This is a tasty, vegan winter dish. Although I don’t care for fennel raw, I really love it roasted.

Warm White Beans with Roasted Fennel & Red Pepper
Adapted from Cooking Light

2 medium fennel bulbs, trimmed and cut in 1/2″ slices
1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut in 1/2″ slices
2 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small onion, sliced
2 15-oz. cans cannellini beans, drained (or any white bean)
7 oz. package of fresh baby spinach, washed (about 4 c.)
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper (optional)
salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450° F.

Toss fennel, red pepper, and half the oil on a baking sheet, and bake for about 20 minutes until vegetables soften and begin to brown.

While the fennel and pepper are in the oven, add remaining oil to a large skillet and saute the onions over medium-high heat. Cook for 10 minutes, until they caramelize. Add beans to the onions and cook for an additional 5 minutes; add the fennel mixture when ready. Stir in the spinach and continue cooking for a few minutes over medium heat until the leaves wilt slightly. Season and serve warm.

Arugula is not my favorite green, but I do aim to eat everything I get from my farm share. There is almost always a preparation that makes a ho-hum vegetable into something closer to palatable. Several readers told me they love arugula raw in a salad, but that route is not for me. Since I also had a lot of potatoes from my CSA, I thought this light potato salad — Potato Salad with Yogurt, Arugula, and Dill — would be a good accompaniment to a dinner of soup.

J. doesn’t like mayo, so I adjusted the recipe by using a 6 oz. contained of non-fat Greek yogurt plus 2 Tbsp. of apple cider vinegar to thin it out and add some acid. I also used green onions instead of shallots. The combination of yogurt and dill screams “tzatziki!” to me, so I think this side dish would be a nice addition to a Greek-flavored chicken (lots of oregano and lemon) or just to round out a meal of a Greek salad.

The flavor is surprising, because your brain expects mayo when you see a creamy potato salad. But the taste is far from that traditional dish; it’s very springy and light, and super-tangy. We liked it well enough to finish leftovers, but it is probably not a dish I’d repeat. Still, if you like dill and yogurt, you’ll probably like this easy, fat-free dish.

I first tried gigantes at Lefteris Gyro, a local Greek restaurant. “Gigantes,” which is both the name of the large white beans used to make the dish and the name of the prepared beans themselves, means “giant” in Greek. And these beans are enormous. In the past I was able to find gigante beans locally; most recently I could only find large lima beans which are slightly smaller. I love Greek food, but no one else in my immediate family does so I rarely get to eat it when we go out. Once I’d tried gigantes at Lefteris, though, I couldn’t get them out of my mind. I had to try to make them at home, since I knew it would be a long time until I could have them again at the restaurant. Now that I know how easy they are to make, I’ve made them several times. They keep well in the fridge so even though I make a large batch, I can eat them over the course of the week — even if no one else shares them with me.

I use Closet Cooking’s Gigantes Plaki recipe and I think it’s perfect as written, though I tend to add a little more dill (that’s my mom’s influence… she loves dill!). Even though the beans are soaked overnight and then baked, the finished dish is light and has a very fresh flavor thanks to the herbs. This recipe is naturally super-healthy: minimal oil, lots of vegetables, and protein from the beans. Better yet, it is seriously delicious. (I have eaten a bowl of gigantes for breakfast — it’s that good.) You could serve gigantes as a side dish for roasted chicken or grilled fish, but I like it best as a vegetarian meal unto itself.

When I was growing up, there were many special things I looked forward to at my grandparents’ apartment in Queens. For instance, my Grandpa Alfred, who had been a pattern maker for Simplicity and was an excellent tailor, had made a custom fabric clubhouse that cleverly spanned the small space between the arm of a couch and the spindles on a wall divider between the living room and dining room. When it was up, it was like a magic tree house — a perfect, private spot for me to hide. Then, with just a quick undoing of fabric ties, it could fold away until my next visit.

Visiting my grandparents also meant Alfred’s Delights, the only food I remember my grandpa cooking aside from making charoset at Passover. He’d cut a potato into quarter-inch slices, and then blister them in a cast iron pan, without any oil. A sprinkle of salt finished them off. I remember them being scalding on the outside, and just cooked and chewy on the inside. It wasn’t so much that I loved their flavor, but I loved that my grandpa made them for me, and they were a special location-specific treat. I can’t help but thing of Alfred’s Delights whenever I am slicing potatoes, so he was on my mind as I prepped the spuds for this side dish.

