Potato corn chowder with fennel, dill, and caraway

I've been taking advantage of the end of the summer corn for the last few few weeks. We ate our way through a huge batch of summer chili, some of which is still waiting patiently in the freezer for future dinners. I also froze a bunch of farmer's market corn to store for the winter, and made a bunch of beautiful light yellow broth from the cobs. So far, so good.

Then I discovered Use Real Butter's chanterelle bacon corn chowder. Yes please!

We don't have any chanterelles to forage in Silicon Valley -- and even if we did, I'm the only person in our house who voluntarily eats mushrooms. So those were out. Bacon was similarly out, since we wanted a vegetarian chowder. But corn, potato, and fennel? That sounded like an amazing combination. I punched it up with fennel fronds and toasted caraway seeds, and our potato corn chowder with fennel, dill, and caraway was born.

This chowder turned out a little sweet for my tastes, largely because of the combination of super-fresh corn kernels and corn broth. If you're using frozen corn, I imagine that problem will not come up. But otherwise, there are a couple ways to combat the sweet. I added a few drops of liquid smoke to a serving, and that was very good. Hot sauce or cayenne pepper would also be great if you like the spice. Or go the other direction and add some grated parmesan cheese or other hard grating cheese.

And a crunchy, tart, or bitter salad of arugula or massaged kale and apples would be a perfect contrast on the side.

Potato corn chowder with fennel, dill, and caraway
Inspired by Chanterelle bacon corn chowder
Serves 4-6

1 tbsp butter
2 small or 1 large leek (or use 2-3 shallots)
1/2 large bulb fennel
1 small or 1/2 large carrot
1/2 cup white wine/dry vermouth
3 cloves garlic
3 large boiling potatoes
3 cups veg broth or corn broth
3/4 tsp dried thyme
2 ears corn/approx 1 1/2 cups kernels
3/4 cup milk/cream
salt, pepper to taste
~2 tbsp each fresh dill, fennel fronds, and parsley
lemon wedges, 1 per serving
toasted caraway seeds, 2 pinches per serving

Melt your butter in a large soup pot over medium heat. Trim, clean, and chop your leeks, and cut your fennel and carrot into small pieces. Add them to your soup pot along with a generous pinch of salt, stir, and let cook for about 5 minutes to soften.

While you're waiting, finely mince your garlic. Scrub and cube your potatoes.

When your vegetables have become soft and aromatic, deglaze the pan with your wine or vermouth. Scrape the bottom of the pan as needed to remove the fond. Then add your potatoes and garlic to the soup pot, along with your thyme, and continue to cook for another 5 minutes.

Next, add your broth to the soup pot. Bring everything to a boil, reduce the heat, put on the lid, and simmer for about 25 minutes, or until your potatoes are completely cooked through and ender. You can test this by smashing a piece of potato against the side of the pot.

Husk, de-silk, and slice your corn kernels off their cobs. Scrape the cobs with the back of your knife to get out as much fresh corn action as possible. Add your corn kernels and milk or cream to the pan. Season well with salt and pepper, and simmer gently for another 5 minutes or so.

Chop all your fresh herbs finely and stir them into the soup, reserving a pinch or two for final garnish if you so desire. Taste and correct seasonings.

Keep your pot of soup warm while you toast your caraway seeds. To do this, put a teaspoon or two of caraway seeds into a small, dry frying pan over medium heat. Toast for 2-3 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally. Don't go anywhere, because seeds burn very easily. When the seeds have just barely turned a darker shade and they are very aromatic, turn off the heat.

Serve your soup with reserved herbs and a few pinches of caraway seeds scattered over the top. Squeeze a wedge of lemon over each bowl, and eat with plenty of hot toast. Rye or pumpernickel would be ideal, but sourdough is also good.

This made a delightful and comforting dinner, and was a great way to switch up our usual corn menu.

How are you eating the last of the summer corn harvest?

Bagel panzanella

I've been wanting to make bagel panzanella for several months. Now that the best summer tomatoes are here, it is time. Oh man, is it time.

You almost certainly know my love of bagels. Bagels are wonderful. Bagels are delicious. Bagels are the best breakfast on a holiday morning. You can put anything on a bagel. And while I usually discuss my love of bagels through a series of various cream cheese schmears, I thought it was time to mix it up in a more bready way, so I could shoehorn even more bagels into my diet. What recipe combines a delicious bread product and many tasty vegetables? Panzanella. And so bagel panzanella was born.

Probably the most important component of panzanella is the bread. It's supposed to be dry, so it can soak up all the vegetable juices and vinaigrette readily, yet not turn into a pile of soggy mush. So preparing the bread is critical. It also needs to be done a good 12 hours in advance, unless your bagel is already quite stale. You can get away with toasting your bread pieces gently in a low oven, but the texture is going to be a little different.

I chose an everything bagel, for optimal all-bagel flavor content. Cherry tomatoes came out of the garden; cucumber, red onion, and basil came from the CSA box. Actually, the basil could have come out of the garden too, since there's plenty of it out there. But it didn't.

To make this even more substantial (and bagely), you could serve big scoops of it over some tangy salad greens -- arugula would be my pick -- and scatter some chunks of cream cheese or goat cheese rolled in sesame and poppy seeds over the top to serve. For that matter, if you wanted to take the whole thing in a sweeter direction, you could go for a blueberry bagel, an assortment of halved berries, and fresh mint, give it a squeeze of lemon juice, and serve it all over a bed of spinach, with optional goat cheese. Panzanella!

Bagel panzanella
serves 2

1 savory bagel to make 2-3 cups cubed bread
2 cups chopped tomato (14 cherry tomatoes in my case)
1 1/2 cups chopped cucumber
3/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
1/2 bunch or up to 1 cup chiffonaded fresh basil
1/4 cup or more red wine vinaigrette

Cut your bagel into bite-sized pieces. I'd recommend going a bit on the small side, to create optimal bites with cucumber and tomato later.

Put your bagel pieces on a rack and let them dry out overnight. If your bagel is already a day old (mine was fresh from the bagel shop), I'd guess you only need 4-6 hours.

The next day, it's time to make your salad. Chop up your tomato and cucumber into bite-sized pieces; thinly sliver your red onion; chiffonade your basil. Combine your bagel pieces, tomato, cucumber, red onion, basil, and vinaigrette. Mix everything together well. Let sit on the counter (no tomatoes in the fridge) for at least a half hour, and up to four hours.

