Comments on: Lick the Produce Section – Squashing the squash and turning up a turnip

By: kalmia

kalmia — Thu, 03 May 2007 23:29:51 +0000

Here’s a delicious spaghetti squash recipe I found online somewhere:

o 1 spaghetti squash (~2 cups baked)

o 1 chopped onion

o 1 clove minced garlic

o 2 Tbsp olive oil

o 1.5 cups halved cherry tomatoes

o 2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil

o 1 cup partly-skimmed crumbled feta cheese

o 30 sliced green olives stuffed with pimiento

My personal notes:

1. Cook squash however you like as long as you absolutely *do not* overcook it.

2. Sauté onion and garlic in the olive oil (or cook in a lower-calorie way if you want). Add tomatoes and cook only until tomatoes are warm.

3. Using a fork, gently rake out strands of squash. Toss with sautéed onion/garlic/tomato, feta, olives, and basil. Serve immediately.

I also add some fresh chopped cilantro because I love it. Fresh basil is great, but dried will also do. Just don’t overcook the spaghetti squash, otherwise it goes mushy, which is disgusting. It should be firm and “al dente”. Freshly ground black pepper überall is also nice.

If you’re a super-taster who loves salty/vinegary/acidic flavors, you’ll just love the olive, tomato, and feta with the clean sweet taste of (firm!) spaghetti squash.

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 03 May 2007 21:47:54 +0000

Yay… someone else who has a slight phobia of cutting vegetables “wrong”! I am not a knowledgable cook and I’m always a little scared of veggies in the kitchen. You should check out the Moosewood cookbook – she tells you how to do all the things everyone else seems to know instictively, without making you feel like a moron in the process. It’s made me a little braver in the kitchen!

By: Annie

Annie — Wed, 02 May 2007 13:17:10 +0000

I love to eat turnips raw…just bite into them like an apple. Another like I like is to fix the yellow squash in my steamer and season it with a little bit of cajun spices. I think it is so cool that you are trying all these different veggies. I think I need to try doing mine different ways. I have never had a turnip cooked so I need to check that out.

By: mymsie

mymsie — Wed, 02 May 2007 09:32:05 +0000

I loathe chopping veggies too and am jealous of neat, orderly, precise choppers.

By: jenni

jenni — Wed, 02 May 2007 09:15:57 +0000

PQ- I also enjoy your new ventures with veggies. I was anti-turnip until this past winter when I gathered up a few root vegetables and cubed them — sweet potatoes, yukon gold, beets, carrot, parsnip and turnip. I roasted them on a sheet in the oven – drizzled with a little OO, kosher salt, pepper and rosemary. Made for an easy and cheap veggie side. I also like the pairing of the turnip and a sweet potato – it gives the SP an little nutty flavor – you can mash them or cube them small and cook in an omlet pan like hash browns.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 02 May 2007 09:05:51 +0000

Turnips are my fave!

Small ones do whole, or you can halve or quarter them as they get larger. Try to buy them with all the greens attached, and if you cut them, cut them longitudinally so each piece has some greens stuck to it.

Two ways to cook:

(1) Roast with chicken, less heavy than potatoes. Slather the chicken and the turnips (and any other vegetable, like carrots, portabello mushrooms, asparagus, whatever) with olive oil, salt, pepper, and perhaps rosemary.

(2) Braise with curry. In olive oil with a tablespoon of curry powder, and some salt, and pepper, saute for a bit, holding them each of them in turn greens first into the pan so they become bendable, and then putting the whole turnip in. After they brown a bit, add a half cup of water or so and put the lid on to finish up. Mix a couple of times with the curry slurry. Test with a toothpick.

The two flavors, greens and turnips, are great together. It’s so hard to decide which to eat first.

By: Amy

Amy — Wed, 02 May 2007 08:50:57 +0000

i’d love to know how you escaped the onslaught of zucchini so long. where i live everyone grows it and wow, does it ever grow. zucchini bread, zucchini lasagne, baked stuffed zucchini, steamed, broiled, grilled. i love the stuff but by mid-summer you’d kill for a brussel sprout, truly.

By: Pam

Pam — Wed, 02 May 2007 07:41:51 +0000

I’m with Judith on the cilantro – just put the bunch in water like a bouquet of flowers. Works for a big bunch of basil too, which I then keep outside in the summer. The basil will even start growing roots and I’ve had it last 3 weeks.

Also, grilled vegetables with hummus in a whole wheat wrap or pita – yum.

By: Bathsheba Freud

Bathsheba Freud — Wed, 02 May 2007 03:56:04 +0000

As Lori said – a mezzaluna is good for chopping fresh herbs (a la Nigella Lawson). Or you can just tear them with your hands.

I did a macrobiotic cooking course once and they offered a rule of thumb for chopping veggies which was to cut along the natural grain of the vegetable. Onions are a great example because the grain is so obvious. With other veggies I guess it means follow the natural length of them before chopping across if you want smaller pieces. Resist 80′s aesthetics vis-a-vis the carrot wheel. Instead, go the carrot rose!

By: Kathy

Kathy — Tue, 01 May 2007 23:22:33 +0000

I like almost all veggies, but white turnip is not a favorite. What is a favorite is another type of turnip called rutabaga. It’s yellow inside and much sweeter and milder than a white turnip.

Spaghetti squash halved, seeded and placed down in a half inch of water and covered cooks in 10 minutes or so in the microwave. My preferred way is to melt 1 teaspoon of butter until it’s almost golden and drizzle it over the squash serving. Good eating! Not bad with olive oil and italian herbs either…

Love your style of writing.