ROASTED POTATOES AND BRUSSELS SPROUTS WITH BACON

Another new vegetable addition to my palate’s palette. Brussels sprouts have, of course, been rehabbed from their bad rap and served at the cool-kid tables for years, but I was slow to pick up on the trend because they’re basically tiny cabbages, and up until last year I wasn’t a fan of the full-sized version either. But you can’t throw a stone anymore without hitting a gastropub, and you can’t throw a stone in a gastropub without hitting a bowl of roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon, usually the only green vegetable on the menu, so eventually I tried them and enjoyed them. I did roast them at home a few times, but apparently none of the recipes I tried were especially notable, because they never made it to the blog. This year I vowed I’d get better acquainted with Brussels sprouts.

I chose this recipe from The Kitchn because I knew the bacon would mollify A (as well as being a natural pairing for sprouts), mustard improves almost everything, and the addition of potatoes makes this an easy way to cover two-thirds of the protein + starch + veg meal formula (a template I don’t usually feel compelled to follow, but I needed something to serve with lemon garlic chicken and this seemed like a properly substantial side). It was effortless and excellent. I used a slightly higher sprouts-to-potato ratio because I like green things, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly. I do think I should have put the sprouts in earlier, because my bacon was a little too toasty by the end (and I say this as someone who likes it extra-crispy) and my sprouts not quite dark enough for my taste, but that’s easily remedied next time.

So: Brussels sprouts: yes. Not sure if I’m ready to level-up and try them in raw salad form, but roasted, I’m on board with.

1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1¼ pounds small Yukon Gold potatoes, quartered
¼ pound (about 3 slices) thick-cut bacon, diced
¾ pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk together the ½ tablespoon olive oil, mustard, salt, and pepper to taste. Toss the potatoes and bacon in the bowl until evenly coated.
2. Spread the potato mixture evenly on a large, heavy baking sheet. Roast for 25 to 40 minutes, or until potatoes are tender but not too browned, stirring every 10 minutes.
3. Turn the oven up to 475 degrees. Toss the Brussels sprouts with the remaining ½ tablespoon of oil. Push the potatoes to one side of the pan, and arrange the Brussels sprouts on the other half of the pan, cut sides down.
4. Continue roasting for about 15 more minutes, or until the sprouts are tender and browned, and the bacon is crisp. Salt to taste.

Serves: 4
Time: 70 minutes
Leftover potential: Good.

PEACH AND ARUGULA SALAD WITH CRISPY PROSCIUTTO

 September still feels like summer here in L.A., but I know the rest of the country will be moving on to apples and pumpkins soon, so I’m going to make a push to clear my backlog of summer recipes ASAP, and save you from having to read about strawberries and stone fruit while you’re busy raking leaves and building bonfires.

I missed the boat on posting this one last year, which is a little silly because it’s so simple it barely needs writing down at all, but it’s well worth noting as an easy, colorful, produce-showcasing, super-summery side to have in your back pocket. The basic recipe, which I believe I found by simply Googling peach-arugula-prosciutto salads on a whim one day, is from Papawow. I used feta instead of goat cheese, varied the quantities slightly, and crisped my prosciutto on the stovetop because it was too damn hot to turn on the oven. The result is more than the sum of its few parts—a perfect blend of sweet, peppery, tart, and salty notes that’s almost enough to make me wish summer would stick around even longer.

2 to 4 slices of prosciutto
Juice from 1 lemon
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
¼ teaspoon sugar
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
4 to 5 ounces arugula leaves
1 or 2 ripe peaches, sliced
2 to 4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, lay prosciutto slices on a parchment-lined sheet pan, and bake until crisp, about 8-12 minutes. (If you prefer, you can crisp the prosciutto slices on the stovetop instead, in a very lightly oiled skillet over medium heat.) Let cool, then crumble into small pieces.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, mustard, sugar, and salt and pepper, then slowly stream in olive oil, whisking until dressing is well combined.
3. In a large bowl, lightly toss the arugula leaves with dressing, then top with peaches, feta, and crispy prosciutto.

Serves: 4
Time: 20 minutes
Leftover potential: Not great, unless you store all the components separately. The dressing will keep in a jar in the fridge for the better part of a week, and the salad is so easy to assemble you may as well just make as much as you need and put together another batch later if you have extra ingredients.

GREEN BEANS WITH ALMOND PESTO

I have a bad habit of trying new vegetable side dishes and forgetting to note them here, either because I didn’t bother to snap a photo or because the recipe seemed so simple I doubted whether it was worth singling out for posterity. Then, of course, the next time I want a vegetable side dish I look at my archives and just see the same old handful of options, so I figure I’ll try something new and the whole cycle begins again.

This pattern is particularly prevalent with green beans, because I love green beans so much that I have a hard time resisting the allure of new variations. I have three perfectly good ones languishing in my “try again” file right now (and may as well link to them for the record, as I might never get around to them again). But now I’ve found one that I’m so excited about, I’m going to break with tradition and post it in a timely and enthusiastic fashion.

When I saw this recipe at Smitten Kitchen, it looked good enough to bookmark, but I’ll admit that I figured Deb’s rave reviews were partly due to her pregnancy cravings; how revolutionary can green beans with almonds really be? Then I tried it … and was blown away. There’s something about that almond pesto—The salty Parmesan? The garlic? The hint of thyme or bright pop of vinegar?—that makes it so much more than the sum of its already-plenty-delicious parts.

I halved the recipe, more or less (a little more cheese, garlic, and thyme never hurt anyone). My tiny food processor tried to balk when it came to breaking down whole almonds, so I gave it a hand by chopping them first. Still, I wouldn’t switch to sliced or slivered ones; there’s something about the nubbly, clumpy texture of the finished pesto I really enjoy. It doesn’t always cling that well to the beans (don’t skip the extra drizzle of oil—it really helps) and you’ll end up scraping a bunch out of the bottom of your bowl afterward, but that’s fine with me because I can happily eat that stuff with a spoon. This is one new side dish that’s going to make it into heavy rotation.

1 pound green beans, trimmed, cut in half if really long
½ cup (2½ ounces) whole almonds, toasted, cooled, and roughly chopped
¼ cup (3/4 ounce) grated Parmesan or aged Pecorino cheese
1 small garlic clove, peeled and crushed
Leaves from a sprig or two of thyme
Pinches of red pepper flakes, to taste
¼ teaspoon coarse sea or kosher salt
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for drizzling

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add beans and cook until crisp-tender, about 3 to 4 minutes. Plunge into an ice-water bath to fully cool. Drain and pat dry.
2. In a food processor, grind almonds, cheese, garlic, thyme, red pepper, and salt to a coarse paste. Add vinegar and pulse again. Stir in oil and adjust seasonings to taste (I add more salt at this point).
3. Toss cooled green beans with almond pesto and drizzle with extra olive oil.

