Branching Out...With Deformed Albino Carrots
Ahhh how I love branching out and expanding my cooking horizons! Tonight for dinner I tried something a little different - Quinoa, White Bean and Kale Stew!! My friend Abby posted this recipe on her twitter a little while ago, and it caught my eye.
The recipe included a few ingredients I had never worked with before - namely leeks and parsnips. I had to google parsnips to even know what the heck they were. I'd never eaten them, cooked them...nothing. Turns out they look like really deformed albino carrots. As I was cutting them up, I took a bite just to see how they tasted. And you know what? It's like a coconut and a carrot got married and had a baby. Strangely satisfying. And the leeks? They are essentially a Super Mario big world version of green onions (scallions).
What I really liked about this recipe was that it was full of things that are uber healthy and known as "superfoods" with powers to fight crime! I mean...cancer! Especially the quinoa, kale, and garlic. It didn't take long to cook, which was great! The prep work was most definitely the most time consuming and labor-intensive part of the entire process.
It smelled wonderful...but how did it taste?! Well, it was well received at the dinner table. It was a bit sweet, which I think was mainly due to the spices it calls for - rosemary, thyme, fennel, and marjoram. I think next time I will skip the fennel and throw in some red pepper flakes instead. Adding a bit of lemon juice as suggested at the end of the recipe really adds a nice touch, as well! Oh, and I nixed the carrots. We're not huge cooked carrot fans.
Unfortunately, I have not quite ascended to the level of photographing my kitchen adventurements (do you like that? I just made up that word. It's adventures and experiments all smushed up into one word. Too ambitious? Ok. Anyway.). But maybe someday I'll document my culinary masterpieces ;)
The recipe included a few ingredients I had never worked with before - namely leeks and parsnips. I had to google parsnips to even know what the heck they were. I'd never eaten them, cooked them...nothing. Turns out they look like really deformed albino carrots. As I was cutting them up, I took a bite just to see how they tasted. And you know what? It's like a coconut and a carrot got married and had a baby. Strangely satisfying. And the leeks? They are essentially a Super Mario big world version of green onions (scallions).
What I really liked about this recipe was that it was full of things that are uber healthy and known as "superfoods" with powers to fight crime! I mean...cancer! Especially the quinoa, kale, and garlic. It didn't take long to cook, which was great! The prep work was most definitely the most time consuming and labor-intensive part of the entire process.
It smelled wonderful...but how did it taste?! Well, it was well received at the dinner table. It was a bit sweet, which I think was mainly due to the spices it calls for - rosemary, thyme, fennel, and marjoram. I think next time I will skip the fennel and throw in some red pepper flakes instead. Adding a bit of lemon juice as suggested at the end of the recipe really adds a nice touch, as well! Oh, and I nixed the carrots. We're not huge cooked carrot fans.
Unfortunately, I have not quite ascended to the level of photographing my kitchen adventurements (do you like that? I just made up that word. It's adventures and experiments all smushed up into one word. Too ambitious? Ok. Anyway.). But maybe someday I'll document my culinary masterpieces ;)
Comments