Crunchy, crispy, chewy and creamy. Do these words appeal to you? If yes, you’ll like this salad with four Cs. Crunchy carrots, crisp arugula, chewy pistachios and creamy burrata mozzarella. Toss with a red wine vinaigrette and get ready for a light lunch or dinner. Continue reading
Light meals are not just for warmer weather. Above all, we always crave colorful crunchy platters of protein loaded with fruits and veggies. Winter fruits and vegetables make lovely salads. Continue reading
Warm weather meals can be so simple to prepare and often involve assembly only, with perhaps a little grilling or searing on the side. That’s what this meal is all about. Taking advantage of the local, the seasonal and the colorful, with some pre-meal searing of a versatile and very tasty cut of well-marbleized pasture raised beefsteak. Continue reading
February is the month for citrus. Fragrant chubby orbs of red and pink grapefruit, knobby headed tangelos, munchkin clementines, glossy Meyer lemons and vivid cara cara oranges – I love them all, and love to feature them on menus for The Good Eats Company.
Sometimes the muse taps me on the shoulder several times at the markets. She whispers in my ear “pssst..this would make a great combination – put these together and magic will happen”.
Farmer Teal Brooks of Pine Fork Farm told me she likes her French breakfast radishes roasted. Hmmm….never made them like that and sounds delicious, I said. When I tasted them for the first time, I was most pleasantly surprised at their sweetness and texture. They lost their radish “bite” and transformed into something close to young turnips.
French breakfast radishes from Pine Fork Farm and the Sunday Carytown Farmers Market
With a deconstructed vinaigrette of fresh lemon, dijon mustard and brilliantly hued extra virgin olive oil, this salad is art on a plate,
and can be a starter or entree with the addition of roasted (as long as you have the oven hot) or grilled meats and seafood. The addition of poached farm fresh eggs would make this a light brunch entree.
We have all tried the common red globe radish found in grocery aisles (called Cherry Belle), packed in cellophane bags, but the other beauties will blow your mind with flavor, especially if locally grown. French breakfast radishes have a nice peppery bite raw in salads, and an even stronger zing can be had with black radish . Area farmer’s markets deliver all types each spring and then again in fall.
roasted French breakfast radishes
Loving their crunch in salads will not keep me from enjoying their incarnation as roasted vegetables, now that I have been awakened. Thanks, Teal.
recipe by Michele Humlan, The Good Eats Company
serves four
ingredients
two bunches French breakfast radishes, cleaned and trimmed*
best quality extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt
four cups baby arugula
strained juice of one large lemon
one level tablespoon Dijon mustard
one half cup shaved pecorino romano cheese
coarse ground black pepper
flaky sea salt (I like Maldon)
*save greens for another salad if desired
directions