INTRODUCTION

This is a vegetable book for everyone.

Not just vegetarians, but anyone who loves vegetables or wants to love vegetables. You know they’re good for you. Good for the planet. Good for your pocketbook. And they’re just, well, good, providing that you know what to do with them.

Whether you get your vegetables from a CSA (ours is the pick-your- own kind), a farmers’ market, a farmstand, a backyard garden, or the supermarket, I want this book to inspire you to cook them in new and delicious ways that bring them to the center of your plate. The veggies in these recipes are driving the bus; they’re not just along for the ride. Every idea for every recipe puts the vegetables first. They are never just tacked on as an afterthought. They are the “meat” of the meal.

I didn’t set out to create a book that was completely vegetarian—just vegetable forward but the more I concentrated on the vegetables themselves, the less need I saw for meat. You’ll find plenty of ideas for that fennel bulb that you brought home from the market— or that brought itself home in your CSA box (the Sheet-Pan Braised Fennel with Parm and Hazelnuts on page 197, perhaps). Or maybe you were wondering what to do with those curly green garlic scapes you see everywhere in the spring. Sure, you could make a centerpiece for your table with them. But better yet, why not make the best garlic bread you’ve ever had with Garlic Scape Pesto (page 23)? Or maybe you’re bored with the same old zucchini recipes. I’ve got some good ones for you, including Grilled Zucchini with Whipped Ricotta, Calabrian Chili, and Almonds (page 111), or a decadent chocolate zucchini loaf (page 117). I leave no tomato unturned in the summer chapter (page 49) with tons of ways to eat them fresh, cooked, or preserved for later (page 216).

As you explore, you might learn about some new varieties you haven’t cooked with before, like almost-seedless Jimmy Nardello peppers with their sweet, nutty flavor for Farro and Sweet Red Pepper Bake (page 55), or crunchy and striking Tardivo radicchio for a sharp and satisfying winter salad with good looks to spare (page 195). I’ll have you on the lookout for Sungold tomatoes, those little orbs that are the color of a clementine and nearly as sweet.

Because of seasonal and regional variations in what’s available, I’ll give you lots of ideas for substitutions, so you can make many of the recipes most of the time, not just on a dewy day in June. While it’s fun to eat and shop in a hyper-seasonal way, that isn’t always possible, even for me. Zucchini, Leek, and Potato Soup (page 21) is the recipe I have made the most in this book, and it can be cooked at any time of year with supermarket ingredients.

While you’ll find plenty of ideas for those times when the parade of produce is nonstop—from May to November, at least in these parts—I’ll also show you how to make the most of the supermarket vegetable aisle in the dark days of winter. (Check out the Onion and Cabbage Panade on page 181, a comforting dish that’s like the best part of French onion soup.) You’ll find plenty of ideas to inspire you, no matter the season. Refreshing soups for muggy days when all you can manage is to run the blender. Warm-weather grain bowls. Big platter salads. Fruit snacking cakes.

Since it’s vegetables we’re talking about, I’ve organized this book seasonally. But there is a huge amount of variation in what’s available in the markets, and many vegetables—lettuce and other tender greens, broccoli, kohlrabi, and radishes, for instance— appear in both spring and fall. Accordingly, you’ll find recipes for the same vegetables in more than one chapter, like an autumnal recipe for Poblano Corn Chowder (page 153) in the fall chapter, as well as a grilled Smoky Corn Salad (page 107) that’s perfect for August in the summer chapter. As one season slowly morphs into the next, some vegetables phase in, others phase out, and others stay around for months. The seasons will be different for you if you live in California or Alaska, which is why I’ve included a handy index in the back of the book where you can look up the vegetables you want to cook and find the recipes that use them.

I Brake For Zucchini

Despite my lifelong passion for produce, I’ve never been a vegetarian. You’ll find recipes with a little sausage (End of Summer Vegetable Soup, page 89), occasionally a little shrimp (like in the Okonomiyaki on page 185), and a little bacon or soppressata, but all these can be easily left out.

We’ve come a long way from the canned and frozen vegetables of my youth (though to my mother’s credit, we did eat plenty of fresh vegetables, including a salad at every meal). I remember her excitement and sense of triumph when we screeched to a halt at a roadside stand where she snagged a giant zucchini for a nickel on the way home from a day at the Jersey shore. This gave me an early appreciation of the pleasures of produce. I brake for zucchini too. These days, there’s hardly a big city or small town without a thriving farmers’ market. I think of them as our modern- day village greens. At my local market, the Union Square Greenmarket in New York City, random strangers quite often ask me what to do with a particular vegetable when they see me confidently choosing my loot. It can take me hours to shop because I run into so many friends and acquaintances. Like many people, I get so much more than produce there: I feel connected.

In writing this book, my goal was to create recipes that coax a maximum amount of flavor from a minimum number of ingredients. This is food that tastes as good as it looks and looks as good as it tastes. Every ingredient in every recipe has a purpose, and if the ingredient didn’t add something important, I left it out. There is nothing superfluous. Now, come veg forward with me.

About The Recipes

A recipe is a guide, not a god. I believe in recipes, but I also believe in your intuition, and I encourage you to use it. In many recipes, I don’t give you exact amounts of salt and pepper, except when they are cooked into a dish and it matters. If you’re roasting a vegetable, I trust you to lightly sprinkle it with salt and turn a peppermill a few times to season. If it’s not enough, you can always add more later.

For these recipes, which involve plants, there is so much variation in the size and qualities of each ingredient that you will be forced to use your judgment to get the best results. For example, my bunch of kale might be twice (or half) as big as yours, so wherever possible and where it matters most, I offer at least two, and maybe three, measurements: the weight of the produce, the volume (in cups) once it’s prepped, and how many vegetables to buy.

Another way that fresh produce can vary is in its moisture content. The fresher something is, the higher the moisture content, and the faster it will cook. I want you to pay attention to all these variables and learn to use your gut instincts.

A Note About The Photographs

I photographed this entire book on an iPhone. That’s because I wanted the book to be authentically diaristic. I wanted to be able to shoot ingredients and recipes in the moment, rather than photographing everything in a grueling ten- day session as is done with most cookbooks. I knew there was no way that every vegetable would be available in that short period of time and certainly not as their best selves.

Case in point: One August evening, I sliced into a big heirloom tomato for dinner. It was so beautiful inside that I took a quick photo of it then and there. I later tried to best that shot by buying a slew of heirlooms and slicing into each. Guess what? None were as good as the one that became our dinner that night. You can see the winning tomato on page 91. I hope these photos inspire you to make every recipe.