Taste, correct seasoning, and serve with the delights of your choice.

Red wine vinaigrette

1 clove garlic, crushed and minced
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
12 good grinds of pepper
1/2 cup olive oil

Put all the ingredients into a small jar. Lid the jar and shake well to emulsify. Voila! Red wine vinaigrette.

You'll have some vinaigrette left over, so put the jar into the fridge and use it on any salads you may be eating in the next week or so. Let the dressing come to room temperature before using.

It's so dramatic-looking with the black cherry tomatoes.

We had our bagel panzanella with slices of Spanish tortilla, but it would be pretty happy alongside a whole lot of different main dishes. Eat it for breakfast, with some scrambled eggs. Eat it for lunch, with a cup of Tuscan white bean soup. Eat it for dinner, with a burger of your choice, or maybe a seared steak if that's how you roll.

How are you eating your bagels lately?

Blistered shishito peppers

Shishito peppers are one of the highlights of late summer. While they look like a hot pepper, they are generally pretty sweet -- only about one in ten peppers will be spicy. So eating a plate of these is like a delicious, delicious game of chance, where no matter what, you always win.

When we got a pint of shishitos in our CSA share, we knew exactly what to do with them: blister them. One hot pan and five minutes later, we were ready to eat the entire pint in one fell blow.

I imagine these peppers would also be excellent grilled on the barbecue. Toss your peppers with oil, string them onto soaked skewers, and roast, turning to cook each side, until nicely blistered. Then salt and eat. I haven't tried this, though, so if you do, let me know how it goes! For science!

This method will work with shishito or padrón peppers.

Blistered shishito peppers

grapeseed oil or other cooking oil with high smoke point
shishito peppers
plenty of kosher or sea salt

Put a frying pan wide enough to hold all your peppers in a single layer over medium-high to high heat. Let the pan get hot before you start cooking. Test the temperature with a flick of water, just like you would if you were cooking pancakes; when the water sizzles away immediately, you're ready to go.

Add a generous slug of oil to the pan and let it heat up for a moment. Then add your peppers and toss or stir to coat. Let the peppers cook, stirring or flipping occasionally, until they are blistering and turning golden to dark brown in patches on all sides. This should take about five minutes.

When your peppers are done, remove them to a paper towel-lined plate or wire rack and immediately season with a generous amount of salt.

Serve hot. Eat them all. Hooray!

Blistered shishitos are great by themselves, but they also work well as part of an antipasto spread. A hard slicing chorizo or other spicy sausage and a chunk of manchego are the perfect match. Marinated olives would be pretty tasty too. Basically anything you'd get at a tapas bar is a good idea.

And of course you are going to want a glass of cold, cold beer on the side. Hot peppers and icy beer are one of the best possible combinations to eat on a hot afternoon.

What are your favorite late summer snacks?

Momofuku-style pickled torpedo beet, radish, and tokyo turnip

We've had the Momofuku cookbook for awhile, and I've never cooked anything from it until now. But I've been wanting to try these pickles for a few weeks, ever since I read a blog post that talked about how the beets in this recipe (or method, really) aren't cooked.

I've always made (and eaten) western-style beet pickles, so I've always boiled my beets. But shredded or julienned raw beets are excellent in a salad setting, or even as garnish for a hot soup or rich piece of meat, so I was officially intrigued. And we certainly had plenty of beets lying around. The CSA farm seems to have a had a bumper crop this year, and they've been coming practically every week. So many beets: golden, torpedo, and plain old red globes.

When I checked out the supply in our crisper, I found not only three beautiful red torpedo beets, but also three ordinary red radishes and a single solitary tokyo turnip. (Of course, later I found two more buried under a head of cabbage, so...yeah.) I decided to pickle them all together for a few reasons. First, beets and turnips are a usual match in Middle Eastern pickles; if you've had a falafel sandwich with pink pickled turnip, you've experienced this. Radishes are similar to turnips in texture, but also provide a pungent kick. Besides, all of these vegetables needed eating.

I considered adding some ginger to my pickles, because that's always super interesting. See: fennel pickle with lemon and ginger, which is SO GOOD and you should go make some right now. Actually, I need to go make some, because I have all the ingredients lying around, crying for me to use them. Anyway. I knew about that; I also recently read about Nami's pickled sushi ginger, which I need to try as soon as I can find some young ginger. But since I hadn't tried this particular pickle method before, I thought it might be a good idea to just go for the master brine recipe before I started fooling around quite so much. The fooling around will very likely happen later, though. Oh yes.

Momofuku-style pickled torpedo beet, radish, and tokyo turnip
Adapted from the Momofuku cookbook

brine:
1 cup hot water
1/2 cup rice vinegar
6 tbsp (3/8 cup) sugar
2 1/2 tsp kosher or pickling salt

veg:
3 torpedo beets
3 radishes
1+ tokyo turnip
or adjust vegetable proportions to fill your jars.

equipment:
2 pints or 1 quart mason jar with plastic storage lids
chopstick or spatula
optional canning funnel

For the brine, combine all the ingredients in a nonreactive pan or bowl. I used water that I boiled in the teapot and let cool down a bit, instead of the book's hot tap water. Stir until the sugar and salt are completely dissolved.

For the veg: wash, trim, and peel your beets. Wash and trim your radishes and turnips. Halve all your veg and slice into very thin half-moons.

Pack your vegetables into mason jars. Pour the brine over the veg to cover, filling up to 1/2 inch from the top of the jar. Use a chopstick or spatula to remove any bubbles. Cap your jars and put them in the refrigerator to cure overnight.

Store in the refrigerator and eat at your leisure. These guys should last at least a month, and probably quite a while longer. I usually keep refrigerator pickles for a good three months or so.

What are you pickling this summer?

Scrambled duck eggs with green beans, red pepper, and fresh herbs

We bought an egg share with our CSA. This means that along with our weekly vegetables, we also get half a dozen mixed brown, blue, and spotted eggs. They're excellent -- obviously super-fresh, with bright orange yolks and full whites. A fried CSA egg is a thing of beauty, especially split over a piece of sourdough toast. But six eggs is just about as many as we can eat in a week, considering our overall low levels of breakfast-eating and baking. And then the CSA decided to give everyone a sample of half a dozen duck eggs.

