Cilantro is often grown as a summer herb, adding its essential salsa flavor to tomatoes, tomatillos, and onions. It is tricky to grow in summer because it goes to seed quickly, but repeat plantings help keep a steady supply.
For the past several years, though, cilantro has been a winter and early spring herb in my kitchen garden. It first got my attention as a winter herb in an Ottolenghi recipe for Butternut Squash with Chile Yogurt and Cilantro Sauce in his 2014 book Plenty More. Blitzed with olive oil and garlic, cilantro sauce adds a welcome pungent flavor to sweet roasted winter squash. The cilantro sauce also melds wonderfully with the chile yogurt sauce and toasted pumpkin seeds in this recipe.
To have a supply of cilantro for this favorite winter recipe, I started planting a few cilantro seeds in the fall when I planted winter greens like arugula and mustard, curious to see how it would survive. Fall-planted cilantro turned out to be a winter herb star. Though it grew quickly, it didn’t go to seed, and the leaves remained lush and succulent. Best of all, it was amazingly hardy. Even uncovered, it came through cold and snow and just kept growing. This year’s crop produced great cilantro into mid-May.
Each fall, I’ve planted a longer row, and with this abundance I’ve have found many more delicious uses for cilantro sauces.
For a friend’s January birthday dinner, I made a large batch of cilantro sauce to add color and flavor to roasted black cod, roasted squash and a winter salad of black beans, corn, and poblano peppers. For the salad, I thawed corn and poblanos I’d frozen in the summer and rehydrated and cooked black beans I’d harvested dry at the end of the summer. Sauteed together, these vegetables, topped with a spoonful of cilantro sauce, made a wonderful winter salad. Fresh corn, raw peppers, and shell beans of summer topped with this sauce would be just as tasty.
At some point during this past winter, cilantro sauce transformed into cilantro pesto. Inspired by the pumpkin seeds garnishing the Ottolenghi squash recipe, I looked for recipes that used pumpkin seeds in cilantro sauce and discovered pages and pages of recipes for cilantro pumpkin seed pesto. Who knew! The recipe I settled on from the site Two Peas and Their Pod combines cilantro, garlic, pumpkin seeds, olive oil and lime juice. The lime juice is key to the flavor of this pesto.
Cilantro pumpkin seed pesto is a great addition to pork braised with carnitas spicing and served on polenta and white beans. Keeping with the pork and polenta theme, it’s also delicious with grilled pork country ribs and grilled polenta.
This cilantro pesto recipe is vegan, but to one batch, I added Parmesan cheese to create a perfect sauce for pasta with black beans served with this spring’s asparagus and sauteed overwintered chard. A green meal to mark the shift from winter to spring.
A week ago, I pulled the last leaves from the remaining cilantro plants and made one more batch of pesto. I’ve planted a few seeds for summer cilantro, but I’m guessing it will compete with basil for best summer pesto. Next winter, though, when basil is long gone, cilantro will rule.
When I come in from the kitchen garden with baskets of vegetables, I often pull out a cookbook or two from the collection that lines kitchen island shelves and open the index pages to look for ideas for what to cook. Favorite authors like Deborah Madison, Alice Waters, Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigel Slater, Marcella Hazan can all get me started on dinner. Sometimes, though, I pass by the cookbooks and turn to the computer, type in the names of vegetables in the basket and see what comes up. I’ll never abandon my cookbooks, but this electronic recipe searching is especially useful and quick when I have a couple of vegetables that I’d like to cook together in a new way.
I’d just harvested the last of the winter carrots, still fresh, sweet, and colorful after months under a foot of hay mulch, and the last of the leeks, still vibrant white and green.
They’d be lovely sautéed together in a vegetable side dish, maybe mixed with rice, or puréed together in a soup. But I was thinking pastry, maybe a vegetable galette.
Typing in carrot and leek tart, I found links to half a dozen tasty sounding tarts, a couple from authors I recognized, but the link that most intrigued me was to a recipe for Carrot, Leek and Goat Cheese Hand Pies. It was on a playful-looking blog titled Eats Well With Others. The recipe describes creating a filling of sautéed leeks, roasted carrots and goat cheese, and wrapping portions in pastry to create hand pies. It seemed like a new and perfect way to use the last baskets of beautiful carrots and leeks. And a nice coincidence was the author’s acknowledgement that the recipe was from The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook: Sweetness in Seattle by Tom Douglas, renowned Seattle chef. I checked with my friend Kathy who has this cookbook and she agreed that the hand pies sounded yummy. They are!
There are several things I like about this recipe. It’s clearly written and very easy to follow despite the many steps. The technique of puréeing half of the roasted carrots then mixing this purée with the remaining diced, roasted carrots and the sautéed leeks, makes a filling that holds together when assembling the hand pies and when eating them. And there was just the right amount of pastry and filling to make six pies. The pies also reheat beautifully.
If I’d had The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook: Sweetness in Seattle on my shelf, I might not have needed the Internet to find this recipe, but now that I’ve found it, I’ll look for the cookbook and see what other savory pies it offers. Cookbooks and the Internet will both continue to inspire me.
Savory Carrot, Leek, and Goat Cheese Hand Pies
Savory hand pies filled with sweet roasted carrots, buttery leeks and creamy goat cheese encased in the flakiest whole wheat crust.
