Parsnip, onions, apples and pesto?
Have you ever seen a recipe where you thought the author was playing a joke? Like s/he had a bet with a friend to see the most disgusting thing they could get people to make? That's kind of what I thought when I saw this recipe. First, a bit of background....
I found out that you can get vegetable and fruit "subscriptions" here, usually through biological food markets. What you do is sign up, pay so much per week, and receive a bag of assorted vegetables and/or fruits (or a combination of the two) each week. You never know what you will get as the suppliers make up the package based on what they have available. I thought this was a great idea and a wonderful opportunity to try out things that I would never dare buy myself. And, seeing as how I like being surprised so much (as can be seen by all the swaps I do!), I signed up last week. This week, I got my first bags (I got a "small" vegetable bag and a fruit bag). The contents? Here's an opportunity to learn some Dutch!
In my fruit bag, I found appel 'apple', grapefruit 'grapefruit', sinaasappel 'orange', and banaan 'banana'. Okay, nothing terribly exceptional, but still yummy... I really likes me some fruit!
In my veggie bag, I got pastinaak 'parsnip', Chinese kool 'Chinese/Napa cabbage', rode uien 'red onions', witlof '(Belgian) endive/chicory', and groenselderij 'green celery'. So, I've had all of these things before... But I've never bought (or, at least, don't remember buying) parsnip or endive. But, you also get a sheet of paper with your bags with news on one side and recipes on the other. So, I glance through the recipes and what catches my eye? Pastinaak met uien en pesto 'Parsnip with onions and pesto'. Here's the recipe (you should be able to understand the ingredients!).
de pastinaak
2 uien
1 appel
1 à 2 eetl. (1 to 2 tbsp.) pesto
een klontje boter (a clump of butter)
Pastinaken schillen met een dunschiller en in stukjes snijden. Ui pellen, op wortelkantje neerzetten en halveren. Beide helften met de lijnen van de ui in 4 tot 6 partjes snijden. Ui fruiten in boter. Pastinaak met een scheutje water toevoegen en in 10 à 15 minuten gaar stoven. Appel in kleine stukjes snijden en de laatste 2 minuten meestoven. Pesto door de groente roeren. Lekker met pasta, kip of tofu.
What to do: Peel the parsnip with a vegetable peeler and cut into pieces. Peel the onions, set them down on their roots and halve. Cut both halves along the lines of the onion into 4 to 6 parts. Sautée the onion in butter. Add the parsnip with a bit of water and stew for about 10 to 15 minutes. Cut the apple into small pieces and stew along with the parsnip for the last 2 minutes. Stir the pesto through the vegetables. Delicious with pasta, chicken or tofu.
Of course, I decided to try it out... I was intrigued. I made up the veggies, cook some spaghetti, threw it in, and... done. It actually wasn't as bad as my first impression lead me to believe. It was actually nice... The pesto wasn't as strong as I was expecting, so there was an overall sweetish flavor to the dish. I don't think I'll make it again (at least in the near future), but I'm glad I tried it out.
Another fun thing about these veggie bags is that I can hunt through all my cookbooks for recipes and inspiration. Unfortunately, I don't use them as often as I meant to when I bought them. But now, I'm scrambling to find interesting things to do with all these veggies! ^^ I actually found this very delicious sounding salad that called for endive in a vegetarian cookbook and was just salivating all day thinking about it. After work, I go to my local grocery store, and they didn't have like half the ingredients! :-( So, I ended up making a bootleg version of endive au gratin with ham. With the Chinese cabbage, I'm making kimchee (it's ripening now! for those who don't know, the kimchee has to ferment for about a week before you can eat it.). For the other two parsnips, I think I'm going to use them as a substitute for sweet potatoes in some Korean recipes I have, but I haven't quite decided... I'll keep you posted and will post whatever interesting recipe I decide on!
Next week, who knows? I'll post what I get, and you can post/email suggestions/recipes for what I can do with everything!