Serves: 4
Time: 20 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; my leftover servings stayed just fine in the fridge for a few days, and the original recipe mentions that you can keep the almond pesto on its own, refrigerated, for up to a week.

POTATO SALAD

I’ve mentioned at least four times on this site that I hate potato salad, usually in the context of…trying another potato salad recipe. Two of those haven’t really stayed in my life, while two more have become old favorites, but none were traditional American mayo-based potato salad, which I still thought repulsed me until I saw this recipe at Two Peas and Their Pod (shared, ironically, by another former potato-salad hater). And it looked delicious! Who even am I anymore?

Ever since I started making my own mayonnaise, my feelings about it have slowly shifted from revulsion through tolerance to outright enjoyment (of the homemade stuff only; for any mayonnaise encountered outside my own kitchen I’m still stuck somewhere between revulsion and tolerance). Now that it’s summer, I find myself with a bowl of mayo in the fridge almost constantly so that I can enjoy my favorite seasonal meal, BLTs and corn on the cob, as often as possible. But since my nice preservative-free mayo won’t last forever, I’m always looking for ways to use up the dregs of a batch. So I looked at this potato salad recipe and realized it would accomplish that, while also containing a bunch of other ingredients I now enjoy: eggs (cold eggs also used to repel me), mustard (hated it as a child), pickles, dill…. Yeah, this was really happening. I was craving potato salad.

I thought it seemed odd that the recipe called for russet potatoes, since the standard wisdom seems to be that red ones are best for salads. I did a bit of Googling, however, and found an article at Serious Eats demonstrating that the granular, open texture of russets absorbs seasoning far better. Sold! I should have read the rest more closely, though, and followed its potato-cooking method, because the directions from the Two Peas recipe (cut potatoes in half, boil them, then cut into chunks) didn’t really work out—I thought it seemed suspect but gamely followed instructions, and as I feared the pieces varied widely in texture, with some still a bit crunchy while others were crumbly. The second time around (spoiler: I liked this enough to make it again), I followed the Serious Eats findings for optimal potato texture (cut into chunks before boiling, add salt and vinegar to the water, and sprinkle a bit more vinegar over the warm potatoes so they absorb the flavor) and everything turned out perfectly. The only other tweak I made was to add a bit of dill pickle juice to the salad for more acidic brightness.

Folks, I know I’m no potato salad expert, but I’m pretty sure this is the best one around. Cutting the mayo with Greek yogurt lightens it up a bit, I love the crunch of the celery and pickles, and the salty-creamy-tart elements are perfectly balanced. This is a bit of a dangerous discovery, because I think I could eat this stuff all the time. I would be questioning my whole identity at this point, except I don’t think we can count me as an unabashed potato salad lover quite yet. I tried someone else’s at a barbecue recently and felt indifferent. And who knows? Maybe diehard potato salad fans will try this and be unimpressed (although I really don’t think so). All I know is that it’s the right one for me.

2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into ½- to ¾-inch cubes
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus extra to taste
2 tablespoons vinegar (white, wine wine, or rice wine work well)
½ cup plain Greek yogurt
1/3 cup mayonnaise (for best results, use homemade)
1 tablespoon yellow ballpark mustard
1 tablespoon whole-grain Dijon mustard
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
¼ teaspoon paprika
½ cup chopped green onions
½ cup finely chopped celery
1/3 cup finely chopped dill pickles, plus pickling liquid to taste (optional)
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh dill

1. Add 2 quarts water to a large saucepan. Add potatoes, 1 tablespoon kosher salt, and 1 tablespoon vinegar. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Drain potatoes and transfer to a rimmed baking sheet. Spread them into an even layer, then sprinkle with 1 tablespoon vinegar. Allow to cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes, then place the potatoes in a large bowl.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the Greek yogurt, mayonnaise, mustards, and paprika. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Pour the dressing over the potatoes and gently stir with a spatula until the potatoes are well coated. Add the onions, celery, pickles, pickle juice to taste if desired (start with about a tablespoon), eggs, and dill. Gently stir again. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serves: 5-6
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Great.

PARMESAN-ROASTED CAULIFLOWER

Well, we survived—and even enjoyed—the soup, so it was time to be brave and give cauliflower a shot in its natural form. Just after I made this momentous decision, I picked up a copy of Bon Appetit in the waiting room of my dentist’s office and voila! There was a gorgeous photo of some caramelized cauliflower, adorned with onions and thyme. When I read the barely-even-a-recipe paragraph-long description and realized there was cheese involved as well, it took all my good citizen instincts to restrain me from tearing out the page right then and there. (Instead, I very considerately and sensibly jotted down a note to myself to look up the recipe online when I got home.)

This is not only a cinch to make, but it’s also just as delicious as it looks. I used some beautiful orange cauliflower because I couldn’t resist it at the farmers’ market (doesn’t it look like it should be cheddar-flavored?) but otherwise followed directions exactly. As with most vegetables, roasting does magical things to cauliflower, and of course the sweet onion, pungent garlic, earthy thyme, and salty cheese make everything even better. My only complaint was that after a couple of bites, it seemed to cry out for a little acid to perk it up and balance out all the nutty, bitter notes. I didn’t actually give this a try, afraid of ruining things, and we happily made short work of all our cauliflower just as it was, but next time I’d like to try a roasted cauliflower recipe that includes lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, just to see how that goes. (The longer I’ve been cooking, the more I’ve noticed that I’m a bit of a tartness junkie. Tastes a bit bland? Add acid!) Regardless, this is a stellar recipe, especially if, like me, you’re a cauliflower skeptic.

1 large head cauliflower, cut into bite-sized florets
1 medium onion, cut into eighths
4 sprigs fresh thyme
4 medium unpeeled garlic cloves
3 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
½ cup grated Parmesan

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. On a large rimmed baking sheet (coated with parchment if desired), toss cauliflower, onion, thyme, garlic, and olive oil, then season with salt and pepper.
3. Roast, tossing occasionally, until almost tender, 35 to 40 minutes.
4. Sprinkle with Parmesan, toss to combine, and roast until cauliflower is tender and golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes longer. (The original recipe neglects to say what to do with the garlic, but I just peeled it after roasting and put one clove in each serving.)

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: OK.

LEEK FRITTERS WITH LEMON-GARLIC YOGURT SAUCE

Deb Perelman at Smitten Kitchen is a blogger after my own heart, especially where fritters are concerned. A peek at my archives reveals no less than 10 fritter recipes, and three of them are from Smitten Kitchen: Indian-spiced vegetable fritters, zucchini-ham-ricotta fritters, and some tasty broccoli Parmesan fritters I haven’t posted about yet because the first time I made them, I scarfed them down before they could be photographed. So as soon as The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook came out and I snagged a copy at the library, I hoped a new fritter twist would be waiting inside, and I wasn’t disappointed. Leek fritters, no less! With lemony sauce!