For the whole wheat pastry dough
1½ cups all purpose flour
1½ cups whole wheat flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
½ cup unsalted butter, chilled, cut into ½-inch dice
¼ cup sour cream
¾ cup + 2 tbsp ice cold water
For the filling
1 medium leek, white and light green parts finely chopped
2 tsp unsalted butter
¼ cup + 2 tsp olive oil
½ cup water
2½ lb multi colored carrots, peeled and cut into ¼-inch dice
1 tbsp kosher salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
2 tsp minced garlic
4½ oz goat cheese, crumbled and divided into 6 portions
For the egg wash
1 large egg yolk
1 tbsp cold water
For the whole wheat pastry dough
Place the flours, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine. Add in the butter and pulse again, just until the butter is broken down into pea-sized pieces. Add in the sour cream and pulse again, 2-3 times. Add in ¾ cup of the ice water and pulse another 2-3 times. Remove the lid from the food processor and check to see if the dough has come together and will clump once you press it together. If it does, you are done. If it feels dry or just crumbles when you try to press it together then add more cold water, a tbsp at a time, and pulse again to incorporate it.
Gather the dough together and pat into a rectangle about 5×6 inches. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 1 hour.
For the pies
Heat oven to 425F.
Heat the butter and 2 tsp of the olive oil in a medium pan over medium-high heat. Add the leek and sauté until tender, about 3 minutes. Add the water to the pan and swirl to combine. Turn the heat down to low, cover, and cook until the leeks are soft, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Place the carrots in a bowl with the remaining ¼ cup of olive oil, salt, and black pepper. Toss to combine. Spread on a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast for 30 minutes, or until soft, stirring halfway through. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the garlic and thyme. Place back in the oven and roast for another 10 minutes, stirring again at the halfway point. Remove from the oven.
Place half of the roasted carrot-garlic mixture in the bowl of a food processor and purée until smooth. Transfer the carrot purée to a bowl and mix with the remaining carrots and leeks until well combined. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Set aside. (The purple carrots dominate the color here, making the mix look more like beets than carrots, but it’s carrots that flavor the filling.)
Unwrap the chilled dough and place it on a lightly floured work surface. Divide it into 6 equal-sized pieces. Roll out one portion of the dough into an 8.5 x 6-inch rectangle. Set aside and repeat with the remaining dough. (A handy measuring template Scott suggested is to fold an 8 ½ by 11 piece of paper in half.)
Lower oven to 375F.
Place one of the dough rectangles onto a floured work surface with the short edge facing you. Make the egg wash by beating together the egg yolk and the water. Use a pastry brush to brush a one-inch border around the edges of the dough.
Place ½ cup of the carrot-leek filling off-center on the rectangle of dough. Push down the filling with the back of a spoon so that it is flat. Top with one portion of the cheese. Fold the short edge of the dough over the filling and use a fork to crimp the edges shut. Repeat with remaining hand pies.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Place 3 pies on each sheet. Brush with the egg wash and use a knife to cut a few slits in each pie. Place int he oven and bake until golden brown and hot, about 30-35 minutes. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.
The onions in the kitchen garden grew extra big this year, most of them approaching softball size. I don’t know why, but they did. They were varieties I’ve grown before, Patterson and Newburg, two yellow onions, and Redwing, a red onion. As I have for years, I started seeds indoors in early March in half-inch cell trays, hardened off the plants outdoors in mid-April and set them out in early May. Then, mulched and watered regularly, they just started growing.
Onions are mostly a background vegetable in my kitchen, adding underlying flavor to soups, stews, and pasta sauces, but with these big beauties, I wanted recipes that would bring the pungent sweetness of onions to the fore. A New York Times Cooking recipe for a Caramelized Onion Galette looked perfect for this goal. And I remembered two other onion forward recipes I hadn’t made in a while: Alice Water’s Caramelized Onions, Gorgonzola and Rosemary Pizza and Yotam Ottolenghi’s Red Onion Salad with Arugula and Walnut Salsa. With the winter solstice approaching, these recipes for lovely, orb-shaped onions seemed just right to brighten the shortening days.
The Caramelized Onion Galette gave me some great ideas for making a galette crust and for cooking onions. The the additions of a cup grated gruyere cheese and a teaspoon-and-a-half of black pepper to the cup-and-a half of flour created a rich, spicy dough that turned out to be a perfect base for the onions. The technique for cooking the onions was new to me too and one I’ll use again, not just for a galette but also for a side dish. Slicing the onions into half-inch rings was much quicker than thinly slicing them. Sauteing the rings in butter until translucent and lightly browned then adding broth and sherry and cooking until these liquids evaporated, resulted in onions that were soft and sweet but also held their shape.