Suddenly we had double the eggs, and the duck eggs were nearly double the size of the chicken eggs, so it was more like we had sixteen eggs than twelve. It was definitely time for a couple of hearty weekend scrambles. And why not get the full use out of the CSA by adding plenty of herbs and vegetables?

For our herbs, we used curly parsley and dill, both of which are excellent with egg. I think dill is seriously underused in general, and particularly when it comes to eggs. It's great raw in egg salad, and it's also great cooked into a scramble like this. I imagine that it's similar to the classic tarragon-and-egg combination. Try it!

Scrambled duck eggs with green beans, red pepper, and fresh herbs
serves 2

butter
2 scallions
large handful green beans (or zucchini, broccoli, etc)
1/2 red bell pepper
2-3 duck eggs (or sub 5-6 chicken eggs)
~3 tbsp each fresh dill and parsley (or basil, tarragon, chives, etc)
salt, pepper

Chop your scallion whites, setting the greens aside. Saute in butter in an appropriate egg pan over medium heat.

Wash, trim, and cut your green beans into bite-sized pieces. When your scallions have begun to soften, add the beans to the pan, along with a punch of salt. Continue to cook for another 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally, while you dice your bell pepper. When the beans are mostly tender, add your peppers and cook for another 2-3 minutes to soften.

Crack your eggs into a bowl. Finely chop your scallion greens, parsley, and dill; add them to the eggs. Season with salt and plenty of pepper. Beat with a fork until frothy and well mixed.

When all of your vegetables are tender, add your egg mixture to the hot pan. Cook, stirring frequently, until your eggs are done to your liking.

Serve your finished eggs with a little more pepper or a few fronds of herbs scattered on top. A simple green salad is definitely welcome alongside. And if it happens to be dinnertime, or Sunday brunch, a glass of dry white wine would not go amiss.

Have you ever cooked with duck eggs?

First garden green beans of the year

I planted a truly massive amount of green bush beans this year. We had the garden space, and can basically never get enough beans, so why not? Besides, after the moles killed multiple jalapeño plants and a tomato plant, I figured that more plants equaled a better chance of actually getting a crop.

Now the beans are the most successful plants in the garden, with no attrition by mole at all. I'm picking huge double handfuls every other day, so as to keep up a steady supply for the whole growing season. Later I'll let one or two plants go, so the beans mature in their pods and can be used for seed next year. Hooray!

For my first foray into homegrown green bean cooking, I went super simple. What better way is there to eat beans than sauteed with butter and garlic?

Green beans with butter and garlic
Serves one. Multiply as needed.

1-2 big handfuls green beans
1-2 cloves garlic
1 pat butter/slug olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Wash your green beans, trim them, and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Crush and mince your garlic.

Melt your butter or oil in a frying pan over medium to medium-high heat. Add your garlic and cook for about a minute before adding your beans. Season with several good pinches of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes. If you like, you can add a splash of water to the pan and let the beans cook in the steam.

When the beans are done to your taste, season with pepper. Taste and add more salt as necessary. Eat immediately.

Of course, beans can also get a little fancier. This is especially the case if you also need to get through a CSA box of vegetables every week. In this case, I more or less just added some delightful extras to the basic green bean and garlic recipe. It's still super easy and still delicious.

Green beans with zucchini and dill
Serves one. Multiply as needed.

1 big handful green beans
2 cloves garlic
1 small or 1/2 large zucchini
1 pat butter/slug olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
2-3 tbsp chopped fresh dill (or basil, tarragon, parsley, etc)
wedge of lemon

Wash your green beans, trim them, and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Crush and mince your garlic. Chop your zucchini into thin rounds or half-moons.

Melt your butter or oil in a frying pan over medium to medium-high heat. Add your garlic and cook for about a minute before adding your beans. Season with several good pinches of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes. Add water to steam your beans if you like.

Add the zucchini and continue cooking for another 2-3 minutes, or until all the vegetables are done to your taste. Season with pepper and correct salt.

Serve topped with plenty of fresh dill and a squeeze of lemon juice. If you're having your beans alongside a seared piece of fish, put any extra dill and lemon on the fish.

Beans! They are the best.

Who's gardening this year? What are you harvesting now?

Summer garden tuna salad

The CSA box demands that we eat as many vegetables as humanly possible all summer long. This is simultaneously great and a problem.

Salads are the obvious solution, but an all-veg salad is usually not a sufficient lunch. Unless you want to make another entire dish, some sort of protein is necessary. I chose eggs -- we still have abundant CSA eggs -- and tuna, and decided to wake up the flavors with sriracha sauce, garlic, and fresh basil, scallion, and parsley. For some extra textural interest, I used a mix of cooked and raw vegetables. Altogether, this worked out super well.

If you aren't a tuna person, you can always leave it out and up the hard-boiled eggs to two, or sub in the cooked and drained beans of your choice. I'd probably go for white beans first, but any kind you like that maintains reasonable structural integrity should be fine. If you want to use other fish, maybe try fork-mashed sardines or a smoked fish of your choice. And of course, you can make this completely vegan by switching out both tuna and egg for beans. It's all good.

Some lime or lemon zest wouldn't be unwelcome, either.

Summer garden tuna salad
makes 2 meal-sized servings

1 egg
1 cup broccoli florets in bite-size pieces
1 cup green beans in bite-size pieces
3/4 cup shredded/julienned cucumber
3/4 cup shredded/julienned zucchini (I used gold bar squash)
1 clove garlic, minced and pulverized thoroughly
1-2 scallions or a large handful of their greens, finely chopped
large handful basil leaves, finely chopped
large handful parsley, finely chopped
1 5-oz can tuna, drained
1+ tbsp olive oil
several good squirts sriracha or other hot pepper sauce to taste
salt, pepper
any other veg you think sounds good in this circumstance
salad greens to serve

Put your raw egg in a small pot of water and set it on to boil. Cook for 9 minutes at a simmer. Scoop the egg out of the water and put it in an ice bath.

While your water is still hot, add your broccoli and green beans. Bring the pot back to a boil and cook for 3 minutes, or until the vegetables are done to your liking. Drain, shock briefly in cold water, and drain again.

While you're waiting for the egg and cooked veg to cool enough to use, cut up your cucumber, zucchini, garlic, scallions, basil, and parsley. Add them to a mixing bowl along with your tuna, olive oil, sriracha, salt, and pepper.

