A typical vegetable omelet recipe often includes the likes of pepper, mushroom, onion, tomato, zucchini, herbs, asparagus, and/or spinach. It’s not every day you find omelet add-in options that veer off course.

However, root vegetables pair excellently with eggs and make for a unique and delicious omelet recipe. This recipe showcases beetroot and carrots for a delicious addition to your next breakfast.

What I love about this recipe is that it fills me up more than a regular omelet would if I used lighter vegetables. Root vegetables are dense and hold their own more robustly when cooked. Feta cheese makes for a hearty and savory complementary add-in that doesn’t overpower the other flavors, but instead bolsters them.

Make this root vegetable omelet recipe as it is written. Because each flavor and texture is bold, try not to complicate the recipe with various other ingredients, such as fragrant herbs, other vegetables, or spices. If you are going to change the recipe, the only alteration you should make is to omit an ingredient, except for the eggs, of course. Keep it simple!

Root Vegetable Omelet Recipe

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 2 medium carrots, grated
• 1 medium beetroot, grated
• 2 handfuls kale, chopped
• 4-5 eggs, whisked
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
• Half an avocado, sliced

Directions

Warm a pan over medium-high heat. Add in the coconut oil, grated carrots, and grated beetroot. Cook down and stir the mixture for three to four  minutes. Add in the kale and while stirring, cook for another two to three minutes.

Once the kale has properly wilted, add in the eggs. Stir well and shape into an omelet. Season with salt and pepper and crumble the feta cheese evenly over its surface areas. Leave the omelet to cook for one minute before carefully flipping and leaving it to cook for another minute.

Serve immediately with a garnish of sliced avocado.

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The post Root Vegetable Omelet Recipe: Go Earthy with Your Eggs appeared first on EcoSalon.

Make this pungent Moroccan tagine with root vegetables on a weeknight and be instantly transported to the fragrant markets of the Maghreb.

This version is salty and rich in vegetable flavors. There’s not as much sweetness as you usually find in vegetable and chicken tagines with prunes, raisins and nuts, instead salted lemons and olives add a slight tanginess. A trio of starchy root vegetable: sweet potato, parsnip and turnip make the stew hearty and delicately absorb the flavors of spices like cumin and turmeric.

A tagine is a North African stew that also refers to the cone-shaped clay pot it is traditionally cooked in. Moroccan tagine pots are beautiful to look at and relatively inexpensive and easy to find, but you don’t need one to make this recipe, any heavy pot with a lid will do. The stew should cook for at least an hour and is even better when made ahead of time.

The true star of this dish is the flash-cured lemon. Don’t be afraid to eat the rind! By simply simmering lemon slices in salt water, the toughness is leached out and the rind becomes pleasantly chewy. The rinds are then finely chopped and added to the stew before it simmers to get that distinctly North African spicy lemon flavor.

Moroccan Tagine with Root Vegetables and Couscous with Pine Nuts

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 whole lemon, sliced into thin half moons
½ cup water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 teaspoon dried coriander
4 tablespoons + 2 tablespoons olive oil
4 large carrots
1 medium sweet potato
2 medium turnips
2 medium parsnips
1 large yellow onion
1 cup pitted green olives, sliced
1 14 oz. can chickpeas, drained
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley + more to serve
1 10 oz. box of plain instant cous cous
¼ cup pine nuts

Directions  

First make the flash preserved lemons. Add the lemon slices to a small nonstick skillet with ½ cup water, 2 tablespoons salt and 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until the rinds become soft. Place the lemons and their juices in a bowl to cool, then finely chop.

Prepare your vegetables by peeling and chopping the carrots, parsnips, turnips, onions, sweet potato into ½ inch cubes.

Toast the spices in a large pot or Dutch oven: over medium-high heat, add 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, 1 tablespoon turmeric, ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper and 1 teaspoon coriander and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes. Remove to a plate and crush with the back of a wooden spoon and add 1 teaspoon of salt.