Caramelized Onion Galette
This rich, autumnal galette takes its inspiration from the flavors of French onion soup. Seasoned with Gruyère and lots of cracked black pepper, the galette dough takes the place of the crostini, and the caramelized onion filling is fortified with beef broth and sherry. The dish is great for entertaining — it can be prepared in advance — but requires a little bit of patience: You’ll need to let the dough rest for at least four hours, which allows the flour to hydrate and will make the dough less crumbly to work with. Let the tart rest for about 10 minutes before slicing and serving. Eat it while it’s hot or serve at room temperature alongside a salad or steak.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
For the Dough
1½ cups/190 grams all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
Kosher salt and black pepper
½ cup/115 grams unsalted butter (1 stick), cut into ½-inch cubes
1⅓ cups/4 ounces grated Gruyère
¼ cup ice water
For the Onions and Assembly
¼ cup/55 grams unsalted butter (½ stick)
4 large sweet onions, peeled and sliced into ½-inch rings
4 fresh thyme sprigs, plus more fresh thyme leaves for serving
Kosher salt and black pepper
1 cup beef broth (or vegetable broth)
¼ cup dry sherry
Step 1
Prepare the dough: In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, 1½ teaspoons kosher salt and 1½ teaspoons black pepper. Add butter and 1 cup grated Gruyère to the flour mixture and toss to coat. Using your fingertips, pinch the butter and cheese into the flour to make pebble-size pieces. Drizzle in the ice water and stir to make a shaggy dough. Dump the dough onto a large sheet of plastic wrap and knead a few times to combine. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
Step 2
Prepare the onions: In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add onions and thyme sprigs, season with 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent and lightly golden on the edges, 20 to 25 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium, add broth and sherry and cook until the onions are browned and the liquid has mostly evaporated but the mixture is still saucy, 16 to 18 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool for at least 30 minutes.
Step 3
Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll the dough into a 13-inch round on a sheet of parchment. Spread the cooled caramelized onions on the dough, leaving a 1- to 2-inch border. Fold the edges in, over the onions, transfer to a baking sheet and bake until the dough is golden brown and some of the onions have browned on the edges, 40 to 50 minutes, rotating the galette halfway into the baking process.
Step 4
Remove galette from the oven and sprinkle remaining ⅓ cup grated Gruyère on the crust. Bake another 5 minutes to melt the cheese. Remove and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing. Top with remaining thyme leaves, for garnish.
Alice Water’s Caramelized Onions, Gorgonzola and Rosemary Pizza is one of the first pizzas I made years ago from her 1995 book Chez Panisse Pasta, Pizza, & Calzone, and I return to every winter even though there are many other pizzas I’ve come to love. This recipe illustrates how less is often more with pizza toppings. It’s a great pizza.
Gently cook 4 thinly sliced onions in some butter and olive oil, with salt and pepper, for about an hour, until brown and caramelized. Spread the dough with the onions, dot with ¼ pound Gorgonzola and sprinkle lightly with finely chopped rosemary. Bake and serve garnished with freshly ground black pepper.
Another recipe I turn to in winter when the red onions are beautiful and arugula is succulent and spicy is Yotam Ottolenghi’s Red Onion Salad with Arugula and Walnut Salsa from is 2014 cookbook Plenty More. As with the onion preparation for the caramelized onion galette, the onion preparation here is quick with onions sliced three-quarters-inch thick, and cooking is easier because the onions are roasted on a sheet pan. The spicy arugula balances the soft, sweet onions, goat cheese adds creamy texture, but the best part is the walnut salsa. Try this recipe just for the walnut salsa! It’s delicious and, along with the onions and arugula, creates a beautiful salad to celebrate the winter solstice.
Red Onion Salad with Arugula and Walnut Salsa
4 medium red onions
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup arugula
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves
2 ounces soft goat cheese, broken into 1/2- to 1-inch chunks
Flaky salt and freshly cracked black pepper
For the walnut salsa:
2/3 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped (make sure they’re not bitter or rancid, okay?)
1 fresh red chile (e.g. Thai bird’s eye), seeded and finely chopped (I used a thawed and diced poblano chile I’d roasted and frozen in the summer; it worked well.)
1 clove garlic, minced
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt
Preheat the oven to 425° F. Peel the onions and remove their tops and tails. Slice each one crosswise into 3 slices, about 3/4 inch thick, and place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. (You can skip the parchment, but you’ll spend more time cleaning.) Drizzle the slices with olive oil and smoosh the oil around with your (clean) hands to coat evenly. (You can also use a pastry brush; I don’t own one.) Sprinkle with a big pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Roast for 40 minutes, until the onions begin to brown and caramelize, and are soft but not totally slouchy. (If you want more color out of them, stick them under the broiler for a minute or two.) Set them aside to cool just a bit.
While the onions cook, combine all of the salsa ingredients in a small bowl, add 1/4 teaspoon salt, stir, and set aside.
To serve, put the arugula and parsley in a large bowl. Toss with about half the salsa, then nestle in the onion slices, dollop on the cheese, and top with the rest of the salsa. Serve.
Late last fall, my friend Kathy offered to order some Ozette potatoes through Slow Food Seattle and have them sent to me. She said that she’d bought some Ozette seed potatoes for a friend several years ago at the Northwest Garden Show, that her friend had grown and served them, and that Kathy thought they were delicious. I gladly accepted her generous offer. I’d heard of Ozette potatoes over the years but had never grown them.
In early April this year, a pound box of Ozette seed potatoes arrived from Grand Teton Organics, the farm Slow Food Seattle has been working with “to continue the cultivation of the Makah Ozette seed potato for distribution.”
A few weeks later, I set out twenty seed potatoes a foot apart in two six-inch-deep trenches three feet apart and lightly covered them. Green foliage emerged quickly from the seed potatoes. I hilled the plants several times as they began growing, mulched them, kept them evenly watered, and by mid-summer they were robust plants two feet tall.
