You can certainly have your lavender (I love it too) and your patchouli. But when I need scent to make me feel better, I turn to the kitchen. There is nothing as uplifting as the aroma of sauteeing onions in butter. It smells delicious and reminds me of happy times in my grandmother’s and mother’s kitchens. It is the great beginning for just about anything savory and tongue pleasing.
Spinach with onions
Minced onion and garlic sauteed in a little olive oil and a touch of butter brings a simple green like spinach to something sublime. This is a wonderful dish all by itself, but can also be added to soups, stews, risotto, eggs………only limited by imagination.
One of my favorite breakfasts:
Spinach and Avocado Toast
(called tartine if you want to be fancy – a tartine is a slice of bread with a sweet or savory topping.
1 medium bunch spinach, coarsely chopped
¼ onion, chopped finely
1 T. olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
2 slices whole grain bread
Grainy brown mustard
2 oz. your choice of cheese
½ avocado (optional)
spinach toast with avocado and sriracha sauce
Sriracha (optional)
Saute onion and spinach in olive oil until the spinach wilts. Salt and pepper to taste. Toast bread, spread with mustard and pile on spinach and avocado if using. Top with cheese. Broil until cheese melts.
If you are a mushroom fan (believe it or not, some are not), this is a delectable, warming way to use just about any kind of mushrooms.
Vitamins galore
Packed with over a dozen minerals and vitamins, including copper, potassium, magnesium, zinc and B vitamins, mushrooms also contain antioxidants which help protect cells from damage and reduce chronic disease and inflammation. Also, mushrooms contain Vitamin D, the only produce that does, and you can increase that amount by setting your mushrooms on the windowsill for more sun exposure.
Immune system, depression
If you look up mushrooms and the immune system you’ll find all sorts of research showing how different types can boost your immune system, lower cholesterol, decrease anxiety and depression, improve sleep and clear brain fog. We’re not talking magic mushrooms here – just the culinary ones that are readily available.
Roasted mushrooms lend an even deeper flavor
Mushroom varieties
The standard white mushroom is perfectly acceptable, but you can give the soup added flavor with portobellos, shiitakes, or any other wild mushrooms. The only one recipe doesn’t work well with is the puffball – they are simply too mushy when cooked this way. Serve with whole grain crusty bread and a fresh salad for a complete, easy meal.
Sliced portobello mushrooms
Creamy Mushroom Soup
3 oz. mushrooms sliced ½ medium onion diced 1 clove garlic minced 2 T. butter 2 c. chicken stock ¼ c. white wine 1 medium russet diced ½ c. heavy cream Salt and pepper
Sauté mushrooms in 1 T. butter; set aside. Sauté onion and garlic in remaining butter until soft. Add stock, potatoes and wine and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes are soft, 20-25 minutes. Add half the mushrooms to the pan and puree with a stick blender. Add remaining mushrooms and cream. Warm but don’t boil. Serves 2.
Vegan option:
Replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock. Replace the heavy cream with coconut milk. Saute in olive oil.
Let’s be honest – none of us is perfect. Including the vegetables we so carefully nurture in our gardens. But why shun the forked carrot, the split beet or the knobby tomato in favor of their more perfect counterparts? If a peach has a bruise, can’t we just cut it out and enjoy the rest of the peach?
Food waste is an international issue, and one of the best ways to help stop food waste is to shift our thinking to accepting imperfect vegetables and fruits in our own kitchens and at our tables.
I’ve recently become acquainted with a wonderful organization called Bounty and Soul (https://bountyandsoul.org/), whose mission is to get food and nutrition and wellness education into everyone’s hands and to build community while doing it. I get to help out with cooking demonstrations and food distribution at their markets.
Bounty and Soul market
Every week I see wonderful smiles as people from all types of life walk away with not only free food, but information on nutrition bringing the food to their tables. Much of the food is donated by local farmers, markets and groceries, and the truth is that it’s not the picture perfect produce you see in the grocery store. It is all perfectly serviceable and delicious, just not perfect in appearance.
The French started a national campaign several years ago called “The Inglourious Fruit.” It was a public relations campaign to get French citizens to slow food waste by purchasing and eating those fruits and vegetables that are not perfect. These were discounted in grocery stores and markets, and the campaign was a huge success.
There is a new website from which you can order imperfect vegetables and fruit and have it delivered right to your door. Check out https://www.imperfectfoods.com/ for great information on food waste, not to mention access to wonderful produce. Their slogan is “Eat Ugly With Us”.
