Turmeric Roasted Carrots with Carrot Top Pesto and Roasted Garlic Sauce

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Days of sparkle, festive Christmas trees, buttery warm cookies, slow cooked foods that cover the entire house with a delightful aroma and make you jump out of the chair and go lick a spoon in the kitchen, steal a cookie or open the oven door to check on that roasting goodie that makes your mouth watering with anticipation. Busy house with fancy dressed family. Rushing people on the streets cozzied up with scarfs and mittens while caring bags of produce and presents. Passing strangers and neighbors wrapped in their scarfs, mittens and bags, nodding to say hello and smiling in this holiday togetherness. Colorful wrapping paper, long ribbons covering the living room floor as boxes and items are carefully wrapped, stacked and placed under the tree. 

Christmas to most of us is about family and traditions. Celebrating them. Recreating them. Making new ones. And this year, as with any other year that I have lived away from my family, I celebrate it – always, by making a wall tree out of Christmas ornaments simply because my apartment is waaaaay too small to fit a real tree. Recreate it – as I cook an odd numbers of vegan dishes on Christmas Eve. Make a new tradition – as I celebrate it with new “by Love” family eating Lasagna while hoping not to anger the Gods that I broke the tradition and the “rule” and ate meat and not vegan food on Christmas Eve. And coming up with new or revised traditional Bulgarian dishes because sometimes is hard to find the ingredients, and sometimes because as new life comes and asks me to renew, to be open, to change and to make something new while preserving the core.

So this year I decided to make, as always, the traditional bread with fortunes but with a new recipe. Make stuffed leaves, but rather than using ‘the hard to find’ grape leaves I am stuffing collard greens. And to make turmeric roasted carrots in place of the bean soup, not because I don’t like bean soup, in the contrary I LOVE it, but every year I eat too much of it (out of pure gluttony – hey, non of us is perfect) until my tummy hurts. So this year I decided to replace the soup with roasted carrots which I can eat by the loads without the belly ache.

Now onto the carrots. 

This recipe had fallen into my favorites box and which I have made a million times. Well, not that many times, but you get the idea of why something becomes my favorite – because it is insanely good and I crave it often. So why this recipe works? It is because the carrots are roasted with aromatics like turmeric and cumin. The cumin gives a middle eastern (and Bulgarian) flavor while the turmeric and the heat makes the carrots sweet and nicely roasted with that slightly brown exterior, soft but not mushy exterior and extremely sweet. The other part of the recipe that I love, even on its own or as an accompaniment to roasted potatoes, veggies or just to dip my bread are the carrot top pesto and the roasted garlic sauce. The carrot top pesto uses the entire carrot vegetable – the carrots, the leaves – yes, everything my friends. If you haven’t made or tasted carrot top pesto, let me tell you that it is so good that you might ditch your regular pesto and switch to this one, especially in the winter time when basil by the bunch is so expensive. This pesto has the same components as a traditional pesto but replaces the basil with carrot tops and handful of cilantro. The roasted garlic sauce is so rustic, full of flavor and easily addicting. It mixes roasted garlic with greek yogurt, lemon juice and olive oil that gives body and richness and it is whipped until smooth. When laid as a base for the roasted carrots and accompanied by the carrot top pesto is, in my perspective, is a match made in heaven and so addictive that it goes into the favorites box and to be made a million times.

Well, enough carrot-blabbing from me. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas with your family and loved ones. And don’t forget to celebrate your traditions, to recreate them and to make new ones as new life comes to you.

xoxo

Turmeric Roasted Carrrots with Carrot Top Pesto and Roasted Garlic Sauce

Serves 4 (as a side dish)

Ingredients

For the Roasted Carrots
• 2 bunches of carrots scrubbed, tops trimmed to about 1/2 inch
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbsp ground turmeric
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp olive oil

For the Carrot Top Pesto
• 1 bunch carrot tops (about 2 cups roughly chopped)
• 1/2 cup cilantro leaves
• 1/3 cup + 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan
• 1 small garlic clove

For the Roasted Garlic Sauce
• 1 large garlic head
• 1 cup plain, full fat, greek or icelandic yogurt
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1-2 tbsp lemon juice
• Salt and pepper

Directions

Carrots

1. Preheat oven to 425F.

2. Cut the large carrots in half and leave small/skinny carrots whole. Toss them with the olive oil, turmeric, cumin and salt on a rimmed backing sheet. Prepare the garlic for the yogurt sauce: Peel and discard the papery outer layers of the whole garlic bulb, leaving intact the skins of the individual cloves of garlic. Using a sharp knife, cut 1/4 to a 1/2 inch from the top of cloves, exposing the individual cloves of garlic. Place the garlic on a piece of aluminum foil, drizzle a couple teaspoons of olive oil over the exposed head, and wrap the garlic the foil. Place in the pan with the carrots. Roast, shaking the pan occasionally, until the carrots are evenly browned and tender about 25 minutes. If your carrots are on the larger side, this might take a bit longer. If you like your carrots drier and sweeter (like I do) roast them for an attitudinal 15 minutes, but remove the garlic before doing that so it doesn’t burn. Remove carrots from the oven and set aside.

