Care for some kohlrabi?

I know I've eaten kohlrabi in some form earlier in my lifetime, but I remember nothing about it. Every once in a while, I think about it, wonder why I haven't done much it and then move on. But it was a different story last week - I was trolling PCC wearing my find-new-vegetables hat and I sighted bunches of pretty purple kohlrabis sitting around. I grabbed a bunch right away and got all excited about what I could do with it - saute? bake? gratin of some kind? *so* many options!



I love cabbage. I like turnips too. In fact, I love most of those rugged green vegetables - brussel sprouts, collard, cauliflower, broccoli ... pretty likely that I'll like these cabbage cultivar. Whoa! Apparently, kohlrabi actually means cabbage+turnip - clever? (not!) :)

As I was browsing one of my vegetarian cookbooks, I came across a recipe for a traditional caponata - it usually contained eggplants, tomatoes, olives, maybe some wine and some turbinado sugar to cut the tartness of the tomatoes. Well, I kind of started off thinking I would replace the eggplant with kohlrabi, but I ended up going much further - skipping the tomato seemed like a good idea, I ended up using some sumac instead. And things just got cooking from there.

Kohlrabi Caponata (of sorts!)
"Cabbage+turnip" over pasta?!!

Servings: 2

2 kohlrabis - peeled and sliced
1/2 red onion - sliced long
1/2 carrot - diced
10-12 gren olives
10-12 capers
3 cloves garlic - smashed
1/4 cup red wine
1 T turbinado sugar
1 t balsamic vinegar
1 T extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
a couple of drops of truffle oil
cooked spaghetti to serve with the caponata

Heat the oil in a wok and saute the onions till they start to brown.
Add the smashed garlic along with the kohlrabi and carrots and simmer covered for about 6-7 minutes.
Toss in the red wine and simmer for another 3-4 minutes till the liquid reduces to 1/4 of the original quantity.
Add the olives, capers, sugar and vinegar and saute a li'l more.
Finally season with the salt and pepper, maybe even some red pepper flakes.
Top the pasta with the caponata or toss them all together, your choice! :)


Any good?
It was fabulous! The earthy and peppery flavours of the kohlrabi blended with the sweet-sour sauce and danced on our palates. *so* good! I can't wait to dig into that kohlrabi again.

Oooo ... new vegetable - this means I need to ship this off to Vani for Weekend Herb Blogging!

Fusilli e Bean Casserole

Today felt like a non-desi comfort food day. Hmm ... mac'n'cheese? No, I was craving something more nutritious than that! :)

After poking around several cookbooks, I finally embarked on making a veggie-filled pasta bake. As the fusilli cooked, I started gathering the makings for the base. A bunch of green beans were on hand, a ripe'n'ready-to-burst tomato was waiting too. And maybe some olives?

Fusilli e Bean Casserole

3 cups fusilli - cooked al dente
1 large ripe vine tomato
1/3 lb green beans - parboiled
10 green olives
1/2 cup nonfat milk
2 T all purpose flour
1/3 cup light havarti cheese - grated
2-3 t chopped chives
1/2 cup of breadcrumbs (or) crumbled flatbread, which was all I had on hand
red pepper flakes
salt to taste

After pureeing the peeled tomato, I added the minced olives in. The next step was to make a nonfat white sauce by roasting the flour in a dry pan over heat and adding the milk, constantly stirring to avoid clumping. I figured chives might give the sauce a good flavor - especially since I was skipping onions and garlic this time! It only took about 2-3 minutes to get a sauce consistency - I mixed this into the tomato puree, added the pasta, beans and cheese. The last step was to toss the mixture with salt and red pepper flakes before pouring into a baking pan and sprinkling with the flatbread crumbs.

It only took 15 minutes of baking at 375 F to finish cooking the pasta goodness!

Pasta makes me happy!

I found this new sprouted wheat papardelle at Trader Joe's (not a day goes by without my revelling in the glory of that store!) the other day - and it looked curious enough to try out. Hmm ... hearty pasta with a nutty flavor ... I wasn't quite sure what kind of sauce that warranted - I finally just tossed the pasta with some extra virgin olive oil and added a simple artichoke garlic sauce seasoned with a generous helping of red pepper flakes. The artichoke tasted pretty good with the pasta, but I think I can do better here. The nuttiness warrants a tarter sauce - maybe a spicy marinara or even just a balsamic vinegar reduction.

The pasta ended up looking pretty boring, resulting in this almost monochromatic picture!


The pasta was decent, but the tomato salad that went with it was mucho fabuloso! I can't wait to make this again :)

Tomato Bread Salad

1 lb of sugar plum tomatoes - halved (it doesn't take that long :))
10-12 basil leaves - shredded
1/2 red onion - sliced thin
2 olive rolls (from the amazing Trader Joe's)

Cut the olive rolls into this slices and soak them in a shallow bowl of water for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, lightly saute the onions and toss them with the tomatoes and basil. Squeeze most of the water out of the rolls and shred the slices into bite size pieces. Toss these along with the tomato mix in 1 T olive oil + moscato vinegar + kosher salt + pepper. Love it!