Beautiful Beets by Peggy Paul Casella The beet plant is an ancient member of the chenopod or goosefoot family of vegetables, along with chard and spinach, and its leaves are similar in taste and texture to that of its relatives. In fact, the greens—not the sweet red root we think of when we think of
MoreCrunchy Leaves for Fall by Peggy Paul Casella Not only is cabbage one of the most ancient vegetables available today, it’s also one of the most hardy and versatile. When temperatures plunge in late fall and the first frost wilts most other vegetables and leafy greens (like its cousin kale), this brassica only improves in
More1 min read
Spicy Sprouts by Peggy Paul Casella For a short window of time, from September through December, you can find knobby Brussels sprout stalks at farmers markets and some grocery stores across our region. These mini brassicas are one of the healthiest vegetables around, with more vitamin C per serving than oranges and lots of vitamins
More1 min read
A New Take on Cauliflower by Peggy Paul Casella Mark Twain once said, “Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.” Though it’s often upstaged by its flashier, green-hued cousin broccoli, cauliflower has many unique attributes and nutritional benefits that should earn it a place in your regular meal rotation all season long. It
More1 min read
A Fresh Take on Fruit Salad by Peggy Paul Casella Welcome to the sweetest time of the year, when bins of fragrant, bowling-ball-size melons crowd farmers market stalls and grocery store displays. Though you may think they belong to the botanical family their name suggests, watermelons come from a completely different genus—Citrullus—and are actually classified
More1 min read
Mad About Maize by Peggy Paul Cassella Most experts agree that the wild ancestor of corn (or maize, as it’s called in other countries) can be traced to Central and South America about 70,000 years ago. After it was domesticated around 7500 B.C., it became a mainstay of the ancient Native American diet and remains
More2 mins read
Short and Sweet by Peggy Paul Casella Large, watery, cone-shaped strawberries are available any time at the grocery store, but if you want the real thing—fragrant, red all the way through, with juices that dribble down your chin—you have to wait for that sweet spot in the year, when late spring meets early summer. Strawberries
More1 min read
A Parade of Radishes by Peggy Paul Casella This time of year, fresh-picked radishes are hard to miss at the farmers market, all piled up with their neon-colored tubers facing out. So if you’ve only ever thought of them as a garnish, now is your best chance to give these ancient brassicas a second look.
More1 min read
Stalking the Spring by Peggy Paul Casella Spring hasn’t really sprung until you’ve snatched up your first bunch of asparagus from the local farmers market. It livens up any dish with its grassy, floral flavor, and the prep work—bending each spear until it snaps toward the bottom end—was one of my first kitchen tasks as
More1 min read
Spring Alliums by Peggy Paul Casella These adolescent stalks are the first signs of green at the market—culled from farmers’ fields to make room for bulbs from remaining garlic and onion plants to swell underground. They are less pungent than their mature counterparts, with zingy, front-of-the-mouth flavors. And their svelte bulbs and leaves add just
More2 mins read