When the egg is cool, peel and dice it. Add your egg, broccoli, and beans to the bowl. Mix thoroughly. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Serve on a bed of salad greens of your choice, with an extra drizzle of olive oil and a little more salt and pepper.

A spoonful or two of leftover salad, combined with mozzarella cheese and another dash of sriracha, makes a good quick quesadilla filling. The cucumber makes it a little drippy, but it's still delicious.

How are you eating your fresh summer vegetables?

Radish and dill compound butter

Radishes, butter, and salt are one of the most classic food combinations out there.

Usually I've seen instructions to swipe whole radishes through cold butter and dip them into sea salt. This is all well and good if you want a huge mouthful of radish, but it can get a little spicy for me. So instead I thought I'd make a quick compound butter and spread the resulting tasty mess on slices of sourdough baguette. Then I added some fresh dill, because we had a big bunch and it's delicious with crispy radish. Perfect!

This is one of those recipes you can adjust to suit your tastes. Do you like lots of crunch and spice? Add more radish. Do you want all the dill? Add more dill. You're going to be spreading this on bread anyway -- a fairly neutral palette -- so I recommend going for large amounts and strong flavors.

If you want to chill your butter before using -- maybe so you can let a slice of it melt on top of a piece of poached salmon later -- you can shape it into a cylinder by wrapping it in plastic wrap, rolling it to an even thickness with the palm of your hand, and twisting the plastic together at each end. Then just stick the packet in your refrigerator for future application.

And if you want to make this into a schmear instead of a compound butter, you can switch out the butter for cream cheese. This is definitely on my short list of things to make before the dill is all gone.

Radish and dill compound butter

2-3 radishes (3 tbsp grated)
1 1/2 tbsp fresh dill
4 tbsp softened butter
salt and pepper to taste

Shred your radishes on a box grater or microplane. Finely chop your dill.

Mix the shredded radish, dill, and butter together thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper, taste, and adjust.

Spread on the bread of your choice and eat. Otherwise, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for future use.

John and I may have polished off our entire batch, as well as an entire baguette, and called it lunch. Cold rosé is optional.

What are you spreading on bread lately?

Refrigerator zucchini pickles

Yay! It's summer squash season! Yes, that magical time of year in which suddenly everyone you know is trying to foist bagfuls of zucchini, pattypans, and yellow squash onto their friends and neighbors at the slightest provocation. If you're growing your own, the situation is even worse. Suddenly, YOU are the one wandering into the backyard to find that an apparently bare plant has somehow sprouted six fully grown squash -- and you have four more plants to check -- and there were already several zucchini in your crisper.

Now is the time to use up that squash any way you can. I like to slice up a few squash for a simple saute with garlic and olive oil, or to cube them and scramble them with eggs and a big handful of herbs. But when those strategies fail, it's time to go a step further and think about preserves.

The classic method of summer squash preservation is a simple shred and freeze. This works out very well if you are the kind of person who will eat zucchini bread for months on end. But I decided it was time to try something different, and that thing was pickled zucchini.

This is a very simple and delightful refrigerator pickle. There is a surprising hint of mustard taste in the finished product, which means that these go very well on sandwiches of all kinds. A jar of these is definitely a great way to get through some of a massive summer zucchini harvest -- or, in my case, the seven or eight zucchini at a time that have been arriving at frequent intervals via CSA box.

Refrigerator zucchini pickles

1 pint mason jar, washed and dried
4 medium zucchini or summer squash (~2 cups sliced)
1 halved garlic clove
1/2 tsp dried dill
3/4 cup white vinegar
3/4 cup water
1/4 tsp peppercorns
1 tbsp pickling salt or kosher salt
optional canning funnel

Wash your zucchini and slice them into rounds or spears. I chose rounds for easy sandwich application. Leave them raw.

Put your garlic clove and dill into your jar. Add your zucchini. You may have to shift the pieces around a bit to fit them all in there.

In a small saucepan, heat your vinegar, water, peppercorns, and salt. Put on the lid and simmer for about five minutes, or until the salt has completely dissolved.

Pour your hot brine into your jar, leaving 1/4 inch of headspace at the top. Use a chopstick or spatula to release any air bubbles, and top up with more brine as needed. Make sure you get all the peppercorns into the jar, even if you have extra liquid left over.

Lid your jar and put it into the refrigerator. Let your pickles cure for at least 24 hours before eating them.

Now it's time for voluminous sandwiches of all kinds. Pickles for every lunch! Hooray!

How do you use up the yearly summertime zucchini glut?

First CSA box of the year!

It's the first CSA box of the year! Here's what we got:

2 pints strawberries
3 huge leeks
bunch tokyo turnips w greens
bunch carrots w greens
bunch fresh dill
7 medium zucchini
2 little gem lettuce
1 bag mesclun mix
1/2 dozen eggs

This year we have an egg share, which is super exciting. Just look at all those colors! And who couldn't be excited about stuffing their faces with the first farm-fresh strawberries of the year?

There was only one problem: we got the box immediately before leaving the country for a week. How could we eat as much of this as possible in as little time as possible?

Fortunately, a good chunk of our share keeps pretty well. Leeks, turnips, and carrots are all reasonable storage vegetables. Eggs keep forever, which is good, because we had ten of our last dozen left too. The rest needed to get eaten or cooked and frozen pretty quickly. So what did we make?

Strawberries: Of course, we had to eat an entire pint raw as soon as possible. That's a given. Extras got washed, sliced, and frozen for future smoothies. Otherwise, we could have cut them up and strewed them over some of the mesclun mix for salad.

Zucchini: I am the main eater of zucchini in our house, but even I couldn't eat all seven in two days. I shredded a couple along with a carrot or two, mixed them with tuna, scallion, mustard, and sriracha, and had a lovely spicy tuna salad. I cubed up a couple more and threw them into some brothy soup. That took care of about half of them. The rest sat in the crisper and miraculously stayed intact for the duration of our trip. Other ideas: a zucchini pancake would be a good plan. Zucchini noodles and some relatively hearty lentil and tomato sauce would work well too. And cubed zucchini is great scrambled with a couple eggs or thrown into fried rice.

Dill: Since we had all the eggs, we could have made an excellent egg salad, but we didn't get to it in time. (This is actually on the list for this week.) Instead, I put the whole bunch of dill in a jar of water and put it in the fridge to see how well it would keep. This worked astonishingly well. I've since been snipping it into soup and strewing it over crispbread spread with cream cheese and topped with black pepper.

