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Feature Articles
What are Leeks?
Meet a Not-
Discovering What We Don’t Know About Leeks
Alien Encounters:
Drumming Up Inspiration for Strange-
A Week of Leeks:
Get to know Leeks, 7 Easy Ways
In Every Issue
Why We Love It
Partners in Flavor and Season
Leek Season
Vegetable Boosters
Picky Eater Tips
Money Saving Tricks
News from the Farm
Cooking School
Cooking Classes:
White Fish and Leeks en Papillote
Roasted Leeks and Butternut Squash Salad
Buying the Best
Storing for Flavor
Prepping Tricks & Tips
Cooking Basics
Recipes, Recipes, Recipes
13 Easy Recipes: Make
Leeks a Mid-
Not Just More Reasons
<<This Month’s Vegetable
Alien Encounters:
Drumming Up Inspiration for Strange-
© 2009 Culinary Concepts, Inc., Boulder CO
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I'm such vegetable cheerleader. It's probably good that I get hit with a curve ball every now and then to make sure I don't cartwheel off the stage.
Apparently I was in danger of just such a fall because leeks came up as the Vegetable
of the Month. All autumn, I was coming up with great recipes for kale, Brussels
sprouts, winter squash and even winter radishes-
I'm guessing a lack of excitement describes how a lot of people feel about a lot
of vegetables-
Doesn’t Target or WalMart stock jars of Vegetable Inspiration that you can sprinkle on the green stuff in the frig before it rots?
If it's true that we need to be eating an entire rainbow of vegetables (which is
what all the experts say), we're never going to reach the pot of gold without something
to fire up the engines. And that something, I suspect, is not just more reasons.
We know all the health reasons to eat "a wide variety" of vegetables-
So back to my leek challenge: I didn't have to dig very deep to unearth my leek
bogeyman. I'd created him myself-
Taking my own advice, I invested a little time learning to cook them properly. In fact, I went so far as to carve out a couple hours to really get a handle on leek cooking, testing several methods in an orderly, comprehensive manner, instead of just piecemeal here and there. With a little knowledge and care, I was able to easily and deliciously cook up a batch of leeks.
Finally, just like Nach's professional chefs, I browsed cookbooks and the Internet
to see how others were using leeks. There were dozens of intriguing possibilities-
Want to get to know leeks? What do they taste like? How do you cook them?
Learn All About Leeks in
Whether by accident or virtuous intentions, alien objects of a vegetable nature are popping up in kitchens around the country.
What if one lands in your kitchen?
Mission Vegetable:
Changing
“Should” to “Want”
Our mission is to transform vegetables into something we want in our meals, not just something we tack on at the end because "we should eat our vegetables."
Our mission is to transform vegetables into something we want in our meals, not just something we include because "we should eat our vegetables."
Can’t we just buy a jar of Vegetable Inspiration?
Maybe what we need more than reasons is inspiration, motivation–something to kick start us on to a vegetable adventure. Which gets back to my ambivalence about leeks. As I began writing this month’s issue, I was desperately searching for some inspiration. So for the sake of science I decided to observe my frantic quest, which happily yielded three helpful strategies:
Strategy 1: Dredge Up Past Bogeymen When it comes to vegetables, there are plenty of bogeymen lurking around and ready to sabotage our taste buds, especially when it comes to vegetables we view as “aliens.”
- Spinach In the Spinach issue, for instance, I told the story about exhibiting at a health fair. No less than three attendees in a single morning stopped by my display with identical spinach stories: As youngsters, they had all been force fed canned spinach and now they hated it.
- Beets Countless people have told me similar stories about beets: As kids they were forced to eat pickled beets, souring them on this vegetable for life.
- Winter Squash In a similar vein, my neighbor insisted that she and her husband wouldn't like the delicata squash that had accidentally popped up in her garden. To her, all winter squash tasted like baby food.
With bad taste memories like these, it's no wonder we view vegetables, especially
strange-
Strategy 2: Learn to Buy and Cook Flavorfully Thankfully, it's not hard to dispense
with bad taste memories. Usually, it takes just a kernel or two of know-
For instance, when our spinach haters finally had a chance to try fresh spinach they became giddy over the taste. When the beet eaters learned to roast beets, they were amazed how the vegetable morphed into such sweet nuggets . And when I suggested that my neighbor try baking, rather than boiling her delicata, she became an instant squash fan.
This is what Vegetable a Month is all about. Sometimes, our vegetable know-
Strategy 3: Now for Some Inspiration Eliminating bad taste memories makes room
for a fresh start-
An Inspiration Strategy
Drumming up Leek Inspiration
Vegetable Hope
Hopefully this and all issues of the Vegetable a Month Magazine will give you not
only the know-
7 Days / 7 Ways
to cook leeks
+ 7 tempting menu ideas
On the Blog: Strategy 4
Read the blog for a report on my first, informed foray into leek cooking-
One of the 7 ways to cook leeks in A Week of Leeks
