Fresh at the farmer’s market this week are beautiful root veggies, gorgeous greens, and addictive sugar snap peas. They’re all at the height of their yumminess right now and I just want to pile them in a big bowl and gobble them up. Which is basically what this recipe is about.

Turnips, depending on who you ask, range from underappreciated to just plain scorned. But this time of year they are sweet, mellow, and still possess a hearty potato-like quality that should put them firmly in the “adored” category.

This dish is a Summery Cornucopia of Fun - a mix of crunchy, leafy, and starchy vegetables. Don’t leave out the chard - the stems give the salad a nice crunch and a beautiful magenta color. If your turnips have the greens still attached, chop those up too and sauté them with chard. And if you’re not down with hardboiled eggs you could use  tofu strips or garbanzo beans instead.

To give some credit where credit is due, this salad is inspired by a warm potato salad recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks- Peter Berley’s Fresh Foods Fast. The book focuses on full vegetarian menus, not just separate dishes, and the menus are categorized by season. So basically, you flip to the section of the current season and start going “I want to make this, and this, and this…” and it’s all laid out with helpful menu planning tips and mouthwatering photos. Some of the dishes are fancy, some of them homey, but all of them are well within the range of do-ability for an upstart vegetarian enthusiast. I wish the book was three times as thick.

serves: 3 - 4
time: 45 minutes

Warm Roasted Turnip and Sugar Snap Pea Salad

bunch of turnips (8 - 12), cut into wedges
bunch of small red onions (6 small, 3 large), cut into wedges
4 free-range eggs
1 bunch of red or rainbow chard including some stem, chopped
2 pints of sugar snap peas, ends snapped and string removed
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp flavored vinegar (I used tarragon vinegar)
1 Tbsp grainy mustard
salt and pepper

Bring a pot of water to boil and turn on the broiler.

Pile the turnips and onions on a baking sheet, coat with olive oil and broil until the turnips are spotty golden brown -about 15 minutes- turning every few minutes.

When the water is boiling, add the eggs and cook for 11 minutes on a low boil. Put the eggs in cold water to cool. Peel and cut into wedges.

Saute the chard for a few minutes until wilted.

Using the hot water from the eggs, blanch the peas for about 2 minutes. Submerge in cold water to cool to stop the cooking process.

Mix up the olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, mustard and salt and pepper. Add the turnips, onions, chard, snap peas, and egg wedges to a large bowl, pour the dressing over and mix. Serve warm, or chilled is nice too.

I’ve recently been obsessed by the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It’s essentially a year-in-the-life of a writer (who can forget the Poisonwood Bible?) and her family who decide to make eating local their priority. So they do what anyone who’s developed this itch would do: they move to Appalachian Virginia and consume only food they’ve grown themselves or has been grown by farmers within an hour’s drive. This miracle year took a stand against excessive fuel consumption, concentrated animal feeding operations, vegetable monocultures, and big business. Instead, it emphasized gratitude, respect, time with loved ones, and the deliciousness of fresh foods.

Along similar lines, the New York Times has an article today in the Dining Out section about restaurants returning to tap water rather than offering bottled. It’s been over 2500 years since the Romans built viaducts and aqueducts (so gorgeous) and in our one-upmanship for purity and “safety” many of us feel more at ease with the packaged “seal of freshness” and portability of bottled water rather than having to old-school our potables from the tap and a, gasp, reusable container we have to wash ourselves. (Depending on the quality of your local water supply you may want to get a filter too.) Thus the local food movement has moved to include beverages as well.

This salad is a little hat-tip to Ms. Kingsolver and her very laudable undertaking of eating local. It was topping off around 90 degrees this weekend in Brooklyn and all I really wanted was something green, crunchy and fresh. But I wanted something with fruit… which brings up one of the most dire problems for locavores; until late summer and fall, most fruit - unless you live in Florida or California - is far from local. The only fruit choices for me at NYC’s well-stocked Union Square Greenmarket this late May weekend were last year’s apples (still crunchy and juicy - some apples improve during storage.) In her book, Kingsolver ameliorated a late-spring fruit craving with rhubarb and if it’s good enough for her it’s good enough for me. Sautéed with unrefined sugar and balsamic vinegar, rhubarb makes a great dressing for this local salad.

