how do i vegetable?
August 31, 2020 11:23 AM Subscribe
I'm a sucker for advertising, and I've been meaning to eat more vegetables, so I subscribed to Misfits Market. My first box arrived today, and on the one hand, I'm pretty excited. On the other...
What do I do? Some of the stuff, like potatoes and onions, that came this week is super easy to use and stuff I would have otherwise bought at the grocery anyway. I'm pretty familiar with a lot of the stuff, but some of it is stuff I've never tried before. (And some of the stuff is celery, which, let's just pretend didn't happen.)
Regardless of what I got this particular week, though, I'm wondering how to incorporate what I get into meals. I've never done any sort of CSA or anything, so whenever I've had vegetables in the past, it's because I've purchased them intentionally to be a part of a meal.
I've got two real problems, as I see it. First, for the stuff I'm not as familiar with, how do you figure out what they go with? Like, I got a rutabaga today. What do rutabagas complement? Second, for the stuff I am familiar with, is there any real process to determining what you want to make? I got a handful of small carrots today; should I roast them and serve them with pork, or should I shave them into a salad with the lettuce and tomatoes I got? Does it really matter? Am I just overthinking things? Probably. But this is new to me. How do I make the most of it?
What do I do? Some of the stuff, like potatoes and onions, that came this week is super easy to use and stuff I would have otherwise bought at the grocery anyway. I'm pretty familiar with a lot of the stuff, but some of it is stuff I've never tried before. (And some of the stuff is celery, which, let's just pretend didn't happen.)
Regardless of what I got this particular week, though, I'm wondering how to incorporate what I get into meals. I've never done any sort of CSA or anything, so whenever I've had vegetables in the past, it's because I've purchased them intentionally to be a part of a meal.
I've got two real problems, as I see it. First, for the stuff I'm not as familiar with, how do you figure out what they go with? Like, I got a rutabaga today. What do rutabagas complement? Second, for the stuff I am familiar with, is there any real process to determining what you want to make? I got a handful of small carrots today; should I roast them and serve them with pork, or should I shave them into a salad with the lettuce and tomatoes I got? Does it really matter? Am I just overthinking things? Probably. But this is new to me. How do I make the most of it?
My surefire technique is googling "unfamiliar vegetable" + "protein in my possession" + "recipe". It'll get you started, anyway. (And you can just google vegetable+recipe and get side dishes if you want a wider scope.)
posted by restless_nomad at 11:34 AM on August 31, 2020 [17 favorites]
posted by restless_nomad at 11:34 AM on August 31, 2020 [17 favorites]
I've done CSAs in the past and the good news is, this part gets easier! You just have to get used to the idea of it, which is that you get the box first and then meal-plan and shop around it.
If I get something I haven't cooked with before and no ideas immediately spring to mind, I'll usually google the ingredient, look over the most common preparations, and find as simple a recipe as possible, so that I can practice preparing it and learn how it tastes without much adulteration. I've never gotten a rutabaga before for example, so (having briefly googled just now) I would probably either cube and roast it or boil and mash it, and serve as a side with roast meat.
As for the carrot question - why not both? A salad doesn't take much carrot, so you could just shred one or two and cook the rest.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:35 AM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
If I get something I haven't cooked with before and no ideas immediately spring to mind, I'll usually google the ingredient, look over the most common preparations, and find as simple a recipe as possible, so that I can practice preparing it and learn how it tastes without much adulteration. I've never gotten a rutabaga before for example, so (having briefly googled just now) I would probably either cube and roast it or boil and mash it, and serve as a side with roast meat.
As for the carrot question - why not both? A salad doesn't take much carrot, so you could just shred one or two and cook the rest.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:35 AM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
I agree with monotreme, except that I use Bittman's How To Cook Everything Vegetarian instead and find it even better for this sort of thing. He definitely slants towards French/classic recipes, but the delightful thing about most of them is that they use the fewest possible ingredients so I often find I have everything to hand already once I've looked up "Celeriac" or "Radicchio" in despair.
posted by DSime at 11:39 AM on August 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by DSime at 11:39 AM on August 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
With vegetables, when in doubt, see if Purple Carrot has anything in their recipe stockpile:
Rutabaga-Apple Hash
Rutabaga Rosti
posted by aramaic at 11:39 AM on August 31, 2020
Rutabaga-Apple Hash
Rutabaga Rosti
posted by aramaic at 11:39 AM on August 31, 2020
Hey there, reluctant cook and inveterate cake eater here, I signed up for the Imperfect box several weeks ago to accomplish similar goals of in-person shopping less and vegetable-eating more. And I guess a vague desire to waste less food.
Pretty much if something comes and I don't know what to do with it I google recipes, so like "rutabaga recipes." If it's a veg I've never had before and all the top recipes tell you to use 30 specialty ingredients or use words like sautee or look like they'll take more than 20 mins of prep then I'll chunk it, toss in salt and oil, and roast on 400 til squishy. Hard to go wrong with that, and it's a good way to know if you even like it.
There's a website/app called supercook that lets you put in all the ingredients you have and then spits back out recipes that use them. I like this one for when I have a fridge full of stuff that seems like it should go together but lack the experience to know how. This has has had very good results for me.
For stuff I am familiar with, like potatoes and carrots, I just make them in the way that I like them the best, unless supercook thinks I could use them better. But with carrots, for instance, I know the only way I like them is roasted, so some of the things self limit.
When I got celery I chopped it into pieces then froze it so that I can add a handful of celery to soups or whatever as needed. Then I added celery to the "don't send this to me" category.