Lettuces: The little gems keep reasonably well, so we ate the softer mesclun first, along with the bit of romaine we already had. I don't know about you, but when I get a lot of pre-washed, perfectly fresh mesclun, I tend to just eat it in big handfuls out of the bag, or throw a handful of undressed leaves on my plate, along with whatever random quesadilla may be on the menu otherwise. That's exactly what happened here.

Verdict: success! We managed to eat all the tender vegetables in record time, and the rest kept in good shape for the week that we were away.

And now we have another box coming this afternoon. Yay!

Do you have a CSA share? What are you making with all your bounty?

Chickpea, heart of palm, & roasted red pepper salad

One thing you do when you're going out of town -- especially if an abundant CSA box is on the way -- is to eat down as much of the food in your kitchen as you can.

Salad was definitely on the list, because we had romaine already, and we're going to get an influx of even more greens before we leave. So I went through the cabinets and pulled out everything I thought would make a great full-meal salad. That meant chickpeas, hearts of palm, and jarred roasted red pepper. Together, they make an excellent, highly flavored, and multitextural salad. Over plenty of crispy greens, this mix made a very satisfying lunch.

This salad is very reminiscent of one of my favorite restaurant salads ever: the heart of palm salad at Osteria in Palo Alto, CA. I'm super excited to have made something similar at home. And if any of you want good Italian food -- especially salads -- in Palo Alto, this is where you should go, hands down. Even their basic green salad is astoundingly good.

This recipe will make three meal-sized servings or 4-6 smaller servings. It's therefore pretty great to make on Sunday and bring to work for several days during the week, as long as you keep the salad greens separate from the marinated veg mixture.

Chickpea, heart of palm, & roasted red pepper salad

1 15-oz can or 2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 14-15-oz can hearts of palm
3-4 roasted red bell peppers
several big handfuls of chopped parsley
1 tbsp champagne vinegar
1 clove crushed garlic
4+ tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
up to 1 head romaine or other salad greens

If you need to roast your peppers, do that first. You can either roast them directly over the gas flame or halve them and stick them under the broiler. In either case, you want to blacken and blister the peppers on all sides. Then put them in a bag or sealable container for about ten minutes; this will trap the steam inside and loosen the skins. Then you can just brush the skin away with your fingers. Voila! Roasted red peppers!

Drain and rinse your chickpeas and deposit them in a large mixing bowl. Drain and rinse your hearts of palm, cut them into bite-sized pieces, and add them to the bowl. My hearts of palm were supposedly salad-cut, but they were still pretty large, so I cut them down a bit more. Chop your roasted and skinned peppers into similar bite-sized pieces and add them to the bowl. Add a couple big handfuls of chopped parsley, and the base of your salad is ready.

To make the dressing, mix together a tablespoon of champagne vinegar and a clove of crushed garlic, along with some salt and pepper. Whisk in about 4 tablespoons of good olive oil. Taste and adjust the seasonings to your liking. Then pour your dressing over your salad and stir well to coat and mix. You can sub about 5 tbsp of the vinaigrette of your choice if you prefer.

It's a good idea to let this salad rest in the refrigerator for at least an hour before serving, so the flavors have a chance to mix together nicely. I absolutely did not do this, however.

When you're ready to serve, wash, dry, and chop your salad greens into appropriate pieces. Spread a few handfuls of leaves over each plate. Top with a generous amount of your chickpea mixture. Sprinkle a little more pepper on top and go to town.

What are some of your favorite salads?

Carrot pinto bean chipotle soup

Because there's no reason to stop eating soup just because it's May.

I am doing nineteen things at once lately, so soup is actually one of the better choices I could make. It's super easy to make, delicious, cheap, and stores well in the freezer for future nights when I don't want to do anything but collapse into bed. Put some soup in a bowl, throw some lettuce on a plate (or into the soup), and you have a full dinner.

This particular soup is lovely and spicy and delightful. I will eat plenty.

Carrot pinto bean chipotle soup

olive oil or butter
1 onion
6 carrots
2 stalks celery
2 cloves garlic
1 boiling potato
2 cups cooked pinto beans
4 cups veg or bean broth
salt, pepper, bay leaf, cumin, oregano
1-2+ chipotles in adobo & sauce
optional garnish: green onion, cilantro, yogurt, etc.

Warm your oil or butter in a large soup pot while you peel (or scrub) and dice your onion, carrots, and celery. Add the vegetables and a pinch of salt to the pot, stir, and cook over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, or until softened and beginning to brown.

Mince your garlic and dice your potato. Add these to the pot and continue to cook for another minute or two. Then add your beans and broth, season to taste with salt, pepper, cumin, and oregano, throw in a bay leaf, and bring the whole business to a boil. Reduce the heat to simmer, cover, and cook for about 15 minutes, or until all your vegetables are cooked through.

At this point you'll want to pull the pot off the heat, remove the bay leaf, and puree the soup to your desired texture with an immersion blender. I like a completely smooth soup, but it's fine to leave yours a bit chunky if you prefer.

Check out the texture of your soup. If it's too thick, add some water or broth. If it's too thin, put it back on the heat and simmer to reduce to your desired texture.

When you're happy with your soup's texture, taste and correct any seasonings. Then, off the heat, stir in as much finely chopped chipotle pepper in adobo as you desire. The amount can vary quite a bit depending on your spice tolerance, so it's a good idea to start off slowly and taste as you go. We like spice, so I used about 2 tablespoons of chopped chipotle and sauce.

Serve your soup with your choice of garnish. Chopped green onion works exceptionally well here, as does cilantro or fresh oregano. If you happen to be making this at the height of corn season, a handful of kernels fresh off the cob would be an excellent idea. You may also want to have some toasted corn tortillas or chips available for dipping.

What's your favorite thing to eat after a busy day?

Winter squash polenta with chipotle pinto beans

I've been thinking about the combination of squash and beans for a few weeks now. Black beans and sweet potato are a natural match in things like enchiladas and black bean-broccoli stuffed sweet potatoes, so why not try a variation with winter squash?

This is just a basic soft polenta with a big whack of delicious, vibrant winter squash puree added in. I still had some previously roasted CSA squash puree in the freezer, so this was the perfect way to finish it up. Of course, there are still two squash on our counter. Those need to get eaten soon too!

