For the love of Produce...

just_Tomek wrote: »

mtaratoot wrote: »

I thought, "For sure you can roast an onion." I looked it up, and, well... yes you can. So I tried.



The mushrooms and potatoes were done sooner, so I stuck the onion back in the oven for a while. Definitely delicious! Onion flavored delicate goodness.

Wrap the whole onion in foil and roast. It wilk almost melt. You can use it as spread on toast or mix into your roasted vegg. It gets almost sweet. Do the same with whole head of garlic.

For garlic I just cut off the top (or not) and drizzle a little olive oil (or not) and bake slowly; turns to mush eventually, but if you take it out a little before that you can pop the cloves out of the husks and eat 'em like roasted peanuts. I may try to roast an onion lower; maybe in foil. It was ok, and hokey smokes my lunch filled me up so much I don't even know if I'll cook supper!

Many years ago, I used to host an annual event I called the "Too Much Garlic Potluck." Rules were pretty simple, bring your favorite "too much" garlic dish to share, a smile, a plate, and a fork. I actually used to think there was no such thing as "too much" garlic. Well, one year I remember standing around in the back yard eating globe after globe of roasted garlic. This was in addition to everything else. The next day - wow. It wasn't food poisoning, but holy cow. The amount of garlic fumes coming off my tongue were incredible. I should revive this tradition some time.

A few things I've remembered across all the years include a savory pumpkin pie that I shamelessly adopted as my own recipe. It had millet to help hold it together, and lots of garlic (and onions and other spices). For years I'd always take one to a community Thanksgiving potluck. It would go something like this: Come in, say hi, put the pie down on the table with dinner items, go take off my coat, come back and take the pie OFF of the dessert table and put it BACK on the dinner serving table. It never failed; some "helpful" person would move it to the dessert table. Someone would be in for a surprise! It's really good by the way. Another was a friend who brought chocolate-dipped raw garlic cloves. To be honest, the taste was great. The thing that wasn't great was he used softneck garlic, and it really was raw. It was way too "hot" to really enjoy after the first three chews. It was so strong it made it hard to taste anything else. If he had briefly parboiled them, it would really have been awesome. I've never tried to make these, but they'd be good. It could be done with LIGHTLY roasted cloves, too. No olive oil, though. There were always lots of pasta dishes, humus, and... and ...... Oh. Yeah. I should!

AnnPT77 wrote: »

just_Tomek wrote: »

mtaratoot wrote: »

I thought, "For sure you can roast an onion." I looked it up, and, well... yes you can. So I tried.



The mushrooms and potatoes were done sooner, so I stuck the onion back in the oven for a while. Definitely delicious! Onion flavored delicate goodness.

Wrap the whole onion in foil and roast. It wilk almost melt. You can use it as spread on toast or mix into your roasted vegg. It gets almost sweet. Do the same with whole head of garlic.

This is the route I like best, too: These thick but quick-to-carbonize things, like whole onions and garlic, get a better chance to roast all the way through to that sweeter, richer, more carmelized stage, when wrapped.

I need to do the comparison test, but flavorwise, I think I'd like @purplefizzy's wrapped slow-roast start for cauliflower, too, over steaming; and pretty sure I'd prefer it to par-boiling. Maybe it's unscientific of me (maybe, h***!), but I feel like boiling leaches flavor out of things, and roasting concentrates it.

How long do you bake the onions? Sorry if I missed it in an earlier post.

Dnarules wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

just_Tomek wrote: »

mtaratoot wrote: »

I thought, "For sure you can roast an onion." I looked it up, and, well... yes you can. So I tried.



The mushrooms and potatoes were done sooner, so I stuck the onion back in the oven for a while. Definitely delicious! Onion flavored delicate goodness.

Wrap the whole onion in foil and roast. It wilk almost melt. You can use it as spread on toast or mix into your roasted vegg. It gets almost sweet. Do the same with whole head of garlic.

This is the route I like best, too: These thick but quick-to-carbonize things, like whole onions and garlic, get a better chance to roast all the way through to that sweeter, richer, more carmelized stage, when wrapped.

I need to do the comparison test, but flavorwise, I think I'd like @purplefizzy's wrapped slow-roast start for cauliflower, too, over steaming; and pretty sure I'd prefer it to par-boiling. Maybe it's unscientific of me (maybe, h***!), but I feel like boiling leaches flavor out of things, and roasting concentrates it.

How long do you bake the onions? Sorry if I missed it in an earlier post.

With apologies, I haven't the faintest idea.