I also have been trying to use things I have too much of in more creative ways. I had toooooo many nectarines one week so made nectarine bourbon ice cream. The "imperfection" in the garlic was that it was FUCKING HUGE AND THERE WERE 10000 OF THEM so I roasted a bunch and ate it like butter on bread. Etc.
posted by phunniemee at 11:40 AM on August 31, 2020 [14 favorites]
Pretty much if something comes and I don't know what to do with it I google recipes, so like "rutabaga recipes." If it's a veg I've never had before and all the top recipes tell you to use 30 specialty ingredients or use words like sautee or look like they'll take more than 20 mins of prep then I'll chunk it, toss in salt and oil, and roast on 400 til squishy. Hard to go wrong with that, and it's a good way to know if you even like it.
There's a website/app called supercook that lets you put in all the ingredients you have and then spits back out recipes that use them. I like this one for when I have a fridge full of stuff that seems like it should go together but lack the experience to know how. This has has had very good results for me.
For stuff I am familiar with, like potatoes and carrots, I just make them in the way that I like them the best, unless supercook thinks I could use them better. But with carrots, for instance, I know the only way I like them is roasted, so some of the things self limit.
When I got celery I chopped it into pieces then froze it so that I can add a handful of celery to soups or whatever as needed. Then I added celery to the "don't send this to me" category.
I also have been trying to use things I have too much of in more creative ways. I had toooooo many nectarines one week so made nectarine bourbon ice cream. The "imperfection" in the garlic was that it was FUCKING HUGE AND THERE WERE 10000 OF THEM so I roasted a bunch and ate it like butter on bread. Etc.
posted by phunniemee at 11:40 AM on August 31, 2020 [14 favorites]
Mr. chiefthe does the dispositioning of our CSA veggies before they go bad. Some of his secrets for the less "we know what to do with them" foods:
- chili -- lots of stuff works in chili, including kale, carrots, and (though not as well) kohlrabi
- quick breads -- you can hide all sorts of stuff in zucchini and squash breads with different levels of success
- fermentation -- this is the most successful yet treatment for daikon radishes and kohlrabi
- drying with food dehydrator -- most successful with peppers and herbs
posted by chiefthe at 11:45 AM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
- chili -- lots of stuff works in chili, including kale, carrots, and (though not as well) kohlrabi
- quick breads -- you can hide all sorts of stuff in zucchini and squash breads with different levels of success
- fermentation -- this is the most successful yet treatment for daikon radishes and kohlrabi
- drying with food dehydrator -- most successful with peppers and herbs
posted by chiefthe at 11:45 AM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
For stuff like rutabagas, I google and poke around blogs and magazine articles until something interests me.
I depend on my CSA box to provide a) staples b) side-dishable vegetables I can eat with a planned protein (and there are no verboten proten-veg combos, they are all valid, though I do roughly aim to get them done at the same time if I'm making a meal, so fish that cooks in 4 minutes isn't a wrong match for a long-cooked gratin, you just have to be ready to start the gratin, wait, and jump in at the final moments to do the fish; or maybe you make a roast with the gratin since the oven's on already). There's no report card, it doesn't matter what you do with the carrots, just get them eaten before they go bad, or cook/prep and freeze them to use later.
Not everything has to be An Recipe, either. Unless I'm in the mood for a project (I am not, permanently, until the pandemic is over and maybe never again), I don't need a 17-step Bittman procedure to get rutabagas on the table; mostly I'm just going to google how to roast them. Especially for new-to-me veg, I go with the simplest typical application. If it turns out I feel like my next rutabagas could be better, I'll try something else next time. There are probably cooler applications for romanesco, but it's delicious roasted so I just roast those babies every time they show up. Carrots get roasted. Potatoes get potato'd to our cravings at the moment, since we know them well and have opinions.
If you do want to play, you can go to the cookbooks, but you don't HAVE to every time.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:46 AM on August 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
I depend on my CSA box to provide a) staples b) side-dishable vegetables I can eat with a planned protein (and there are no verboten proten-veg combos, they are all valid, though I do roughly aim to get them done at the same time if I'm making a meal, so fish that cooks in 4 minutes isn't a wrong match for a long-cooked gratin, you just have to be ready to start the gratin, wait, and jump in at the final moments to do the fish; or maybe you make a roast with the gratin since the oven's on already). There's no report card, it doesn't matter what you do with the carrots, just get them eaten before they go bad, or cook/prep and freeze them to use later.
Not everything has to be An Recipe, either. Unless I'm in the mood for a project (I am not, permanently, until the pandemic is over and maybe never again), I don't need a 17-step Bittman procedure to get rutabagas on the table; mostly I'm just going to google how to roast them. Especially for new-to-me veg, I go with the simplest typical application. If it turns out I feel like my next rutabagas could be better, I'll try something else next time. There are probably cooler applications for romanesco, but it's delicious roasted so I just roast those babies every time they show up. Carrots get roasted. Potatoes get potato'd to our cravings at the moment, since we know them well and have opinions.
If you do want to play, you can go to the cookbooks, but you don't HAVE to every time.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:46 AM on August 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
I switched to Imperfect specifically because they let you customize your box. At a certain point with my previous CSA I'd just had enough of rutebegas and turnips, alas.
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:47 AM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:47 AM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
"when in doubt, roast it" is pretty much a mantra in our home. I think we have roasted 90% of every vegetable that passes through our kitchen and liked them all.
posted by gaspode at 11:48 AM on August 31, 2020 [17 favorites]
posted by gaspode at 11:48 AM on August 31, 2020 [17 favorites]
Best answer: To start out, an easy trick to remember is that anything that comes in that box can be broadly lumped in to one of several categories and that anything in that category is more or less interchangeable with each other (with a few exceptions). To wit:
"Things that grow under the ground" - potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, carrots, parsnips, other tubers or roots. These can be roasted, mashed, or boiled until fork tender. Most need to be peeled. (I have not really found a way to replicate a baked potato with any of the other items in this category.)