A doesn’t especially love leeks, so I waited to make these until he was out of town. Blanching the leeks and squeezing them dry was a slight hassle, but no worse than shredding and squeezing zucchini, and everything else came together easily. I got slightly fewer fritters than promised—more like 6 than 10—but perhaps I just made mine larger than I was meant to; at any rate, it was a perfect meal for one person with a small salad on the side, and maybe a few left over for lunch the next day. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a leek fritter, but these were surprisingly unobtrusive. The blanched leeks melt into the rest of the batter, giving them a tender interior with the usual crisp frittery exterior, and the oniony flavor is quite delicate, which makes the tang of the creamy, garlicky, lemony sauce (I used Greek yogurt instead of sour cream) a welcome contrast. And the springy green color is so lovely. I’m kicking myself for not trying these with a poached egg on top as the original recipe notes suggest, but that just gives me an excuse to make them again soon. It’s possible that A wouldn’t even hate them—but if he does, more for me!

On her blog, Perelman jokes that she may need a “frittervention,” but I hope she keeps the pan-fried-vegetable iterations coming. In the meantime, now that I’m cautiously tolerating cauliflower, I may need to try her cauliflower and feta fritter recipe.

2 pounds leeks (about 3 very large ones)
½ teaspoon table salt, plus more to taste
2 scallions, trimmed, halved lengthwise, and thinly sliced
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Freshly ground black pepper
1 large egg
¼ cup olive oil
½ cup Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
A few gratings of lemon zest
1 small garlic clove, minced

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. While it heats, trim the leeks, leaving only the white and pale green parts. Halve them lengthwise and wash well under cold water. On a cutting board, slice crosswise into ¼-inch strips. When the water boils, add the leeks and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, until slightly softened but not limp. Drain and wring out in a dishtowel.
2. Transfer the leeks to a large bowl and stir in the scallions. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, ½ teaspoon salt, baking powder, and black pepper to taste. Stir the dry ingredients into the leek mixture, then stir in the egg until the mixture is evenly coated.
   
3.  Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium heat until it shimmers. Drop heaping spoonfuls of the leek mixture into the skillet and flatten with the back of a spatula. Cook until golden underneath, about 3 minutes. Flip fritters and cook for about 3 more minutes, or until the other side is browned. Drain fritters on paper towels and then transfer them to a cooling rack (or a 250-degree oven if you want to keep them warmer) while you repeat the process with the remaining leek mixture.
   
4. While fritters cook, stir together yogurt, lemon juice and zest, garlic, and salt to taste in a small bowl. Serve atop the fritters.

Serves: 2
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: OK; cooked fritters can be stored in the fridge for up to a week and reheated in a dry skillet over medium heat (or, according to the original recipe, in a 325-degree oven). Perelman also says that they can also be frozen for months in a well-sealed package and reheated in the oven. 

MAPLE-MUSTARD GLAZED CARROTS

I feel like I rambled a lot in my last entry, so I’ll keep this one short and sweet...much like these carrots!

Despite the title of this blog, it’s been quite a while since I’ve cooked from a book instead of the Internet, but a couple of weeks ago, perpetually unable to eyeball quantities accurately in the hustle and bustle of the farmers’ market, I ended up with a huge carrot surplus that needed to be used up. Looking for something interesting to do with them, I decided to consult Jack Bishop’s Vegetables Every Day, one of the few cookbooks that’s earned its keep in my kitchen. Sure enough, I turned to “Carrots” and found that I already had this recipe flagged to try. The basic recipe is for maple-glazed carrots, but there were two variations listed at the end, and the one that involved adding mustard called out to me--since, as you know, mustard has become my new favorite secret ingredient.

The result was a magically easy and delicious side dish. The carrots braise in a small amount of water and syrup, softening and picking up a gentle glaze that’s flavorful but not sticky. I’m definitely glad I went with the mustard, because otherwise I would have found it too sweet. As it is, there’s still an addictive candy-like quality (which caused A to love it), but the savory, salty mustard balances it out. I hated cooked carrots for many years, and I still prefer them roasted or pan-browned, but this is the best steamed/boiled treatment for them I’ve found, and I definitely plan to make it again--especially since I’m sure I’ll never stop accidentally buying too many carrots.

1 tablespoon butter
2 medium shallots, minced
1 pound carrots, cut on the diagonal into ½-inch-thick ovals
½ cup water
2 tablespoons maple syrup (Grade B preferable)
1 pinch ground nutmeg
Salt to taste
1 tablespoon grainy Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley leaves

1. Heat a medium skillet over medium heat. Melt the butter in the skillet, then add the shallots and saute until golden, about 4 minutes.

2. Add the carrots, water, maple syrup, nutmeg, and salt to taste. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.

3. Remove the cover and stir in mustard. Simmer briskly until the carrots are tender but not mushy and the liquid in the pan has thickened and coats the carrots nicely, 3 to 4 minutes.

4. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the parsley, and add a bit more salt if necessary.

Serves: 4
Time: 25 minutes
Leftover potential: Good.

ZUCCHINI RIBBON SALAD WITH CORN AND AVOCADO

Here would be a perfect place to employ the oft-overused (I include myself in this accusation) foodie phrase “summer in a bowl.” Summer squash, corn, avocado, cilantro, and lime all in one place is about as summery as you can get, at least without a tomato in sight. The recipe is from Two Peas and Their Pod, and while it didn’t rock my socks off quite as much as I’d hoped based on the gorgeous photos, there’s nothing not to like here. The well-matched, fresh, simple ingredients are elevated by the elegant presentation—ribbons are purty, and the white-yellow-green palette shot through with threads of purple is something I could gaze on all day long…assuming I didn’t get hungry at any point. It tastes just like the sum of its parts, but with parts like these, that’s not so bad. I especially liked the generous proportion of avocado.

I made no changes, except to use feta instead of queso fresco, because I already had it on hand. See my notes below regarding the leftovers; they’ll keep better if you leave the avocado out until you’re ready to eat.

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
Salt and pepper to taste
2 medium zucchini
2 medium yellow squash
2 ears cooked sweet corn
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
½ red onion, sliced
2 medium ripe avocados, peeled, pitted, and sliced
½ cup queso fresco or feta cheese

1. In a large bowl, whisk the olive oil and lime juice together. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

2. Trim the ends of the zucchini and yellow squash. With a vegetable peeler, shave lengthwise into long, wide, thin strips. When you get to the center of the squash, turn the squash over and slice from the other side until you get to the center again.