Carrot Top Pesto

1. Rinse the carrot top greens to dislodge any dirt. Pick out and discard any dry, yellowed, or otherwise unappetizing looking leaves. Discard tough stems.

2. Place the carrot tops greens, cilantro, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and salt in a food processor or immersion blender. Pulse several times. Scrape the sides down with a rubber spatula. If the mixture is too thick and hard to work with, add 1-2 tbsp of olive oil or water. Add walnuts and Parmesan cheese and pulse or puree until smooth. I like my pesto really smooth, so I puree it on high for a long time until no chunks are left. Taste and add more salt and lemon juice. 

Roasted Garlic Sauce

Allow the garlic to cool enough so you can touch it without burning yourself. Use a small knife cut the skin slightly around each clove. Use a cocktail fork or your fingers to pull or squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins. Place all roasted garlic cloves into the food processor bowl. Add the rest of the roasted garlic sauce ingredients. Wizz until smooth. Taste and add more salt, pepper or lemon juice.

Assembly

Spoon 1-2 tbsp of the yogurt sauce on 4 individual plates. Place roasted carrots on top. Sprinkle few cilantro leaves (optional). Serve with the carrot top pesto.

Romanesco Cream Soup

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It is officially soup season and I am constantly going between 2 major what-to-eat-moods. Soup or salad. Salad or soup. Soup, because it is freezing outside and cup of warm yummy soup of any kind unfreezes my toes and makes my cold cheeks happy. And salad, because I am constantly craving fresh, crisp veggies that remind me of the summer and my favorite farmers market, which are almost gone now. Once in a while the salad will win over my heart and I will eat it in a typical fashion of mine – a few days on a row. But then a teeny-tiny voice starts whispering “Soup...warm, cozy soup”, and I can’t resist it, I have to make it.

It has been a couple of years now since I discovered this wonderful green giant, the Romanesco broccoli/cauliflower. And I have been in love with its mild cabbage flavor (much milder than broccoli or cauliflower in my opinion) and how lush and creamy it becomes when made into cream soup. So when I saw it at my late fall farmers market, I grabbed a few and decided to treat myself to a soup. Usually, I will make a simple cream soup with it by adding potatoes, onion and cream for thickness and texture, but this time I had leek, a couple of zucchinis and some pea shoots in my kitchen, so I decided to experiment and add them to the soup as well. The result was a lush, silky soup that had a complex flavor, much more complex than when adding potato or onion only. The addition of zucchini made it extra smooth and the pea shoots added some spring freshness and a beautiful green color. If you don’t have or don’t like zucchini or pea shoots, you can skip them, but I am quite sure that if you added them to your soup, they might become your favorite ingredients for any cream soup :)

So, here you have it, my latest soup obsession... The salad recipe is to come next ;)

I also wonder what seasonal or all-time cravings do you have? Mom, if you are reading this, I know about your feta cheese toast for dinner every night of the week craving. 

xoxo

Romanesco Cream Soup

Serves 6

Ingredients
• 1 medium to large Romanesco
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large leek, white part only, thinly sliced
• 2 small (or 1 large) zucchinis, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 2 medium (any kind) potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 4-5 cups homemade chicken or vegetable stock (low-sodium store bought works too)
• 1 cup of pea shoots (optional) + more for serving
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 whole milk (optional) 
• salt + pepper

Directions:

1. Wash Romanesco and separate the florets into about 2-inch chunks. The stems can be peeled with a paring knife, removing the stringy exterior and added to the flowerets. Place all in a bowl and set aside.

2. In a large pot heat 2 tbsp of olive oil and add the leeks. Sauté over medium heat for 1-2 minutes until soft. Add the remaining olive oil, the potatoes and the zucchinis. Stir and cook for 2-3 minutes until the potatoes start to stick to the bottom of pot (but are not burning). At this point, add the chicken/vegetable stock, the Romanesco and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the potatoes are soft, about 15 minutes. Add the pea shots, if using, and simmer for 5-10 more minutes.

3. With an immersion or a standard blender set on low speed blend the soup until no large chunks are present. Increase the speed and blend until really smooth and creamy. Add the butter and the Parmesan cheese and blend until smooth. Taste the soup and if you prefer it creamier, add the whole milk and blend for 10 more seconds. Taste for salt and pepper and add if needed.

4. Ladle soup into bowls, top with a few fresh pea shoots (if using) or freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!