"Leafy greens" - kale, chard, collards, mustard greens, Asian greens like mizuna and tatsoy, spinach, cabbage. Saute or steam. Most of these you can also stew for quite a long time (think Southern style collards with pork).
"Brassicas" - Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower. Roast, grill, or steam.
"Alliums" - all onions, scallions, shallots are basically interchangeable.
"Winter squash" - acorn, butternut, delicata, sugar pumpkins, anything with a tough exterior that you don't want to eat. Cut open, scoop out seeds, roast, then peel off the skin. Or cut them open, scoop out the guts, stuff, and bake. Spaghetti squash can be (steam) roasted just like the others but will break apart in to strands instead of staying firm.
"Lettuce" - iceberg, romaine, leaf lettuces, "bitter" greens like endive. Clean, chop, eat raw.
"Phallic things" - summer squash, zucchini, eggplant in all its forms. Anything with a medium-firm (not too delicate) skin that's edible and has some seeds that you may want to get rid of. Grill, steam, stir fry. These tend to carry a lot of water and can benefit from salting up to an hour before cooking. Cucumber doesn't really fit in this category, it's kind of its own thing.
So, for example, you have a rutabaga but you don't know what to do with it? Well, you can cook it like a potato, so if you like roasted potatoes then just peel the rutabaga, dice it, toss it with some olive oil and salt/pepper, and throw it in a hot oven until brown on the outside and tender on the inside. You could mash it like you make mashed potatoes (although rutabagas and turnips tend to have a bit more fiber than potatoes, it still works).
If you come across something new, think about trying to fit it into one of these categories. It may fit into many categories. For example - whole fennel is a thing that grows in the ground (the bulb), but the stalks are a lot like anise-y celery and the fronds are like an herb. There are some exceptions (you can eat raw fennel bulb or radish, but I wouldn't eat a raw potato), but to start out I feel like these broad categories are a good way to be sure what you're going to cook will be successful.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:55 AM on August 31, 2020 [50 favorites]
"Things that grow under the ground" - potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, carrots, parsnips, other tubers or roots. These can be roasted, mashed, or boiled until fork tender. Most need to be peeled. (I have not really found a way to replicate a baked potato with any of the other items in this category.)
"Leafy greens" - kale, chard, collards, mustard greens, Asian greens like mizuna and tatsoy, spinach, cabbage. Saute or steam. Most of these you can also stew for quite a long time (think Southern style collards with pork).
"Brassicas" - Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower. Roast, grill, or steam.
"Alliums" - all onions, scallions, shallots are basically interchangeable.
"Winter squash" - acorn, butternut, delicata, sugar pumpkins, anything with a tough exterior that you don't want to eat. Cut open, scoop out seeds, roast, then peel off the skin. Or cut them open, scoop out the guts, stuff, and bake. Spaghetti squash can be (steam) roasted just like the others but will break apart in to strands instead of staying firm.
"Lettuce" - iceberg, romaine, leaf lettuces, "bitter" greens like endive. Clean, chop, eat raw.
"Phallic things" - summer squash, zucchini, eggplant in all its forms. Anything with a medium-firm (not too delicate) skin that's edible and has some seeds that you may want to get rid of. Grill, steam, stir fry. These tend to carry a lot of water and can benefit from salting up to an hour before cooking. Cucumber doesn't really fit in this category, it's kind of its own thing.
So, for example, you have a rutabaga but you don't know what to do with it? Well, you can cook it like a potato, so if you like roasted potatoes then just peel the rutabaga, dice it, toss it with some olive oil and salt/pepper, and throw it in a hot oven until brown on the outside and tender on the inside. You could mash it like you make mashed potatoes (although rutabagas and turnips tend to have a bit more fiber than potatoes, it still works).
If you come across something new, think about trying to fit it into one of these categories. It may fit into many categories. For example - whole fennel is a thing that grows in the ground (the bulb), but the stalks are a lot like anise-y celery and the fronds are like an herb. There are some exceptions (you can eat raw fennel bulb or radish, but I wouldn't eat a raw potato), but to start out I feel like these broad categories are a good way to be sure what you're going to cook will be successful.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:55 AM on August 31, 2020 [50 favorites]
Whichever approach you take to classifying and cooking your veg (mine is "raw, stirfried, roasted, stew?"), see if there's a way of taking notes that will be easy for you. While you're cooking or eating a thing you will probably think "hassle" or "surprisingly easy" or "yeah, and if garlic!!!!!" and being able to refer to that means you will develop your cooking style faster.
Also handy for seasonal veg, because otherwise I forget what it was I decided I liked nine months ago.
posted by clew at 12:04 PM on August 31, 2020
Also handy for seasonal veg, because otherwise I forget what it was I decided I liked nine months ago.
posted by clew at 12:04 PM on August 31, 2020
Before you toss the celery cut a little slice out of a nice looking bit of the stalk - not the leaves! - and try it. Often celery is nasty which is probably why you recoiled. But sometimes when it is fresh and grew in the right conditions it is a nice sweet vegetable. You might just have lucked out and gotten a fresh celery which is not bitter.
Peel and cube some rutabaga. Cut a thin slice to try it raw. If the taste is not too strong and like a fodder crop, cut up some of the carrots and some of the potatoes and roast them all in the oven after tossing the raw cubes in some pork fat and the herbs of your choice.
Cooked mashed rutabaga can be mixed half and half with apple sauce and served hot as a vegetable.
posted by Jane the Brown at 12:31 PM on August 31, 2020
Peel and cube some rutabaga. Cut a thin slice to try it raw. If the taste is not too strong and like a fodder crop, cut up some of the carrots and some of the potatoes and roast them all in the oven after tossing the raw cubes in some pork fat and the herbs of your choice.
