Laura Avery visits with Chef C.C. from CleanPlateMeals.com, who shops weekly at the farmers' market. Right now she's making a winter chopped salad with radicchio, fresh cannelloni beans, sprouting broccoli and Clementine tangerine slices. (Recipe coming!) She also makes a roast chicken, rubbed with salt, pepper and paprika. She slices navel oranges thin and slides them under the skin of the chicken, then roasts the whole chicken with the orange wedges in the oven. The orange makes the chicken very sweet and moist. You'll find the recipe on our Good Food Blog.
Chef CC’s Winter Chop
1 small-medium head of radicchio
3 cups dried cannellini beans
1 large head of regular broccoli (or 3 leafy stalks of flowering broccoli)
2 Clementine's peeled, white pith or vein removed and separated easily into 8-12 juicy segments
Any chopped fresh herb (sage, parsley or cilantro)
Balsamic vinegar, olive oil and sea salt and pepper to taste
Giver the beans a quick look to remove any extraneous matter. Rinse them before transferring into a large pot. Cover them with twice as much water as beans (2 to 1). Fill another saucepan halfway with water and a pinch of salt. Turn heat to high and allow water to boil.
In the first pot, bring beans to a boil, then lower heat to medium and cover.
Peel clementines, remove white pith or veins, and separate into 8-12 segments
Prepare radicchio by peeling off the outer leaf. Cut in half and in half again, then chop wedges into bite-size pieces.
To prepare the broccoli, remove 3/4 of the stalk and cut or break off the florets. By now your second pot of water should be boiling. Blanch the broccoli for 1 to 2 minutes, then remove florets and spread them out on a sheet pan or plate to cool evenly.
Check the beans after 45 minutes and test one to see if it is tender. If you not looking for al dente beans, they'll need to cook for another 15 minutes or so. (You may also need to add another 2 cups of water.)
After beans are cooked, cool for 15 miutes. Toss everything in a large bowl with salt, pepper, herbs if desired and 1-2 tablespoons of good olive oil.
Serve or store up to 4 days.
Winter is citrus season. Matthew Smith of Mudcreek Ranch in
Santa
Paula grows basketball sized pomelos, which are a cross between an
orange and a grapefruit. To eat, remove the large rind and the
membranes from the sections, as you would an orange. Or eat it like a
grapefruit by
slicing it down the middle. Mudcreek is also featuring the tiny
limequat, a full lime-flavored fruit the size of a golf ball, as well
as orange lemons, lemons that happen to be orange in color.
Music break: Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto by Les Baxter