Roasted Cauliflower with Za'atar and Lemon

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As a child I was obsessed with cauliflower. It was this rare and somehow special and magical vegetable that would come in the fall and will be around for a little bit and then it will disappear, in the same magical way as it appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. I never heard of anyone growing cauliflower, my family didn’t grow cauliflower, I didn’t see any crops of cauliflower and then, boom – out of nowhere, cauliflower shows up at the farmers market for a few days and then it will be gone. How strangely magical I thought. How I loved the cauliflower crunchiness. And how I wanted to eat it all the time. As you are reading this, perhaps you might be thinking that this itself it the strangest story ever, especially if you live in the United States and cauliflower is available all year around and it is as common as bagged lettuce. But you see, it was not like that in Bulgaria when I was a kid. I would only see cauliflower in the fall when my father would bring it home, from the market, in big plastic bags He will then wash it and separate the flowerets, sitting on his chair by the kitchen sink whistling to some traditional Bulgarian song (or a German marching song!), piling the cauliflower florets in a big bowl and happily popping some of them in his mouth. I remember standing by him, all mesmerized by this strange, flower-shaped vegetable and impatiently waiting for him to hand me a floret or a center of a cauliflower stem so I can taste this crunchy, nutty and cabaggelike goodness. I thought that this was the coolest vegetable ever and I couldn’t wait for my father to finish making the winter Giardiniera – the only way I remember Bulgarians from my childhood eating cauliflower.

Then I moved to United States, to what it seemed to me, to be the cauliflower paradise. Cauliflower everywhere. And all the time! Then I tried some of the conventional (or shall we say, food industry) ways of eating cauliflower; boiled, steamed, tasteless and mushy, and I thought to myself that Bulgarians might have been right all along, that the only way to enjoy cauliflower is in the fall and only marinated in Giardiniera. And my love affair with this vegetable started to slowly fall apart, with the exception of occasional cream of cauliflower soup or cauliflower mash. Then, one day, at a restaurant, whose name I don’t remember, I had a warm cauliflower side dish and I was blown away. The cauliflower was cooked, but not over-cooked, and it was deliciously nutty and semi-crunchy, slightly charred and tossed with lemon rind and Parmesan. I ate the whole thing. And I kept thinking about this cauliflower in the days to follow and I was on a mission to recreate the dish. Night after night I will cook and eat cauliflower, until I got the recipe to my taste. And in the process of the eating and cooking and eating, eating, eating my beloved cauliflower and I got reunited.

I took notes of the cauliflower as I remembered it and I have adapted and changed the recipe over time to my taste. I don’t grill the cauliflower (simply because I don’t have a grill) and to achieve its smoky blackened exterior, I cook it in a nicely heated pan where at the end I add a teaspoon of smoked mushroom butter. If you like your cauliflower softer and especially if you have to make it for a large crowd, pop it in the oven on a baking sheet at 425F for 30 min. It still would be quite delicious.

As people say – true love never dies. So go into your kitchen, pour yourself a glass of wine and make something that you love with all of your heart.

xoxo

Ingredients:

Serves 4 (as a side dish)

Ingredients:
• 1 lemon
• 1 tsp butter
• 1 tbsp Panko bread crumbs
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small cauliflower, torn or cut in 1-inch florets
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tbsp smoked mushroom butter (or 1 tsp smoked paprika)
• 1 tbsp Za’atar spice (recipe below) (or store bought)
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Za’atar Spice
Combine 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds, 1 tbsp fresh (or dry) thyme leaves and 1 tbsp sumac. Store in an airtight container (if the thyme is fresh let the container open for 2-3 days so the thyme dries). 

Directions:

1. Grate and juice the lemon, place in separate bowls and set aside.

2. Melt the plain butter in a large non-stick pan, add the bread crumbs and toast until golden-brown, about 30 sec. Set aside in a bowl.

3. Return the non-stick skillet to the stove, heat it very well on high heat. When nice and hot, add the olive oil, the cauliflower and the salt. Stir well to coat the florets evenly, lower the heat to a medium-high and cook for 2-3 minutes until golden brown without disturbing. Turn (or stir) the florets on the other side and cook for additional 2-3 minutes, until nice and brown (the more charred on the sides tastier they will be). Add the red pepper flakes and the smoked butter (or smoked paprika) and cook for additional minute.

4. Place the cooked cauliflower in a large bowl, add the lemon zest, half of the lemon juice, the Za’atar spice, bread crumbs, Parmesan and the parsley. Mix well to combine. Taste and add more lemon juice, Za’atar spice or seasoning if needed.

Plate and enjoy.

Tip: This is a wonderful side to poached eggs or roasted chicken. Make a rice bowl of it by adding cooked grains, avocado, tomatoes, sliced cucumbers and a spoonful of yogurt tahini.