Cut half a cabbage into thin slices. Boil in salted water for about five to seven minutes, or until just tender and drain. In a small pan, melt 3 T butter over medium heat and let brown, stirring constantly. Pour butter into a small dish and set aside. Return the pan to the heat and melt 1 or 2 T butter, then add in as many bread crumbs as you think you’ll want (I used about 1/3 cup). Toast over medium-high heat until lightly browned, stirring occasionally. Finally, reheat the cabbage over medium-high heat, using a tablespoon or so of the brown butter. When the cabbage is hot, drizzle with as much brown butter as you want and toss in the bread crumbs. You might not need all of them at first, but people love to add more at the table.
Bumper Crop of Carrots
4 02 2009Underneath the Chinese cabbage and garlic in my bag this week, I noticed a bumper crop of carrots. So many, in fact, that I called the friend I split my winter share with to make sure she’d divided up the bag properly. “I did,” she said, “but someone must have left theirs so they gave us extra.”
Instead of 1 1/2 pounds of carrots I had 3 pounds lurking at the bottom of the bag. What to do with them?
So far this winter we’ve gone through many different carrot stages: simple boiled carrots with butter (unexpectedly yummy with farm-fresh carrots); glazed carrots with brown sugar and orange; carrots with caraway and cumin. Looking for something new, I pulled out SuperFoods for Babies and Children by Annabel Karmel. My children love the book because it reminds them of the Magic School Bus series, with loads of facts and statistics in the margins. Tonight’s intriguing find? “Carrots do improve night vision.” Pretty cool stuff, especially for a superhero-loving four-year-old.
As written, the recipe makes a somewhat thin soup so I altered it by adding more carrots and twice the split peas. The directions also tell you to soak the split peas overnight, an unnecessary step. Another change is that rather than listing how many carrots to put in, I’ve suggested a weight; unlike their industrial counterparts, farm-fresh carrots aren’t uniform in size. My version of Karmel’s soup is hearty and flavorful, and of course packed with the beta-carotene that helps ward off night blindness.
Click here to read the recipe for Carrot Soup with Yellow Split Peas
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Carrot Soup with Yellow Split Peas
4 02 20092 cups yellow split peas, picked over and rinsed (you can also use red lentils)
1 T butter
8 oz. carrots, peeled and sliced
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup sliced leeks
6-7 cups stock or water
Melt the butter in a dutch oven and saute the carrots, onion and garlic for 3-4 minutes. Stir in the leeks, split peas and stock or water and simmer for 40 minutes, or until peas are very tender. Puree in a blender or food processor and serve with crusty bread.
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