I found out that you can get vegetable and fruit "subscriptions" here, usually through biological food markets. What you do is sign up, pay so much per week, and receive a bag of assorted vegetables and/or fruits (or a combination of the two) each week. You never know what you will get as the suppliers make up the package based on what they have available. I thought this was a great idea and a wonderful opportunity to try out things that I would never dare buy myself. And, seeing as how I like being surprised so much (as can be seen by all the swaps I do!), I signed up last week. This week, I got my first bags (I got a "small" vegetable bag and a fruit bag). The contents? Here's an opportunity to learn some Dutch!
In my fruit bag, I found appel 'apple', grapefruit 'grapefruit', sinaasappel 'orange', and banaan 'banana'. Okay, nothing terribly exceptional, but still yummy... I really likes me some fruit!
In my veggie bag, I got pastinaak 'parsnip', Chinese kool 'Chinese/Napa cabbage', rode uien 'red onions', witlof '(Belgian) endive/chicory', and groenselderij 'green celery'. So, I've had all of these things before... But I've never bought (or, at least, don't remember buying) parsnip or endive. But, you also get a sheet of paper with your bags with news on one side and recipes on the other. So, I glance through the recipes and what catches my eye? Pastinaak met uien en pesto 'Parsnip with onions and pesto'. Here's the recipe (you should be able to understand the ingredients!).
de pastinaak
2 uien
1 appel
1 à 2 eetl. (1 to 2 tbsp.) pesto
een klontje boter (a clump of butter)
Pastinaken schillen met een dunschiller en in stukjes snijden. Ui pellen, op wortelkantje neerzetten en halveren. Beide helften met de lijnen van de ui in 4 tot 6 partjes snijden. Ui fruiten in boter. Pastinaak met een scheutje water toevoegen en in 10 à 15 minuten gaar stoven. Appel in kleine stukjes snijden en de laatste 2 minuten meestoven. Pesto door de groente roeren. Lekker met pasta, kip of tofu.
What to do: Peel the parsnip with a vegetable peeler and cut into pieces. Peel the onions, set them down on their roots and halve. Cut both halves along the lines of the onion into 4 to 6 parts. Sautée the onion in butter. Add the parsnip with a bit of water and stew for about 10 to 15 minutes. Cut the apple into small pieces and stew along with the parsnip for the last 2 minutes. Stir the pesto through the vegetables. Delicious with pasta, chicken or tofu.
Of course, I decided to try it out... I was intrigued. I made up the veggies, cook some spaghetti, threw it in, and... done. It actually wasn't as bad as my first impression lead me to believe. It was actually nice... The pesto wasn't as strong as I was expecting, so there was an overall sweetish flavor to the dish. I don't think I'll make it again (at least in the near future), but I'm glad I tried it out.
Another fun thing about these veggie bags is that I can hunt through all my cookbooks for recipes and inspiration. Unfortunately, I don't use them as often as I meant to when I bought them. But now, I'm scrambling to find interesting things to do with all these veggies! ^^ I actually found this very delicious sounding salad that called for endive in a vegetarian cookbook and was just salivating all day thinking about it. After work, I go to my local grocery store, and they didn't have like half the ingredients! :-( So, I ended up making a bootleg version of endive au gratin with ham. With the Chinese cabbage, I'm making kimchee (it's ripening now! for those who don't know, the kimchee has to ferment for about a week before you can eat it.). For the other two parsnips, I think I'm going to use them as a substitute for sweet potatoes in some Korean recipes I have, but I haven't quite decided... I'll keep you posted and will post whatever interesting recipe I decide on!
Next week, who knows? I'll post what I get, and you can post/email suggestions/recipes for what I can do with everything!
posted by gearncniht at 9:37 PM
1 Comments:
very cool - we can get these vegtable subscriptions here, too, and I've always wanted to do it, but I'm afraid it will be way too much food for one person!
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