 eggs, and 2 tsp vanilla.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients - this is a thick batter and may be too hard for mixer - just use a spoon. When all the flour is mixed in stir in 1 cup of the chopped pears and 1 cup of the chopped cranberries.

Place large spoonfuls on a non-stick cookie-sheet. Sprinkle the tops with sugar and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

Enjoy!

There were a ton of pears and cranberries left over so I think I will make a crumble with them tomorrow!

Dandelion green salad with salmon

If you have never tasted dandelion greens they are bitter! Fortunately a lot of bitter foods are so good for us, so if you can slowly get your tastebuds to like them as we have you open yourself up to a world of delicious super healthy foods.

This simple dandelion greens salad is a great way to start with them because I used a sweet dressing to cut the bitterness.

These beautiful dandelion greens were given to us by one of my new neighbors -we are lucky to have a farmer for a neighbor!

To prepare these chop the stems off, you really only want the really leafy portions. I think it is very important to always cut your greens into pieces that fit into your mouth! Nobody likes having to chew on huge pieces of greens - it's just awkward. After chopping the leaves, rinse and they are ready for a dressing.

The dressing I used to top the salad and our salmon entree is a simple 1:1 Vermont maple syrup and organic dijon mustard. I used 4Tb of each for this meal. Stir together and your done!

We bought some beautiful wild caught salmon today and thought it would go well with a simple salad like this one. Brent pan-fried the salmon with some salt and pepper and then we topped with the maple-mustard dressing.

We served the salmon and salad with leftover quinoa and squash and some garlic bread made from fresh bread from the farmers market we picked up this morning.

Yum! Enjoy!

Butternut squash quinoa with brussels sprouts

We recently had a promotion event for our Winter CSA. At the end I was lucky enough to go home with the leftovers!

I decided roasted butternut squash and brussels sprouts would compliment each other well.
I typically use sweet potatoes instead of butternut squash because I find them so much easier to prepare, but I wasn't going to pass up enjoying this beautiful squash.

I Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

So I cut the squash in half, peeled each section, and chopped. The bottom portion has the seeds, so I just scooped those out before chopping.

I added the chopped squash to a non-stick cookie sheet and left room for the brussels sprouts.

I know most people cringe at the thought of eating brussels sprouts, but they are so good roasted!
To prepare the brussels sprouts I chop off the bottom, remove the outer leaves and chop in half. I lightly coat them with olive oil and add to the cookie sheet with the butternut squash. They won't need as long to roast as the squash.

 

Roast the veggies at 400 degrees for 45 minutes. The brussels sprouts may be done as early as 30 minutes. Keep an eye on them and turn all the veggies after 20 minutes. You will know when the squash and brussels sprouts are done because they will be nice and brown.

While the veggies were cooking I cooked up some quinoa:
bring 3 cups of water to boil, add 1 1/2 cups quinoa and simmer until all the water is absorbed ~15 minutes.

I top the quinoa with olive oil and red wine vinegar to taste.
Once the veggies are done add the squash to the quinoa, top with some grated parmesan and serve the brussels sprouts on the side.

Enjoy!

Sweet potatoes fries!

One of my favorite all time foods are sweet potatoes!

Here is a super easy way to enjoy an healthy afternoon snack:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Peel and slice your sweet potato pretty thin. I usually chop the potato in quarters and then make thin slices and then slice into matchstick size.

Add your sweet potato fries to a non-stick cookie sheet and drizzle with a little olive oil.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, move them around and bake another 20 minutes until they are crispy.

Enjoy!

Vermont Local Foods - Potato, Leek, and Corn Chowder

I have taken a little break from this blog to enjoy the great outdoors in Vermont and the Adirondacks. As Autumn has come in full fledge I figured it is the perfect time to start back and focus on my favorite autumn/winter veggies.  My workplace offers a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) all year round and it includes 24 different farmers so the the variety of foods is incredible! Through the rest of the Fall and Winter I will focus on those veggies that I receive as part of my CSA.

To get a taste of the CSA experience my supervisor was generous enough to let me have hers while on vacation in September.

In my basket of goodies I had fresh corn, potatoes, beautiful leeks, peppers, radishes, and carrots.
As an aside - Brent ate the radishes raw as a snack and said they were the strongest he had ever tasted! Talk about veggies with tons of flavor!

My first thought whenever I encounter leeks are Potato and Leek soup. I also wanted to add the corn and make more of a chowder:

So I chopped my leek, rinsed, and sauteed them in some olive oil:

I added the chopped potatoes, lots of fresh ground pepper, a little salt and some water.

Meanwhile Brent cut the corn off the cob and we added that as well.

I added a cup of milk and cooked until the potatoes were cooked through. I also add back the tops of the leeks to add some more flavor, I will take these out before putting them in the blender.

Add half of the soup mixture to a the blender to thicken, add back to the soup, simmer and serve.

Top with some Vermont cheddar!