Making these chips was an experiment. The first potato was sliced on a mandoline, at about a 1/8″ thickness. But I thought these would be too thick. I sliced the next potato by hand, using my super-sharp santoku. I don’t normally love this knife, but for this type of work it’s perfect — I was able to easily halve the thickness of the first batch and make semi-transparent, 1/16″ slices of potato.

Potatoes are naturally really wet, and I wanted to make sure that they’d crisp up like a proper chip when I baked them. So I let all the slices dry, in a single layer, on some tea towels on my kitchen counter. I left them out for 3 hours, until they were all dry to the touch. Yes, they did discolor a bit, but once they are baked you won’t notice it.

I preheated the oven to 450° F. I arranged the potato slices in a single layer on a non-stick cookie sheet, and then lightly brushed each slice with a scant amount of olive oil. I use a silicone brush, which I love — no bristles left behind! You need to be sparing with the oil, because it won’t really absorb into the potato and you don’t want them to be greasy. Flip each slice and brush them again. Sprinkle with salt, sparingly — you can always add more later. My 1/16″ chips were done in 18 minutes, but start checking at 15 minutes. The 1/8″ chips took longer, about 22 minutes.

My motivation for making potato chips was simply to see if I could prepare some of our farm share potatoes in a way my boys would try. My friend Jen suggested chips, and she was right — they tried them. Unfortunately, I did over-salt them a bit, and that was the boys’ complaint. They were pretty impressed that potato chips came out of our own oven, though! The chips stayed crispy stored, sealed, on the counter overnight.

I spent a weekend in Boston earlier this summer and my dear friend Rachel showed me this simple, delicious dish. Use a vegetable peeler to make ribbons out of your yellow squash and zucchini, rotating the squash after each ribbon or two so you get even pieces. Leave over the seeded middles. Blanch the squash ribbons (that’s dropping them into boiling water briefly and then dunking them in ice water to stop the cooking) and drain them well. Toss with your favorite pesto.

Please don’t pretend you’re eating pasta, because you won’t be impressed. However, as a vegetarian side dish or a way to highlight your CSA or farmer’s market finds, this simple dish is perfection. Slightly salty and rich from the pesto; fresh and light from the squash. With some sliced CSA tomatoes, it’s a perfect summer dinner.

The recipe for this Roasted Eggplant & Red Pepper Dip (or spread) comes from the beautiful blog The Cilantropist, and I am not surprised the author says it is one of her favorite foods to make in the summer.

I followed the recipe as written, except that I doubled the quantities of everything but the oil — I kept that at a third of a cup in the doubled recipe. I did have to puree the dip in two batches, as my Cuisinart couldn’t handle all of it at once. That gave me an opportunity to go a little heavier on the tomato paste in one batch, and lighter in the other — the one with less tomato paste was better, with more of the roasted eggplant flavor shining through.

I knew this spread would be a hit with my mother-in-law, who adores eggplant, but it went over well with all of the adults in my extended family. We ate outside on a hot night, smoothing this creamy, tangy spread over bagels. I served hard-boiled eggs and a salad made from romaine lettuce, marinated onions, feta, and sliced beets, too. It was indeed a perfect summer meal.

We received a big head of bok choi in our farm share a couple of weeks ago, and I usually just do a simple stir fry when I get this vegetable. It combines well with red pepper and onions; saute and add a splash of soy sauce and you’re done.

This time I went a bit further and made Stout Oak Farm’s Bok Choi & Sesame Noodles. I didn’t have any pea shoots, so I omitted them. I also used a smaller noodles-to-bok choi ratio than the recipe calls for, and subbed whole wheat spaghetti in place of the buckwheat noodles. I do like buckwheat soba and can get them at the Mrs. Green’s (a local Whole Foods-type store), but the spaghetti works just as well.

Whenever possible, I serve noodles separately from whatever is being mixed in to make the meal. So, a nice big bowl of the bok choi, and noodles on the side. This way my kids will at least eat the noodles, and might try the sauce, meatballs, or whatever else makes the pasta a complete dinner. They’re both much more willing to try green vegetables lately, but declined the bok choi at this dinner. Then, a couple of hours later when J. got home and was eating, A. decided the combined recipe did indeed look tasty. He got his own bowl and although he picked out most of the vegetables, he slurped up the sesame noodles and loved it. Since he eats my Spinach Lasagna Roll-Ups greens and all, I’m pretty sure I could make this recipe again with spinach and have him eat the whole thing.

