Tag: turnip

Like this, but with a local twist…

One of the most important ways to contain your food costs is to never waste. This week, we bought local produce. Yes, the cheese is imported, but we could just have easily used a local variety, if we hadn’t had to use this kind up.

Here’s a link to the original recipe – although practically every ingredient is changed. For the turnip, we used its larger purple and yellow cousin, the rutabaga. We also swapped out the beans for kidney beans we had on hand – in our case cooked without salt and a little chili powder. Red cabbage was swapped for green, and pecorino for Manchego. Even the vinegar was subbed with our homemade wine vinegar.

The result? Every bit as delicious. Vegans can easily use soy cheese,  and although the recipe suggested this as a side, it’s so good, full of fibre and colour that the two of us split it as a main.

  
Stay tuned as we find more ways to make our limited supply of local produce look fresh and exciting!

Incredible Grill-Roasted Veggies

These veggies are as fresh as can be – harvested in our own garden and roasted within minutes of being picked.

Choose your own mix of veg and herbs. Chop into bite-sized pieces, toss with a little olive oil and wrap in a double layer of foil. Put this on your grill while it’s heating, turning occasionally. It’ll be done when your steak or pork chop is cooked. Not grilling meat? About 10 minutes (plus the preheating time) should do the trick.

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What to Eat for Winter's Last Hurrah

The calendar SAYS it’s spring, but the wild weather we’ve been having here on the east coast sure doesn’t seem like it. Somewhere between “the best defense is a good offense” and “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”, we came up with last night’s dinner idea.

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On the table in a couple of hours, while we watched the freezing rain coating the trees outside: Apple braised veal shank with roasted winter vegetables. We started with some delicious veal shank from Halifax’s Seaport Market. Four servings meant we would have leftovers for today’s lunch.

After browning the shanks in olive oil, we put them aside on a plate and added a sliced onion, a sliced clove of garlic, and a stalk of celery to the pan, stirring until translucent. At the same time, we reconstituted a package of wild dried mushrooms in 1-3/4c boiling water and 1/4c or 60ml apple brandy in a heatproof measuring cup. 2c/500ml of apple slices went in next, along with 1c/250ml of sliced fresh mushrooms, and the reconstituted fungi and their broth. A sprinkle of tarragon and nutmeg rounded out the flavour.

We nestled the shanks in the vegetable mix, and covered it in preparation for the next step.

Meanwhile, in a separate casserole dish, we put a carrot, a small turnip, and some sweet potato, roughly chunked. This was tossed with dried rosemary, and 2T/30ml each of olive oil and maple syrup.

Everything went into a 350F oven for the remainder of the 2 hours. The meat was strictly “do not disturb”, but we stirred the veg about 3 times.

Our conclusion? Winter WILL go away eventually, but until then, we will stave off the chill with one last go at some of our favourite winter recipes.
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