I fell in love with Connecticut maple syrup at my cousin’s house in Litchfield. As I walked through the conifers and sugar maples peppering their acreage near the Berkshires, a few maple taps caught my eye.
Their neighbors at Brookside Farm had tapped a few of their trees to make maple syrup. After I sampled their maple syrup, the Log Cabin maple syrup on the grocery store shelves became an afterthought.
My husband is always asking for a healthy, broth-forward soup. My reply is this squash, chicken, and cannellini bean soup. Since many of my recipes begin with a game of “what can I make with my CSA box this week,” it should come as no surprise that this soup evolved from a Two Dog Farms CSA box.
The first meal my husband made for me was roasted root vegetables with goat cheese. He peeled beets, parsnips, and carrots, which he cut into bite sized chunks before coating in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. A few hours in the oven were an ingenious way for him to lure me into conversation. He can talk to anyone – meaning we never have an uncomfortably quiet uber ride. The vegetables finished roasting as we laughed and exchanged stories of our childhood swim teams. He topped the warm vegetables with crumbled goat cheese and reassured me that it would taste good, despite my hesitation at the thought of eating beets. I was beyond pleasantly surprised at the flavors, of which the beet was the star.
I grew up on Bisquick pancakes. In the Giurintano house, the most coveted pancake was the first pancake. I know what you are thinking – this is counterintuitive. The first pancake lacks the delicious, browned butter flavored coating. But in a kaleidoscope lens that only a child can see through, the first pancake was a prized possession that we all fought to win. It had the most perfect light brown hue around the edge – as if a young tree had just been cut down and you could count the rings. And the intense liquid butter flavor was mouth wateringly good.
After a busy day at work, running a razor-sharp knife through a mountain of vegetables allows me to zone out for a few minutes. Turn on Buena Vista Social Club for background music and open a beer to complete the prep space. I am officially in kitchen-prep-meditation-mode. The fresher the vegetables…the better this recipe will taste.
As I approach 40, I’ve started to think more about what goes in my garbage. ]There are so many ways to repurpose the “undesirable” aspects of ingredients in order to not only reduce waste but also improve flavor. Not to mention that you paid just as much for the “undesirable” aspect of the ingredient as you did for the desirable part. So why not make use of the intense shrimp umami flavor hiding in the shrimp heads and shells by making a simple shrimp stock? Yes, it does take a few extra minutes of prep work, but your taste buds, wallet, and planet will thank you later.
