Week 4 and 5: Overwhelmed!

Week 5, including fava beans!

There's been a steady supply of potatoes throughout this summer, and our CSA provider jokingly remarked in our recent newsletter, "For those of you who have started a small side business reselling your extra potatoes, I would understand." It isn't so much that there are too many potatoes, but it is the shelf life of these early summer New Potatoes that is difficult to accommodate. As delicious as they are, they last no greater than a week. Typically, potatoes meant for storing will last a few weeks or longer, and don't require refrigeration as these do. An easy recipe I've used each week is roasting, with a bit of olive oil and some dried herbs — herbes de Provence by itself is super fragrant, or a handful of oregano and black pepper and salt.

We've been flush with a lot of familiar produce lately, such as peas, strawberries and raspberries, zucchini, cucumbers, and carrots. But, I did manage to cook something nontraditional with an ordinary ingredient: radishes.

I never much liked radishes because of how sharp-tasting they are; recipes I read referred to the radish's "bite". While browsing Jack Bishop's Vegetables Every Day book at Borders, however, I found a recipe for roasting radishes that he claims would result in a mild sweet flavor in the vegetable. In his short list of ingredients were: soy sauce, vegetable oil, and honey (although I fear I forgot one or another of the ingredients between the bookstore and my kitchen). Even so, I was astonished by how pleasant these little radishes became in the oven.

Recipe: Roasted Glazed Radishes

The general idea is to trim and halve (if they're large) any amount of radishes you have. Turn on the oven to an appropriate vegetable roasting temperature, such as 400 degrees F. Toss radishes with an appropriate amount of oil for roasting, something like 1 to 3 tablespoons. Proceed to roast them for 10 to 25 minutes, checking to see if they are fork-tender. When they're beginning to soften, add some soy sauce and either honey or agave syrup (as I used), just barely enough to coat. Toss in the glaze and return to the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes. 

The whole bunch of radishes I prepared were gone before I had a chance to photograph them! Let me know if you try this and what you think of it. I found it absolutely delicious.