Autumn Vegetable Salad with Frico

If you are scaling up the recipe, add other vegetables like Jerusalem artichokes, parsnips, mushrooms, and anything else you discover at the market that week.

Autumn Vegetable Salad with Frico
(Serves 2)

¼ pound butternut squash, peeled and cut into ½ inch cubes
4 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
drizzle of olive oil
6-8 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 raddichio, leaves separated and torn smaller
1 Tbsp. sherry vinegar
2 Tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper


Preheat the oven to 475 F. Toss the butternut cubes and chopped sage with some oil and a pinch of salt. Roast until light golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Set aside in a medium-sized bowl to cool.

Meanwhile, make the frico by placing 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese in a mound on a nonstick frying pan. Cook on med-high heat until the cheese is melted and begins to brown. Carefully remove the cheese with a spatula and shape as desired. Draping over the side of a wooden spoon gives you a half-moon shape.

Add olive oil, sherry vinegar, salt and pepper to the raddichio and toss gently to coat well. Divide the mixture evenly among the dinner plates, first with the roasted squash, then a mound of raddichio and top each with a frico.

Portuguese Custard Tarts

Little Portuguese Tarts, crispy on the outside with an unctuous custard interior. They fall somewhere on the spectrum between creme brulee and buttermilk pie. I make the pastry crust with the best butter I can find, and it pays off. The dough handles well and combines with the flour easily.

The flour, milk and eggs were all from local suppliers. With two thumbs up by my chief taster, C. and two more thumbs up from me, it makes me wonder if we could have lasted through the Local Lent experiment, had I been making lots of these. A honey sweetened version, although not the same, is probably pretty good.

Portugese Custard Tarts
(makes 3)

Pastry (1 cup flour, 2 Tbsp. butter, ice water)
3 yolks
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1 cup of heavy cream and milk (a 2:1 ratio is good)

Heat some water in a saucepan. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the yolks with the sugar and cornflour. Gradually whisk in the cream and milk until smooth. Place the bowl over the warm water and cook, stirring until the custard thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Cool custard.

Preheat oven to 400 F (200 C).

Grease your ramekins/tins/etc. Roll out the pastry to 1/8" thickness and cut pieces to fit the shape of your ramekins and arrange pastry accordingly. Spoon the cooled custard into the pastry cases and bake for 20-25 minutes. You want a deep golden appearance on the puffed up sections of custard.

Serve with a minuscule dusting of cinnamon.

Tomato Salad with Pomegranate and Preserved Lemon

This week saw the start of cooler air, and, with it, the first of the yellowed leaves began falling from the trees. Local tomato plants are still flourishing with the last rounds of juicy fruit. With much delight, a few of these showed up beauties appeared at work, courtesy of a co-worker-turned-farmer.

We sat down to a bowl of this salad for dinner. It was perfect at the end of a long day, with preserved lemon and pomegranate seeds punctuating the sweet tomatoes.

I made this salad again later in the week for my lunch, using a yellow tomato variation and changing the cut of the preserved lemon (minced it the first time; sliced it thinly the second time). It was one of those dishes where you nod your head silently, in appreciation of the good food you have.



Tomato Salad with Pomegranate and Preserved Lemon
(Makes enough for 2 as a main)

1-2 vine-ripened, tomatoes, roughly chopped
seeds of one pomegranate
1 tsp of preserved lemon, thinly sliced (subst: lemon zest)
1/4 cup walnuts, toasted
1/4 cup parsley, roughly chopped
olive oil

Combine all in a bowl and toss gently.

Radicchio and Artichoke Salad with Green Olives

With some careful foraging at the local store I ended up with a lovely combination of green items for this salad. But it's not a green salad in the usual sense, since the radicchio is in fact a kind of purplish-red. Rather, this is a purple salad with green toppings. On a warm, autumnal evening, this makes a satisfying light meal if served with some crusty bread.

I often have some seeds and nuts on hand for making granola or toasting and stirring through yogurt. Tonight's salad had a mixture of toasted fennel seed and toasted pumpkin seed atop it, which proved to be a very pleasant addition. Honey was added to the dressing in small quantities to lighten the bitterness of the radicchio leaves, which I had already soaked in ice water for the same reason.



Radicchio and Artichoke Salad with Green Olives
(serves 2 as a light supper)

1/4 small radicchio, shredded and soaked in an ice bath for 20 minutes
2 Tbsp. pumpkin seeds
1 Tbsp. fennel seeds
olive oil
honey
squeeze of lemon juice
salt
2 oil-packed artichoke hearts, sliced
1/3 cup pitted green olives


While your radicchio is soaking, heat a small non-stick skillet over high heat and toast the fennel seeds for a minute, until aromatic. Put the seeds onto a plate (aside) and toast the pumpkin seeds for a few minutes until they start to pop and puff out. Shake the pan regularly to help the seeds heat evenly. Add the seeds to the same plate and set aside.

Whisk together the oil, honey, and lemon juice with a pinch of salt. Drain the radicchio and shake it dry. Put the leaves in your serving bowl and add the artichoke hearts and olives. Drizzle the dressing over and toss gently. Add the toasted seeds over the top of the salad right before serving.