In early September the plants began dying back and a few weeks later the potatoes were ready for harvest. I gathered the first few hills of Ozettes into a box and mailed them to Kathy. The remaining Ozettes I’ve harvested and stored. We’ve already eaten some too, and they are as delicious as promised.
A 2013 article by Gerry Warrenin Slow Food USA titled A Potato With a Past: The Makah Ozette describes the history of this potato Kathy was sharing with me.
In the 1980’s an unknown fingerling potato was recognized to be a staple in the diet of Pacific Coast Native Americans of the Makah Nation. The Makah occupy the region around Neah Bay, Washington, that is the most northwesterly point in the United States. Tribal lore reported that this potato had been used by these people for about 200 years. The Makah had named this potato the Ozette after one of their five villages located around Neah Bay. This potato has a long history. In 1791, Spaniards expanding their empire from South America brought this potato to Neah Bay, WA. They abandoned their Neah Bay settlement a year later, but the potato remained, becoming an important carbohydrate source for the native Makah people who have continued to cultivate to the present.
The article continues, pointing out that in 2004, the Makah Ozette potato was listed in the Slow Food Ark of Taste and in 2006 a Slow Food presidium that included the Makah Nation was formed to help preserve it. And by 2022, Slow Food was offering seed potatoes for sale.
I didn’t know what to expect in terms of yield from these seed potatoes, but it’s turned out that my experience this year was similar to what Hatchet & Seeds Edible Landscapes in Victoria, B.C. described in a 2020 Instagram post:
We’ve had an amazing yield of Ozette potatoes this year—out of just a handful of plants. They seem to be much more resistant to wire worms than other varieties that were bred directly out of South America and grown along the west coast of North America for many decades, centuries even. They did not go to Europe and back like all commercial varieties. You’d have to think there is some special, climate specific genetic information there!
My yield was also good, with about three pounds of potatoes per hill. And when I pulled a plant to show my friend Denny the abundance of potatoes, she remarked “and no wire worm damage!” Of the twenty hills I harvested, potatoes in only one showed wireworm damage. I haven’t had a lot of trouble with wire worms in potatoes, but still, this possible resistance is another good reason to try this productive potato.
And then there’s taste, the main reason Kathy wanted to share Ozettes with me. So far, I’ve simply roasted these flavorful fingerlings on their own, but as fall turns to winter and winter settles in, I’ll look for other ways to prepare them.
Internet searches beyond Slow Food bring up many more ideas, enough that I’ll run out of potatoes before trying them all. And of course, I’m eager to learn how Kathy is preparing hers!
Earth Day is usually the day I start planting seeds outside in the kitchen garden, but this year I’m waiting another week or so for temperatures to rise and soil to dry a bit more. In the meantime, a benefit of this cold, wet spring has been succulent overwintered greens. Kale has started to send out tasty seed heads, perfect for any recipe that calls for rabe, but the kale leaves themselves remain thick and sweet. Red mustard leaves are good too, a hot, spicy contrast to the kale. And chard, still a long way from going to seed, is rebounding from its winter slowdown with beautiful, sweet new leaves.
I collected a basket of these leaves on Easter Day, planning to sauté them for a side dish to share at dinner with friends. Their colors and textures made me pause and admire them, not exactly an Easter basket, but close. Glossy Rainbow Chard, green leaves on colorful stems; blue green, deeply lobed Red Russian kale leaves; Giant Red Mustard, more burgundy than red, veined dramatically with green.
Through the winter months, I’ve been sautéing these greens, singly or in combination, always in lots of olive oil and garlic, sometimes with red pepper flakes, and, for special occasions, adding yellow raisins and chopped toasted hazelnuts. The technique that works best for me is one I learned from Melissa Clark’s recipe for Garlicky Swiss Chard.
She writes:
There’s really no secret to making excellent sautéed greens: just good olive oil, salt, loads of garlic and a jolt of red pepper flakes. This method works with pretty much any green too — broccoli, broccoli rabe, kale, spinach, collards…
2 bunches Swiss chard, stems removed
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
Large pinch crushed red pepper flakes
Salt
Stack chard leaves on top of one another (you can make several piles) and slice them into 1/4-inch strips.
Heat oil in a very large skillet (or use a soup pot). Add garlic and red pepper flakes and sauté for 30 seconds, until garlic is fragrant. Stir in the chard, coating it in oil. Cover pan and let cook for about 2 minutes, until chard is wilted. Uncover, stir and cook for 2 minutes longer. Season with salt.
When I cook several types of greens, I begin with the one that takes the most time to soften, in this case chard, adding it to the oil and garlic, then following with the kale and finally the mustard. If the stems aren’t too weathered, I slice them thinly too, and put them in the pan and let them cook for about two minutes before starting to add the leaves.
For the Easter dinner, I sliced and added the chard stems, red, orange and yellow, like a handful of jellybeans. After I’d added all the greens, I added about a half cup of yellow raisins. They swell in the heat and moisture of the sautéing greens and added a sweet, almost apricot, note to the greens. Just before serving, I scattered the chopped, toasted hazelnuts for a rich, crunchy contrast to the soft, earthy greens. It’s a beautiful and delicious dish, part looking back to winter but also pointing to spring. By the time these over wintered leaves have gone by, there will be new stands of kale, chard and mustard growing in the spring kitchen garden.