In the same pot, heat 4 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Cook the onions first for 4 minutes on their own. Then add the garlic, the spice blend, tomato paste and chopped lemons with their juices. Stir a few times to combine, then add all the chopped vegetables and the can of chickpeas. Add 6-8 cups of water so the vegetables are covered by at least 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, bring 2 cups of water to rolling boil. Add the couscous, stir, cover and remove from flame to sit for 10 minutes. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons olive over medium heat. Add the pine nuts and toast for 3 minutes until they just start to burn. Toss in the couscous and parsley.

Serve 1 cup of couscous in a shallow bowl and spoon the tagine on top with lots of liquid. Garnish with chopped parsley.

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Photos by: Ally-Jane 

The post Moroccan Tagine Recipe with Root Vegetables and Couscous appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnDon’t let the boredom of root vegetables set in.

There’s that time around October, when the last of the late summer harvest has come to an end, the days are getting a bit colder, and you’re so looking forward to winter cooking. The cozy soups, the warm mugs of cider.

And then February rolls around. You’ve put up with several months of winter and if someone offers you yet another meal of roasted root vegetables you might just bash them over the head with a turnip. It’s gray outside, probably raining – or maybe you’ve got some of that nasty, wet snow slush – and you’re cranky, haven’t seen sunlight for at least a week. Quite frankly all you can do is dream of a brighter time when stone fruits were in season and all you had to do to make dinner was slice a tomato and drizzle olive oil over it.

I feel your pain. The CSA vegetables come every Monday and it’s hard to get myself to think, “oh great, carrots! Whatever will I do with them this week?”

But if you have committed to eating more locally, and in season, then culinary boredom is something you just have to force yourself to work past.

Bored of root vegetables? We just need to think out of the box of the usual winter dish of roasted potatoes. In order to help you avoid seasonal depression this winter, here are a few tips to help you endure root vegetable season.

Go for the lesser known, possible more boring, root vegetables

When was the last time anyone announced that rutabagas were the New Kale? Let’s just go ahead and change that now. You need to dive deep and buy up all those seemingly boring root vegetables? Why? Because it will push you out of your culinary comfort zone. Because I had no other idea of what to do with them, last week I put an abundance of turnips to use in a Dutch Baby recipe. Paired with apples, it was delicious. A few nights later i sliced them thinly and threw into a batch of nachos. Because, why not? Let 2015 be the Year of Turnips, Rutabaga and Parsnips. Because the boring root vegetables deserve your love too.

Do more than just roast

Roasting root vegetables is the go-to cooking method because it’s so easy. Drizzle in olive oil, sprinkle some salt and pepper, maybe even some dried rosemary or thyme, put in the oven and take out when finished. But there is so much more that you can do with root vegetables. Sauté, steam, puree, or blanch. Cut them thinly and throw on a pizza. Make fritters. Or even eat them raw; I’m looking at you, beets.

Break out of the savory box

Because of their deep, often sweet flavor, root vegetables can be used in sweet dishes just as well as they can savory ones. Spiced parsnip cake, turnip muffins, carrot halwa, an Indian dessert made with carrots and cardamom; the options are endless.

Make fries with something other than potatoes

In winter we crave comfort food, and what better comfort food than the good ol’ fry? But potatoes are your only fry option. You can make them with sweet potatoes, celery root, rutabaga, carrots and more.

Get to pickling

An easy way to switch up the flavor of root vegetables is to lightly pickle them. A nice salt brine with some spices and you are good to go, never to be bored by a root vegetable again.

Related on EcoSalon

For the Love of Roots and Cookbooks: Foodie Underground

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Scalloped Sweet Potato Gratin with Butternut Squash and Cashew Cream

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Chris Martino

The post How to Endure the Neverending Season of Root Vegetables: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnThe joy of delving into a good cookbook.

When I was home earlier this summer, I asked my mother for a recipe. She pulled out her worn 3-ring binder. This binder is blue, has yellowed pages falling out of it and has sat in the same place on the bookshelf for as long as I can remember. In it are recipes scratched in her handwriting of her earlier years, additions by her sisters, and almost four decades’ worth of recipe inspiration ripped from magazines.

