Eating local food is all the rage now, and this has led to a publication boom in cookbooks focused on eating vegetables in season. The Farmers Market Cookbook is one of these but it stands above many of the rest. If market gardeners got this book into the hands of their customers, I suspect their vegetable sales and CSA renewal rates would likely increase. The book helps people find interesting ways to cook a variety of vegetables.
The book starts with an excellent guide to vegetables. Common varieties are described for each vegetable, but more importantly, there are basic details on how to use the food from washing and peeling to cooking.
The recipes in the cookbook are simple — perfect for busy people. As simple as bruschetta. Shanks and Grohsgal have a traditional bruschetta recipe but so do many other cookbooks. However, the authors (both chefs) also provide a recipe bruschetta that features turnips and prosciutto. There’s also a recipe for Brussels sprouts carbonara. The beauty of this book is that the recipes are creative but still quick and easy.
The book is American but most of the recipes apply to Canadian CSAs (just ignore the ones with fresh figs). A great asset are the indices. There is an index of recipes sorted according to type (soup, salad, dressing, etc.). A second index is based on ingredients. That makes meals so simple for people opening up their CSA box. What to do with beets? Check out six recipes. Lots of cucumbers? There are about a dozen recipes for those, ditto for collards, summer squash and many other vegetables.
To sum it up, The Farmers Market Cookbook provides many great and delicious answers to “What do I do with all this produce?”
- Janet Wallace