Okay so none of these things are actually Southern food. But I cooked them while in the South, so close enough. Shuddup.
I'm currently in North Carolina visiting my dear friends J. & R. and their two dogs and two cats. So far we've gone out for barbeque and Mexican and pizza and big breakfast skillet hashes, and while it's all been utterly delicious dear lord is there a vegetable in the house? Well yes, as it turns out, since J and I stopped at a farmers market in Raleigh on the way home from the airport. So last night for dinner we skipped the leftover pulled pork and I cooked us up what basically amounted to a big pile of tasty tasty veggies: cauliflower/squash soup, sauteed green beans with tomato, and roasted spiced sweet potato wedges.
They're in the middle of a move, so cooking dinner went something like this: Dig through boxes for a cutting board and soup pot. Get out the veggies, oil a roasting dish. Realize the only thing we've got to chop up two huge sweet potatoes and a butternut squash is a little steak knife. Send R back to the old house to get the real knives. Get a movie up on Netflix til R gets back. Chop the potatoes, get them in the oven, peel and chop the squash and cauliflower, get them roasting too. Go to chop onions and garlic, realize we have no onions and garlic. Send R out to get them while he's picking up his cheese steak (not a vegetable kind of guy). Watch another 20 minutes of said movie til R gets back. Get everything sauteed, simmered, roasted, and blended. Start to finish: something like 2 hours. But I swear, if you actually have your stuff on hand and not hidden in boxes across two houses all this takes an hour, tops, or 40 minutes for just the soup.
Winter root soup is really having a moment right now - see
this recent post from the Times, and My New Roots' fantastic
Reverse Universe Soup. My favorite version just uses plain cauliflower, which is not a root but is delicious. The basic recipe is this: take any of the sort of vegetable you might roast (cauliflower, winter squash, parsnips, celeriac, etc), boil them in stock until they're tender, season, and whiz up in the blender until smooth. Cauliflower cooked this way ends up tasting like you dumped in a quart of heavy cream, when really there's nothing dairy at all in there, just a good dollop of olive oil at the bottom (unless you put in a cheese rind, which I strongly recommend you do). It's also a nice blank slate for flavors - thyme and rosemary would go well, as would cajun spices, or some curry powder, or whatever. Leave everything but salt & pepper out of the pot and add to your individual bowl instead, so later when you're eating the leftovers for a week - a head of cauliflower makes a
lot of soup - you can change it up and not get bored. Other veggies, like celeriac, are a little more specific in what spices will go - definitely French/Italian, probably Cajun, but I'd be a little hesitant about going the Indian route in that particular case.
The sweet potato wedges are a recipe out of
Gourmet, which I love. Again the spice blend is up to you, but this one's particularly good. And the green beans are as simple as it gets. Together it's an indulgent-tasting detox dinner, or each dish on its own makes a good side with whatever else you're making. If you're doing all this at once, get the sweet potatoes in the oven first, then do start the soup, and cook the beans while the soup's simmering.
Random Root Soup
Various roastable veggies (cauliflower, parsnips, winter squash, sweet potatoes, normal potatoes, celeriac, parsnip, parsley root, turnip, etc)
1 big yellow onion
2-4 cloves garlic (to taste)
Chicken or vegetable broth
Salt & pepper
Olive oil
lemon juice
Spices of your choice
Optional add-ins:
-rind of a good salty white cheese, like romano or sharp provalone
-bacon
-pasta
-chewy grains like barley or quinoa, cooked
-cooked lentils or beans
-fresh parsley
1) Turn your oven on to 350. Chop up your veggies (not the garlic & onions) into 1-inch cubes or smaller. Put in a pan, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and stick in the oven. Don't worry if the oven's not preheated yet. (This step is totally optional, but it makes the whole thing cook faster. Feel free to skip it and just chop the veggies while the onion is cooking. You'll have to boil them longer in that case.) (Also, if you're making sweet potato wedges too, get those in the oven first, then just stick this pan in as well, no worries about the temp being higher.)
2) Roughly chop the onions, then start to saute them in olive oil in the bottom of a soup pot big enough to hold all your chopped veggies. (If you're adding bacon, chop it small and fry it up with the onions if you want it pureed into the soup later, otherwise do it first and set it aside, with the grease to cook the onions in.) When they start to get transparent, add the garlic, chopped. Saute a minute or two more.
3) Pull the vegetables out of the oven and dump them in the pot. Pour in enough broth to cover. If you do want to herb up the whole pot or if you're adding a cheese rind, now's the time to do it. Let it bubble away until the veggies are soft enough that you can stick a fork in 'em.
4) Blend the whole lot until smooth, either using an immersion blender or a countertop one. If you're using a normal blender, make sure to loosen the little clear plastic bit in the middle of the top and keep your hand on the lid so it doesn't explode scalding liquid when you turn it on. Stir in lemon juice, salt and pepper, spices and add-ins to taste. Eat with a slice of good bread.
Spiced Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes, washed and optionally peeled.
Olive oil
Salt
Equal parts oregano, coriander, and fennel seeds, plus paprika or cayenne to taste
Or whatever spice mix you like
1) Preheat the oven to 415. Cut the sweet potatoes in half across their circumference, then into wedges lengthwise, roughly into eighths. Toss in a baking dish with olive oil, salt, and a generous amount of spices. Roast for 20 minutes, flip over, then until they're nice and soft, roughly 20 minutes more depending on size.
Beans & Tomatoes
String beans, washed
Garlic
Broth
A tomato
Salt
Olive oil
1) Trim the ends off the beans and cut them in half. Smash the garlic cloves under the flat side of a knife.
2) On fairly high heat, saute the beans in oil, stirring frequently. The beans will turn bright green in the heat, maybe brown a little. Add the garlic, saute a minute more. Add a half cup of broth and cover. Once most of the broth has boiled off (2 minutes?) add the chopped tomatoes and stir for another minute. Salt to taste and serve.
