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Last Week's Recipes: Stuff from Diane Morgan's Roots
Finally, finally got back to some cookbook cooking last week.
One of the things motivating me to cook is that I've resumed ordering deliveries of local vegetables from Boston Organics. Local means seasonal, and seasonal right now still means a lot of root vegetables (plus some sprouts and some late-season apples). So that made Diane Morgan's Roots a very relevant book indeed. (And it's a beautiful cookbook!)
Carrot Ribbons withSorrel Arugula Pesto and Goat Cheese

The recipe calls for sorrel in the pesto, but I couldn't get any, so I substituted arugula instead and added a bit more lemon and a lot more pine nuts. Also ended up using way less than the amount of goat cheese the recipe called for, though maybe I was under on the amount of carrots. At any rate, it turned out amazing. The leftover pesto made for some good pasta with some scallions from the store and these beautiful assorted mushrooms from the box:


Orange Braised Parsnips

For this one, I followed the recipe directly. It does indeed seem odd to start a recipe for parsnips by caramelizing some sugar, but it all came together very well. I thought it was very good indeed. Eris was definitely a fan as well.
Turnip (and Radish) Ghanoush

This recipe is like baba ghanoush, except with turnip instead of eggplant, sweetened with a little pureed date. The recipe makes more of the date puree than it actually uses, on the (correct) assumption that you'll enjoy having more around.
My vegetable box didn't contain as much turnip as this recipe called for, but it did have watermelon radishes, so I used a combination of the two instead. That substitution worked out great in terms of both taste and color. I also added some fresh mint to the date puree (a really good addition). The only not-ideal bit was a few chunks of vegetable left in the spread that somehow escaped the attention of the food processor blade. If I did it again, I'd take the care to pass the processed mixture through a strainer or at least carefully pick through it with a fork, to catch anything that needs that extra round of blending.
The leftover date puree does in fact make a wonderful breakfast, spread on an English muffin with some of the goat cheese:

One of the things motivating me to cook is that I've resumed ordering deliveries of local vegetables from Boston Organics. Local means seasonal, and seasonal right now still means a lot of root vegetables (plus some sprouts and some late-season apples). So that made Diane Morgan's Roots a very relevant book indeed. (And it's a beautiful cookbook!)
Carrot Ribbons with

The recipe calls for sorrel in the pesto, but I couldn't get any, so I substituted arugula instead and added a bit more lemon and a lot more pine nuts. Also ended up using way less than the amount of goat cheese the recipe called for, though maybe I was under on the amount of carrots. At any rate, it turned out amazing. The leftover pesto made for some good pasta with some scallions from the store and these beautiful assorted mushrooms from the box:


Orange Braised Parsnips

For this one, I followed the recipe directly. It does indeed seem odd to start a recipe for parsnips by caramelizing some sugar, but it all came together very well. I thought it was very good indeed. Eris was definitely a fan as well.
Turnip (and Radish) Ghanoush

This recipe is like baba ghanoush, except with turnip instead of eggplant, sweetened with a little pureed date. The recipe makes more of the date puree than it actually uses, on the (correct) assumption that you'll enjoy having more around.
My vegetable box didn't contain as much turnip as this recipe called for, but it did have watermelon radishes, so I used a combination of the two instead. That substitution worked out great in terms of both taste and color. I also added some fresh mint to the date puree (a really good addition). The only not-ideal bit was a few chunks of vegetable left in the spread that somehow escaped the attention of the food processor blade. If I did it again, I'd take the care to pass the processed mixture through a strainer or at least carefully pick through it with a fork, to catch anything that needs that extra round of blending.
The leftover date puree does in fact make a wonderful breakfast, spread on an English muffin with some of the goat cheese:
