La Gourmandesse

Sweet roasted root veggie perfection.

A few weeks ago, our CSA veggie box contained some particularly fat & sassy beets, and the first carrots of the year. I love roasted beets, and the carrots were crying out to join their purple cousins in tinfoil on the barbeque.

Peeled and ready for chopping.

Seasoned with S&P and garden herbs.

Simply chop the beets and carrots roughly, toss them in olive oil and chopped garlic, sprinkle with salt, pepper, fresh rosemary, oregano and thyme, and pop this all into a tinfoil package. It can go on the BBQ for 45 minutes over indirect heat (one burner on high, the other off, package over the off burner) or in the oven for 1 hr at 375F.

And there you have it- simple, healthy, tasty and local.  And this cooks up just beautifully while steaks occupy the other side of the grill!

Week 3 CSA Share

Kevin & I joined a community shared agriculture (CSA) program this year and were very happily surprised to get our first share at the beginning of June. My post about our lack of a garden and which farm we chose can be found here.

It is week 3 of the 22 week season, and I must say our fridge is overflowing with greens!  We have bok choy, leaf lettuce, spinach and mixed mustard greens vying for attention in the crisper as I write.  It’s hard to decide who to devote your attention to, especially as not all the greens have a terribly long fridge life.

Gigantic salads seem to be the order of the week. I think we’ll see how far we can take this before we can’t stand to look at another leaf. Luckily the greens were accompanied by radishes, small turnips, kohlrabi and green onions to make a salad a bit more interesting. I never would have thought a turnip would be tasty in a salad, but these are crisp and sweet, nothing like the bitter mash that is inevitably served at holiday dinners.

It sounds like the share will evolve over time, and not always be so “green.”  I’m looking forward to the appearance of carrots, beets, and peas.  We’re also growing some treats on our back patio: tomatoes, red peppers, spinach and every herb you can imagine.  So far the basil and mint have gone wild.  My next post should be about pizza and mojitos! Going local on those will be no problem.

Cheers to many tasty summertime salads to come!