Polenta does take a bit of time to make, but it's such a delicious result that I think it's well worth it. The overall result is smooth and comforting, with a subtle sweetness (not to mention a BRIGHT ORANGENESS) from the squash and a hint of contrasting black pepper. And the combination with spicy beans? Yes. The experiment worked.

Wilted dark greens with garlic would be an excellent addition if you want more vegetables. Cilantro would be a great garnish here too.

Winter squash polenta

3 tbsp butter or olive oil
1/2 medium yellow onion
3 cups veg broth, water, or a mix
1 cup polenta and 1 cup water, combined
~2 cups winter squash puree
salt and pepper to taste

Melt your butter or oil in a 3-quart or bigger pan on medium heat while you dice your onion finely. Add the onion to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for about five minutes, or until nice and fragrant and translucent.

Add your water or broth and bring the pan to the boil. I used 2 cups of vegetable stock and 1 of plain water, which worked perfectly.

If you haven't mixed up your raw polenta and water, now is the time to do so. Give it a few good stirs to break up any lumps. Then gradually add your polenta and water mix to the pot, stirring each addition in well.

When all your polenta has been added, it's time to settle in for the long haul. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring frequently, for about 25 minutes. Many polenta recipes will have you stir for the entire cooking time, but I don't think this is necessary, especially if you are also cooking some tasty pinto beans at the same time. Just keep an eye on your polenta and stir it frequently.

Your polenta will be cooked when it's thick and is pulling away from the sides of the pan as you cook. Taste it to make sure. Then add your squash puree, season well with salt and pepper to taste (start with 1/2 tsp of each), stir it all up, and cook for another five minutes, or until hot through and tasty.

Chipotle pinto beans

butter or oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
cumin, oregano, salt to taste
~2 cups cooked pinto beans
2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, finely minced
adobo sauce to taste
green onion to garnish

This is more or less a non-mashed version of basic refried beans. Saute onion and garlic in oil or butter until softened. Season with cumin, oregano, and salt. Add pinto beans and a bit of their broth (if homemade) and cook, stirring, for five or ten minutes, until everything is hot through and the beans are at your preferred degree of dryness. Correct seasonings and take the pan off the heat. Finally, stir in your chipotles, plus a couple spoonfuls of the adobo sauce to taste. (Chop the rest of the can of chipotles in adobo and freeze in an ice cube tray for future applications.)

Serve your beans over a big scoop of polenta and garnish with chopped green onion. Oh man, it's so good.

I spread the leftover polenta evenly into a casserole dish, pressed some parchment paper over the top, and left it to solidify a bit overnight. The next morning, I fried up a couple of squares in a little butter, then topped them with a fried egg. Plain romaine on the side.

This was an excellent plan and I highly recommend that you try it, either with neat squares of polenta or a couple of rough handfuls shaped into patties. Runny egg yolk with crispy polenta is definitely worth a few minutes of effort.

How are you eating the last of your winter storage vegetables?

Sugar snap pea and chive schmear

There were sugar snap peas at the farmer's market! Yay!

I had to make the most of them by eating a few raw. They were very nice that way, either by themselves or dipped into hummus. But it was clear that they would be even nicer mixed into some cream cheese and spread on pieces of hot toast.

I left my peas raw, because SPRING, but this would also work with steamed or blanched peas. Do what works for you.

Also, if you happen to be into the classic pea and fresh mint combination, you might want to give that a try instead of the chives. Double trouble!

Sugar snap pea and chive schmear

~10 raw sugar snap peas
~8 chives
3-4 tbsp cream cheese/tofu cream cheese
salt & pepper to taste
a spoonful of optional milk/yogurt to thin

Break the stem of each pea and pull down to strip off the string that goes down the side of the pod. Discard the waste. Chop your peas and chives into fine slices.

Add all the ingredients to a medium bowl and mix thoroughly with a fork. This will take a bit of effort, since cream cheese can be pretty thick and unmashable. A splash of milk or plain yogurt will help thin it down if necessary.

Spread on the toasted bagel or other bread product of your choice. I used wheat bread, because there were no bagels currently in the house, and it was good.

How are you eating your fresh spring peas?

$1.85 at the farmer's market

If you're careful, $1.85 at our farmer's market can get you this. Three zucchini, six pea pods, one tiny carrot, and an armful of assorted peppers from the $.65/lb sort-outs bin: $1.20. A small bag of broccolini, no price sign to be found: $.65.

What will I do with all of these?

Most of the peppers will get washed, trimmed judiciously (there's a reason they were in the sort-outs bin), and put into a quick brine to pickle. The few in good enough shape to keep for a few days will go into all kinds of things: quesadillas, salads, scrambled eggs, tomato sauce.

The zucchini will probably get sauteed with olive oil and garlic and thrown over some pasta, maybe with a handful of toasted breadcrumbs on top.

I could eat the peas raw with some hummus, slice them at an angle and throw them into a green salad, or cook them with the zucchini for pasta purposes.

The broccolini will likely get a simple saute, either with butter and garlic or a good squirt of sriracha sauce and some chopped almonds. To be eaten next to a piece of fish or some spicy seared tofu.

The carrot will get eaten one way or another.

What kind of vegetables are popping up at your farmer's market this spring?

Roasted beet and fennel salad with orange and dill

I've been meaning to make this salad for weeks, but life kept getting in the way. Well, both life and my own innate laziness, not to mention my desire to eat other things, such as big dishes of curry, that would not go very well with such a thing. But now I have made it and eaten it and it was delicious.

This is such a great salad for the middle of winter: full of bright and tangy flavors, but also the warmth and comfort of roasted vegetables. Adding some chickpeas or white beans would make it a full lunch with very little effort. And any leftover beets and fennel can just chill in the refrigerator for future salad endeavors. It's definitely a win all around.

It has been far too long since I've put citrus pieces in a salad. These orange segments were possibly the best contrast ever to the earthiness of beet and the gentle bite of roasted fennel. I know what I'll be doing with the next few oranges that fall off our tree.

This is also an excellent way to get random beets out of your crisper! Mine were these exciting torpedo-shaped monsters. I still have another bunch of beets hanging around. Maybe those will become salad mark II.

Roasted beet and fennel salad with orange and dill

1 large or 2-3 small beets per serving
1/2 large head fennel per serving
olive oil, salt, pepper
up to 1 orange per serving
1 handful chopped dill per serving (or sub fennel fronds)
Orange and shallot dressing

Start by preheating the oven to 350F to roast your vegetables. For the beets: trim off any beet greens, scrub well, and put in a casserole dish with 1/2 cup water. Cover tightly with foil. For the fennel: core, remove stems and fronds, and cut into bite-sized chunks. Toss with a glug of olive oil and a few shakes apiece of salt and pepper. Put them in a different baking dish, so they can caramelize a bit and not turn magenta while cooking.

Put your beets and fennel into the oven and roast for approximately one hour, or until they are tender to the point of a knife. Let your beets cool enough to touch before rubbing off the skins with your hands. Be careful, because there will be beet juice everywhere! Cut the peeled beets into bite-sized pieces.

Supreme your oranges. Start by cutting off the skins, removing the white pith as you go. Then, using a small paring knife, cut directly next to the membrane on one side of a segment, and then the other. This should let you remove the segment, completely free of membranes. Repeat until you've removed all the orange flesh. Save the core of the orange and any juice on the cutting board to make the dressing.

To assemble your salad, arrange your fennel, beets, and orange segments on a plate. Scatter a handful or two of chopped dill over the vegetables and fruit. Dress with orange and shallot dressing, add some extra pepper if you desire, and serve.

Orange and shallot dressing
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

1 clove garlic
2 large pinches salt
1 large or 2 small shallots
1/8 cup orange juice (squeezed from the carcass of the orange)
2 tbsp lemon juice
several good grinds of pepper
1/2 cup olive or vegetable oil

Mince your garlic, sprinkle it with salt, and crush it to a puree by scraping it with the flat of your knife. Finely mince your shallot.

Put all your ingredients into a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Close the jar and shake vigorously until the oil is well emulsified. Taste and correct seasonings before serving. Refrigerate extra dressing for future salads. Makes approximately 3/4 cup.

What salads are you eating this winter?

New Year's cucumber pickles

Is cucumber in season? No. Do I have one anyway? Yes.

Our christmas and new year's morning traditions do not include the typical big pan of cinnamon rolls or stack of crisp waffles. Instead, we have plenty of bagels. I have mine with cream cheese, John has his with hummus, and we both have several big handfuls of crispy vegetables and fresh herbs -- various sprouts, red pepper, green pepper, red onion, spinach, parsley, and chives have all made appearances.

And what do you need to top off a big sandwich like that? PICKLES.

We lost a good four or five half-eaten jars of assorted pickles when the fridge went out a couple weeks ago. Yeah. It was not pretty. Replenishing the pickle supply was very high on the list of things to do before BIG SANDWICH MORNING arrived. So I bought a cucumber, simmered up some brine, and got going.

This is a crispy, tangy refrigerator pickle that cures quickly overnight. It takes about five minutes to make and produces some excellent results. If you want to fill your fridge with pickles, doubling or quadrupling the recipe is simple. And then you will have all the pickles in the land, for plenteous and delightful future sandwich-eating purposes.

Get pickling!

New Year's cucumber pickles
Makes 1 pint

3/8 cup water
3/8 cup apple cider vinegar or white vinegar
1 tsp pickling salt
1 English cucumber (or your choice of cucumber with few seeds & no wax)
4 peppercorns
2 cloves garlic, peeled & halved
1 tsp dill seed
1 pint jar and lid
optional canning funnel

Make your brine by combining water, vinegar, and salt in a small saucepan. Heat until the salt has dissolved. This should take 5 minutes or less.

Trim your cucumber's blossom and stem ends and cut into slices or spears. You'll need about half the cucumber to fill one pint jar if you cut it into spears, and about 3/4 of the cucumber if you cut it into slices. If you're using a smaller cucumber, such as an Armenian, you may need two to fill your jar.

Put your peppercorns, garlic, and dill seed into your jar. Pack your cucumber into the jar, pushing gently to fill as full as possible.

Using your funnel, pour your brine into the jar. Use a chopstick or rubber spatula to release any obvious air bubbles. Cap, cool, and store in the refrigerator. Age for at least 24 hours before eating.

Now you are ready to make the best possible sandwiches! FORWARD.

What are you eating for your first meals of 2015?

Emergency pasta with broccoli

And this weekend our fridge died.

We are having the best possible holiday season around here, let me tell you.

The repair guy is coming this afternoon. We'll see if we need a new fridge. In the meantime, our landlord brought us a couple of tiny dorm fridges.

Remember our freezer full of stuff? Yeah. Me too. It's not full of stuff anymore. At least we tend to keep a lot of nonperishables in there along with the serious frozen food. It means we didn't actually lose the entire contents, and we have plenty of rice and lentils and flour and yeast and what have you.

The other high point is that in a largely vegetarian household, the refrigerator isn't ever stuffed with a $400 standing rib roast or anything like that. Instead, we have lots of vegetables, tortillas, butter, cheese, and eggs, most of which are just fine in an ice-filled cooler overnight.

We'll also get to start over and build a new freezer & fridge in a more organized and less completely bonkers fashion. But that's about it for the good there.

So this weekend was just exhausting. Then we had to cook.

If you've ever thought you can't make dinner with a single pot of boiling water, think again, because we just did.

Emergency pasta with broccoli

1/2 lb chunky pasta
1 small or 1/2 large head broccoli
salt, pepper, red pepper flake
olive oil
fresh parsley
parmesan or another hard grating cheese

Salt a pot of water and put it on to boil. When your water boils, drop in your pasta.

While you're waiting, chop your broccoli into medium florets. Peel the stem and cut that up too.

When your pasta is about 2/3 of the way done, add your broccoli to the pot. Stir to mix and continue to cook for the remaining 1/3 time. Taste a piece of pasta and one of broccoli for doneness. Drain well.

In a mixing bowl, combine your drained pasta and broccoli with salt, pepper, red pepper flake, olive oil, chopped fresh parsley, and grated parmesan to taste. Toss well.

Serve immediately. If you have some extra parmesan or parsley, throw that on top. We had a few chopped almonds lying around, so I added those too.

Don't take any pictures because you are too tired. Go to bed and sleep the sleep of the person who still needs to work tomorrow even though it is officially holiday week.

How to roast kabocha squash (and its seeds!)

