Seasons by the Sea: Falling for Fall Vegetables

I am a huge fan of fall vegetables, almost all of them. They are durable, adaptable, and malleable. Many can be eaten raw, or cooked a number of ways — roasted, steamed, fried, pureed, stir-fried. And they play nicely together, such as celery root cooked with potatoes for a mash, or butternut squash cubes roasted with carrots, sweet potatoes, and shallots.

One of the beauties of fall vegetables is how long they can last with the proper storage. You can’t let a dozen ears of corn fester in the refrigerator until you decide what to do with them. Same goes for delicate butter lettuce or spinach. But vegetables like cabbage and kale, cauliflower and broccoli, they’re perfectly content sitting in your produce bin until you’re inspired.

Some of the vegetables that are plentiful now and grown locally are pumpkins (okay, that’s technically a berry), all manner of squash, cabbage, carrots, Brussels sprouts, turnips, potatoes, kohlrabi, parsnips, kale, chard, beets, celery root, broccoli, and cauliflower.

When it comes to pumpkins and winter squash, there are so many varieties that I get overwhelmed and confused and tend to stick with what I know. Cheese pumpkins are for pie, but I swear, once you go through all the work of cooking and pureeing and seasoning, you might as well used canned for a pie.

Regarding squash, my personal favorite is butternut. It is sturdier, sweeter, and less watery than acorn or delicata. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to peel, so make sure you have good knives and mad skills. I’ve shared it before, but my favorite go-to recipe for butternut squash is cubes drizzled with olive oil, a bit of maple syrup, grated ginger, and rosemary, roasted for about 45 minutes at 375 degrees. You’re welcome.

The beauty of cabbage is it is delicious raw in slaw, (which also keeps well so you can have it for several meals in a week), or used in stir-fries, stuffed, added to soups, and so on. Napa, the ruffled leaf with white ribs variety is good for stirfries. Savoy, the loosely packed, wrinkly kind is good for cabbage rolls.

Carrots, available year round, are especially good in early summer and late fall. Like many of the other vegetables, they benefit from a few cold snaps. I don’t peel them, just give them a good scrubby-dub with a vegetable brush or coarse side of a sponge. My current favorite recipe is roasting large slivers with a bit of olive oil, a few tablespoons of water, and salt and pepper until they are fully cooked and starting to caramelize. Finish with a few drizzles of very good balsamic vinegar. One thing to beware of, they do shrink considerably, so you will definitely need one whole bunch for two people.

Brussels sprouts have experienced such a resurgence in popularity that they can often be found on restaurant menus as a side dish year round, usually offered crispy with bacon. If you want to leave out the bacon, smoked salt or smoked paprika can give the sprouts some added depth of flavor without the porcine fat.

Turnips are one of my favorites, but only when they are small. Try slicing them and sautéing in butter with plenty of salt and pepper. Finish with snipped chives, very French!

Potatoes deserve, and have received, their own column before, so I’ll just say that you want to use waxy potatoes for salads, soups, and roasting; floury ones for baking and/or mashing. You can use the all purpose potatoes interchangeably. Use waxy potatoes within a week of purchase; floury ones such as russet will last in a cool pantry environment (away from light and with good air circulation) for a month or so.

I am skipping kohlrabi and parsnips because I don’t like them. Sorry.

Kale and chard are divine. Maybe you’re sick of seeing kale Caesar salad on every menu, but when properly prepared, it is delicious. The key is to shred or break up the leaves into manageable bites, then massage them. I do this with olive oil and lemon juice. From there you can add toasted pine nuts, garlic, a bit of Parmesan cheese, dried cranberries or currants, toasted breadcrumbs, and so on. I am not a fan of the baby kale leaves sold bagged at the supermarket. While easier to prepare (you don’t have to stem the leaves), they have less flavor and wilt too quickly once dressed. Chard is delicious in gratins and soups. It is mild like spinach. The French, who are not wont to waste, cook the stems separately, then combine with the leaves, which require less cooking.

Beets are one of my favorite vegetables. I cannot emphasize enough the benefits of roasting them whole over boiling them. The sugars and some of the color are lost in boiling but are concentrated when roasted. Give them a good scrub, leave an inch of the stem on, wrap in foil and bake for approximately an hour at 400 degrees. The sizes in one bunch vary wildly, so test with a sharp knife. When cooled they are easy to peel. From there, try tossing them in a mustardy vinaigrette with shallots and put on top of hearts of escarole salad. Toasted walnuts, walnut oil, and blue cheese are also classic additions to this salad. And don’t forget borscht, hot or cold, one of the greatest soups, but seldom seen anymore!

Celery root is wonderful raw, julienned, and made into celery remoulade. Toss with mustardy creme fraiche and lots of black pepper. It is also great in gratins, mashed with potatoes, or in soups.

Broccoli and cauliflower are year-round staples, but you haven’t lived until you’ve had a fresh Long Island cauliflower, sweetened by a bit of frost. Besides the usual methods of cooking, lately I have seen recipes for whole roasted cauliflower coated with herb butter, whole deep-fried cauliflower cut into steaks, and even a mock risotto made with shaved cauliflower.

All you have to do is look at fall vegetables and realize they are full of vitamins, the vibrant oranges and yellows and deep greens just scream vitamin C. Broccoli has lots of vitamins, C, K, and A, plus folate and fiber. Cabbage has vitamin C, fiber, and isothiocyanates, chemicals that help our body’s natural detoxification systems. Chard and kale have phytochemicals, vitamins K, D, A, and C, magnesium, and potassium. Potatoes have complex carbohydrates and a bit of vitamin C. Winter squashes have vitamins A, C, B6, and K, potassium, and folate.

In experimenting with many of these vegetables I did notice that most have a mild, earthy flavor and a degree of sweetness. These characteristics can be played up by adding cream and cheese, but I found that a sharp acidic note really brought out their flavors. So you can go in any direction with them, rich and comforting or light and sprightly. Summer may be over, but the wonderful array of vegetables available and their preparation possibilities has just begun.

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