Cooked mashed rutabaga can be mixed half and half with apple sauce and served hot as a vegetable.
posted by Jane the Brown at 12:31 PM on August 31, 2020
I used to do Creamy coconut curry surprise with pretty much everything.
Saute whatever it is in coconut oil with onions and salt until it is chewable. Stir in curry powder, garlic if you like, a splash of orange juice if whatever it is is sortof sweet, lemon or vinegar if not, or nothing if you don't want to add acid for whatever reason. The creamy part can be anything creamy, like yogurt or cream or coconut milk. Sometimes I'd add a bright garnish like peas or sliced scallions.
Every thanksgiving I make Orange. It's just a bunch of roasted orange things in a casserole.
There's also the time honored "roast whatever it is and mix with cooked pasta and pesto," and "stick it in lasagna where nobody will notice."
If it's green and crunchy and you kindof hate it, like your celery, there's "chop up a small amount microscopically small and mix with yogurt and other things you don't hate chopped up, voila, raita."
Almost anything can go in chicken or tuna salad.
Finally, there's "dress it up beyond its wildest dreams." Yesterday I had a butternut squash and I wanted to finally do puff pastry, so I roasted half-circles of butternut and carmelized some onions and mixed in Italian sausage and made a savory tart tatin, which ended up basically a bowl of grease, but it tasted pretty good and anyway it looked amazing and the pastry was completely easy, despite what Paul Hollywood keeps trying to imply on the bakeoff show.
posted by Don Pepino at 12:32 PM on August 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
Saute whatever it is in coconut oil with onions and salt until it is chewable. Stir in curry powder, garlic if you like, a splash of orange juice if whatever it is is sortof sweet, lemon or vinegar if not, or nothing if you don't want to add acid for whatever reason. The creamy part can be anything creamy, like yogurt or cream or coconut milk. Sometimes I'd add a bright garnish like peas or sliced scallions.
Every thanksgiving I make Orange. It's just a bunch of roasted orange things in a casserole.
There's also the time honored "roast whatever it is and mix with cooked pasta and pesto," and "stick it in lasagna where nobody will notice."
If it's green and crunchy and you kindof hate it, like your celery, there's "chop up a small amount microscopically small and mix with yogurt and other things you don't hate chopped up, voila, raita."
Almost anything can go in chicken or tuna salad.
Finally, there's "dress it up beyond its wildest dreams." Yesterday I had a butternut squash and I wanted to finally do puff pastry, so I roasted half-circles of butternut and carmelized some onions and mixed in Italian sausage and made a savory tart tatin, which ended up basically a bowl of grease, but it tasted pretty good and anyway it looked amazing and the pastry was completely easy, despite what Paul Hollywood keeps trying to imply on the bakeoff show.
posted by Don Pepino at 12:32 PM on August 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
I hate celery too, but I find it does positively affect soups and stews and things, anywhere you're using onion and carrot. I just chop it all up and freeze it in a ziploc and throw in a handful as necessary. You don't really taste it in stuff but it adds a little something.
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:46 PM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:46 PM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
In terms of determining what to make, I subscribe to a number of newsletters—among them NY Times Cooking, Bon Appétit, Epicurious, The Guardian, and TASTE. Editorially, they tend to follow the seasons, so they're a reliable source of prompts for what's good to cook right now. I just keep an eye out for tasty sounding recipes that use the ingredients that I have, and am perfectly happy to have a random food editor tell me what to cook if I don't have plans of my own. (I hoard these recipes in Paprika and try to be good about rating and making notes for future reference.)
Great advice from the folks recommending you think of your produce box by category of veg. Most ingredients can be swapped around within reason and yield tasty dishes. My go-to for rutabagas is to boil and coarsely mash them with other roots and tubers like potatoes, parsnips, and carrots. But, having identified them as fellow travelers, you could then sub rutabaga where a recipe might traditionally call for carrots... like a spice cake.
(Beyond a bloody mary, celery is most essential as a component in a mirepoix or holy trinity. One tends not to cook those sorts of foods in summertime, though it'd be a good use of those carrots.)
posted by mumkin at 12:47 PM on August 31, 2020
Great advice from the folks recommending you think of your produce box by category of veg. Most ingredients can be swapped around within reason and yield tasty dishes. My go-to for rutabagas is to boil and coarsely mash them with other roots and tubers like potatoes, parsnips, and carrots. But, having identified them as fellow travelers, you could then sub rutabaga where a recipe might traditionally call for carrots... like a spice cake.
(Beyond a bloody mary, celery is most essential as a component in a mirepoix or holy trinity. One tends not to cook those sorts of foods in summertime, though it'd be a good use of those carrots.)
posted by mumkin at 12:47 PM on August 31, 2020
Someone at my own CSA came up with a rule of thumb that seemed like wisdom for the ages - "when in doubt, just saute it with olive oil and a little garlic." You can do that with just about any green leafy vegetable and it should work. To that, I would add that you can make a super simple vegetable soup out of just about any vegetable - cook it in just enough water for it to get soft, puree it, and add salt to taste. Boom.
Also, for root vegetables (like rutabaga), you can chop those up and roast them along with a roast chicken for a simple dinner. That's another one of my fallbacks for when I can't think what else to do with root vegetables. If you have a rutabaga, potatoes, carrots, and onions, chop them up and throw a chicken on top and throw that in the oven to roast, and you've got dinner sorted. That works well if you only have a small amount of something; one carrot may not seem like enough, but carrot and potato and rutabaga makes a nice root vegetable medley.
