English Peas, Spring Onions and Roasted Almonds

Just cooked English peas, sautéd spring onions and roasted, salted almonds are a delicious combination of tender sweet, sweet pungent, and crunchy just salty. You can set this side dish next to grilled fish or chicken or mashed potatoes and a roast. It's...

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Cooking Category Archive

Baby Beets: Steamed, Baked, Pickled

Baby beets are beets harvested just as they have started to round out. Leave these beets until they mature and you can call them table beets.

Baby beets—just about the size of a ping-pong ball—have the most delicate taste and texture. Table beets—as big as your fist—still taste good, but don’t let them grow much larger as their flavor will be sacrificed to size.

Choose baby beets for the crudité platter or for pickling to use as a condiment or salad addition. Opt for table beets if you plan to grate the beets for relish or to add textural interest to a salad or salsa; they’ll be easier to handle.

When it comes to color golden or yellow beets are not as sweet and mild as red beets, but they won’t bleed onto your other ingredients, your work surface or hands.

You can capture the sweetness of baby beets by steaming or baking or pickling.

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Artichokes: Steamed and Stuffed

Artichokes are always eaten cooked. Once cooked, they can be served hot, warm or cold. Pull off each leaf; dunk it in the sauce; put it in your mouth and pull, scraping the tender flesh through your teeth. Cut the tender nut-flavored bottom into bite-sized pieces, dunk in sauce and eat. Serve with béchamel, butter, or hollandaise sauce.

Whole cleaned baby artichokes can be deep-fried to a golden brown.

Steaming is perhaps the best way to cook an artichoke. The flavor and nutrients will be retained.

Steaming an artichoke. Stand the artichoke in a stainless steel pot or steamer basket with 2 to 3 inches (5-7.5 cm) of salted water so that it does not completely water cook. Cover. Steam the choke until the stem end is tender--about 20 to 40 minutes. Remove the thistle-like choke and the small purple leaves. Tug on one of the leaves; if it comes off easily the artichoke is finished cooking. Stuffed artichokes are a favorite in Arabic cuisine. Stuff steamed artichokes with rice, ground meat, sausage, chicken, vegetables, cheese or combinations and bake until bubbling.

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How to Prepare and Cook Dried Beans

Dried beans eaten fresh meaning during the season just after they have been harvested and dried--will undoubtedly be the best tasting.

But a big plus for dried beans is that they have a long shelf life if stored in a dry, cool, airtight container away from sunlight. Quite easily, you can keep dried beans on hand for more than just a season or two after they have been dried.

Beans are packed with protein, vitamins, minerals and fiber, and they are low in fat. Beans--which are also known as pulses and are the edible seeds from plants belonging to the legume family--readily absorb the flavors of other foods. That means you can use beans as the base for many cooked dishes. That's why beans have been adopted by so many of the world's cuisines.

The preparation and cooking of dried beans is not difficult. It's worth trying as many different varieties of dried beans as you can. They don't all taste the same!

Here's some starter tips for preparing, cooking, and serving dried beans:

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Cooking Winter Squash

Winter squashes are the most plentiful from early autumn until late winter.

Unlike the summer squashes, the winter squashes must be cooked before they are eaten. Add winter squash to soups, stews, couscous, and curries. Use winter squash to make pies, cakes, muffins, cookies, pudding, soufflés, and cream desserts.

Choose a winter squash—such as the Hubbard, butternut, acorn, or buttercup—that is hard shelled and heavy for its size. That means the squash will be mature and the flesh is ready for eating.

To serve four, you will need to select a squash that weighs at least 2 to 3 pounds.

Winter squashes have tough, hard skins that are never eaten. It is best to cook a winter squash in its skin.

Acorn, butternut, Kabocha, and pumpkin should be cut in half length wise before cooking. Banana and Hubbard squash should be cut into serving size pieces. Use a heavy-bladed knife. Remove the seeds and stringy insides and you will be ready to cook. You can peel the skin away after cooking.

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Baked Pumpkin with Ginger

Presenting pumpkin the vegetable.

Here is a recipe for baked pumpkin shell which you can serve with pork or turkey.

Pumpkin is a winter squash just like Hubbard squash and banana squash. The winter squashes have hard rinds and are eaten when fully mature.

When selecting a winter squash, look for a hard, tough rind and a squash that feels heavy for its size. Heaviness means that the rind wall is thick and the flesh is edible.

This recipe calls for pumpkin but you can use either a Hubbard or banana squash instead.

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Cooking Pumpkin

October is fresh pumpkin month. You’ll find pumpkins in September and pumpkins in November, but October is when more than 80 percent of the pumpkins grown each year are harvested and come to market.

Select a pumpkin that is bright colored, firm, and unblemished.

How much pumpkin do you need? Remember that three pounds raw pumpkin will make 3 cups cooked, mashed pumpkin.

Once you get the pumpkin home, keep it in a cool, dry place away from frost danger until you are ready to use it. Pumpkins should be used within 1 month of harvest.

When you are ready to cook, use a large knife to halve or quarter the pumpkin then scoop out the seeds and stringy portion. Then cut the halves or quarters into smaller pieces.

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Fritters and Tempura

Vegetables mixed with a batter and dropped into hot fat or vegetables dipped in batter and fried.

Fritters or tempura?

Yes!

The term fritter is used for both of these preparations. And tempura is not far behind.

Here are quick directions for an almost vegetable fritter you can whip up using the leftover vegetables in your refrigerator right now:

The base for this vegetable fritter is mashed potatoes to which you add one beaten egg and pepper and minced garlic to taste. To the mashed potatoes, add your left over vegetables chopped up fine: Brussels sprouts, broccoli, carrots, bean sprouts, scallions, onions…whatever left over side vegetables are gaining ground in the refrigerator.

Mix and form the mashed potatoes and diced vegetables into small cakes, roll in fine bread crumbs, and fry in butter or olive oil or light sesame oil.

Serve these homemade almost fritters dipped in tomato sauce, salsa, or catsup.

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