The introduction to this recipe says that the cabbage “becomes jammy and sweet when cooked with aromatic leeks and garlic for 15 minutes…Cumin seeds add just the right amount of earthiness along with a subtle citrus tone…The walnuts balance out the sweetness of the cabbage and leeks and introduce a slight bitterness and crunch.” All true. I made a half batch for the two of us. There could have been some great leftovers even from this half batch if we hadn’t simply eaten it all because it tasted so good.
INGREDIENTS
¼ cup olive oil
3 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 leeks, white and tender green parts, thinly sliced into rings (yellow onion would work too)
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 pounds finely sliced green cabbage
Kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
1 pound spaghetti or other long pasta
4 ounces pecorino cheese, grated, plus more for serving
2 to 3 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper, plus more as needed
3 to 4 tablespoons lemon juice (from 1 large lemon)
1 to 1½ cups toasted walnuts, roughly chopped
Handful of chopped chives (optional)
PREPARATION
Heat a large Dutch oven or pot over medium. Add the olive oil and butter. When the butter has melted, add cumin seeds and bloom for 15 seconds, then add the leeks, garlic, cabbage and 2 teaspoons salt, and stir for 3 to 4 minutes until wilted. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 10 minutes without stirring. Check every few minutes to make sure the bottom is not burning. If needed, give it a stir.
After 10 minutes, remove the lid from the cabbage and stir. Cover and cook for another 4 to 5 minutes, until it is super sweet and tender. Taste and season with kosher salt.
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the spaghetti and cook according to package instructions. When the pasta is ready, do not drain, but use tongs to drag the pasta out of its cooking water and straight into the pot with the cabbage. Add about 1 cup of pasta cooking water, along with the pecorino and the black pepper. Toss well to combine.
Add lemon juice. Taste, adjust seasonings with more salt, pepper or lemon if needed. To serve, scatter with walnuts and finish with more pecorino and chopped chives if using.
Creamy Butternut Squash Pasta with Sage and Walnuts
Serves 4
The introductory summary of this recipe says: “butternut squash gets roasted, puréed, then tossed with Parmesan to make this nutty, creamy pasta sauce. Each serving is topped with crispy fried sage leaves, a hint of lemon zest, and toasted walnuts, adding a crunchy contrast to the squash.”
The sauce really is creamy and the crispy sage, lemon zest and toasty walnuts are perfect contrasts. I made a full batch and saved half to serve as a side dish the next day. The leftover half would also have been delicious thinned out with broth and served as a soup.
INGREDIENTS
2 ½ pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 3/4-inch pieces
2 garlic cloves
5 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and black pepper
¾ packed cup fresh sage leaves
¾ cup chopped walnuts
1 lemon, zested (about 1 tablespoon)
1 cup low-sodium chicken or vegetable stock, plus more as needed
1 pound short pasta, such as gemelli, casarecce or penne
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan, plus more for serving
PREPARATION
Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the squash and garlic on a sheet pan. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Toss well and roast until the squash is very tender, 30 to 35 minutes, tossing twice throughout. While the squash roasts, bring a large pot of water to boil.
Meanwhile, in a large (12-inch) skillet, heat the remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil over medium. When the oil is hot, add the sage and cook, tossing often, until the leaves begin to crisp, about 1 minute. Add the walnuts and a generous sprinkle of salt and cook, tossing often, until the sage leaves are lightly browned and crisp, 1 to 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the sage and nuts to a paper towel-lined plate and wipe out the skillet. Let the mixture drain for 1 minute, then add it to a small bowl with the lemon zest; toss lightly and set aside.
Working in batches if necessary, transfer the roasted squash and garlic to a blender or food processor, along with 1 cup stock, and blend until smooth and thick. The consistency should be somewhere between a purée and a thick soup. Add more stock as needed, if it seems too thick.
Transfer the puréed squash to the reserved skillet and keep warm over very low heat. Meanwhile, add the pasta to the boiling water, along with 1 tablespoon salt, and cook until al dente. Just before draining, ladle 1/2 cup pasta water into a measuring cup and set aside.
Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Toss to coat the pasta evenly, then, off the heat, add the 1/2 cup Parmesan and toss until the cheese is incorporated. Add a few tablespoons of the reserved pasta water if the sauce seems too thick. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Divide the pasta among shallow bowls and sprinkle the sage, walnut and lemon zest mixture on top, and serve with extra Parmesan on the side.
Looking back on the 2021 kitchen garden year, what stands out are unusual extremes in the weather. A cool, dry spring was followed by a record hot dry summer, followed by a very wet fall and capped off by record cold and snow at the end of the year. I remember bemoaning the lack of warmth in late spring as summer crops weren’t thriving and then worrying about summer crops suffering from extreme heat as I acknowledged that I need to be careful what I wish for. Then there was the worry that fall rains, while good for hydrating summer beds for cover crop planting, were drowning fall and winter vegetables. And finally, there was the winter kitchen gardener’s anxiety over extreme cold killing rather than sweetening winter roots and greens. Kitchen gardeners always notice the weather, but this past year provided more than the usual opportunities to worry about it.
As 2021 ended in the ten-degree days and fierce winds of late December, I turned for comfort to 2022 and the garden year ahead. As I do every year, I began with an inventory of my vegetable seeds and then opened seed catalogs to find refills of favorites and read about enticing new varieties. As I considered what to plant for each season, the pleasure of remembering familiar vegetables and imagining new varieties carried me away from cold winter outside and into plans for spring, summer and fall.