Allyson, a fellow Roxbury Farm member, left this kale recipe for me in a post’s comments a few weeks ago. It’s great, and very simple. It also had me making my own fresh breadcrumbs for the first time — I’d never done that before. (I just pulsed two end slices of whole wheat bread in my food processor until I had fluffy crumbs.)

To make this dish, cut the middle stems out of a large bunch of kale leaves, and wash them thoroughly. Boil a large pot of water and drop the kale in, blanching them for about a minute; remove them quickly and run them under cold water. Even better, dunk them in an ice bath (I didn’t go that far, and it still worked nicely). Let the kale drain and set it aside. Toast the breadcrumbs (a generous handful worth) in olive oil in a large saute pan. Let them get crispy, then set them aside. Wipe out the pan, add a little more olive oil, and add a several cloves of minced garlic. Saute for a minute or so over medium low heat, then add a couple of teaspoons of good paprika. (Allyson uses a Spanish smoked paprika, mine is Hungarian hot.) Add the well-drained kale (you can squeeze the water out, too) to the pan, raise the heat a bit, and cook until it’s all warmed through. Toss with the breadcrumbs and serve. You can season with salt and pepper if you like.

I found that the garlic really cut the bitterness of the kale, and the toasted breadcrumbs were a decadent topping to what could otherwise feel like an “eat your greens!” boring but healthy dish. I loved this preparation, though J. thought I’d put in too many breadcrumbs. I couldn’t convince the boys to try it, but I will make it again. That is, when I’m not busy roasting my kale. Thanks again, Allyson!

Roasted broccoli is delicious and homemade hummus is easy to make, so I knew this recipe for Roasted Broccoli Hummus — which uses white beans instead of chickpeas — would be a winner. It is.

I did not need to add any water to thin the dip. I also used a little more broccoli and garlic than the recipe suggests, because I really wanted to elevate the flavor beyond a white bean dip: I wanted it to scream “broccoli!” It did.

Make this dip as an appetizer or a snack to have with drinks; serve it with cut-up vegetables, whole wheat pita, or pretzels. It could make an easy summer lunch or dinner, slathered on a bagel or stuffed into a pita with lettuce and tomatoes. You can make a double batch of roasted broccoli, serving half as a side dish for dinner one night and using the rest the next day to make this dip.

There are lots of great food blogs I read that are focused on a specific food niche, and that have great recipes even though I don’t fall into the group of eaters they target. Gluten-Free Girl is one such blog. I don’t eat a gluten-free diet, but Shauna has some great vegetable-based recipes on our site that even a die-hard wheat eater would love. This recipe for Brussels Sprouts Salad originally comes from her site.

I adore Roasted Brussels Sprouts and make them often, but I’d never tried them raw. I cannot tell you how much I loved this salad. Shredding the Brussels sprouts make them feathery and light, even though my container had been kicking around in the fridge for a couple of weeks. I can only imagine how delicious it would be with CSA or farmer’s market sprouts. Add in the toasted walnut and Gruyere with a bit of vinaigrette, and you have a dish with enough protein to call a meal. I ate a huge plate of this stuff for lunch the day after I made it, and I liked the flavors even more. The Brussels sprouts easily stand up to a night in the dressing, and don’t wilt like other greens might. This is definitely a recipe to try this summer — I’ll be making it again.

Raw Brussels Sprouts Salad with Walnuts & Gruyere
Adapted from Brussels Sprouts Salad

1 10-oz. container of fresh Brussels sprouts, trimmed
3-4 oz. shredded Gruyere cheese
1/2 c. chopped walnuts, toasted & cooled (otherwise they’ll melt the cheese)
2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
4 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. whole grain mustard
1 tsp. honey
salt and pepper to taste

Using the slicing disc on your food processor, feed the whole Brussels sprouts into the machine until they are shredded. Switch to the shredding blade to prepare the Gruyere. Toss the sprouts, cheese, and toasted walnuts in a medium bowl and set aside.

To prepare the dressing, whisk vinegar, olive oil, mustard and honey together. Pour over the salad and toss. Season with salt and pepper to taste.