3. Put the zucchini and yellow squash ribbons in a large bowl. Cut the sweet corn kernels off the cob, cutting close to the cob. Discard cobs. Add sweet corn, cilantro, red onion, and avocado slices to the squash ribbons. Pour olive oil and lime dressing over salad and toss until coated.

4. Crumble queso fresco over the top of the salad and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Serves: 4
Time: 20 minutes
Leftover potential: Surprisingly good for a day or two, but if you plan on having leftovers, I recommend not adding the avocado in Step 3. If you plan on eating two servings now and two servings later, slice the first avocado and serve it atop the servings you intend to eat now, waiting to slice up the second avocado until you’re ready to eat the leftovers. I did the same with the cheese, adding it only to the servings only right before I ate them, but that’s less crucial.

STRAWBERRY AND ASPARAGUS SALAD

Asparagus + strawberries + mint + lemon = spring in a bowl. Add feta and spinach and you can’t hold me back. I might never have thought to combine these exact ingredients before stumbling across this salad from Bev Cooks on the magical Interwebs, but of course they go together brilliantly. (I’ve already combined strawberries and avocado, so why not strawberries and asparagus?) I doubled the recipe to serve four (as a side), swapped the feta in for goat cheese (not my fave), and upped the lemon juice ratio in the dressing (I like mine acidic). I used salted pepitas because I happened to have some on hand, and I did like them against the sweetness of the strawberries, but I think a lot of other options would work well here, too—pecans, sunflowers seeds, almonds, or even walnuts. The lemon-mint dressing was particularly nice; I had contemplated trying some sort of balsamic dressing instead, worried about the mint being too overpowering and weird, but it was subtle, just enough to add a crisp and refreshing aftertaste, and kept this salad on the delicate side, which is perfect for spring. I ate some leftover dressing on plain spinach later in the week and it was so good on its own that I started envisioning using it on other fruit-with-greens salads throughout the summer (I bet it would be nice with blueberries or peaches).

1 bunch (about ½ pound or less) asparagus, ends trimmed, stalks sliced into 2-inch pieces
10 mint leaves
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
About 3 cups baby spinach
About 1 cup strawberries, rinsed and thinly sliced
¼ cup pepitas, toasted
¼ cup crumbled feta or goat cheese

1. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil. Add the asparagus and cook until bright green and crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Drain and cool in an ice bath or under cold running water. Pat dry.

2. Using a mini food processor or an immersion blender, combine the mint leaves with the oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

3. Arrange the spinach in a bowl or on a plate. Top with sliced strawberries, blanched asparagus, toasted pepitas, crumbled cheese, and a good drizzle of the lemon-mint dressing.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: OK, but you should store the components separately and assemble them only when ready to eat.

ROASTED CARROTS AND PARSNIPS WITH FENNEL AND ORANGE

The Crispy Pork Medallions recipe was accompanied in Cooking Light by a basic roasted root vegetable medley, but that looked kind of boring. Still, I needed something to go with it and I love roasted vegetables, so I turned to Food Blog Search to see if it would bring me something more thrilling, and ding! This recipe from The Kitchn caught my eye immediately. I enjoyed a brief flirtation with roasted parsnips last winter, although I think it’s odd that I complained about them being hard to find, because they are plentiful at the farmers’ market right now; maybe they were out of season by March? If so, I’d better eat my weight in them right now, because I freakin’ love those ugly buggers. They’re not unlike carrots, but sweeter when cooked, with an addictive peppery undertone (Wikipedia describes this as “reminiscent of butterscotch, honey, and soft cardamom,” a description I’m not sure I would have come up with myself, but I adore all three of those things, so OK!) and the softer, buttery texture of sweet potatoes. The balsamic-glazed variety is still my favorite, but this one is a close runner-up, since it also has fennel, one of my other winter vegetable obsessions, plus carrots and oranges to brighten things up. The oranges are an especially nice touch; I generally hew towards lemon and lime when cooking with citrus, but oranges and carrots make very good friends. Roasting an orange felt strange, but it resulted in awesome flavor.

The first time I made this (yes, I’ve made it twice, along with the pork; I think these two recipes will become inextricably linked for me, because they really are perfect together) I followed the original recipe a bit too literally; I ended up with vegetable pieces that were too big and took too long to cook, which wasn’t helped by the fact that I had peeled and sliced my oranges, which meant they dissolved into puddles of juice and made my vegetables steam instead of getting crisp and brown. It all worked out in the end, but after practicing a second time I’ve made some changes: More parsnips, because they are awesome; smaller vegetable pieces; and oranges that are just quartered (as in this recipe, where I roast lemons) and then squeezed over the vegetables, once during roasting to create a glaze, and once just before serving for an extra burst of flavor. The result is a festival of warm, comforting, caramelized winter vegetables, with enough zips of color and citrus flavor to lift you out of the dark seasonal doldrums.

¾ pound carrots
¾ pound parsnips
1 medium fennel bulb
2 medium oranges
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon maple syrup (I recommend Grade B)
Coarse salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Peel the carrots and parsnips, or just scrub them well. Cut them in half crosswise and then into quarters (or, if they are large, eighths) lengthwise, so they are in uniform chunks (sticks about 2 to 4 inches long and ½ to 1 inch wide worked well for me). If the parsnips have a tough, woody center, cut it out.

3. Cut the fennel into wedges (I did eighths).

4. Wash the oranges and slice them into quarters.

5. In a large bowl, toss the carrots, parsnips, fennel, and oranges with the olive oil and maple syrup and season generously with salt and pepper. Spread out evenly on a large rimmed baking sheet (line with parchment or foil for easier cleanup).

6. Roast, turning occasionally, until tender and browned, about 30 minutes. Five minutes before the end of cooking, use a tongs to squeeze the juice from half of the orange pieces over the vegetables, tossing to coat; return baking sheet to oven and finish roasting.

7. Remove vegetables from oven, use a tongs to squeeze the remaining orange pieces over the vegetables (discard orange pieces after squeezing), season vegetables to taste, and serve.

Serves: 2-4
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: OK; they reheat fine, if a bit less crisp, if you can manage not to scarf them all down immediately.

MUSTARD-ROASTED POTATOES

My!New!Oven! was installed unexpectedly midweek, so I hadn’t had the chance to plan and shop for any recipes that would put it to use immediately. I did break it in by making chocolate chip cookies and baked oatmeal, two things I could throw together using ingredients already in my pantry, but it wasn’t until the following Sunday that I really got to bake my official inaugural meal. I didn’t have to think very long about what I wanted: roasted chicken with actual bones in it (not daring to attempt anything as ambitious as a whole chicken until the oven and I became better acquainted, I went with lemon-garlic drumsticks), and these potatoes, which I’d bookmarked at Smitten Kitchen last spring, after the “I love Dijon mustard” realization of early 2011, but before The Great Ovenlessness.