Seconding the advice above to just Google the vegetable in question and browse, bookmarking what sounds good. (Additional tip - there is a web site with a browser app called "Copy Me That", where you can sign up for a free account and bookmark recipes you see online with just a click on the browser app. Even better - it strips out all of the extra bullshit food bloggers put in about how their kids Cody and Brent love it so it's a great way to get kiddos to eat their veggies and yadda yadda yadda....so you just have the recipe saved in your file.)
In terms of deciding what "goes with" other things...some of that is trial and error. Fortunately, it can be very, very tasty trial and error - I was similarly unsure what to do with a Japanese eggplant the first time I got it in a CSA, but I stumbled upon a Southeast Asian recipe for a Japanese eggplant stir-fry with ground beef and a little chili pepper, and it was delicious and became one of my "ooh, I wanna remember this one" bookmarks. Same to with Italian peppers (sauted with some sausage and serve over pasta), swiss chard (sauted with garlic and then mixed with tortellini), and bok choi (stir fry with ground pork over fried noodles). If you try out different things like this, you'll make your own discoveries, and that will help you go from "what the hell do I do with a rutabaga" to "oooh sweet I got a rutabaga, I can make that rutabaga gratin recipe again, I loved that!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:50 PM on August 31, 2020
Also, for root vegetables (like rutabaga), you can chop those up and roast them along with a roast chicken for a simple dinner. That's another one of my fallbacks for when I can't think what else to do with root vegetables. If you have a rutabaga, potatoes, carrots, and onions, chop them up and throw a chicken on top and throw that in the oven to roast, and you've got dinner sorted. That works well if you only have a small amount of something; one carrot may not seem like enough, but carrot and potato and rutabaga makes a nice root vegetable medley.
Seconding the advice above to just Google the vegetable in question and browse, bookmarking what sounds good. (Additional tip - there is a web site with a browser app called "Copy Me That", where you can sign up for a free account and bookmark recipes you see online with just a click on the browser app. Even better - it strips out all of the extra bullshit food bloggers put in about how their kids Cody and Brent love it so it's a great way to get kiddos to eat their veggies and yadda yadda yadda....so you just have the recipe saved in your file.)
In terms of deciding what "goes with" other things...some of that is trial and error. Fortunately, it can be very, very tasty trial and error - I was similarly unsure what to do with a Japanese eggplant the first time I got it in a CSA, but I stumbled upon a Southeast Asian recipe for a Japanese eggplant stir-fry with ground beef and a little chili pepper, and it was delicious and became one of my "ooh, I wanna remember this one" bookmarks. Same to with Italian peppers (sauted with some sausage and serve over pasta), swiss chard (sauted with garlic and then mixed with tortellini), and bok choi (stir fry with ground pork over fried noodles). If you try out different things like this, you'll make your own discoveries, and that will help you go from "what the hell do I do with a rutabaga" to "oooh sweet I got a rutabaga, I can make that rutabaga gratin recipe again, I loved that!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:50 PM on August 31, 2020
> What do rutabagas complement?
It might not be easily available where you live, but mashed rutabagas aka bashit neeps are a traditional complement to haggis; it's delicious, along with a good shot of whisky of course.
posted by anadem at 12:50 PM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
It might not be easily available where you live, but mashed rutabagas aka bashit neeps are a traditional complement to haggis; it's delicious, along with a good shot of whisky of course.
posted by anadem at 12:50 PM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
Celery when sauteed with carrots and onions is a building block for lots of different soups and stews (mirepoix), and it doesn't taste that much like celery after cooking and combining it with a bunch of other things. You can cut up and freeze any extra celery and it'll work fine for cooking later on.
Whenever I'm stuck for ideas I just google "recipe"+ whatever veggie and pick a recipe that has a lot of stars, sounds tasty and I have all the ingredients for. If you hate it you'll have a better sense for what kind of recipe to avoid next time. If you're having trouble finding a recipe where you have all the ingredients, think about whether you may need to expand the sauces and basic cooking ingredients you keep on hand.
posted by randomnity at 1:30 PM on August 31, 2020
Whenever I'm stuck for ideas I just google "recipe"+ whatever veggie and pick a recipe that has a lot of stars, sounds tasty and I have all the ingredients for. If you hate it you'll have a better sense for what kind of recipe to avoid next time. If you're having trouble finding a recipe where you have all the ingredients, think about whether you may need to expand the sauces and basic cooking ingredients you keep on hand.
posted by randomnity at 1:30 PM on August 31, 2020
Six Seasons is the most interesting veggie-forward cookbook I have encountered.
posted by esoterrica at 1:33 PM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by esoterrica at 1:33 PM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Do you have a dog? I got a misfits box today and the celery and squash is going in the pot with some ground meat, oatmeal and canine dietary supplement to make for some fresh home made dog food. Dog loves it. I won’t eat celery voluntarily and I have too much squash this time of year. Win win.
posted by slateyness at 1:47 PM on August 31, 2020
posted by slateyness at 1:47 PM on August 31, 2020
Response by poster: I should note that I'm a pretty experienced cook, just not with vegetables. This, I suppose, is part of my problem. I don't generally use recipes. I just kind of know how meat and dairy and grains and spices and stuff work, and I put them together. I guess I did the culinary equivalent of learning to play along to records: I'd eat something at a restaurant and then figure out how to make it myself. Maybe the answer is just that I need to start reading recipes, haha.
posted by kevinbelt at 2:08 PM on August 31, 2020
posted by kevinbelt at 2:08 PM on August 31, 2020
You might be overthinking a bit - a small handful of carrots as part of a box seems more "precious" or meaningful than a bag of store-bought carrots in your refrigerator.
For veg you're familiar with, you can either just use them for the first thing you're making that calls for them, or you can decide to do something special with them and look up some recipes or techniques you might not have used before.
