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Posts tagged “Ingredients - Vegetables”

What Should I Do With These Garlic Greens?
Good Questions

Q:At the market this weekend, I bought what I was told to be garlic greens (see pictures). I had to have them, they are beautiful! Are they garlic greens? I've never cooked with these before, any su...

Tip: How to Cook the Sweetest Sweet Potatoes

Getting the sweetest sweet potatoes isn't about picking out the ripest or most promising potatoes in the bunch. Nope! Rather, a little culinary magic trick will transform your toughest tubers into del...

Thanksgiving Sides: 5 Alternatives to Creamed Pearl Onions

Last week, we gave you alternatives to traditional Thanksgiving sides like sweet potatoes, green beans, and cranberries. Here's another: pearl onions. If your only encounters with pearl onions have ...

Reader Tip: Add Beet to Poached Pears for Color

Look at these spectacular ruby-hued poached pears. Gorgeous! We love poached fruit, and, inspired by David Lebovitz, we've been planning on poaching a couple pounds of pears this weekend. Well, reader...

Ingredient Spotlight: Long Beans

Perhaps you've seen this vegetable at Asian grocery stores or at farmer's markets. These long bundles of green (or purple!) pods are usually gathered together with a rubber band. Usually called Chin...

Seeking Inspiration: How to Make Salads Interesting?

In anticipation of the rich holiday meals we'll be enjoying over the next few months (and the subsequent leftovers), we're trying to get into the habit of taking salads for lunch. But we know ourselve...

Tip: Add Rutabaga To Mashed Potatoes

The first time I had mashed potatoes with rutabagas was at a friend's house. She had cooked dinner for us, and asked her why the mashed potatoes were a particular golden color with such a rich flavor...

To Peel Or Not To Peel?

A couple we know recently asked us to settle a debate. He always peeled carrots before cooking; she thought it was wasteful and unnecessary. We told them what we do, but we're also curious to hear fro...

Ingredient Spotlight: What's a Rutabaga?

Perhaps you've passed that section of the produce aisle in your local grocery store where they have the vegetables that most people don't know how to cook. Vegetables like celery root, parsnips, turn...

Favorite Fall Combination: Pasta and Squash

We are pretty close to overdosing on pasta dishes with squash. It's one of our very favorite things to eat this time of year. Butternut, acorn, delicata... you name it. The sweetness and creaminess...

H is for Hominy! What Is It and How Is It Used?

Once you've had hominy, you're not likely to forget it! These big kernels of corn are puffy and chewy with a very unique flavor owing to a special processing technique. We absolutely love hominy and w...

Pumpkins, Persimmons, & Pomegranates (& Costumes!)
Joshua Tree, California

On Saturday mornings, nestled into the foothills of the Mojave desert, the Joshua Tree farmers' market welcomes everyone from free-spirited locals to military base families, park rangers, and touris...

Five Ways to Eat: 22 Wonderful Healthy Ingredients!

During October we paired up with Social Workout to bring you some tips and help for healthier eating. One day a week we brought you a healthy ingredient, and Social Workout paired it up with an exerci...

Food Science: Why Cooked Vegetables Turn Bright Green

Like Elizabeth, we like something green on our dinner plate, both to round out a full meal and for that bright pop of color. In fact, the transformation of vegetables like spinach and broccoli from da...

Five Ways to Eat: Pumpkin

We're surrounded by pumpkin this time of year! Pumpkin is one of the most delicious gourds; its deep orange flesh and sweet flavor make it a wonderful food on the fall table. But you don't have to be ...

Tonight on PBS: The Botany of Desire

Are you as excited as we are about the PBS premiere of "The Botany of Desire"? Based on Michael Pollan's best-selling book of the same name, the documentary examines the relationship between people an...

Autumn Supper: Savory Stuffed Pumpkin

Reader Jaime sent us a note about this stuffed pumpkin recipe she's been making for dinner lately, and it looked so spectacular we had to share it with all of you. ...

Do You Always Need Something Green on Your Plate?

This restaurant shot, which we're guessing is at a classic Southern joint, proves our point. Wouldn't that plate look funny if, instead of collard greens, there was a scoop of corn? Or butternut squas...

Five Ways to Eat: Carrots

We often take carrots for granted. The omnipresence of "baby" carrots, whittled down to bite-size by machines, as well as carrots' year-round seasonality in grocery stores, often makes us look past th...

Five Ways to Eat: Cauliflower

Cauliflower is a love-hate vegetable for many people. They hate its cabbage-y taste and strange curdlike texture, or they love it in its many forms. We are among the latter, and we think there are so ...

Five Ways to Eat: Artichokes

Artichokes, on first glance, are an intimidating vegetable. Spiny and tough, with a thistle at their heart, artichokes may appear to be not worth your time. But treat an artichoke right, and you get s...

Is It Necessary to Rinse Shredded Carrots Before Using?
Good Questions

Q: At one of my first restaurant jobs I had to make gobs of coleslaw and my boss told me I had to rinse the carrot shreds before putting them into the coleslaw or it would make the slaw brown by the e...

Know Your Asian Greens

If you've ever visited an Asian grocery store, chances are you've found yourself in the produce section wondering what all those green leafy vegetables are, and how to cook them. Each vegetable has...

Fall Cooking: Braised and Spicy Collard Greens

We just kicked off the fall cooking season with a big pot of smoky, spicy collard greens. Boy are they good! There's nothing quite like tender, juicy collard greens to get us in the mood for winter co...

Five Ways to Eat: Bok Choy

Amidst all the other leafy greens and cabbages with exotic names, sometimes bok choy gets lost. But it's one of our favorite crunchy, yet leafy, green vegetables. It packs a wallop of nutrition, but i...