One of my plans for the spring kitchen garden this year is to plant early and to plant more so we’ll have good crops of spring roots and greens for a much-anticipated family visit in June. I usually plant seeds outdoors around Earth Day, the third week in April, but this year, I may start some carrots and spring turnips a few weeks earlier in April, just to be sure to have lots to harvest in mid-June. I’ll also start some lettuce indoors to set out in early May. I’ll plant my usual lettuce mixes but also some romaine, Mayan Jaguar and Olga, for big, crispy salads. Finally, I’ve ordered seeds of Asian greens like Tatsoi, Chinese cabbage and Pac Choi for these adventurous eaters.
One plan for the summer garden is to plant enough bee-attracting flowers to pollinate summer and winter squash, cucumbers and other vegetables. In addition to ordering borage seeds to go with the calendulas that volunteer each year, I studied the sunflower offerings in various catalogs to be sure I ordered open-pollinated varieties. As I learned from this site “be sure to plant open-pollinated varieties that produce pollen. Bees need pollen for protein and to feed their larvae. There are a lot of varieties of sunflowers that lack pollen, popular among people who don’t want to clean up the pollen mess from cut flowers and for the allergy-prone.” I’ve ordered a Sunflower Mix from Pinetree “A phenomenal mix of open pollinated sunflowers. Tall and short as well as single and double varieties. Everything to delight you and all of your garden pollinators.”
Another plan for the summer garden is to plant vegetables that are most fun to share with others at picnics and outdoor dinners. Corn and tomatoes top the list. Last summer’s heat did result in amazing corn, for us and for friends. Corn on the cob, fresh corn salad with shishito peppers are always hits. Café is the corn variety I’ve planted the past few years and Takara Shishito produces loads of flavorful small peppers. Bowls of cherry tomatoes, red Sweet Million, Orange Paruche, purple Sunchocola and green of the delicious Green Doctors as well as plates of sliced tomatoes, red Dester and Momotaro, dark red Cherokee Purple, yellow Golden Jubliee all signal summer at the table. So do bowls of green and yellow pole beans and plates of roasted purple eggplant. Green Fortex and Nor’easter, yellow Golden Gate and Monte Gusto produce all summer as does beautiful purple Galine eggplant. Peppers complete the summer palate with red Carmen and Stocky Red Roaster, orange Etudia and yellow Flavorburst, delicious fresh or roasted. Summer vegetables are for sharing, and I’m hoping that we’ll have less isolation and more large gatherings in summer 2022.
For the fall and winter garden, I once again plan to have a good supply of seeds of hardy roots, brassicas and greens. These vegetables thrive in our marine winters, but they do need protection in cold spells like the one we just had. Before the deep cold of late December and early January hit, I covered the beds containing winter vegetables with extra hay, then tarps. Fortunately, the five inches of snow that fell provided another layer of insulation against the ten-degree nights. And knowing that I wouldn’t be able to get to these crops for a while, I harvested two weeks-worth of celery root, turnips, rutabaga, parsnips, leeks, Brussels sprouts, carrots, radicchio and chicory before layering on protective coverings. As I studied seed catalogs for the year ahead, I was glad to have a fridge full of winter food even though I was anxious about what would survive the cold. The fridge is nearly empty now, and with the January thaw that has set in, I’m relieved to see that all the remaining winter vegetables survived the cold and will see us through the rest of the winter.
There will no doubt be more weather to worry about in 2022, but I have seeds and plans to see me through the next gardening year. And lots of meals ahead with family and friends.
Years ago, when friends of mine had young children, they’d describe Halloween-themed dinners they’d cook for their kids. There would be desserts of decorated cakes and cookies of course, but the main meal was just as creative. Most often it was pumpkin-based, soup garnished with candy-like corn kernels and black beans or pumpkins stuffed with colorful vegetables and grains and baked. Though I don’t have little kids around to cook for, I’m inspired to embrace the season and make some Halloween dinners for grown-ups.
While there were no pumpkins in my kitchen garden, there were butternut and blue kuri winter squash, both excellent substitutes.
Experimenting with the butternut squash first, I halved it, removed the seeds and baked it, cut side down, on a sheet pan at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes.
After it cooled, I removed most of the squash from the center of each half, leaving a half inch border of squash to add another flavor the filling. I saved this extra squash for a future meal.
While the squash was baking, I made a filling, boiling black beans I’d soaked earlier in the day, cooking some red quinoa, sauteing onion and garlic. Then I added corn and poblano peppers from the freezer to the onion and finally added the black beans and quinoa and a little grated jack cheese. The result was a colorful and tasty filling for the squash. After piling it into the squash shells, I baked it at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes to warm it through. To garnish it, I made some cilantro pesto. Next time I’d squeeze on some lime to match the sweetness of this pretty meal.
I stuffed the blue kuri squash as well, filling it with a mixture of cooked rice and sauteed sausage, onions and poblano peppers and jack cheese. This filling mixture would have made a fine any-season casserole on its own but slicing the blue kuri squash in half around the middle, baking it as I did the butternut squash and removing enough of the flesh to make two bowls for stuffing, created a Halloween-worthy presentation.
I like the way both of these stuffed squashes remind me of my friends’ Halloween meals, but these dishes would work for any of the other holidays coming up.
