Beautiful Food – December 2015

Beautiful food often comes in whole plates like this one: Brussel sprouts with orange marmalade glaze, potato skins (there butter melting inside…my husband only like the inside of the potato and I have always favored the skins; we’re a good match), roast, and a cranberry sweet potato bread.

Sometimes even when it is cold, I get hungry for a salad. This one had no lettuce at all! It was hearty meal of celery (complete with leaves), cucumbers, carrots, cranberries, and peanuts! I like the bright colors and the melding of flavors. This time of year I like cranberries in lots of dishes.

The last stir fry with CSA veggies included watermelon radish, turnips, sweet potatoes and a few Brussel sprouts. The green beans were some I’d put in the freezer; they thawed quickly when added to the stir fry. The different shapes appeal to me almost as much as the colors.

A more recent stir fry is just as colorful but everything is from the produce section of the grocery store. I like different colors of bell pepper and carrot chips roughly cut…and I am enjoying Brussel sprouts although I’m going to wait a bit before buying more.

Food that is brightly colored and tastes good….beautiful!

Beautiful Food – November 2015

There are so many beautiful foods to choose from this time of year. It seems like there are bright colors at every turn.

The salads have the orange of sweet potatoes or carrots…the dark green of parsley or cilantro…the magenta of watermelon radishes…even the cheese and boiled eggs in this salad are colorful! The whole is as beautiful as it is tasty.

And the salsa made with end of season bounty of tomatoes, cilantro, onions, hot pepper, garlic, and onions…gets just a spike of citrus from a lemon (peel and all). The colors and flavors blends together to contribute to several kinds of meals and snacks: salads, stir fries, tacos, chips….

And what about all the root veggies this time of year: white turnips, watermelon radishes, sweet potatoes (ok…I cheated a little – the green is a broccoli stalk rather than a root vegetable)…all in one stir fry. I add a little water when I first start cooking them to make sure they have enough cooking time to soften. Again – the appearance of food makes a big difference in the appeal of the meal.

New this month – and something I look forward to every years – is the arrival of pomegranates in the grocery store. I buy at least one a week. The seeds always look like little jewels to me; the color meshes well with the season. And they are my favorite afternoon snack until the season runs its course sometime in the early part of next year!