For the love of Produce...

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,166 Member
    edited February 2023
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    Lizlosesthelbs94 wrote: »
    I adore a well-prepped veggie! The meals you posted look delcious 😍 do you mind dropping your recipe for the roasted kabocha?

    Hi, @Lizlosesthelbs94 - welcome to the thread (and to the MFP Community, too, since you appear to be very new here)!

    If that was a recipe from @purplefizzy, I don't think she's around here very often anymore. But she was here in mid-December last year, so maybe. (I tagged her in this post by putting an at-sign in front of her ID where I mentioned it in this paragraph so she might get a notification that we're talking about her, if she has notifications turned on.)

    I'd offer a suggestion in what I think is the spirit of the thread: If she doesn't appear soon, give it a shot yourself based on guesses and/or web searches, and see how it goes. What's the worst that could happen? One sub-perfect meal plus a learning experience? Meh, that's no big deal, right?

    Report back here. If you didn't think it hit the mark, tell us what you did and what you thought about the result, ask for suggestions. It's fun. (If people had to be super-skilled chefs to post in the thread, I for sure wouldn't be here.)

    I'm not sure which post you're talking about in the 150 pages of this thread, so it's hard to speculate.

    If it was literally the intro post on page one, looks like she chunked up the kabocha, roasted it with the miso glaze, then added the pomegranate arils and some tahini dressing at serving time. Just a guess, though. There are a bunch of "squash with miso glaze" recipes on the web, here's a random example, but you can find others: https://heartbeetkitchen.com/roasted-kabocha-squash-miso-glaze/

    If you're not used to pomegranate and use whole pomegranate for this (vs. buy just the arils), do a web search for how to extract the arils. There are harder and easier ways. Use fresh arils or pomegranate, should be readily available - I tried frozen arils once, to my own disservice: They were sad.

    Hope we'll see more from you here! :)
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,922 Member
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    That means a lot coming from you @neanderthin, because I know you're not a uneducated experimenting amateur like I am. Thanks!

    I've seen lots of you offerings and your no slouch my friend. ;) I have a recipe that I do at the restaurant that similar and use local endive when in season.
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,623 Member
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    An Indonesian pal sent me a really interesting acar (=pickle) recipe for red cabbage spiced with cinnamon, clove, star anise. Original recipe belows tosses the red cabbage into the brining mixture just before serving but I prefer it if the cabbage has been sitting in the brine for 3 hours up to a few weeks.
    A sunny way to use a winter vegetable. Apparently invented for by Indonesian cooks for their Dutch colonial employers.
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  • widgit808
    widgit808 Posts: 193 Member
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    Cabbage soup lunches for the week. Will add egg whites after i reheat.
    I say cabbage soup but there is a ton o veggies in here.
    Cabbage, broccoli, mushroom, celery, onion, peppers, cherry tomatoes. And an entire head of garlic chopped. My seasonings a little bizarre as i use chili powder, curry powder, red pepper flakes and oregano. All bloomed in the tbl sp olive oil i use to saute onion/pepper/mushroom.

    Doesnt look pretty but still tasty.
  • Athijade
    Athijade Posts: 3,247 Member
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    For those of us in the northern hemisphere, anyone else just trying to look forward to winter being over? I find I eat so much better when I have better access to fresh fruits and vegetables. I may try some new Farmer's Markets this year (moved to where I am last Fall so didn't have much time to explore before things closed for the season), but there is a small one just down the street I can walk to.
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,242 Member
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    Athijade wrote: »
    For those of us in the northern hemisphere, anyone else just trying to look forward to winter being over? I find I eat so much better when I have better access to fresh fruits and vegetables. I may try some new Farmer's Markets this year (moved to where I am last Fall so didn't have much time to explore before things closed for the season), but there is a small one just down the street I can walk to.

    I am already enjoying the earlier sunrises and longer days. We are in the time of year when the daylight is increasin at its most rapid pace. Soon the dark and light will be balanced. I'm about halfway from the Equator to the North Pole, but in a place with relatively mild winters. I'm fortunate that there are some fresh vegetables available year-round. I just have to change which ones are my go-to local options this time of year. Root vegetables and winter greens are still available. While they aren't local by any means, I also love this time of year because the Ruby Grapefruits are in season. I only buy them a few months per year at most when they are great, and now they are. My local food co-op has a "Citrus Week" this time of year where they highlight so many different kinds of citrus, mostly from California, and have it on sale. They do a sampling event that I usually end up missing, but I happened upon it this year and got to try some new things. That was fun.

