#simple sides

It's hard to go wrong with winter squash, sweet, smooth, and the abundance of flavor. These Acorn Squash Wedges with Brown Sugar Butter are no exception.

There is nothing like the time of the year when winter squash comes into season. The sweet taste, the smooth textures, and the abundance of flavor combinations.   It’s just hard to go wrong.  These Acorn Squash Wedges with Brown Sugar Butter are no exception.

As many of you know on Sundays, I typically unplug to get ready for the upcoming week.  Part of that involves meal planning and…

We are slowly working our way through the Autumn vegetables from the allotment. Last week I used up the last of our own broccoli and I admit I’m a little bit disappointed that it’s all gone now. I’ve planted some other varieties of brassica (the vegetable family that our broccoli belongs to) for over the winter. It’s not as if we have no vegetables, it’s just that it’s one of my favourite…

Simple Sides: Sweet Potato Wedges #SummerFood

Sweet potato always remind me of having Sunday dinner at my Nana’s house as a young child. It was the only place I ever had them and I think that was because she was Australian and I don’t think they were widely available at that time!

I started cooking with them when I was weaning my three and they have since become a regular at meal times and this is one of the most popular ways in which I cook…

I've learned a lot about cooking from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. One thing that I LOVE is the whole new world of quick veggie side dishes that opened up to me when I read his little blurb about vegetable gratins. Basically, the moral of the story is that any vegetable can be made into a gratin by simply adding a topping, then broiling until the topping gets browned. And these dishes are super easy to make if you use already-cooked vegetables – like pre-blanched frozen veggies from the CSA! 

Cheesy Green Bean Gratin

yield: 2-3 servings as a side

Ingredients:

12 oz. frozen or fresh green beans

1/4 cup bread crumbs

1/4 cup Swiss, Gruyére, or other cheese (I used Italian cheeses: a blend of Fontina, Provolone, Parmesan, and Asiago, but meltier Swiss cheeses would lend a better texture)

salt and pepper

olive oil

Instructions:

Preheat the broiler.

If using frozen green beans, put them in a microwave-safe bowl and defrost. If they aren't cooked, continue to microwave until steamed and fully cooked.

Grease a gratin dish or other shallow, oven-safe baking dish. Spread the green beans out in a thin layer.

Top the green beans with bread crumbs and cheese. Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt and pepper over the top.

Place under the broiler for 3-5 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly and the topping begins to brown. (Check frequently to make sure it doesn't burn!)

Scoop onto plates alongside just about anything, and enjoy!

Bon appétit!

I've never been a big fan of drowning green beans in mushrooms and gravy, so when I have them on hand, I like to look for more creative ways to serve them. I happened to have some shallots and slivered almonds in the kitchen, so I used this recipe on allrecipes.com as a starting point. I made a bunch of alterations, though; the original recipe called for sugar, which I thought was dumb and totally unnecessary, so I eliminated it. I also added a splash of red wine vinegar and a clove of garlic. Yum!

Green Beans with Almonds and Caramelized Shallots

 yield: 3 servings

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. blanched slivered almonds

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large clove of garlic, minced

2 small shallots, thinly sliced

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp. red wine vinegar

3/4 - 1 pound green beans, trimmed and snapped

Instructions:

Place the slivered almonds in a dry skillet over low heat, and cook and stir constantly until the almonds are lightly toasted, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove the almonds and set aside.

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-low heat, and cook the shallots and garlic until softened, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the shallot mixture with salt and pepper, and reduce heat to low. Cover, and cook slowly, stirring occasionally, until the shallots caramelize, 5 to 8 minutes.

Place a steamer insert into a saucepan, fill with water to just below the bottom of the steamer, and bring the water to a boil. Add the green beans, cover, and steam until just tender enough to pierce with a fork, 7 to 8 minutes. (You can also steam in a microwave, if you wish.) Drain the green beans, place them into the skillet with the shallot mixture, mix well, and gently stir in the toasted almonds and red wine vinegar. Serve immediately.

Bon appétit!

A lot of people get really confused by celeriac, a relatively uncommon and kind of ugly looking root vegetable. Turns out, it's delicious in this simple smashed presentation! It doesn't look very pretty, but makes a great bed to serve underneath your favorite meat. (I ate this with some spinach and fontina chicken sausages.)

Smashed Celeriac

(stolen shamelessly from Jamie Oliver)

Ingredients:

1 celeriac, peeled

olive oil

1 handful of fresh thyme, leaves picked

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

3–4 tablespoons water or stock

Instructions:

Slice about 1 cm / ½ inch off the bottom of your celeriac and roll it on to that flat edge, so it's nice and safe to slice. Slice and dice it all up into 1cm/½ inch-ish cubes. Don't get your ruler out – they don't have to be perfect. 

Put a casserole-type pot on a high heat, add 3 good lugs of olive oil, then add the celeriac, thyme and garlic, with a little seasoning. Stir around to coat and fry quite fast, giving a little colour, for 5 minutes. 

Turn the heat down to a simmer, add the water or stock, place a lid on top and cook for around 25 minutes, until tender. Season carefully to taste and stir around with a spoon to smash up the celeriac. 

Some people like to keep it in cubes, some like to mash it, but I think it looks and tastes much better if you smash it, which is somewhere in the middle. You can serve this with just about any meat you can think of.

Bon appétit!

So have I mentioned I'm not a huge fan of sweet potatoes? I'm determined not to waste the produce we get in the CSA, though, and since I've been doing almost all of the cooking in our house for the past several months, I keep wanting to make things that I'll enjoy. (The Boyfriend would happily eat all the sweet potatoes if I just made sweet potato fries, I think, but where's the fun in making something you don't get to eat yourself?!)

Anyway, I'd been scouring the internet for more recipes to spice up these sweet potatoes we've been getting in the winter CSA. Enter: The Food Network blogs. I saw this recipe for spicy sweet potatoes and thought "Oh great, another post about putting cinnamon and nutmeg on your sweet potatoes..." Much to my surprise, the spice in that recipe comes from sriracha! I suspected this was a stroke of genius and set out to try it myself - significantly reducing the calories in the original recipe along the way.

Sriracha is a great kick of a complement to the natural sweetness of yams. Still not my favorite vegetable, but I'm much more inclined to eat any dish that has a healthy dose of  hot pepper mixed in!

Sriracha Mashed Sweet Potatoes

adapted from Food Network

Ingredients:

4 large sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt and pepper

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 tbsp. stick butter

1/4 cup milk (warmed)

1 tablespoon sriracha or other chili sauce - or to taste :)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. 

Place cut potatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and dust with salt, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg; bake for 1 hour until soft. 

Cool potatoes and place in large bowl; add butter, milk, and sriracha. Mash - or, for smooth and creamy texture, use an electric mixer.

Bon appétit!