Finally, I turned to the most playful of these Halloween meals: little pumpkin-shaped hand pies. The recipe that inspired me calls them jack-o-lantern empanadas. Either name works. The key appeal for my grown-up trick-or-treater is the pastry. The delicious filling is also a great way to use leftover winter squash and black beans. And they really are pretty cute. I may even make them again for Halloween day, or make them another time, minus the scary faces.
Ingredients
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup finely chopped sweet red pepper (I used roasted and frozen poblano peppers)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin (I used roasted and pureed butternut squash)
1/2 cup black beans, rinsed and drained (I used dry black beans from the garden, soaked and boiled)
2 teaspoons chili powder (the poblano peppers provided enough spice so I omitted chili powder)
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
2 packages (14.1 ounces each) refrigerated pie crust (I made my usual pie dough)
1 large egg
1 tablespoon water
Directions
Preheat oven to 425°. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add corn, onion and pepper; cook and stir 2-3 minutes or until tender. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Stir in pumpkin, black beans and seasonings; heat through. Cool slightly.
On a lightly floured surface, unroll pie crust. Cut pumpkins with a 3-in. floured pumpkin-shaped or round cookie cutter, rerolling crust as necessary. Place half of the pumpkin cutouts 2 in. apart on parchment-lined baking sheets; top each with about 1 tablespoon pumpkin mixture. Using a knife, cut jack-o’-lantern faces or slits out of the remaining cutouts. Place over the top of the pumpkin mixture; press edges with a fork to seal. (I made some 4-inch as well as some 3-inch cutouts.)
In a small bowl, whisk egg and water; brush over empanadas. Bake until golden brown, 12-15 minutes. Remove from pan to wire racks.
I usually harvest winter squash on or near the Fall Equinox, but this year I pulled squash and vines about a week early, partly because the crop was ready but more because there was real rain in the forecast. And as predicted, the day after the squash harvest, two inches of rain fell, glorious soaking rain that softened the soil of the squash bed and of all the other beds I’d cleared of summer vegetables and mulch in anticipation of rain. After such a dry summer, the start of the rainy season was most welcome.
The joy of the rain made up for a smaller-than-usual squash harvest. The yield in the main squash bed was half of what we usually get. Among the drying vines, I found only two or three of old favorites Blue Kuri and Honeyboat and Zeppelin Delicatas, and barely more of new entries, Little Gem Red Kuri, Gill’s Golden Pippin, Sonca Butternut.
The one surprising exception was a large yield of Hunter Butternut squash from four plants that I’d set out at the last minute in another bed next to a Costata Romanesca Zucchini.
I’m not often successful growing butternut squash, but these plants produced sixteen lovely large squash. Why did they do so well and the others so poorly?
A number of factors affect squash production. Days that are too cold and days that are too hot both affect squash plants’ fruit set. We definitely had both extremes this summer. Lack of water is also a factor, but both beds received the same amount of irrigation. I never got around to mulching the main squash bed, but I did mulch the one zucchini and the four butternut plants, so perhaps mulch made a difference in moisture. More than moisture, though, there’s pollination. In many of the trouble-shooting sources I turned to, pollination turned up as a factor affecting squash production. An excellent entry on Squash Pollination by Mark MacDonald in West Coast Seeds Garden Wisdom Blog helped me look more closely at the different conditions between my main squash bed and the smaller zucchini and butternut planting.
Through text and photographs, MacDonald describes how squash pollination works and, in particular, the importance of bees to this process. In his suggested solutions to poor squash pollination, he concludes: “This whole conversation illustrates the importance of bees in our landscape. It is their diligent work that spreads all of the pollen back and forth. Without bees, many crops would simply fail to produce. The first strategy for the squash grower is to encourage more bees.”
Looking at the two squash locations, I saw right away that the zucchini and butternut bed was next to a several sprawling calendula plants that had started blooming in early spring and bloomed heavily all summer. Next to the main squash bed were several cosmos plants, but they didn’t start blooming until later in the summer, and there were no other flowers nearby. Maybe the explanation for my squash yield difference was simply poor pollination in the main squash bed.
I’ll hold on to that possibility for next year and plant flowers along with squash to attract bees. Flowers MacDonald suggests are alyssum, calendula, centaurea, crimson clover, nemophila, phacelia, sunflowers and white Dutch clover. In a lovely description of bee behavior, he writes: “Sunflowers planted in the squash bed act like a beacon because they are visible from hundreds of meters away. Other plants bloom in such profusion that no pollinator would pass without a closer look.” At next year’s Autumn Equinox squash harvest, I’ll find out if flowers made the difference. In the meantime, we’ll enjoy meals from this year’s harvest.
February often feels like a transition month in our marine climate, one that can pull us back to winter and then propel us toward spring. This year during the middle weeks of February, temperatures in the twenties followed by snow blanketing the kitchen garden definitely pointed to winter. And now, with the snow gone, the final week of February has brought warmer temperatures, lengthening days and the promise of spring.
As a kitchen gardener, part of me is still in winter, cooking the roots and hardy greens I harvested before the deep cold, but part of me is also in spring and summer, imagining the food that will come from seeds I’ll be starting soon.
In the days before the forecast cold, I harvested half a dozen large celery root, the last of the radicchios and chicories, a cabbage and some collards, bags of Brussels sprouts and lots of carrots, all vegetables I might not be able to get to beneath a cover of snow, mulch and tarps. I’ve been cooking from this harvest ever since.