Serves: 2
Time: 30 minutes

1/4 cup of walnuts, chopped (substitute local nuts if you’ve got em)
olive oil
2 very long stalks of rhubarb, sliced
1 tsp unrefined sugar or honey
1/8 tsp salt
1.5 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
a few handfuls of spring greens
2 apples, cut into matchsticks – I used the Mutsu variety
6 radishes, cut into coins

Dry-roast your nuts in a small saucepan. Set aside.

Add a pour of olive oil and sauté the sliced rhubarb for about 5 minutes. Add the sugar, salt, balsamic vinegar and another pour of olive oil and sauté a few more minutes or until the rhubarb starts to soften and lose it’s juice.

Assemble the salad with greens on the bottom, then the apples and radishes, spooning the rhubarb and the juices on top. Sprinkle with walnuts. I could also heartily endorse a local crumbly blue or goat cheese on top.
This is my entry to the very cool food event Salad Stravaganza hosted by La Mia Cucina. Also, even though I blog veggie every week, I thought I’d submit this to Eat the Right Stuff’s first blogging event, vegetables, beautiful vegetables. What a great choice for a first event!

This past Saturday was a glorious Spring day in Brooklyn - weather in the 70s with full sunshine all day. Forget raindrops on roses and even whiskers on kittens; sunshine and vegetarian food are two of my favorite things. Put them together and you’ve got is, in the words of Yogi Bear, a pic-a-nic.

Spring rolls make the perfect picnic food - light, fresh, easy to pack and fun to dip. Add a pasta, potato or fruit salad and you’re good to go for a day of frisbee and wallowing in the sun.

These spring rolls are my contribution to the new blogging event hosted by Real Epicurean, A Slice of Cherry Pie, and Cherry’s English Kitchen called “In The Bag.” The idea is that the hosts spotlight a few seasonal ingredients that go “in your bag” and you make a seasonal dish with them. Eating seasonally is great for a number of reasons, the most immediately gratifying of which is that fresh food at the peak of it’s growing season just tastes better! So kudos to these folks for starting such a great event.

Makes about 12 rolls to serve 4 as a main dish or 6-12 as an appetizer
Time: 30 minutes

Asparagus and Green Onion Spring Rolls

2 bunches of asparagus
2 bunches of green onions, sliced
1 16oz block of extra firm tofu, cut into 1/4 inch dice
2 cups of pea shoots or a carton of your favorite kind of sprouts
1.5 cups slivered almonds
15 spring roll wrappers (round rice paper wraps)

Wash the asparagus and snap off the woody part of the stems. Steam by placing a bundle (tied with a rubber band or string) upright in a large pot filled with an inch of boiling water. Cover and steam for 5 - 8 minutes. When the asparagus are bright green, take them out and plunge into a bowl of cold water. Drain and set aside in a bowl.

Prepare separate bowls of the chopped green onion, tofu, sprouts, and almonds.

Prepare your choice of dipping sauce(s). You can use the ones below or your favorite homemade or prepared sauce or dressing.

To work with the spring roll wrappers first find a shallow dish that’s large enough to soak the wrapper without folding it. Heat a kettle of water until almost boiling. Fill your dish with a half inch of water and gently submerge one spring roll wrapper being careful to keep all the edges soaking equally. Soak for a few seconds, until the whole wrapper is just translucent and pliable.

Place the wrapper on a large cutting board or table. In the bottom 1/3 of the wrapper place lengthwise two thin or one large asparagus spears. Sprinkle over some green onions, tofu, sprouts, and almonds. Holding the filling tight, fold over the bottom part of the wrapper and start to roll the filling upward, then fold in the sides and keep rolling tightly.

To store the rolls, place in a casserole dish with a moistened towel on top.

The rolls can be served whole or cut in half on an angle for a fancy look.

Truffle Dipping Sauce

truffle oil
lemon slices
sea salt
freshly grated pepper

Give each guests a small dipping bowl with a bit of truffle oil and have them squeeze in lemon and add salt and pepper to taste.

L’il Sis’s Thai Peanut Dipping Sauce

3 Tbsp peanut butter - chunky or smooth
1 tsp ginger, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup vegetable broth
3 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 - 3 tsp sugar or honey
1 tsp hot sauce
3 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped

This sauce is jotted down in the L’il Sis’s food diary. I have no idea where she got it but it’s perfect for dipping or over a Thai-style salad.  Just mix all the ingrediants together.  Sometimes it mixes better if you heat it up in the microwave or over the stove.