For the unfamiliar, it's a good opportunity to look it up online and see what's good. Sometimes you can substitute things, sometimes things have niche uses. But once you learn a few things you can start to incorporate those items into your regular repertoir.
There are lots of veggies I use now that I had no idea about before we got them in a CSA. I've also become more adventurous with trying new things I see in the grocery store.
Rutabagas are great in soups and stews, but imo the best is roasted. When they get caramelized they are pure heaven.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 3:21 PM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
For veg you're familiar with, you can either just use them for the first thing you're making that calls for them, or you can decide to do something special with them and look up some recipes or techniques you might not have used before.
For the unfamiliar, it's a good opportunity to look it up online and see what's good. Sometimes you can substitute things, sometimes things have niche uses. But once you learn a few things you can start to incorporate those items into your regular repertoir.
There are lots of veggies I use now that I had no idea about before we got them in a CSA. I've also become more adventurous with trying new things I see in the grocery store.
Rutabagas are great in soups and stews, but imo the best is roasted. When they get caramelized they are pure heaven.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 3:21 PM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
I have made this excellent gazpacho every few days for the last few weeks, and cannot wait to read Chef José Andrés's Vegetables Unleashed.
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:24 PM on August 31, 2020
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:24 PM on August 31, 2020
I don't generally use recipes. I just kind of know how meat and dairy and grains and spices and stuff work, and I put them together. I guess I did the culinary equivalent of learning to play along to records: I'd eat something at a restaurant and then figure out how to make it myself. Maybe the answer is just that I need to start reading recipes, haha.
Or, eat vegetable-forward dishes that use the things you've got and figure out how to reverse-engineer them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:25 PM on August 31, 2020
Or, eat vegetable-forward dishes that use the things you've got and figure out how to reverse-engineer them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:25 PM on August 31, 2020
I loathe celery. I absolutely hate that crunchy vegetable motherf*cker. However, Trimmed, laid in a roasting dish was liberal amounts of salt, pepper, olive oil, and a chicken on top (and maybe a tomato or two sliced around) it will braise down in the chicken schmaltz to be something tender and delicious - slightly peppery with a faint celery tang. It's like a completely different vegetable when you cook it. Just saying...
posted by ninazer0 at 4:57 PM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by ninazer0 at 4:57 PM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
I don't generally use recipes. I just kind of know how meat and dairy and grains and spices and stuff work, and I put them together.
backseatpilot's comment is a great jumpstart on how to do that for veg.
"Roasted" for veg means cut to pieces c 2/3 of an inch thick (width doesn't matter), coat in oil and salt, spice optional; put in hot oven on a parchment paper lined pan (425 is a good place to start, once you're comfortable, most of them like to be at 450) until brown and delicious.
posted by fingersandtoes at 4:59 PM on August 31, 2020
backseatpilot's comment is a great jumpstart on how to do that for veg.
"Roasted" for veg means cut to pieces c 2/3 of an inch thick (width doesn't matter), coat in oil and salt, spice optional; put in hot oven on a parchment paper lined pan (425 is a good place to start, once you're comfortable, most of them like to be at 450) until brown and delicious.
posted by fingersandtoes at 4:59 PM on August 31, 2020
For anyone else out there who enjoys crunchy celery but doesn't like it in soup, here's my favorite recipe for turning celery + protein into a meal: Send-the-rice-down celery with ground beef. (This does assume you like spicy food and have Chinese chili sauce on hand; you can use up to a pound of more or less any kind of ground meat here, and if you like your celery really crunchy, you don't need to blanch it.)
posted by yarntheory at 4:59 PM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by yarntheory at 4:59 PM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
Seconding ninazer0's suggestion for the celery.
For a similar effect on the stovetop as a side dish: slice celery into 1/2 thick pieces, sauté in butter with a little diced onion until the onion is translucent or maybe a little brown; add some chicken stock or boullion (maybe half the depth of the single layer of veg) and cook the veggies until the liquid is quite reduced. This was a total revelation to me--celery as a delicious cooked side dish?!--and is now one of my favorites.
posted by Sublimity at 5:14 PM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
For a similar effect on the stovetop as a side dish: slice celery into 1/2 thick pieces, sauté in butter with a little diced onion until the onion is translucent or maybe a little brown; add some chicken stock or boullion (maybe half the depth of the single layer of veg) and cook the veggies until the liquid is quite reduced. This was a total revelation to me--celery as a delicious cooked side dish?!--and is now one of my favorites.
posted by Sublimity at 5:14 PM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
For what things go with: The Flavor Bible
For a roundup of ideas using what you have: Supercook
posted by jocelmeow at 5:16 PM on August 31, 2020
For a roundup of ideas using what you have: Supercook
posted by jocelmeow at 5:16 PM on August 31, 2020
So much good advice here but I’ll add my tip for rutabaga or turnip: mash with about a third again carrots, it transforms it.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:23 PM on August 31, 2020
posted by warriorqueen at 5:23 PM on August 31, 2020
In general, with root vegetables, like carrots and rutabagas, you can treat them pretty similarly to potatoes.
Carrots and rutabagas both will be very good roasted, at a high temperature until good and brown and tossed first with olive oil, salt, pepper, and some spices (curry powder, garlic powder, cumin, smoked paprika...). You can also toss them in a glaze before cooking: oil with a sweetener (maple syrup, honey) and something bright (some balsalmic vinegar, lemon juice), maybe some miso or minced garlic. They will be good tossed with bacon fat or bacon bits. You could eat these roasted root vegetables alone, or cut them up and put them in a salad. They will be good served with a cool dipping sauce like an aioli, or something with a sour cream or yogurt base. Also with a pile of fresh herbs like dill on top.
You can also boil and mash them just like potatoes, including mixing them with potatoes. I also like root vegtables in soups; use a blender to blend some but not all of them for a good thick hearty base and some chunks.