Raw celery root makes wonderful salads , but the cold compelled me to cook it into a smooth, comforting puree. Melissa Clark’s recipe couldn’t be easier, especially if you use an immersion blender. I served it with stew for dinner and the next day thinned leftovers with the cooking liquid I’d saved to make soup for lunch. The puree looks like mashed potatoes but tastes like sweet, earthy celery.
4medium celeriac bulbs about 3 1/2 pounds, peeled and diced
4garlic cloves, peeled
2bay leaves
2tablespoons kosher salt, more to taste
8tablespoons butter
Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
In a large saucepan, combine the celery root, peeled garlic cloves and bay leaves. Pour in 12 cups water and 2 tablespoons of kosher salt. Over medium-high heat, bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until tender, 20 to 25 minutes. Drain, discard the bay leaves and transfer the celeriac and garlic to a food processor. Add the butter and nutmeg; process until very smooth. Taste and add more salt if necessary. Keep warm.
With the carrots and radicchio, I turned to a recipe I tried for the first time this year from Marcella Hazan’s Marcella’s Italian Kitchen (1986). It’s yet another of her simple Italian recipes that is made wonderfully complex by the combination of contrasting flavors, in this case sweet carrots and slightly bitter radicchio. In her notes before the recipe, Hazan says that “endive substitutes for the long radicchio di Treviso I would use in Italy,” but for the pleasantly bitter flavor, any radicchio or chicory would do. I used one of the red radicchios I’d harvested.
I also used Purple Haze carrots to match the purple of the radicchio. I’ve made this recipe several times with Purple Haze, one of my favorite carrots for its sweet spicy flavor and also with Mokum, a perfect, deeply sweet orange carrot. Both dishes were pretty and delicious.
SLOW-BROWNED CARROTS AND ENDIVE
Marcella Hazan
In this combination with carrots, endive substitutes for the long radicchio di Treviso I would use in Italy. Its appeal is based on the racy contrast of flavors and consistencies: the carrot sweet, the endive slightly bitter; the former firm, the latter creamily soft. The carrot must first be cooked slowly and at length, with butter and no liquid, to evaporate all the moisture that dilutes its flavor, and to keep the carrot rounds firm. Since the endive throws off much liquid, it is also, at first, cooked separately from the carrots; otherwise it would steam them. It takes only a few minutes’ additional cooking together, after the preliminary separate procedures, to link the two vegetables’ flavors.
1 pound carrots, peeled and sliced into ¼-inch rounds
4 tablespoons butter
Salt
¾ to 1 pound Belgian endive, shredded lengthwise into strips ¼ inchwide
Choose a sauté pan or skillet that can accommodate all the carrots without crowding them. Put in the carrots and butter, and turn on the heat to medium low. Cook, stirring from time to time, until the carrots have greatly diminished in bulk, becoming withered and colored a light nut brown. It should take about 1 to 1½ hours. Sprinkle with salt, stir, and turn off the heat.
Transfer the carrots to a platter, using a slotted spoon or spatula in order to leave as much butter as possible in the pan.
Put the endive in the pan and turn on the heat to medium low. Cook, turning it over from time to time, until the endive becomes very soft, about 30 minutes. Add salt.
Return the carrots to the pan and cook for 5 minutes longer, together with the endive.
With Brussels sprouts, I alternate between roasting oiled halves or quarters at high heat, 425 or 450, for about seven minutes or sauteing thin slices in butter or olive oil at high heat for less than five minutes, both easy and quick preparations. In a tasty variation the other night, I roasted thin slices and used them as a pizza topping along with sautéed shallot and sausage to create an earthy, spicy very seasonal pizza.
Tasty and satisfying as these winter vegetables have been, I have fresh tomatoes on my mind. Over the past several days, I’ve tidied up my seed starting room, pulled out planting trays and a bag of potting soil and today I started seeds for this year’s tomato crop. I’m growing many of my usual favorite slicers, Brandywine, Cherokee Carbon, Cherokee Purple, Dester, Golden Sunray (aka Golden Jubilee), Momotaro and a rainbow of cherry tomatoes, Green Doctors, Orange Paruche, Sunchocola and Sweet Million.
A new slicer I’m trying this year, in a nod to New Jersey friends, is Rutgers Original from Fedco. Long considered an outstanding slicing, cooking and canning tomato, Rutgers’ medium-sized 4–6 oz mostly uniform and unblemished deep oblate fruits with a rich red interior and pleasing texture have that great old-time flavor, delicious and juicy. When Rutgers University “refined” the variety in 1943, they took out some of the vininess but also some of the flavor. Our taste tests confirmed that the original indeterminate strain is better, so that’s the strain we offer of this famous New Jersey tomato.
I’ll also grow Aosta Valley from Fedco, a small paste tomato I’ve grown for the past few years, perfect for roasting. In addition, I’m going to try another paste tomato my friends Alan and Kathy recommended: Midnight Roma from Row 7 Seed Company: A deep purple-red paste tomato packed with phytonutrients. In the rows, it will stop you in your tracks. In the kitchen, this purple wonder shines for its quick cook time and memorable flavor. Check out this small company and its taste-focused mission.
As I planted seeds, the sun warmed up the small seed starting room to almost-summer temperatures, making it easy to imagine plates and bowls of luscious tomatoes when summer arrives.
Lopez Island Kitchen Gardens 