I'm very slapdash: After having been cooking for many decades now, I have fair confidence that most things will turn out OK without structure (though there are exceptions, like souffle, certain baked goods, etc. - those, I'm careful ).

For roasting veggies, I mostly put things in the oven, usually around 425F but it might vary if I have other things to bake alongside, and I check on them after a period of time. For a lot of things, that initial period at 425 is 20-30 minutes. If it's foil-wrapped, I'd squeeze it a little with my terrycloth oven mitt or potholder, and maybe open it up to look after it was squishy enough that it might be done enough.

Perhaps @just_Tomek may have more helpful specific guidance for you. :flowerforyou:

AnnPT77 wrote: »

DancingMoosie wrote: »

Omg...I think I need to roast an onion now😉 I did a grocery pick up yesterday and got a big beautiful bunch of cilantro. It won't last long, so I'm going to have to put it on pretty much everything this week. I also got kale, tomatoes, carrots, and have leftover green cabbage. Suggestions???

Do you have any shelled pumpkin or sunflower seeds, or something like that, and some decent oil? I had a recipe a million years ago for a seed & cilantro pesto, so that concept might be worth an experiment, since pesto keeps well in the freezer (a dedicated ice cube tray is nice for this, in serving-sized lumps - dedicated, because it can hold the flavor of the aromatics, if plastic).

Unfortunately, no, only a little sesame.

just_Tomek wrote: »

Dnarules wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

just_Tomek wrote: »

mtaratoot wrote: »

I thought, "For sure you can roast an onion." I looked it up, and, well... yes you can. So I tried.



The mushrooms and potatoes were done sooner, so I stuck the onion back in the oven for a while. Definitely delicious! Onion flavored delicate goodness.

Wrap the whole onion in foil and roast. It wilk almost melt. You can use it as spread on toast or mix into your roasted vegg. It gets almost sweet. Do the same with whole head of garlic.

This is the route I like best, too: These thick but quick-to-carbonize things, like whole onions and garlic, get a better chance to roast all the way through to that sweeter, richer, more carmelized stage, when wrapped.

I need to do the comparison test, but flavorwise, I think I'd like @purplefizzy's wrapped slow-roast start for cauliflower, too, over steaming; and pretty sure I'd prefer it to par-boiling. Maybe it's unscientific of me (maybe, h***!), but I feel like boiling leaches flavor out of things, and roasting concentrates it.

How long do you bake the onions? Sorry if I missed it in an earlier post.

As my mom would tell me "until its done" lol

I really like to make a batch at once and do them at 350F for couple hours wrapped in foil. When you squeeze them, they will be very soft. Allow them to cool, place in a jar and they will be good on everything in the fridge for a week. They will not burn in foil, so basically just give them a squeeze test or open one up and see whats happening after an hour or so.

Same with garlic. Wrap it and cook the same way as the onions.

For hard root veggies roast at 425F for 30min, toss / flip and them watch it for another 15min as they will start to get nice and dark.

Each veggie is different and we all like them done to different doneness. Whats perfect to me might be burnt to others and vice versa.

Thanks!

DancingMoosie wrote: »

just_Tomek wrote: »

DancingMoosie wrote: »

Tomek, for cabbage "steaks" I don't have tahini. Could I just roast in the oven with Bragg's or Dijon?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!! joking

Do whatever you like. Maybe you wont even want any sauce. And the sauce goes on after they are roasted.

I baked a hunk of cabbage(rubbed with olive oil and a drizzle of Bragg's) and then ate it with a bit of Dijon. It was good, so I'm going to do the same with what's left of the cabbage tomorrow with my dinner.

I've been roasting hispi cabbage too. Love it like this. I melted a little goose fat in the roasting tin over the job and slide the cut sides through the fat then turned cut sides up to roast at 200C for 30 minutes.

OK, so here's some other images of the artichoke forest:

In the first image, you can see the top, main flower plus two more on the main branch. All three of these will get to full-size. The secondary ones will fill in after I cut the top one.




In the second image, you can BARELY see a "baby artichoke" in the branch angle just below the very center of the image. You might need to zoom in.




These are the plants with "more aggressive" spines. I always cut the stems long so there's a nice handle, but there's sometimes even thorns on the stem. My friend told me that when he was in Spain (I think it was Spain), they always had artichokes on VERY long stems. He said they take the stem, peel it, and soak it in lemon water and then eat it. Sounds interesting; I'm going to try that, and I'll cut the stems even LONGER so he can try it too. Of course the plants I dug for them are producing this year, so maybe he can cut some of his own.

Wonder how I decide which plants to dig up? The ones that are infringing on the garden path of course!