And it was AWESOME. Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who hadn’t eaten a roasted vegetable in five months, but these were easily the best potatoes I’ve ever made, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and so incredibly tasty. Old Me would have been scared off by the quantity of mustard I slathered on those things, but truthfully, after roasting, the overall taste wasn’t very identifiably mustardy (I don’t think if I’d tasted one blindfolded, I would have exclaimed, “Ah, mustard!”), just super-complex and dynamic and wonderful. It was a little more complicated to put together than many other roasted potato recipes I’ve tried, but every single one of those ingredients—oil, butter, lemon juice and zest, garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper—played a crucial role in the zippy flavor. In particular, the whole mustard seeds became addictively nutty and crunchy when roasted; I found myself picking up the crusty scraps that fell off the potatoes and devouring them straight off the baking sheet with glee. I’d better start buying larger jars of mustard, because this is going to be my go-to potato recipe from now on.

¼ cup whole-grain Dijon mustard (I used Grey Poupon Harvest Coarse Ground, which still has enough liquidity that it sticks to the potatoes easily; if your mustard is on the drier side, you may want to consider using 3 tablespoons of it and 1 tablespoon of regular, smooth Dijon to help things along)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, minced
1½ teaspoons dried oregano
½ teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1½ pounds small unpeeled red and/or yellow potatoes, cut into ¾-inch-wide wedges
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a large rimmed baking sheet with nonstick spray or coat with parchment paper.

2. Whisk mustard, olive oil, butter, lemon juice, garlic, oregano, lemon peel, and salt in large bowl to blend. Add potatoes; sprinkle generously with freshly ground black pepper and toss to coat. Place potatoes on prepared baking sheet, spreading them out in a single layer.

3. Roast potatoes 20 minutes. Stir, and then roast about 25 minutes longer, until crusty and browned.

(Potatoes can be made up to 2 hours ahead; let stand on baking sheet at room temperature, then rewarm in a 425-degree oven for about 10 minutes.)

Serves: 4–5
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: OK; leftover potatoes will be softer if reheated in the microwave, but they’ll still have great flavor. I haven’t tried reheating them in the oven, but I imagine that would restore them to something closer to their former glory.

SUMMER CORN CAKES WITH TOMATO AND AVOCADO SALSA

Few things say “summer” to me more clearly than the combination of corn and tomatoes, unless perhaps it’s the incredible medley of avocado, cilantro, and lime, so even though I already have a very good corn cake recipe in my archives, I bookmarked this one (originally by Sara Foster) at Ezra Pound Cake the instant I saw the photo. Sure, I could just throw some salsa on top of my usual corn cakes and call it a day, but these corn cakes looked totally different than mine—thick like crab cakes, with lots more leavening and the added flavors of cornmeal, buttermilk, basil, and red onion. Could there be room in my life for two different corn cake recipes? But of course!

Despite our large appetite for all things fritter-like (we routinely eat them as entrees, especially in the summer), these corn cakes looked so hearty in the picture that I halved the recipe, which claimed to serve six to eight people. This resulted in the rather awkward requirement of 1½ ears of corn, but I used two smallish ears and it was just fine (I imagine one large ear would also be OK). I decided to stick with the full recipe for the salsa, mostly because I didn’t want half an avocado floating around in my fridge, but also because I figured extra salsa never goes amiss. This was a wise decision; the corn cakes are sturdy and stand up well to toppings, so feel free to pile on the salsa to your heart’s content. In fact, because the corn cakes have the drier texture of cornbread rather than the pancake-like texture of my usual recipe, the salsa provides an important contrast. The salsa has a fair amount of liquid in it, most of which I’d left behind in a bowl, spooning on the chunkier parts with a slotted spoon because I was afraid of making the corn cakes soggy, but their crispy surfaces turned out to be largely impermeable (at least in the short time it took to go from plate to mouth), so I needn’t have been so shy—the juiciness would have been quite welcome.

Following the recipe’s instructions to use heaping tablespoons of batter, I got slightly smaller cakes than I’d expected; they puffed up tall but didn’t spread much, turning out like cute sliders where Ezra Pound Cake’s photo had made them look like burgers. At this appetizer-like size, the recipe yielded eight cakes, which made for a perfect four per serving: generous enough to be satisfying, but still a light summery meal (we had something else on the side that I can’t quite recall—grilled chicken thighs, maybe?). I would definitely make these again.

For the salsa:
1 large tomato, cored and chopped
1 scallion, trimmed and minced
1 small jalapeno pepper, cored, seeded, and diced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
1 garlic clove, minced
Juice of ½ lime
1½ teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1½ teaspoons white wine vinegar
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 ripe avocado, peeled, pitted, and diced

For the corn cakes:
1 large ear or 2 small ears corn, shucked
½ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup cornmeal
2 tablespoons diced red onion
2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh basil
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon well-shaken buttermilk
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Place all of the salsa ingredients except the avocado in a bowl, and stir to mix. Refrigerate in an airtight container until ready to serve, for up to 2 days. Just before serving, add the avocado and mix gently.

2. Cut the corn from the cobs into a large bowl, and scrape the stripped cobs with the back of the knife (or a spoon) to release the juices into the bowl.

3. Place 1 cup of the corn kernels into a food processor and pulse several times, until the corn is slightly pureed but still chunky. Scrape into the bowl with the remaining corn kernels.

4. Add flour, cornmeal, onion, basil, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pepper to the corn. Stir to mix.

5. Add the egg, buttermilk, and butter, and stir just to combine. (Do not overmix.)

6. Place a large skillet over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil, and heat until sizzling hot.

7. One heaping tablespoon at a time, scoop the batter into the skillet. Cooking in batches of 4 to avoid overcrowding, fry the cakes for about 2 minutes per side, until golden brown. (I got 8 small corn cakes.)

8. Remove corn cakes from pan, set them briefly on a paper towel to blot away any extra oil, and set on a cooling rack (or on a parchment-lined baking sheet in a warm oven if you want to keep them hot) until ready to eat. Serve warm, topped with a heap of salsa.

Serves: 2 as a main dish, 4 as a side
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: For the corn cakes, unknown. Extra salsa will keep in the fridge for a few days and can be eaten with tortilla chips, used on tacos, or mixed with black beans for an easy salad.

CORN WITH FETA, CILANTRO, AND LIME

Yeah, as I’ve mentioned, I’m totally obsessed with corn this summer, and even though I’ve been eating it in record quantities, I’m not sick of it yet. So I’m hastily trying out as many of my bookmarked corn recipes as possible before the end of the season leaves me bereft. This one from Sassy Radish made it to the top of my list this week because I already had feta (another of my recent food obsessions) and cream in the fridge, and I’m a sucker for cilantro and lime. Not surprisingly, it’s fantastic. Creamy but not too creamy, warm but still fresh and summery, it makes a nice, zippy alternative to my default fave, corn on the cob. I halved the original recipe (though I threw in a bit more cilantro, mint, and lime than the halved version called for) and am seriously considering making some more this weekend with the rest of my feta. Corn doesn't need any adornment besides salt and maybe some pepper or a pat of butter in my book, but these delicious flavors sure don’t hurt it.