My natural instinct when I need a recipe is to go to that online thing that starts with G. For my mother, it’s to go to her recipe shelf. If it’s not in the blue book then there has to be a recipe that can be improvised on elsewhere among the culinary titles. In fact, it was only recently that she called to tell me that she was wondering about a specific recipe and went to her computer herself to search around the internet for it (normally she calls me and has me cull the pages and select a few links, her personal search engine so to say).

I am ashamed to say that I have not started such a recipe collection myself. Raised in the digital age, my own is a mish-mash of bookmarked links and emails that I always plan to organize but never get around to. But although I am quick to tap in a search query that combines a few ingredients that I have lying around and I don’t know what to do with (raspberry, kale, go…), I have an affinity for my small cookbook stash.

The collection is small because I have limited space, and it’s worth committing to the tried and true: The Essential New York Times Cookbook (Amanda Hesser what would I do without you?), Vår Kokbok (a Swedish essential) Swedish Cakes and Cookies, a few from Moosewood Collective, Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking, and Sheila Lutkins’ All Around the World Cookbook. There are a few others here and there, but that is the staple collection and it doesn’t shift very much. I have a favorite recipe in each, and they all have numerous dog eared pages.

In need of dinner inspiration? Sit on the couch with a few of the books and a pen and paper and good things are bound to happen.

There is something that happens with cookbooks that doesn’t happen with food blogs or obsessively looking at food porn on Pinterest. Away from the screen, you engage with a recipe in a different way. You take time to think about the preparation and the process. That is why I prefer predominantly text cookbooks; you are not seduced by photos the way you are int he digital world, your are swayed by words and culinary combinations. A good cookbook is the one you can put your trust in; let it guide you through the cooking process.

And that is what a cookbook should be: a guidebook, a resource. The kind of thing you can go to again and again and again. Not because you loved one recipe, but because no matter how many times you read it, you’ll always learn something new. That is what I discovered in Roots: The Definitive Compendium with more than 225 Recipes, which arrived at my doorstep just a couple of weeks ago.

Let me restate the fact that I am hesitant to add new cookbooks to the collection; my appetite for more food inspiration is countered by an acceptance of the reality of space, and the fact that too many cookbooks can be a bad thing. But Roots was meant to be added to that space, it hit all of my cookbook expectations. It’s a resource (and a good one at that), the photos are beautiful but the recipes aren’t over dominated by them, the story is personal, and in reading it, you get a lesson in food. For example, I had no idea that carrots are believed to have originated in Afghanistan.

I had never given root vegetables much thought, but after reading through numerous sections I soon wondered how I had gone without this book for so long. Sauteed beet greens with a little lemon juice will now certainly be a regular concoction.

Newly obsessed with root vegetables, I caught up with Roots author Diane Morgan to learn more about the cookbook, the most underrated root vegetable out there and her favorite recipe (hint: it might be the only time I am ever tempted to make a cupcake, because these look good).

This book is such a valuable resource. Why do you think something like it hasn’t been done before?

There are a couple of much older books focused on the “common” root vegetables (beets, turnips, rutabagas, sweet potatoes), and there are encyclopedic books written on vegetables, but an encyclopedic book written on the large family of root vegetables along with a large selection of recipes hasn’t been written until now. I went looking for the book I wanted to own and realized it didn’t exist, so I decided to tackle the subject and write the book I wanted to own.

As a very comprehensive guide, this cookbook packs in a lot of information. How long did the research and writing process for it take? Any glitches along the way?

It took me two and a half years to develop the book proposal, and then research and write the entire book. I am not a botanist(!), so the research to make sure I found all the edible roots that exist was challenging. Even as I was turning in the manuscript I would double check some exotic root to make sure it was classified properly. With regard to glitches, there is a lot of confusion between malanga and taro and it took me time to resolve the distinctions. They are fascinating roots with interesting cooking properties. The high starch factor makes them delightful to mash and terrific as fritters.

I am assuming you ate a lot of root vegetable dishes while doing recipe development. Are you sick of them now? Or do you incorporate more roots into your diet than before?

I have never tired of eating roots. They are so varied and so seasonal that something that goes out of season, such as celery root, delivered a new-found excitement when I see it again the next season.