I personally do not like raw carrots as much, though I'll eat little slivers of them if someone else puts them in a salad or with gobs of dip.
Try using celery the same way you use onions - diced up quite small and sauteed as the base of flavoring for most any dish. I also like it roasted served with caesar dressing, parmesan, and lemon on top.
What else did you get?? any greens? The secret to kale is to massage it.
posted by amaire at 5:25 PM on August 31, 2020
Carrots and rutabagas both will be very good roasted, at a high temperature until good and brown and tossed first with olive oil, salt, pepper, and some spices (curry powder, garlic powder, cumin, smoked paprika...). You can also toss them in a glaze before cooking: oil with a sweetener (maple syrup, honey) and something bright (some balsalmic vinegar, lemon juice), maybe some miso or minced garlic. They will be good tossed with bacon fat or bacon bits. You could eat these roasted root vegetables alone, or cut them up and put them in a salad. They will be good served with a cool dipping sauce like an aioli, or something with a sour cream or yogurt base. Also with a pile of fresh herbs like dill on top.
You can also boil and mash them just like potatoes, including mixing them with potatoes. I also like root vegtables in soups; use a blender to blend some but not all of them for a good thick hearty base and some chunks.
I personally do not like raw carrots as much, though I'll eat little slivers of them if someone else puts them in a salad or with gobs of dip.
Try using celery the same way you use onions - diced up quite small and sauteed as the base of flavoring for most any dish. I also like it roasted served with caesar dressing, parmesan, and lemon on top.
What else did you get?? any greens? The secret to kale is to massage it.
posted by amaire at 5:25 PM on August 31, 2020
Cara Mangini's delightful The Vegetable Butcher book might be just the thing. There's a few of her fave recipes for each vegetable, and (crucial for me) and explanation of how to store it, cut it, etc.
posted by spamandkimchi at 7:23 PM on August 31, 2020
posted by spamandkimchi at 7:23 PM on August 31, 2020
One thing that hasn't yet been mentioned for rutabagas: slice them up like sashimi, and serve them the same way, with a soy-based dipping sauce. You can do it with carrots, too. It's been a big thing at our house for a couple of decades as an appetizer or before dinner snack.
Don't discard the celery, you need it for all the stews and soups. I like the idea of preparing and freezing it, will do that today. Look at caponata for a vegetarian stew that is delicious and can be used as a pasta sauce, lasagna filling, side dish, or appetizer.
Last year, the kids at my house went vegetarian, for climate reasons (so they still eat some meat if the production is sustainable, like line-caught fish, or game). I began reading vegetarian cookbooks for inspiration. I don't use recipes much, but I read cookbooks at night before falling asleep. My favorite books for vegs are: The Vegetarian Option by Simon Hopkinson, the River Cottage books, any books by Ottolenghi, any Italian cookbooks because real Italian food (as opposed to American-Italian food) is very vegetable-rich. I have always loved Madhur Jaffrey's books, food from the sub-continent is often vegetable-rich, too. On my wish-list are Samin Nosrat's and Fuchsia Dunlop's books.
If you want to go full geek into this, old cookbooks have tons of interesting recipes. Before the 20th century most humans not living in the Arctic ate a lot of vegetables, both separately and in meat stews. Still today, people in less affluent countries use more veg and less meat in their food, so there are great recipes like seven vegetable couscous, or Afghan spinach stew, out there.
posted by mumimor at 11:16 PM on August 31, 2020
Don't discard the celery, you need it for all the stews and soups. I like the idea of preparing and freezing it, will do that today. Look at caponata for a vegetarian stew that is delicious and can be used as a pasta sauce, lasagna filling, side dish, or appetizer.
Last year, the kids at my house went vegetarian, for climate reasons (so they still eat some meat if the production is sustainable, like line-caught fish, or game). I began reading vegetarian cookbooks for inspiration. I don't use recipes much, but I read cookbooks at night before falling asleep. My favorite books for vegs are: The Vegetarian Option by Simon Hopkinson, the River Cottage books, any books by Ottolenghi, any Italian cookbooks because real Italian food (as opposed to American-Italian food) is very vegetable-rich. I have always loved Madhur Jaffrey's books, food from the sub-continent is often vegetable-rich, too. On my wish-list are Samin Nosrat's and Fuchsia Dunlop's books.
If you want to go full geek into this, old cookbooks have tons of interesting recipes. Before the 20th century most humans not living in the Arctic ate a lot of vegetables, both separately and in meat stews. Still today, people in less affluent countries use more veg and less meat in their food, so there are great recipes like seven vegetable couscous, or Afghan spinach stew, out there.
posted by mumimor at 11:16 PM on August 31, 2020
Oh! I have some books I can recommend, and two may be very interesting for you to read anyway based on your cooking style. They're not "vegetable" cookbooks as such, but based on your cooking style, you may dig them. They're not "cookbooks" as such either, more like they're describing a kind of overall mindset about food and cooking, with an eye towards how to cook more efficiently and less wastefully and more improvisationally. There are some traditionally-written recipes, but most of it is more like "Here's something you can do to throw together a soup based on anything in the world you might have in your fridge" or "you may think that you can't do anything with eggs, but actually there's a shit-ton you can do".
The first one, M.F.K. Fisher's How To Cook A Wolf, was originally written during World War II, and she intended it to help families cope with the slender means and enforced budget that the wartime rationing had imposed on them. In the 1950s, she updated it a bit to answer back against all of the confusing "latest scientific advice" that "nutrition experts" were putting out, which was starting to drive families a little crazy and making mothers tear their hair out trying to incorporate all the "latest medical advice". She writes like a glamorous socialite, but she's writing about very economical and practical things, and you come away from reading it thinking that "so what if I only have eggs and some stuff to make a salad with, that sounds positively elegant."