Yes yes, “courgette” is just a fancy way of saying zucchini. But the alliteration of “curried courgette” works a little better than “curried zucchini,” so I’m not apologizing.

I often think of zucchini as the overabundant autumnal crop that people foist upon on each other like a harvest-time fruitcake. “Oh, here’s a pretty basket of zucchini for you. And here’s some more for your mom.” “Why thank you! To show my gratitude, won’t you please take these dozen loaves of zucchini bread?”

The courgette, on the other hand, sounds much more refined: creamy but strong, little but not to be taken lightly. It takes centerstage in this springtime dish paired with Indian spices. The soft and absorbent texture of the squash works great with Indian flavoring, though strangely enough zucchini and other squash are naturally native only to the Americas. Go figure.

My cousin, who was in town visiting from Nashville, was very impressed with this dish. He said it was both warm and cool, soft and crunchy, flavorful and fresh, filling but light. What can I say? He’s right.

Serves: 4
Time: 45 minutes

Curried Courgette Wraps with Radish

3⁄4 cup red lentils
1 1⁄2 cups water
1⁄2 tsp turmeric
1⁄2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp peanut oil or 1 Tbsp oil, 1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp fresh ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1⁄2 tsp cumin seeds
4 small zucchini, cubed or cut into 1″ rectangles
3⁄4 tsp garam masala
1⁄2 tsp ground coriander
pinch of asafetida (optional)
3⁄4 - 1 lemon, juiced
3 large radishes, grated
1 head of romaine or curly-leaf lettuce, washed and separated into whole leaves
To serve: hot sauce, cooked basmati rice

The plan of attack here is to start your rice, clean and chop your veggies, and measure out your spices before you start cooking. Once you start it goes pretty quick.

To make yummy Indian rice, per 1 cup of uncooked basmati rice add: 1 1⁄2 cups water, 1⁄2 Tbsp butter, 1⁄2 tsp salt, 3 whole peppercorns, 3 whole cloves and 2 cardamom pods and a pinch of saffron (optional) and cook in a rice cooker or on the stove.

To make the curry:

Cook the lentils, water, turmeric and 1⁄2 tsp salt in a saucepan over medium heat. The lentils should be soft in about 10 minutes.

In a large skillet heat the butter and oil (or just oil) and stir-fry the ginger and garlic for a few minutes before adding the cumin seeds. Heat until fragrant. Add the zucchini and sauté for 5 minutes or until almost cooked. Stir in the lentils, garam masala, coriander, asafetida, and lemon juice. Cook together for a few minutes until the zucchini is tender and the lentils are coating the zucchini. You may have to add a touch more water if your lentils have dried out.

Taste and adjust for salt.

To assemble the wraps put a little rice and zucchini curry on a leaf of lettuce. Top with the grated radish and hot sauce, if desired.

Here’s the recipe for the Spinach and Grapefruit Salad. I described it thusly on my brunch menu:

“A light but wild salad - snappy spinach and grapefruit gets mellowed with avocado. Pistachios and Parm… Ginger Vinaigrette.”

Anyway, it’s a late winter-into-spring salad that can be served as a first course for dinner (yum with some steamed veggies and lemon-pepper tofu) or by itself for a light lunch.

Time: 25 minutes
Serves: 5

Spinach and Grapefruit Salad

2 grapefruits
2 avocados
1 bag baby spinach
1 head Boston lettuce, washed and torn into bite-sized pieces
¾ cup pistachios
approx. 1/3 cup parmesan cheese

Prepare the grapefruit: Segment the grapefruit and remove the skin and white membranes of each segment by slicing down each side of the segment. I first cut the white rind off the center curl of the segment, shimmied the skin off the sides, then sheered off the outside membrane. It’s ok if the segments break into halves or thirds; perfection is overrated.

Prepare the avocados: Cut the avocado into half lengthwise and into halves again. Remove the pit and peel off the skin. Slice each quarter into thirds or quarters lengthwise. Halve these slices widthwise so you’ve something more like a cube.

Ginger Vinaigrette

2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp white wine vinegar or champagne vinegar
1 Tbsp honey
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1 small clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper

Shake up all the dressing ingredients in a Tupperware or jar.

To assemble the salad, toss the lettuce, spinach, and grapefruit segments with the dressing. Distribute evenly on 5 plates or large salad bowls. Top each pile of salad with the avocado pieces, pistachios, and curls of parmesan cheese.