Go Veg or Go Home

I grew up in a household where a potato chip was the closest thing to a vegetable we would serve. Yes we had the summer corn on the cob on a regular basis and iceberg lettuce with tomatoes at every meal, but vegetables really were absent. This is probably a normal occurance in many household, but our neighbor was basically a farmer and had his entire backyard a garden of delights. He inspired our own backyard garden, where we ended up growing our own tomatoes and two foot long zucchinis. We never ate zucchini, so I'm not sure why we ever grew them. They were great for backyard mess fest where you'd play baseball with fallen tomatoes and giant zukes. The point is, I really never knew how great vegetables could be growing up. If you have kids, try to get them to eat different foods early. Here is the one place I will tell you that lying is really ok. In our house, mushrooms were magical meat. Green beans became magic worms. Felafel (not a veg, I know) are hufflepuff meatballs. If your kid has a favorite story, tell them that this is what their favorite character ate. It works for us, it might work for you. I can't tell you how many times my wife has to go to Hogwarts to get a new recipe. Since I'm a muggle, I can't visit. The problem for me was, now that I had the taste for vegetables, I didn't know the first thing about cooking them. Here a few good cookbooks that got me over the fear and the hump of cooking those funny multicolored objects at the far end of the supermarkets.



Quick Prep Roasted Vegetables
Ingredients:
1lb cubed butternut squash
3 sweet onions cut into small wedges
3-4 parsnips peeled and sliced into rounds 1/4-1/2" thickness
3-4 carrots prepped same as parsnip
1 medium turnip cubed the same size as the butternut squash
4-5 garlic cloves, paper skin still on
Alternate or additional vegetables (delicata squash, zucchini, yellow squash, rutabaga, fennel, green beans, really whatever you like)
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
rosemary or thyme
salt and fresh ground pepper

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Take a rimmed baking sheet(also known as a jelly roll plan) spread oil and add vegetables. Sprinkle Rosemary or Thyme or both onto vegetable, sprinkle salt (preferably kosher or sea salt) and fresh ground pepper. Turn the veggies to coat and pop into oven. Cook for 20 minutes. Check for doneness and turn if browning too much on the bottoms. Check 7 minutes more. Once cooked to desired doneness. I like my vegs a little crunchy remove and let sit on sheet for a minute. Then place on plates or in bowls. Makes a great and easy side for red meats.

If you are so inclined, I also will put chicken thighs on top of the vegetables after they have been in the over about 10 minutes. You can leave the skins on the chicken to add some additional flavor to the vegs. Cook until the chicken is done and mix once or twice if necessary. Should take about 20 more minutes, but make sure the chicken is done.

Influence Part II

So after my month long journey in France and Southern Germany I had found a new appreciation for wine and food. The relationship between food going from raw ingredients to what is on the plate is really inspiring. To take something so simple as a beet or a potato and elevate it into something so sublime as to make you want to lick the plate is a complete power rush. I poured over those Grand Diplome cookbooks. Tasting each recipe in my mind. It was about a year later that I made my next cookbook purchase. It was pure artistry. Jean-Louis, Cooking with the Seasons is a feast for the eyes. I didn't really care about the recipes at all. I just wanted to look at the pictures and imagine what they must taste like. If I had thought that my trip to France was filled with ingredients and animal parts that I never thought I would eat, this book way outdid even that. There was a recipe that called for Geoduck. What the frig is that? I found out later its a type of clam, but seriously, where the hell was I going to find one of those. Not long after or how I remember it, Jean Louis was a guest chef on the David Letterman show. Low and behold what was he going to cook, but a Geoduck (pronounce gooey duck). If you have never seen on I can only describe it as looking as if you might have castrated a horse and clamped two shells where the balls should be. Gross looking was putting it mildly. Letterman had a fair bit of fun with that one. I'm trying to track down the clip of that, hopefully I can. However, this was the true start of my collecting cookbooks. I have way too many at this point and I will get to some of my favorites and even let you know which ones to avoid. Let me know what your favorites are and what are some of your favorite recipes. My next installment is my perfect French Toast recipe.