On any given day after a run to the farmer’s market, you’ll find a bowl full of red radishes, greens and roots lopped off, soaking in water in my parent’s refrigerator. My father loves radishes. Whereas some parents put out cookies and chips for their kids for snacks, my dad put out radishes for us, and still does. Crunchy and cool, they’re a great snack. Cut up and tossed with some lemon, oil, mint, and pistachios, they make a great little salad too, or a lovely side for steak, Mexican pulled pork, or tacos. We tossed the radishes with toasted pistachios; I’ve also made with with toasted sunflower seeds, equally good.

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It’s asparagus season, finally! This has to be one of the easiest ways to cook asparagus. Just trim the ends, lay out on a foil lined baking sheet, toss with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and Parm, and then bake until done. I eat them like French fries. Addictive? Yes.

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Are you a lover of kale? Bread? Cheese? Mushrooms? Then you are likely to love this recipe from Jennie Perillo as much as I do. It’s basically a simplified strata of sorts, a casserole layering thin slices of rustic ciabatta bread with sautéed kale, mushrooms, and onions, and cheddar cheese, soaked with milk and egg, and then baked until bubbly and browned. It’s the ultimate kale lover’s comfort food. The recipe is from Jennie’s new cookbook, Homemade with Love: Simple Scratch Cooking from In Jennie’s Kitchen, a beautiful book with photographs by Penny De Los Santos, heart warming prose, and tummy warming recipes for the home cook.

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Ah the noble leek, often the bridesmaid, rarely the bride. Leeks vinaigrette is a classic French recipe that honors the leek for itself. In this recipe we first clean and prep the leeks, then boil them in water until just cooked, drain them, and marinate them for several hours (or days) in a vinaigrette with a touch of Dijon mustard. Served at room temperature, the leeks make a lovely salad or side. And given that they love a long marinating time, they’re perfect for making ahead. 

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Please welcome Hank as he shares a simple Italian classic, pasta e fagioli, or pasta and bean soup. Perfect for Lent if you swap the chicken stock out for veg stock! ~Elise

Pasta fazool. I knew—and loved—this dish years before I knew how to spell it. Growing up in New Jersey, pasta e fagioli is a staple on every red sauce place’s menu, along with spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, alfredo and cannolis. Fazool (which is Neapolitan dialect for the standard Italian word for “beans”) is a peasant dish, a just simple soup of pasta and beans and veggies.

It’s also a dish of a thousand variations. Some cooks’ pasta e fagioli is so thick it’s basically a pasta dish. Some people use so much tomato the fazool looks like a tomato soup with pasta and beans. Sometimes you’ll see white beans, sometimes borlotti beans (basically the same thing as cranberry beans), and sometimes even kidney beans. Once in a while you’ll see meat, either leftover bits of meatloaf or tiny meatballs, like the ones you see in Italian wedding soup.

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Here’s something fun to add to your table on St. Patrick’s Day—green mashed potatoes, why not? The Irish have a long tradition of mixing greens into their mashed potatoes. In this recipe we purée raw parsley and green onions, which when mixed into the potatoes turn the mash a vibrant green. Perfect for a festive meal. You could also experiment with baby spinach, mint, or other greens. In fact, I added some fresh mint to one of the mashes I made and served it with lamb, it was lovely. Enjoy!

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Do you ever cook with spaghetti squash? My friend Amber recently gave me a big box of CSA vegetables from a local farm, and in it was a ginormous spaghetti squash. I think it was at least 8 pounds, twice the normal size. Spaghetti squash is called such because the cooked flesh shreds into strands like spaghetti. You can use it as a lower carb and gluten-free replacement for spaghetti noodles in many recipes. Also, it being a winter squash, uncooked and whole, a spaghetti squash will last for months. The squash is very happy baked, shredded, and then tossed in a sauté with garlic, olive oil, and Parmesan. Some chopped greens thrown into the mix make it a meal.

What types of dishes do you like to make with spaghetti squash? I’d love to hear about them. Please let us know in the comments.

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Do you ever order mu shu pork at a Chinese restaurant? It’s my favorite, and I think it’s mostly because of the sauce, that thick, dark, gooey, sweet and spicy hoisin sauce. It’s readily available in the Asian section of the grocery aisle, at least around here, and you can use it as a dipping sauce or glaze for practically anything—wings, meatloaf, ribs, salmon, eggplant, meatballs, chicken, and in this case, brussels sprouts. In this quick and easy stir-fry, we lightly boil the halved sprouts first, so they cook more evenly. We brown sliced onions, stir-fry them with the blanched sprouts, ginger, and garlic, and then sprinkle everything with some rice vinegar, soy sauce, hoisin, and sesame oil. These brussels sprouts are like candy, so good! A pound of brussels sprouts will serve 3 to 4, but if left to my own nefarious ways, I’ll eat the whole batch.

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So, when it’s finally your turn in line to order at the taqueria, and the nice lady behind the counter asks, “what kind of beans?,” (to go with your burrito, taco, carnitas platter, etc.) and you gaze upon your choices of pinto beans or black beans, refried or whole, what do you say? For me, it’s always a struggle. Must. Make. Up. My. Mind. They all look so appealing. I was raised on refried pinto beans, which mom still makes at home at least once a week. But black beans? They’re so good! There’s something about them, almost a smoky quality. And then there’s the “whole” or “refried” question to be answered. If the beans are for a burrito, then naturally I’ll want them refried. They’ll stick to the tortilla better and won’t spill out as I eat the beast. (Burritos around here tend to be on the hefty side.) Actually, usually I’ll want them refried, which by the way, isn’t really “re” fried, but just fried and smashed, with more oil and seasonings, after the beans are first cooked in water.

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 Gnarly, dude. That’s the expression that comes to mind when I think of celery root. It really is rather gnarly—a big bulbous root vegetable, often tangled with twisted daughter roots. It can also be challenging to prep, given the said tangled roots and the fact that it tends to be hard, butternut squash hard, to cut. That said, it is one of the most lovely things to eat. Raw, it’s delightful in salads. Cooked, it sweetens, and tastes a little like a parsnip that fell in with some celery ribs. It is often mashed and mixed with mashed potatoes, but I enjoy it all on its own, mashed with some butter and milk or cream. It’s a perfect side for lamb, steak, or chicken.

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