Our CSA is starting to wind down, but in the meantime, it's been showering us with winter squash. We have received no less than four kabocha and six delicata squashes over the past two months. That's...kind of a lot of squash for two people to eat, especially when you consider the rest of the CSA veg supply.

Clearly, the solution is storage.

In traditional winter squash storage, you put your squash in a place where the temperature hovers around 50-55F, such as a garage or basement. Your squash should be dry, free from any punctures, and have short stems still attached. Then all you need to do is leave them there until you want to use them. Squashes will generally stay good for at least two months when stored this way.

Of course, there are a couple problems with this system. First, it assumes that you have an appropriate 50F space in which to keep your squash. Here in California, that can get iffy, and if you happen to live in an apartment, it's going to be nearly impossible. Second, you still have to process an entire squash any time you want to eat one.

So I decided I was going to get ahead of the game by roasting a couple of my squash and freezing the cooked flesh. I picked out a green and an orange kabocha, and I got to work.

This method should work for most large thick-skinned winter squash.

Roasted kabocha squash

Begin by preheating your oven to 400F.

Halve your kabocha squash carefully with a sharp butcher knife or chef's knife, working your way around from one side to the other. Scoop out the seeds and fibrous bits and reserve them for roasting separately.

Rub the flesh of your squash pieces with a little grapeseed oil, plain vegetable oil, or butter. Season with a sprinkle of salt.

Put the squash halves, flesh side up, on a baking sheet lined with a silicone mat. Bake for approximately 40-50 minutes, or until the flesh is soft all the way through when tested with a knife. Rotate the pan halfway through cooking.

When your squash is done, remove it from the oven. If you like, you can eat it now, right out of the shell, with some more butter and a little sprinkle of pepper and salt. Otherwise, let your squash halves cool enough to handle, and scoop the flesh out of the skins. Scrape with a spoon to get as much as you can. The skin will be fairly delicate by this point, but it's edible, so you don't have to worry too much about the occasional shred of skin in your squash flesh.

Now you can use your squash however you please. Mash it well with plenty of traditional mashed potato fixings! Make it into a not-actually-pumpkin pie, and another, and another! Try out a lovely squash soup! If you're feeling especially adventurous, try out a squash cocktail! Or just cool it and pack it into containers to freeze for later squash purposes!

You know which option I chose: eight cups of kabocha squash, safely packed away for future squashy endeavours. It's so satisfying to have a bunch of these in the freezer, just waiting for me to pop them open and create something delicious.

While my squash was in the oven, I started on the seeds. Bonus: these can absolutely roast at the same time as the flesh.

Roasted kabocha squash seeds

Wash your seeds well in a few changes of water, swishing to remove as much fibrous matter as possible. A little clinging shred here and there should be fine. Press your seeds in a clean tea towel to remove most of the moisture. You should have approximately 1 cup of seeds per squash; I had two squashes, so I was working with two cups of seeds (and two colors besides!).

Put your seeds in a large bowl. Toss with 1 1/2 teaspoons of grapeseed oil (or the oil of your choice) and approximately 3/4 to 1 teaspoon of salt per cup of seeds. Since I was working with 2 cups of seeds, I used 1 tbsp of oil and 2 tsp salt.

If you want to season your kabocha seeds more, now is the time to do it. I just went for the basic salt, so my finished seeds would be more versatile.

Spread your seeds in one layer on a baking sheet lined with a silicone mat. Bake at 400F, stirring every 5 minutes, until all your seeds have turned a pale golden brown and begun to snap and crack in the heat. My seeds took approximately 20 minutes to roast.

The finished seeds will be nutty, salty, and crunchy. Since they aren't husked, they will require a bit of chewing, but the effort is worth it in the end. Eat with a tall glass of frosty apple cider or beer, toss a handful into a batch of caramel corn, use a few to garnish soup, or serve a little bowl alongside a platter of cheese and olives.

Store the leftovers, cooled completely, in a sealed container in the kitchen cupboard.

Do you have a glut of CSA vegetables (or garden vegetables, or really any vegetables) to use up? What are you planning to do with them?

Capellini with kale, artichoke hearts, and red pepper

Sometimes you just want a giant plate of pasta and vegetables.

This time, I happened to have a package of capellini in the cupboard. Why not make a pasta dish comprised of long, thin vegetables to match the long, thin pasta?

To pack this with lots of serious flavor, I went for some serious vegetables: garlic, green beans, artichoke hearts, kale, and red bell pepper. Together, they mixed together into a lovely, intense dish that only took about ten minutes from beginning to end. Perfect.

This pasta is conveniently vegan. However, it is not filled with protein by any means. I would certainly have tossed in a can of chickpeas had there been any on hand, and I suggest you do the same. A salad of white beans and herbs tossed with a nice vinegary vinaigrette would be a excellent supplement as well.

Capellini with kale, artichoke hearts, and red pepper
Serves 1.

2-3 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic
handful of green beans
6-8 artichoke heart quarters
1/2 bunch kale
1/2 red bell pepper
salt, pepper, basil, oregano
capellini or other long pasta of your choice

Put a pot of salted pasta water on to boil before starting anything else. That way, it'll be ready to go when it's time to drop your pasta.

Warm your olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat.

Smash your garlic cloves with the flat of a knife, peel, and slice. Add your garlic to the oil and cook, stirring occasionally, until they just start to turn a light golden color. Season with salt, basil, and oregano to taste. You can also add some red pepper flake if you want spice.

Wash your beans and slice them at an angle to produce long, narrow pieces. If your artichoke hearts are whole, quarter them. Wash your kale, destem, and shred finely. Core your red pepper and slice it into long, thin strips.

Add your beans to the pan and let them cook for a few minutes before adding the artichoke hearts. Give it another few minutes before you add the kale, and another before you add the red pepper.

Capellini cook in about three minutes, so you'll want to start cooking them at the same time as you add the red pepper. Put them in the water and simmer until done, stirring once or twice to guard against sticking.

When your pasta is done, drain it and add it to the fully cooked vegetables along with a tiny splash of the cooking water. Toss together and let stand over low heat while you wash the pasta pot.

Season the finished dish with some pepper and a little more olive oil. Toss again to distribute. Eat.

If you want a garnish, fresh parsley or grated pecorino would be excellent. I just had some more black pepper.

This was such a good lunch for a grey day.

What are you tossing into your pastas of late?