What was the most interesting thing you learned while writing the book?

There were many interesting discoveries, but I did love learning about all the edible tops – beet greens, radish tops, carrot tops, turnip tops – all are edible and highly nutritious.

Which is the most underrated root?

It would be a toss up between rutabagas and burdock root! Rutabagas take on many flavors – they are delicious when braised in beer and also paired with apples for a wonderful wintertime sweet galette. On the other hand, burdock root, used commonly in Japanese cuisine, is amazing when paired with mussels. If you love mussels then you must try my recipes for Steamed Mussels with Burdock Root, Shallots, and Sun-Dried Tomatoes.

If you had to pick one, what is your favorite root and why?

That’s like asking which is your favorite child. They all have such unique characteristics! However, since writing the book, I have incorporated the dark orange-fleshed sweet potatoes into my diet more often. They are an incredible superfood, packed with vitamins. I roast them or even grill-roast them and then rewarm them for breakfast. Skip your morning toast and eat a sweet potato!

Can you share one of your favorite recipes with us?

While I have many favorite recipes in the book, I am delighted with the Red Velvet Cupcakes because it is so unexpected and most folks think red velvet cake is made with food coloring, when, in fact, the gorgeous magenta color of the cupcakes comes from pureeing fresh-roasted beets.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Orange Buttercream

These darling magenta-hued cupcakes are brilliantly colored all the way through. No food coloring is used here; the color comes from pureeing freshly roasted beets. I tested the recipe with canned beets and the color is drab and faded, but given how easy it is to roast beets this simple step can be done while you measure and prepare the ingredients for the cupcakes and buttercream. I finely chop the roasted beets and then puree them in a food processor. It is important to let the machine run for a couple of minutes, scraping down the sides of the workbowl once or twice, until the puree is completely smooth.

Makes 12 cupcakes

Cupcakes

• 2 cups/200 g sifted cake/soft-wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp kosher or sea salt
• 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 cups/342 g puréed red roasted beets
• 1 cup plus 2 tbsp/225 g granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs, beaten
• 2/3 cup/180 ml canola oil
• 3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

Orange Buttercream

• 1 1/4 cups/280 g unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2 cups confectioners’/icing sugar
• 1 tbsp heavy (whipping)/double cream
• 1/2 tsp pure orange oil (see Cook’s Notes)
• 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 to 3 tbsp fresh orange juice

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F/180°C/gas 4. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the beets, sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla. Using a rubber spatula, stir in one-third of the flour mixture, and continue stirring just until the flour disappears. Do not beat or overmix. Repeat, adding the remaining flour mixture in 2 batches.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, dividing the batter evenly and filling each cup almost to the top of the liner. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Let the cupcakes rest in the pan, set on a wire rack, for 10 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack to cool completely, about an hour.

To make the buttercream, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a mixing bowl with a handheld electric mixer, cream the butter on low speed. Add the sugar, cream, orange oil, and vanilla, and beat until incorporated, about 2 minutes. Add the orange juice, a little at a time, until the buttercream is fluffy and smooth.

When the cupcakes are completely cool, spread a thick layer of buttercream over the tops, swirling the frosting to decorate the tops. Alternatively, the frosting can be transferred to a pastry bag and piped around the tops of the cupcakes. The cupcakes can be made up to 2 days in advance. Store, covered, at room temperature.

Cook’s Notes
Pure orange oil is an essential oil cold pressed from the rind of oranges. It is different from pure orange extract. Look for pure orange oil in the baking section of natural foods stores, at baking supply stores, or Middle Eastern grocers. Two brands I see often is Boyajian or Frontier.

The cupcakes freeze well and are handy to have on hand for a party. Freeze the cupcakes unwrapped on a baking sheet/tray. Once frozen, wrap them individually, first with plastic wrap/cling film and then with aluminum foil. The cupcakes can be frozen up to 1 month. Unwrap the cupcakes and thaw at room temperature.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

The post Foodie Underground: For the Love of Roots and Cookbooks appeared first on EcoSalon.