A Shared CSA Story, or Root Vegetables and More Root Vegetables

We have very special guests in today’s post who you may be seeing a lot more – Rachel and Jon!  For those who do not know these two, they live directly across the street from Mark and me and we now share a bimonthlyCSA box.  We’ve crossed the street on vegetable box delivery days with the goal of using as many items from our shared box as possible for dinner. 

This week our box contained:

• Green peppers
• Chives
• Romaine (maybe? No one is quite sure – if it was romaine, it was the biggest romaine I have ever seen)
• Another mystery green we made up a name for
• White turnips
• A sweet potato
• Kale
• Butternut squash

Not in the box, but worth a mention:

• Farm-fresh eggs and tomatoes from Jon’s family in Indiana

While we didn’t use everything in the box, I think we made a good showing.  Plus, this entire dinner is vegetarian!  I should quote here, although some of you will not believe me, Mark said the following after cleaning his plate: “I really didn’t miss the meat.”

Honey-Roasted Root Vegetable Salad

(We started with this recipe from Food & Wine, but adjusted it to use what we had in our CSA box.)

Roasted Veggies:

1 big sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1 pound turnips, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons honey, warmed
1 tablespoon chopped sage leaves
4 ounces fresh goat cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup minced fresh herbs (we used chives and flat-leaf parsley)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (I would skip that next time, personally)

Salad:

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon minced herbs, such as chives, tarragon and flat-leaf parsley
Salt and freshly ground pepper
4 cups romaine or whatever that thing was

Preheat oven to 400.  Toss the sweet potato and turnip pieces with olive oil and spread on a baking sheet.  The recipe asks you to salt and pepper them here, but some of us forgot and so we added it after roasted and no one cared.  Roast until soft, about 40 minutes.  Remove from oven and drizzle with honey and chopped sage leaves.  Roast again for about 20 minutes.  If they are soft and looked glazed, these guys are done!


In a bowl mix the goat cheese with the olive oil, then stir in the herbs.  I would not add the olive oil if I make this again.  As Mark said, it made the goat cheese look like tuna salad.  It was still delicious though.


Wash the greens well, rip them up and toss them in a salad bowl.  Whisk up the dressing.  Add one or two tablespoons to the greens. Add the rest to the roasted veggies and toss.  


Arrange the greens on the plate, top with veggies and a dollop of the goat cheese and you're done!


A close up:

Butternut Squash Lasagna

For our main course, we made a butternut squash lasagna with homemade noodles.  We used this recipe from epicurious.com as our base, but skipped the hazelnuts.  No one missed them!

For squash filling

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 4 teaspoons chopped fresh sage

For sauce

• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 5 cups milk
• 1 bay leaf (not California)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon white pepper

For assembling lasagne

• 1 lb fresh mozzarella, coarsely grated (4 cups)
• 1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (3 oz)
• Jon's lasagna noodles, or a box of no boil noodles

 

Have Mark make the filling:
Cook onion in butter in a deep 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 10 minutes. Add squash, garlic, salt, and white pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until squash is just tender, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in parsley, and sage. Cool filling. 

Have Jon make the noodles.  All I know about this is that the farm eggs were used the noodles were bright yellow.  You'll have to ask him the rest...

Make sauce while squash cooks:
Cook garlic in butter in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, stirring, 1 minute. Whisk in flour and cook roux, whisking, 3 minutes. Add milk in a stream, whisking. Add bay leaf and bring to a boil, whisking constantly, then reduce heat and simmer, whisking occasionally, 10 minutes. Whisk in salt and white pepper and remove from heat. Discard bay leaf. (Cover surface of sauce with wax paper if not using immediately.) 

Assemble lasagne (and yes, we doubled the cheese):

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Toss cheeses together. Spread 1/2 cup sauce in a buttered 13- by 9- by 2-inch glass baking dish (or other shallow 3-quart baking dish) and cover with 3 pasta sheets, leaving spaces between sheets. Spread with 2/3 cup sauce and one third of filling, then sprinkle with a heaping 1/2 cup cheese. Repeat layering 2 more times, beginning with pasta sheets and ending with cheese. Top with remaining 3 pasta sheets, remaining sauce, and remaining cheese. 

Tightly cover baking dish with buttered foil and bake lasagne in middle of oven 30 minutes. Remove foil and and bake (we broiled!) until golden and bubbling, 10 to 15 minutes more.  Let lasagne stand 15 to 20 minutes before serving. Or 10 minutes if you can't wait.