    Yesterday I made fresh local celeriac and fresh local parsnips. I roasted them. On a whim, I added some unsweetened cocoa powder to the spice mix for the parsnips. It was so delicious; I will for sure do that again. I have no idea what motivated me to try it, but I'm glad I did.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,166 Member
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    I'm medium-far into the North (palm of Michigan in US), with Winters that are certainly mostly below freezing, and can be sub-zero F. Some of our farmers markets - true locals selling - are main growing season only, but a few go all Winter. A lot of the produce in Winter is storage root vegetables and some fruits (apples, mostly), but there are also some greens (from greenhouses all Winter, and greens or some in-ground root veggies from row hoops or insulated beds during the shoulder seasons if not longer). Parsnips are better (sweeter) if they go through a freeze. Microgreens and potted herbs are available most of the Winter, plus a good variety of local mushroom varieties.

    Some of the Asian markets have good fresh product in Winter, and we're also lucky that this mid-sized city has a fabulous produce (and more) market. It's on the far side of town from me, but I do get over there occasionally. They have bounteous variety and quantity of imported and local fresh produce all year long, and a fair bit is fresh and good-quality enough to be satisfying even in deep Winter. Prices are good, though obviously exotic things tend toward higher prices.

    These are from there, December 9 2022, but it's a very small sample of the vast selection, and I think I focused more on the more unusual and slightly more expensive stuff:

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    So, yes, I do look forward to the season where we have more peak-freshness local produce, but there's a lot of pretty good stuff here if I go out and get it.
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,623 Member
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    @Athijade I ageee with @AnnPT77 that if you are trying to stick to locally grown, the asian brassicas are a good bet. They taste less cabbage-y than a lot of western brassicas.

    Here is the Nam Prik Ong I made to used up the last of the crudites from the weekend party.
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  • Athijade
    Athijade Posts: 3,247 Member
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    To give an idea, I live in Chicago. We do have a really good Chinatown which I want to get to at some point, but I don't drive in the city and often it has just been too cold for the walk to the train stations to get down there. Other then that, I am not aware of any winter markets here though I will also admit that there may be some and I just have not found them yet. I have only been here since September.

    I am lucky that the local Jewel Osco I can walk to has had some good options all winter. Not all local, but a good selection. There is just a difference to me between picking it up at the farmer's market vs the grocery store. Maybe that's weird. I don't know.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,166 Member
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    Athijade wrote: »
    To give an idea, I live in Chicago. We do have a really good Chinatown which I want to get to at some point, but I don't drive in the city and often it has just been too cold for the walk to the train stations to get down there. Other then that, I am not aware of any winter markets here though I will also admit that there may be some and I just have not found them yet. I have only been here since September.

    I am lucky that the local Jewel Osco I can walk to has had some good options all winter. Not all local, but a good selection. There is just a difference to me between picking it up at the farmer's market vs the grocery store. Maybe that's weird. I don't know.

    No, not weird IMO. I can understand that: The summer farmers markets are energizing for me, too.

    Also, it wouldn't have occurred to me before, because big cities usually have more/better local commercial sources, but I guess there's a plus to living in a more moderate-sized metro area: It's not a huge drive (time or miles) even all the way across town, and even our worst driving conditions (aside from weather issues) aren't as bad as routine driving in big, congested metros. The public transit is not super convenient from where I live (less dense 'burb), but there is some. It's a driving kind of area, though, for those who can.

    FWIW, our Winter markets are tiny, but I've made it a point to seek out what's in the area and track it. That's usually easiest here to get a handle on in Summer, then follow newsletters or websites to see what they offer in off-season. I hope you'll be able to find some Good Stuff as you settle into your new area, things that are logistically convenient.
  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,940 Member
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    I’ve been reading news reports about the sorry state of fresh produce lately and was wondering if it was just another media ‘OMG let’s all panic’ exaggeration here in the U.K..

    But, here’s a photo of what I saw today at my local, preferred supermarket

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    Mildly terrifying to someone whose diet is at least 80% entirely vegetable driven. A shortage of tomatoes and peppers leaves me stuck.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,166 Member
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    @BarbaraHelen2013, that's really scary! I wonder if we'll be moving in a similar direction, given how much of US produce comes from the Southwest, and with their Colorado river water source in a pretty dire, heading-for-crisis state. 😬 I hope you'll see improvements in supply, soon!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,166 Member
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    Snack - or maybe it will turn out to be part of a grazing-style lunch - of sliced kiwi plus some roasted eggplant rounds topped with melted Jarlsberg cheese, spicy microgreens, aged balsamic vinegar, fresh-ground black pepper, and just the very lightest sprinkle of coarse sea salt.

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    I considered dill mustard instead of balsamic, and in retrospect that might've been a better choice, but this was pretty tasty as it was. I'm loving that greens are increasing at the farmers market, though several types of micros have been around most of the Michigan Winter.

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