Radishes are amazing roasted. I take both the radishes and the greens, toss them with some oil, white wine vinegar, sea salt, and pepper. Let ‘em sit for a bit, then roast at 375 for about 25ish minutes. The radishes are good, but the greens are out of this world.

Ha ha ha ha imagine my surprise when I cut into last week’s basket’s beautiful spaghetti squash and smelled watermelon! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Bite your tongue! One dish dinners are the bestest (and greenest, since you have to wash fewer pans).

We pick up our CSA share on Sundays, so I’ve been making “whatever’s left soup” today. We’re getting beets, which I loathe, so my co-share neighbor can have them, along with kobacha squash (aka Japanese pumpkin). I hope it’s smaller than the ones from last year - I don’t have a machete, which makes cutting them in half somewhat terrifying.

I think I’m going to try to make veggie burgers with all these root veggies.

This is probably provocative, but I wanted to point out that a lot of desserts use EGGS.

Somewhere I saw an entire cookbook full of recipes for various types of veggie burger. (It may have been Veggie Burgers Every Which Way by Lukas Volger, but I’m not sure.) Might be useful if you like playing with that sort of thing.

whatladder:

Amanda is not vegan, so it doesn’t really matter. And there are vegan desserts that don’t.

Radish top soup is REALLY good.  You can find a number of recipes on line.  But basically you soften some chopped onion in butter or oil, throw in the washed tops from 2 or more bunches of radishes and some diced potato.  Then, when the radish tops have wilted, add water to cover and simmer until the potatoes are done.  Blend to whatever consistency you prefer.  Serve hot (with optional butter) or cold (with optional cream or other dairy product).

You could of course add in other greens but radish tops have a surpringly subtle taste you’ll want to experience on its own at least once.

I don’t know whether to feel amusement or pity towards someone who thinks something that is totally non-provocative is provocative.  What’s the provocative aspect?  Do you believe this blog is somehow anti-dessert, just because I’m anti-junk food?  In reality, I’m very pro-dessert, just in proper moderation.  Part of this project is to show how someone who is pro-pleasure and pro-health like myself can strike a balance.  But I’ve shown examples of making desserts and cocktails.

Radish advice: IMO, don’t cook them. Instead, make a salad/relish and enjoy them crunchy. There are plenty of recipes online, but the basic idea is rice vinegar, something for heat (diced chili) and some sugar. Great as a side dish, and keeps well in the refrigerator for while.
Also, frittatas are great for eggs.

We only have two more weeks of our CSA (much sadness with it ending).

This week we got brussel sprouts…on the stem. I wilted the free leaves with spinach and tossed them with black-eyed peas for a couple meals this week. I roasted the sprouts and tossed em with a bacon-mustard vinaigrette. Much happiness on both fronts.

Honestly, I didn’t know people ate radishes cooked, besides the occasional shredded daikon. I’ve always just used them sliced in salads, or just munched them with a bit of salt. Oddly, it’s one of the few raw veggies I can seem to get my kids to eat. I’ll have to try some of these ideas though, particularly as I’ve never made use of the greens.

The radishes and turnips as the “meat” of a veggie burger turned out to be awesome.  Will post on it on Saturday.

@TheRealistMom - I was the same way - the first time I heard people talk about cooking radishes (which was fairly recently), I was honestly confused. I used to love them the way you did, raw with a little salt, and that’s the only way I ever saw anyone eat them, or else on salads. But I guess cooking them is more common than I thought!

We splurged and bought a pound of chantrelles for ten bucks and so half of that is dinner tonight, plus the greens of the beets we bought at the farmers’ last week plus some salad with bits from snack today.

Delicious.  Who says we need for nutrition or taste eating vegetarian?

It looks like chantrelles (yeah, I know, spelled wrong, it’s my accent) will be thick and good this year.  We spotted some about a month ago, early, and now they’re $10 in bulk?  Mmmm….

Mm, raw radishes.

These posts always make me hungry. I am going to sign up for a CSA for reals. I’ve kept wanting to, but waiting too late and they’re all full.

Also, I want some roasted beets.

@arianna absolutely heaven (but for me I use feta instead of blue).  We did roasted veggies last night but didn’t have beets. Still, they were delicious.  We roasted radishes and cooked the greens too. Awesome.

If you don’t mind trying something asian, you can make daikon radish cakes (...I guess that’s how you would translate it).  It’s made with rice flour and shredded radish, and usually shrimp, but you can skip that.  I’ve also seen chopped mushrooms and carrots added to it.  Stir the rice flour and radish with some water until it holds together (some corn starch also helps), then steam it.  The other ingredients can either be added to the mixture before steaming or stir fried and sprinkled on top.

After steaming, it can be served directly, or pan fried, or stir fried.  Common condiments are soy sauce, white pepper, chili sauce, and seafood sauce (sorry, don’t know what this is in English.  It’s pronounced “hai shien” in Chinese).

Shredded turnip, raddish, carrot, etc with oatmeal/breadcrumbs etc moistened with eggs and milk or water makes a decent loaf main dish.  I always put about half shredded veggies in my “meat” loaf now, usually carrots.
I got what was probably the end of eggplant from my garden yesterday.  I sliced the tiny ones and diced the one larger one, cooked it up with a cup of diced onion, a handful of pepper strips, a couple cups of frozen spinich, fresh turnip greens, tops from the one lonely beet I missed earlier and a cup of cilantro.  Seasoned with cumin, black pepper and ground ceyanne.  Served it over mixed rice with tilapia baked in foil with lemon juice, cilantro stems and fresh oregano and thyme.

Frittata in a cast iron skillet is my go-to dinner for “crap I forgot to plan dinner” nights. I usually anchor it with some pan fried potatoes. Some cheese and seasonings and I’m set, and if the veggies I have on hand don’t seem right mixed into it, they can be served on the side.

I finally read Perfection Salad and it was absolutely fascinating. I was gobsmacked to see that whereas food reformers now are all ZOMG THE HORROR NO ONE IS EATING GOOD HOMEMADE FOOD IT’S ALL TOO HOMOGENOUS AND BLAND, at the turn of the century food reformers were all ZOMG THE HORROR NO ONE IS EATING GOOD FACTORY MADE FOOD IT’S ALL TOO HETEROGENOUS AND UNSCIENTIFIC. And of course, either way, the criticism of what the working class eats is there.

At Thanksgiving last year, my aunt made a roasted root vegetable dish that included radishes.  It was a little disconcerting at first because I thought the radishes were tiny red potatoes with their skins on, but once I adjusted my expectations to what they actually were, it was good. I’m not sure what all else was in it—there were some actual potatoes, and probably carrots and maybe parsnips and/or turnips, and then she drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with herbs and baked it.  For how long, I don’t know, except that it was longer than she thought it would take, because it didn’t appear until halfway through the meal.  I haven’t made it myself because I never ended up with an involuntary excess of radishes, but if I did, that’s what I would do with them.

And of course, either way, the criticism of what the working class eats is there.

To be fair, there wasn’t any understanding of the roles vitamins play in our diet, the first one was discovered in 1910 and the last significant one in the early 40s, so there was no appreciation of the increased nutritional value of fresh veggies, fruit, and meat.

OTOH, the increased appreciation of water-soluble vitamins meant that the poor/working class Southern custom of boiling the hell out of their veggies had to be modified, so that the ‘pot likker’ would be consumed, not disposed of down the kitchen sink after said veggies were finished cooking as was the usual custom of the time.