6 ears corn
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup cream
3 ounces crumbled feta
½ cup cilantro, finely chopped
1 teaspoon mint, finely chopped
Juice of ½ lime
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Shuck the corn and cut off the kernels off the cobs. Over medium heat, melt the butter with the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the corn and stir to coat with butter and oil. Cook over medium to medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, until some of the kernels begin to brown, but overall the corn retains its firm, crisp texture. Add salt and cream and cook for another minute or two. Remove from heat.

2. Add feta, cilantro, mint, lime juice, and pepper to taste to the skillet and mix well. Serve warm.

Serves: 4–5
Time: 25 minutes
Leftover potential: Good

SWEET POTATO OVEN FRIES

I’ve made these four or five times without managing to post them here, partly because I was still tinkering with the process and partly because I could never really get a good-looking photo of them. But now that I’ve recommended them as a side dish for BBQ pulled chicken sandwiches, I’d better get on with it. I feel a little shaky giving direction on this one because I cobbled it together from a couple of different recipes and can never quite remember the exact steps I’ve followed from one batch to the next, so it turns out a little different every time and the method is more intuitive/improvisational than my usual approach. OK, it’s not like making sweet potato fries is rocket science: Throw some sweet potato pieces in an oven with some oil and you’re probably going to get something pretty tasty unless you burn them. There are a million oven-fried sweet potato recipes out there, and individual tastes vary so widely regarding fry thickness, crispness, brownness, etc. that there’s no way to claim this is as by any means the “best” approach. But it suits me, so here we go.

When initially struck by the sweet-potato-fry craving, I turned to Mollie Katzen’s recipe in The Vegetable Dishes I Can’t Live Without (Serious Eats has it online here). On the plus side, Katzen’s clever trick of finishing the fries in a low-temperature oven to dry them out and crisp them up ensured that the end results were distinctly fry-like, rather than just being roasted sweet potatoes in disguise. But the downside was significant: Scrupulously following Katzen’s ¼-inch sizing guidelines yielded fries that were much too thin for my taste. They were crispy all right, but verging on desiccated, with the same crunchy texture all the way through, whereas I like a good balance between crisp shell and tender interior. Their sweet potato flavor had subsided into the browned, anonymous taste of veggie chips. They weren’t necessarily unpleasant—except for the ones that got outright burnt, a hazard of too-thin pieces—but they didn’t quite satisfy my desire for sweet potato fries either.

For the next round, I tried a recipe from Pinch My Salt that featured a number of useful improvements. Leaving the skin on helped give a more rustic, fry-like flavor, texture, and appearance and perhaps a tiny bit of extra fiber, with the welcome side effect of simplifying the prep work. Even though it dirtied an extra bowl, tossing the fries with the oil (for some reason Katzen just oils the baking sheet, not the actual potatoes) helped immensely in making me feel like my fries had been actually fried, not just dried. The fries were thick enough to maintain their soft orange interiors and avoid burning. Still, at the end of the cooking time I found myself lowering the temperature and crisping them up a bit per Katzen’s method. And as for the rosemary-garlic paste, it was good, but not amazing enough for me to go through the extra effort every time; a lot of the added flavor got lost for me once the fries had browned.

So, in the end, I use Katzen’s oven temperatures with Pinch My Salt’s skin-on, slightly-larger, oil-and-salt-tossed method, but I use my own judgment as needed. I can be inconsistent in slicing my fries, so they vary somewhat in size (¼ inch is definitely too skinny, but sometimes ½ inch just looks too chunky, although it’s good to remember that the potatoes do shrink somewhat while baking), and inevitably some of them verge on too browned while others lean toward too soft, but I kind of like the variety—that way there’s something for every taste! And the majority of them are just right.

One final tip: These are plenty good plain, but if you want a dipping sauce, forget the ketchup. Sweet potato fries + barbecue sauce is where it’s at.

2 medium-large sweet potatoes (about 1 pound)
1 to 1½ tablespoons olive oil
Coarse salt to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or foil (optional, but helpful).

2. Scrub sweet potatoes and cut them lengthwise into (approximately) ½-inch-thick slices. Stacking two slices together, cut them into (approximately) ½-inch-thick strips.

3. Put the sweet potato strips into a large bowl with olive oil and ½ teaspoon salt. Toss well to coat. Arrange the fries on the baking sheet in a single layer.

4. Bake for 10 minutes, then use tongs or a spatula to turn the fries over, rotate the pan, and bake for another 10 minutes or until tender and browned. If you like softer fries, taken them out of the oven; if you prefer crisper ones, turn the heat down to 200 degrees and bake for up to 20 minutes more, until they have shrunk and dried a bit. Watch them closely during the whole baking process and be sure not to let them burn.

5. Remove fries from oven and salt to taste.

Serves: 2
Time: 35–45 minutes
Leftover potential: Poor, but not hopeless. These are best when fresh from the oven, and it’s rare that we have leftovers, but A has satisfactorily reheated them in the microwave the next day (although I'm sure the texture becomes more like roasted sweet potato than like fries), so do save them if you can’t finish them.

QUINOA WITH ASPARAGUS AND LEMON

Quinoa! It looks kinda freaky (something about all those tiny dots just makes me uncomfortable, the way fish roe does), but it tastes delicious (mild, a bit nutty), has an addictive texture (fluffy, slightly chewy), and is crazy good for you (chock full of protein, fiber, phosphorus, magnesium, and iron). Not to mention that it’s a really fun word to type and say.

Like just about everyone, I’m trying to incorporate more grains into my diet. (Zzzz, I know.) Also, for my own entertainment, I some need new meal platforms; my favorite things to cook are one-dish dinners that combine a starch with a bunch of vegetables and herbs, but one can (or should, at least) only eat so much pasta and I don’t really like rice. Exploring the exciting frontier of grains, especially with summer salad season fast approaching, gives me a whole new category of recipes to try, and I’ve been eagerly a-bookmarkin’ in anticipation.

A few weeks ago, I ate dinner with my friend P, who’s recently been diagnosed with a host of food allergies, including an allergy to wheat. So one of the things she cooked for me was quinoa, and it was so tasty I was inspired to cook it myself for the first time. Sifting through quinoa recipes on Food Blog Search, I encountered this one from Eggs on Sunday, which seemed like the perfect gateway drug, dovetailing perfectly with my annual obsession with asparagus and lemon.