The second book is Tamar Alexander's An Everlasting Meal. It's the same approach, but from a more contemporary perspective; Alexander sounds more like a child-of-hippies than a glamorous socialite, but it's very similar advice. Where How To Cook A Wolf makes you feel like you're having an elegant dinner party, An Everlasting Meal feels more like a comforting dinner with your Hobbit friends.
I also have some more specific vegetable-targeted books that I got early on when I started with a CSA, and hadn't yet picked up working knowledge for "what the hell do I do with a parsnip". First is the Moosewood Daily Special, which is nothing but soups and salads; it also has some notes for each recipe about other recipes it would go with. (I have also recommended that book more than any other cookbook ever.)
Another good one is Serving Up The Harvest - that one organizes all its recipes by vegetable and by season; there's a big section for "early spring vegetables" and inside that section you'll have first a bunch of recipes for peas, then a bunch of recipes for spinach, and so on, and at the end of that section you may find some recipes that combine those seasonal vegetables. Then in the "summer" section it's the same thing - a "corn" section, a "tomato" section, an "eggplant" section, a "zucchini" section, and at the end a bunch of "combined summer vegetables". And so on. There are also some "basic" recipes in the beginning which show you how to take any vegetable you want and turn it into a gratin, a soup, a stir-fry, etc. One of the "basic" recipes is a basic recipe for lo mein, which is my go-to for cleaning out the fridge (there are no set ingredients, it's more like "a couple cups' worth of chopped up firm vegetables, a couple cups' worth of chopped up leafy greens, a pound of whatever protein you want, and noodles). ….I should add that I trust that cookbook writer enough that when I saw just now that she also has a second cookbook just for root vegetables, I immediately opened up a second window on my browser to buy it. Oh - and she has a whole section devoted to celery.
One of those might speak to you and give you a jumping off point.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:13 AM on September 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
The first one, M.F.K. Fisher's How To Cook A Wolf, was originally written during World War II, and she intended it to help families cope with the slender means and enforced budget that the wartime rationing had imposed on them. In the 1950s, she updated it a bit to answer back against all of the confusing "latest scientific advice" that "nutrition experts" were putting out, which was starting to drive families a little crazy and making mothers tear their hair out trying to incorporate all the "latest medical advice". She writes like a glamorous socialite, but she's writing about very economical and practical things, and you come away from reading it thinking that "so what if I only have eggs and some stuff to make a salad with, that sounds positively elegant."
The second book is Tamar Alexander's An Everlasting Meal. It's the same approach, but from a more contemporary perspective; Alexander sounds more like a child-of-hippies than a glamorous socialite, but it's very similar advice. Where How To Cook A Wolf makes you feel like you're having an elegant dinner party, An Everlasting Meal feels more like a comforting dinner with your Hobbit friends.
I also have some more specific vegetable-targeted books that I got early on when I started with a CSA, and hadn't yet picked up working knowledge for "what the hell do I do with a parsnip". First is the Moosewood Daily Special, which is nothing but soups and salads; it also has some notes for each recipe about other recipes it would go with. (I have also recommended that book more than any other cookbook ever.)
Another good one is Serving Up The Harvest - that one organizes all its recipes by vegetable and by season; there's a big section for "early spring vegetables" and inside that section you'll have first a bunch of recipes for peas, then a bunch of recipes for spinach, and so on, and at the end of that section you may find some recipes that combine those seasonal vegetables. Then in the "summer" section it's the same thing - a "corn" section, a "tomato" section, an "eggplant" section, a "zucchini" section, and at the end a bunch of "combined summer vegetables". And so on. There are also some "basic" recipes in the beginning which show you how to take any vegetable you want and turn it into a gratin, a soup, a stir-fry, etc. One of the "basic" recipes is a basic recipe for lo mein, which is my go-to for cleaning out the fridge (there are no set ingredients, it's more like "a couple cups' worth of chopped up firm vegetables, a couple cups' worth of chopped up leafy greens, a pound of whatever protein you want, and noodles). ….I should add that I trust that cookbook writer enough that when I saw just now that she also has a second cookbook just for root vegetables, I immediately opened up a second window on my browser to buy it. Oh - and she has a whole section devoted to celery.
One of those might speak to you and give you a jumping off point.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:13 AM on September 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
> I should note that I'm a pretty experienced cook, just not with vegetables
For a decent cook wanting to get a handle on vegetables I really recommend Yotam Ottolenghi’s first Plenty book.
posted by tomp at 8:50 AM on September 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
For a decent cook wanting to get a handle on vegetables I really recommend Yotam Ottolenghi’s first Plenty book.
posted by tomp at 8:50 AM on September 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian is a good complement to Mark Bittman's Vegetarian book, IMO. It is structured similarly, meaning all recipes for a particular vegetable are grouped together; and Madhur's book has the extra addition of being a book that sources it's recipes from all over the world.
Another book that is a bit older is Madhur's book called World of the East-Vegetarian; that has vegetarian recipes from all of Asia. This is also structured based on ingredient, and therefore quite useful when you are looking for recipes for a particular vegetable.
I have all three and use them regularly.
posted by indianbadger1 at 10:47 AM on September 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
Another book that is a bit older is Madhur's book called World of the East-Vegetarian; that has vegetarian recipes from all of Asia. This is also structured based on ingredient, and therefore quite useful when you are looking for recipes for a particular vegetable.
I have all three and use them regularly.
posted by indianbadger1 at 10:47 AM on September 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
Bittman explains that turnips and rutabagas are interchangeable in recipes and provides some turnip recipes with suggestions for variations.
posted by monotreme at 11:33 AM on August 31, 2020 [12 favorites]