Winter Vegetable Chips

This recipe works for watermelon radishes, rutabaga, celery root, beets or carrots. As long as the vegetables are sliced thin they will crisp up pretty well. Our favorites were celery root and the watermelon radishes. We actually fried ours in home rendered lard, wow!

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with racks in upper and lower thirds.

-Peel some of the winter vegetables mentioned above and carefully slice 1/16 inch thick with a mandolin (these have to be cut super thin to crisp up right). You want to end up with 1 baking tray’s worth.

-In a large bowl, toss beets with 2-3 TBS extra-virgin olive oil and a pinch of sea salt.

-Arrange the vegetables in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet.

-Stack another rimmed baking sheet on top of the baking sheet with the vegetables on it.

-Bake until edges of vegetables begin to dry out, about 20 minutes.

-Uncover and rotate sheets.

-Bake 10 to 20 minutes, removing chips as they become lightened in color.

-Transfer to a wire rack and sprinkle with more sea salt; chips will crisp up as they cool.

White Kimchi

-Mix 6 cups water and 6 TBS coarse sea salt in very large bowl, stirring to dissolve salt.

-Take the outer leaves off of 1 large head of savoy cabbage and quarter it lengthwise with the root ends left intact.

-Place cabbage cut side up, in the water so that it almost covers cabbage.

-Put heavy plate atop cabbage, then top with iron skillet to weigh down to submerge cabbage in water. Set aside at room temperature 10 to 12 hours.

-Drain cabbage; discard water.

-Rinse cabbage under cold water.

-Mix the following together in the same large bowl:

4 cups water

1 TBS coarse sea salt

1 TBS sugar

1 tsp fish sauce

-Let brine stand until salt dissolves, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.

-Peel, core and chop the following into matchsticks.

1 Asian pear

1 daikon radish

1 carrot

-Cut 10 chives into 1 inch strips.

-Mince 3 garlic cloves.

-Finally mince a small knob of ginger.

-Mix Asian pear, daikon, chives, garlic and ginger in medium bowl.

-Lift each cabbage leaf and distribute some radish mixture between each leaf (about 1 to 1.5 TBS).

-Nestle layered cabbage in bowl of brine as tightly as possible.

-Put heavy plate atop cabbage, then top with iron skillet to weigh down to submerge cabbage in brine. Set aside at room temperature for 24 hours.

-Then refrigerate kimchi submerged in brine for 24 hours.

-Remove weight. Cover and keep refrigerated in brine for up to 3 weeks.

-To serve, lift cabbage from brine, allowing excess brine to drip back into bowl.

-Place on work surface. Cut crosswise into 1- to 2-inch slices.

Uzbeki Carrots

This is a nice recipe from Food from Plenty by Diana Henry.

-Cut 1 bunch of carrots into 1 inch chunks.

-Cook until tender, about 8 minutes, then drain.

-In a large frying pan heat the following:

1 TBS extra virgin olive oil

2 TBS butter

2 tsp caraway seeds

2 tsp sweet paprika

1/2 tsp dried chili flakes

-Cook for 30 seconds then toss in the carrots.

-Stir them around, taste for salt and serve.