Radish Quiche and Cider-Glazed Potatoes

Fall in the city can feel just a little less magical than fall in the mountains. But cooking with in season goodies like radishes, apple cider, and potatoes will bring fall to your dinner table, no matter where you are.

Radish Quiche with a side of glazed potatoes and a glass of Village White from Bet the Farm Winery.

Quiche: an elegant dish usually reserved for brunch. But why not serve it for dinner? There's no reason. The base ingredients are inexpensive just eggs, milk, and the ingredients for a pie crust. Add in whatever you have on hand that sounds good (I recommend cheese in any quiche) and you're on your way to dinner! Serve it with a salad or other side (like my cider-glazed spuds) and you've got a treat that won't ruin your weekly grocery budget. Plus, you can eat the leftovers for breakfast.

Radish Quiche
Adapted from Joy of Cooking

1 bunch cherry belle radishes
8 ounces Ivory lace cheese (can substitute havarti), cubed
1 cup milk
3 eggs
1 small yellow onion, chopped small
pinch salt
9-inch pie crust

Chop radishes, both the roots and greens, and steam for 2 or 3 minutes. Place radishes in bottom of pie crust with cheese. Whisk together other ingredients and then pour over radishes and cheese. Bake 30-40 minutes, until quiche is set and knife comes out clean.

I've been inundated with potatoes in my CSA boxes - every week I get a couple more pounds!!  It's a good thing they last awhile because even someone that loves potatoes as much as I do can't keep up with them. These potatoes taste sweet, but there's only one teaspoon of sugar in them. Other root vegetables like carrots or sweet potatoes would probably do well with this glaze, too.

Cider-Glazed Potatoes
Adapted from Glazed Root Vegetables in Joy of Cooking

2 cups fingerling potatoes, cut into thick rounds
2/3 cup vegetable or light chicken stock
1/3 cup Dawson's apple cider
2 T butter
1 tsp. sugar
pinch salt

Simmer all ingredients, covered, until potatoes are tender. Uncover and stir mixture until liquid thickens to a glaze.

Sweet Potato Salad

Potato salad - the cool, soft, mayonnaise laden concoction served alongside all number of summer favorites like hot dogs, not dogs, hamburgers, and grilled chicken. If you're like me you've got a favorite recipe (Mom's), but like to try all those new and interesting potato salads in vogue these days (like Pesto Potato Salad with Green Beans). It had been so cool here that I'd been figuring potato salad season was over. I was contemplating soups. And then, on Friday, when I was going to make a Peanut and Sweet Potato Stew, it was ninety degrees. Despair, dismay, I love stew, the sweet potatoes were getting wrinkly, I don't have air conditioning so I can't fake fall, I can't stand my apartment any hotter than it already is or a warm-your-insides meal...

But then - flash! Potato salad. Oh sweet deliciousness! Perfection. I boiled my sweet potatoes, but them in the fridge and started contemplating recipes. It would be a bit different from potato salad with white potatoes of course, but I wasn't feeling the sweet versions with apple slices and nuts. I wanted something more akin to Mom's potato salad, but without the pickles. Something about the combination of sweet potato and pickle just didn't sit right with me.  Ultimately, I ended up with a simple but delicious recipe:

Ingredients:

3 medium sweet potatoes, boiled, peeled, and cubed
3 T candy onion, minced
1 small green bell pepper, minced
2 T mayonnaise
Dash of salt

Boil the sweet potatoes until tender. Peel before or after boiling as you prefer. Chill potatoes in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

When the potatoes are cool, add all the other ingredients and stir. Usually, I'm a big fan of rough chopping and calling a dish rustica, but when it comes to potato salad it's best to take the time to chop your veggies small for even flavor. Recipe serves 3.

While it's not the prettiest dish, (the final product looked a little like baby food and I couldn't get a good photo if it) it is delicious. I served it with some fish I picked up at Trader Joe's, but it would pair well with anything that usually keeps your potato salad company on the plate.

Zucchini, zucchini, zucchini...

Zucchini almost grows faster than weeds at this time of year. Once it gets going, it can be one of the most prolific plants in the garden. For the third week in a row I’ve been presented with one of these beautiful green members of the cucumber/melon family in my CSA box. This week it wasn’t even on the list of items planned for the box, it just showed up between the cucumber and the green beans. So, today is the day to start tackling all the zucchini in my fridge. Luckily, zucchini tend to keep well.

My first thought for zucchini was zucchini bread – when I’ve got too much of a fruit or vegetable I tend to figure out how best to put it in a baked good for a little variety. I whipped up a batch of Sweet Zucchini Bread from the 75th Anniversary edition of the Joy of Cooking. But afterward, I still had about half a cup of shredded zucchini left over…so I made a variation of my Dad’s Ugly Scramble:

Ugly Zucchini for 1

Small pat of butter
½ cup zucchini, grated or sliced thin
1 tsp. chopped garlic scapes (or a little fresh garlic)
1 egg, beaten

Melt butter in medium skillet. Add garlic scapes and zucchini. Saute until zucchini is translucent. Add egg and cook for about a minute while stirring. When egg is cooked through, the dish is ready. Add a little salt if desired and enjoy!