I could tell that A was a little suspicious of the quinoa, but he sampled it gamely (I served proscuitto-wrapped chicken on the side to soften the blow). In pitching the dish to him, I had lamely described it as “sort of like rice or couscous, but better”; after tasting it, he amended, “It’s like how I always wish couscous could be.” In other words: thumbs up. I followed the recipe exactly and found it easy and thoroughly delicious—however, the lemon flavor is strong, so if you’re not a crazy lemon fan like me, you might consider dialing down the lemon juice or zest to start out with (you can always add more later). I've classified this as a side dish, but there's no reason you couldn't eat a big bowl of it as a light meal on its own. As a bonus, it's especially pretty, with the pink shallots adding a nice pastel accent to the green asparagus and pale-yellow grain. This will be a certain addition to my spring menu rotation, and I’m now officially emboldened to experiment further with quinoa. Quin-yeah!

1 cup quinoa, well rinsed
2 cups water
1 pound asparagus, cut into ½-inch pieces
1 tablespoon lemon zest
¼ cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped chives
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 shallot, minced
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Rinse 1 cup quinoa well under cold water, then place it in a saucepan with 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer until the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes.

2. While the quinoa is cooking, mix the lemon juice in a small bowl with the minced shallot, a good pinch (about ½ tsp) of coarse salt, and a few good grindings of fresh black pepper. Whisk to combine, then drizzle in the 3 tablespoons olive oil, whisking all the time. Add the lemon zest and the chopped herbs, and whisk to combine.

3. When the quinoa is done cooking, transfer it to a large mixing bowl and pour the vinaigrette over it, then stir with a fork or large spoon to coat the quinoa.

4. Fill your saucepan back up with water and bring it to a rolling boil with enough coarse salt to season the water. Add the pieces of asparagus to the boiling water and cook for 1 minute. Drain the asparagus and run some cold water over it to stop the cooking process.

5. Add the asparagus to the quinoa and stir to combine. Taste and adjust the seasonings, if needed.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good. I even ate some five days later and it was still decent. I reheated it in the microwave, but you could also try eating it cold, for more of a salad-like effect.

GREEN BEANS WITH WARM BACON VINAIGRETTE

It will surprise exactly no one that the combination of green beans and bacon turns out to be excellent. I tore this recipe out of the November issue of Cooking Light and by now it’s racked up a perfect five-star rating on the Web site. It was intended as a Thanksgiving recipe, but I see no need to wait for a special occasion; this is a great way to jazz up an ordinary weeknight meal (we had it with zucchini fritters). The flavors go together beautifully: Like my favorite salad, it has green beans and walnuts and a walnut oil/white-wine-vinegar dressing; like these two also-tasty recent discoveries, it uses bacon grease to excellent effect; and like so many of my most reliable side dishes, it involves shallots. What’s not to love? A and I both devoured it happily, and it’s definitely going into our regular rotation.

Other than halving the quantities (it originally served 8), using plain ol' farmers' market green beans instead of haricots verts, and swapping in white wine vinegar for the champagne vinegar, which I never have on hand, I followed the recipe as written. I do recommend walnut oil (I’ve become a convert), but olive oil will do just fine if you don’t want to make the investment.

1 pound green beans, trimmed
2 slices bacon, chopped
⅓ cup thinly sliced shallots (about 1 medium)
2 teaspoons walnut oil
1 teaspoon champagne or white wine vinegar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts, toasted
1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1. Cook beans in boiling salted water for 7 minutes or until crisp-tender. Drain and rinse with cold water to stop cooking.

2. Cook bacon in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp; remove with a slotted spoon. Add shallots to drippings in pan; cook 5 minutes or until tender. Combine shallots and bacon in a large bowl. Add beans to pan; cook 3 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Add beans, oil, vinegar, and salt to bacon mixture; toss to combine. Sprinkle with walnuts and parsley.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Meh; they were perfectly edible the next day, but not nearly as good.

ROASTED PARSNIPS WITH BALSAMIC VINEGAR AND ROSEMARY

First fennel, then sweet potatoes, and now parsnips? 2010 has thus far apparently been The Year of New Vegetables , or at least The Year When I Finally Discover Great Recipes That Make Me Fall in Love with New Vegetables. I’d cooked with parsnips a few times before (once in a soup, and occasionally in various roasted-vegetable mixtures), but the results were never particularly blogworthy. Plus, for some reason I have a hard time obtaining parsnips—I never see them at the farmers’ market, and while it’s not that surprising that Trader Joe’s doesn’t have them, I’m confused that I can’t seem to find them at my local Vons either (which is a standard not-that-fancy chain grocery store, but does carry most other produce items I can think of, including quail eggs [I always wonder why those aren’t in the egg section]). So I have to go to Whole Foods, which is not on my usual grocery-getting rotation (the only things I regularly buy there are bulk oatmeal, ground pork, and Leinenkugel's beer), and where they are not particularly cheap for such a humble vegetable. Whither the parsnip in Pasadena?

This recipe from Jack Bishop’s indispensible Vegetables Every Day sounded like it was worth the special trip to Whole Foods, and an excellent way to give parsnips a chance. Roasting is pretty much always one of the best ways to broach a new vegetable, and parsnips roast up particularly well, sweet and caramelized, reminiscent of oven-baked sweet potato fries (one of my recent obsessions, although I haven’t posted a recipe yet because I’ve been playing with different versions). There are a million variations on roasted parsnips available on the Internets, but I’m so glad I tried Bishop’s, because the simple rosemary-balsamic glaze takes these to another level. Two tablespoons sounded like an awful lot of vinegar to be soaking my already-nice-looking roasted parsnips with, but sure enough, after a few more minutes in the oven, the vinegar magically cooked down into a sticky, subtle glaze that made them taste even better--an addictive treat of a side dish I'm already yearning to eat again.

The recipe is easy-peasy, although I did a poor job of cutting my parsnips into uniform-sized pieces, and I’m guessing that overall I could have done bigger ones, because they didn’t need anywhere near 40 minutes to get browned and tender (I’m guessing maybe 25 minutes?) and a few neared the verge of charred. So just keep an eye on them while they’re roasting and trust your senses over the recipe; when they look good to you, take them out.

2 pounds parsnips
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary leaves

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Peel the parsnips. If they are quite small, you can simply cut them into 1½-inch chunks. Larger parsnips will probably have a tough woody core that needs to be removed. (You can see it when you cut open the parsnips. To remove the core, quarter the parsnips lengthwise and then use a paring knife to shave off the portion of the core that is attached to each quarter.) Cut the cored parsnips into 1½-inch chunks.

3. Toss the parsnips with the oil on a large rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Roast, turning once, until golden brown, about 40 minutes.