For my own resolution to reducing food waste, I’ve started keeping all my vegetable trimmings and am using them to make a delicious broth for soups. As I trim vegetables for a meal, I make sure to wash the leftovers well (getting all the dirt out of the onion top), and then throw them in a bag in the freezer. Once I have a bag full of not-so pretty beet greens, carrot tops, leek greens, parsley, mushrooms stems and cilantro stems, I put them in a slow cooker along with the remains of tomatoes and a few garlic cloves. I cover with plenty of water and let simmer twelve hours or so.
Once it’s done, I either strain the broth, squeezing out all the liquid I can, or I puree it (depending on what vegetables I’ve used). With a seasoning adjustment, this becomes the base for a delicious, nutritious soup. You can use it right away or freeze it for later.
“Glut” sauce ready to roast
My other favorite way to save the uglies is to make a batch of “glut” where everything goes in to roast and then gets pureed for a pasta sauce or spaghetti sauce base. This is the perfect way to use all of those tomatoes toward the end of summer. You can add any other vegetables and herbs you have an abundance of. It will taste a little different each time, but that’s the fun! Because it is milled, you don’t have to core the tomatoes or peel anything. Simply make sure everything is washed well.
Sauce for the freezer
6 lbs. tomatoes, quartered (or for an eggplant-based sauce, substitute eggplants)
1 ½ c. coarsely chopped carrots, tops and all
1 ½ c. coarsely chopped celery
1 ½ c. coarsely chopped onion
9 gloves garlic, chopped
6 T balsamic vinegar
1 bay leaf
1 ½ T fresh thyme, oregano, basil, parsley
1 ½ t. salt
1 T. pepper
Roast 45 minutes or until vegetables are soft. Run through a food mill, bag and freeze. Makes 2 quarts. Use for pasta sauce, over fish or chicken, or use as a base for chili or minestrone.
The nip of frost in the air and the smell of wood smoke outdoors are sublime companions to the scents of cinnamon baked apples and nutmeg-laced butternut squash in the kitchen. This is the perfect time to raid the last of the farmers’ markets and pumpkin farms to pick up the end-of-season bargain squash in every hue and flavor. Load the car with pie pumpkins, buttercups, Turk’s turbans, blue hubbards and kubochas.
Storing squash and pumpkins
Winter squash and pumpkins can be stored for months in a cool basement if you wash them with soapy water and dry them well. Store on wire racks in a cold room. A basement that stays in the 50’s is just about the right temperature.
Pumpkins are king
Red Pumpkin
Pumpkins are the kings of winter squash. Pumpkin pie made from fresh pumpkin is unlike anything you’ve ever tasted, and pumpkin is also delicious when baked and mashed like potatoes. Look for small pie pumpkins, cheddar pumpkin, Cinderella pumpkin and pink or green pumpkins.
Easy to bake
Butternut squash ready for baking
Although often daunting because of the size, all it takes to bake most winter squashes is to cut them in half and invert them on a rimmed cookie sheet. You can remove the seeds before baking, especially if you want to toast the seeds, or you can bake with the seeds intact and remove them after baking. They come out more easily this way.
Bake for an hour or so at 350 degrees, depending on the size of the squash. Serve with butter, brown sugar, maple syrup or stuffed with whatever sounds luscious. All winter squashed are cooked the same way, and can be interchanged in almost any recipe.
Freeze it
The cooked flesh freezes well, and if you measure it into freezer bags in one cup batches, it’s ready to pull out for use whenever the mood hits to make muffins or squash bread. Or soup!
Spaghetti squash
Spaghetti squash and pie pumpkins
Spaghetti squash is a little different in that when it is cooked, you can separate the flesh into strands that really do resemble spaghetti. The “spaghetti” is delicious with a little butter and parmesan or even spaghetti sauce. And it doesn’t have the high calories of pasta.
My favorite recipe of the season is squash or pumpkin soup, flavored in any number of ways.
Easy Squash Soup
small butternut squash, pumpkin or other winter squash
1 c. chopped onion
2 t. oil
5 c. chicken or vegetable broth
2 T. molasses
1 t. curry powder or 2 T. red curry paste
¾ t. salt
1/8 t. cayenne or more to taste
⅔ c. half and half or coconut milk
Sliced red sweet or chili peppers for garnish
Mix onions with oil and spread on pan around squash. Roast at 425 45 minutes or until tender. Scoop out pulp, measure about three cups, and add with rest of ingredients to heavy pot. Bring to boil and simmer 5 minutes. Puree in blender and return to pan. Add half and half or coconut milk and warm until heated.
Serve with a drizzle of Sriracha or coconut milk, sliced red chilis, crumbled crisp bacon if you have meat eaters in the house, or chopped parsley or cilantro if desired.
Kate's Garden Kitchen 
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