Kohlrabi & Apple Slaw

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Kohlrabi, Apple & Red Onion Slaw

To be perfectly honest, kohlrabi is not a vegetable I have a lot of experience with.  Sure, I’ve been seeing it at the farmer’s market for as long as I can remember, but its pale green, alien-ish appearance has always scared me away.

At some point, I had it in a restaurant and determined that’s its appearance is the only “weird” thing about it and its flavor couldn’t be more pedestrian–it tastes exactly like green cabbage you’ve been eating all your life.  The advantage kohlrabi has over cabbage though is its intense crunch.  When eaten raw, it’s amazingly crisp and refreshing, especially when paired with julienned apples and a zippy vinaigrette as it is in this slaw.

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Roasted Chicken with Lemon, Caper & Parsley Sauce

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Roasted Chicken with Lemon & Caper Sauce

Ever since we entered September, all I’ve wanted to do is lie in bed, wrapped up in a quilt with the breeze blowing through my open window, and read.  Well, that and gorge on comfort foods (ahem, see that time I baked and ate way, way too many chocolate cookies).

My latest addition to my fall comfort food repertoire was these roasted chicken thighs.  I baked the chicken with sliced red potatoes and made a 2-minute pan sauce with capers, lemon, parsley, and a few dots of butter.  It ended up being exactly what I was looking for–minimal effort with big comfort food results and just the sort of thing I’d happily eat any night of the week.

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Zucchini Chèvre Soup with Basil-Mint Croutons

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Zucchini & Chevre Soup with Basil-Mint Croutons
It feels like I did little more than blink and somehow summer came, went, and we’re back to the sort of days that are just meant for soup.  Cloudy and drizzly outside always translates to chopping and stirring inside.  It’s time to get back into my kitchen and back into my soup game.

This is a really simple zucchini soup that’s swirled with creamy goat cheese.  Crunchy baguette croutons, smeared with fresh basil and mint oil, garnish the soup and distinguish one bite from the next.  It’s a celebration of late summer produce, with a good dose of fall comfort. 

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Zucchini & Caramelized Onion Gratin

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Zucchini & Caramelized Onion GratinI’m not entirely sure which is more abundant this time of year, zucchini or zucchini recipes.  And with that said, this is my contribution to the year’s zucchini files.

I’m standing tall and proud next to my contribution–this gratin is so delicious I’ll be tempted to devote next year’s garden entirely to zucchini!  Thin rounds of zucchini are layered and baked with caramelized onions and creamy Fontina cheese.  Breadcrumbs and Parmesan add a crispy, nutty layer of flavor to the top and bottom and a smattering of olives and/or anchovies adds a salty briny-ness that counters the sweet onions.

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Swiss Chard Torta with Pine Nuts & Raisins

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Swiss Chard Torta with Pine Nuts & RaisinsEvery time I step into my backyard, I am amazed by how much Swiss chard my little garden is capable of producing.  For going on 2 months, I’ve been eating chard a few times a week either with pasta or in garlicky sautés with potatoes or beans.  And while I’m still not sick of it, I have started looking for a few new ways to prepare it.

This past weekend, I looked to one of my forever-favorite cookbooks for inspiration, Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking and found a recipe for tegliata di biete, a Swiss chard torta with pine nuts and raisins.  Now this is the kind of recipe you might skip over if you were simply flipping through the book and didn’t happen to be sitting on a mountain of chard, but it’s exactly the sort of recipe I love to stumble upon.  There’s nothing especially flashy about, but it’s a perfect example of how with effort and care, a few simple ingredients can be transformed into something entirely new, nuanced and intriguing.

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