4. Combine the vinegar and rosemary in a small bowl. Drizzle the mixture over the roasted parsnips on the baking sheet and toss to coat. Continue to roast until parsnips are glazed, about 3 minutes.

Serves: 4 (or possibly fewer; I made an approximately 1.5-sized version of the recipe and the two of us ate it all in one sitting)
Time: 45 minutes to 1 hour
Leftover potential: Unknown; I imagine they would lose some of their crispness but still taste quite nice

ROASTED GREEN BEANS

Psst! I realized something important this week: I've been happily making roasted green beans for years now (YEARS, I TELL YOU) and yet have never bothered to post the recipe here. So basically, I've been selfishly keeping roasted green beans a secret all this time, clutching them tightly to my breast in my wizened claws while muttering "Bah humbug! NO ROASTED GREEN BEANS FOR YOU!"

OK, not really. Actually, I just kept forgetting to post the recipe, and then I forgot about it completely for a while and only recently, in the throes of a serious summer passion for green beans, remembered its existence. I'm just trying to sexy this up a little bit, since it's so ridiculously simple it barely seems like a recipe at all. But it's no simpler than roasted asparagus, roasted broccoli, or roasted kale, and just as good, so I suppose it deserves a posting.

Y'all already know that roasting things makes them tasty--browned and delightfully chewy-crunchy, almost addictively snackworthy--and green beans are no different. If you think you don't like a vegetable, I say, try it roasted (it's worked for me with turnips, parsnips, and kale, although I have so far failed to fall in love with roasted beets). And of course, if you love a vegetable, definitely try it roasted. I especially like roasting green beans because--has this ever happened to you? Sometimes you go to the market and you get green beans and they're fantastic, so crisp and juicy you can eat them raw (I actually like raw green beans better than cooked ones; it reminds me of picking them and eating them straight from the garden as a kid). But then other times, even though the beans appear to be just as nice, and you spend an hour carefully choosing the skinny ones and skipping the overmature bulgy ones, you get them home and they're all thick and lumpy and tough and dry and revolting. That happened to me this week, and it was bumming me out until I remembered that roasting is an excellent treatment for non-superstar green beans. High heat transforms all that leathery starchiness back into sweet, sweet sugar (SCIENCE!). For extra excitement, try a mixture of green and yellow beans.

1 pound green beans, trimmed
1 tablespoon olive oil
Coarse salt to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Wash the beans and dry them well. Place them on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with a little salt, and toss well.

3. Roast for 15 minutes, or until beans reach desired degree of doneness, stirring them or shaking the pan a few times so they roast evenly. Season with additional salt, and a little fresh-ground pepper would not be a bad thing either.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Fair. They'll be best right out of the oven, but they're still pretty tasty reheated.

DILL FINGERLING POTATOES

As soon as I saw this Ina Garten recipe mentioned as an aside in an Amateur Gourmet post, I knew it would be the perfect thing to accompany my planned Easter feast of creamy lemon chicken and roasted asparagus; potatoes are a must for mopping up any leftover lemon sauce on the plate, and dill is such a springy flavor. As a bonus, these potatoes are prepared on the stovetop, leaving the oven free for my other dishes—and as nice as potatoes, butter, dill, and salt and pepper taste together, that method is really the star of the show here. Cooking the potatoes in a covered dish over low heat (or lowish, anyway--more on that in a second) produces all the tenderness of a steamed potato with a bit of the roastiness of a fried or baked potato, all coated with what is basically a brown-butter dill sauce. In short, it is excellent.

The reviews of this recipe were generally positive, but they were split about evenly between people who had no trouble with it and people who simply could not get their potatoes to soften over low heat. One commenter suggested that this might be a divide between people with gas stoves and those with electric ones, and my experience bears this out—I have an electric stove, and after 20 minutes over low heat in a cast-iron Dutch oven, my potatoes barely seemed cooked at all; there was hardly even any steam when I lifted the lid. But once I raised the heat to medium, everything went smoothly and the potatoes came out perfectly done. So use your discretion here, but I’d recommend medium heat unless it starts to seem like your butter is scorching. Or maybe start low and then increase if you need to?

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1¼ pounds fingerling potatoes, rinsed but not peeled
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 ½ tablespoons chopped fresh dill

1. Melt the butter in a Dutch oven or large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add the whole potatoes, salt, and pepper, and toss well.

2. Cover the pot tightly and cook over low to medium heat for 20 to 30 minutes, until the potatoes are just tender when tested with a small knife. From time to time, shake the pot without removing the lid to prevent the bottom potatoes from burning.

3. Turn off the heat and allow the potatoes to steam for another 5 minutes. Toss with the dill, and serve hot.

Serves: 3
Time: 35 minutes
Leftover potential: Unknown. I used more like ¾ pound of potatoes, and we ate them all in one sitting. I imagine they’d make OK leftovers, though.

SAUTEED SHREDDED ZUCCHINI WITH SHALLOTS AND LEMON

Look, yet another way to combine vegetables with shallots and lemon! I will never tire of those flavors. This is a nice, simple-but-interesting side dish that reminds me, with its crisp greenness, of deconstructed zucchini fritters. It reminds A, for some strange reason, of Rice-a-Roni. But don’t let that put you off; he clarifies, “I always liked Rice-a-Roni!” I’ve never tasted Rice-a-Roni myself, but surely it doesn’t have a shallot-and-lemon flavoring? Still, I suppose the shape and texture of the shredded zucchini is vaguely rice-like, and maybe the nutty brownness it achieves when briefly sautéed over high heat is somehow reminiscent of rice too? Or we could all just ignore A on this one.

Anyway, aside from the minor travail of shredded and squeezing the zucchini, this is an easy and fast-cooking recipe to throw together, and it will pair well with most flavors. We ate it with the splendid roast chicken with pears, shallots, and leeks, and the fact that I even remember we had a side dish at all in the face of such blinding magnificence should tell you that this one is surely worthwhile. The original recipe says it serves four, but the two of us ate it all in one sitting.

5 medium zucchini, ends trimmed
1½ teaspoons salt
2 shallots, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
1–2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Shred zucchini (on large holes of a box grater or with shredding disk of a food processor). Place zucchini in a colander in the sink and toss zucchini with 1½ teaspoon salt. Let drain for at least 10 minutes. Wrap zucchini in a kitchen towel (in batches if necessary) and wring out extra moisture.

2. Place zucchini in a medium bowl and break up any large clumps. Add shallots and 2 teaspoons oil and toss to combine thoroughly.

3. Heat remaining 1 teaspoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add zucchini mixture and spread evenly. Cook without stirring until bottom layer browns, about 2 minutes. Stir well, breaking up any clumps, then cook until new bottom layer browns, about 2 minutes more.

4. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.

Serves: 2-4
Time: 20 minutes
Leftover potential: Unknown