Root Veggies and a Spring Celebration Pasta

All right, here we go. It's only taken me about a week to post this (Liver Qi stagnation + Blood deficiency= NO FUN! I'll explain later) but I made a wonderful celebration of Spring in food form that I have been very excited about. It marries the last of the winter root crops with the first green veggies and I had so much fun cooking it! The story goes: one day I woke up and was warm. It was sunny out (gasp!); the wisteria was a fountain of violet and lavender, exuding the most delicious, intoxicating fragrance and the garden beds were barren and sad looking. So Mr. Seasonality and I decided it was high time to turn the beds. Step one: clear beds. Step two: point husband at beds and watch his muscles ripple as he turns them. Step three: use the gleanings to make a fabulous meal. At the end of the day, I had some lovely purple dragon carrots, a couple baby carrots, some baby parsnips, and a huge turnip. I love roasting veggies of all persuesions, but root veg in particular benefits from roasting. It brings out a lovely sweet nutty flavor and mellows any bitterness in older roots. To address the lighter side of spring, I made an angel hair pasta dish with sauteed shrimp, crimini mushrooms, asparagus and peas, and a meyer lemon pseudo beurre blanc. Ok, so the peas were frozen, but only because the snails have eaten every single pea sprout in the garden. grr. If you are lucky enough to have shelling peas coming up in your garden, I would highly encourage the use of them in this dish. And notice how I snuck the meyer lemon in there? Yep, I'm sneaky.

Roasted Root Veggies

You can use any combination you like, but here's what I pulled from the garden:

2 or 3 Dragon Carrots

4 baby Chanteney carrots

4-5 baby parsnips

1 turnip (mine was ginormous and tough, I would rather 3-4 baby turnips)

Pre-heat the oven at 450ish (sorry, my oven doesn't really do exact temps). Chop into chunks roughly the same size and leave baby veggies whole.

Toss with a mixture of:

Small glug of olive oil

1 tsp maple syrup

salt and pepper to taste

Spread evenly on a parchment lined baking dish, making sure that the veggies are in one layer, not crowded. Roast until tender, around 40 minutes, flipping the veggies once or twice during the cooking process.

Spring Celebration Pasta

1/2 lb angel hair pasta

1/2 bunch asparagus

1 cup sliced crimini mushrooms

1/2 cup peas, fresh or frozen

8 shrimp, thawed if frozen

1 clove garlic, minced finely

1tblsp olive oil

1 shallot, minced

2 tblsp butter

1/2 cup white wine

1 Meyer lemon, juiced and zest reserved

1-2 tblsp mint, chopped finely

salt and pepper to taste

Bring water to boil in a pot large enough for pasta to cook and salt water. In a large, non-stick skillet, warm olive oil on medium heat and add garlic, sauteeing until fragrant. Add mushrooms and cook until tender. Add shrimp first, then asparagus and peas. Cook until shrimp are pink and the veg are still bright green and crisp, it should only be a few minutes. While these a

re cooking, cook the angel hair pasta, drain and set aside briefly (it shouldn't sit for too long).

To make the sauce, in a small sauce pan, sautee the shallots in butter until transluscent. Add the white wine and lemon juice and simmer until the liquid has reduced by 1/2 to 3/4. Remove from heat.

Toss together in a bowl the pasta, sauteed veg, sauce and the lemon zest and mint. Season to taste and serve with a shave of parmesan if you wish.

This would be really nice followed by a dessert of sliced fresh organic strawberries sprinkled with brown sugar.

Meditations on an Almost Spring Season

Well. That was a longer absence from this blog than I had intended. I'm sorry to have left you in the lurch for more than a month now, but hopefully I can make it up to you in the future. I'll just say that some things came up that required my full attention, but now life is slowly straightening itself out and un-kinking. Which is good.

It's February (how did that happen, by the way?), which means that here on the California Central Coast, Spring is extending tender, unsure tendrils into the hibernating earth and psyche. The acacias are heavy with their chartruse, sneeze-inducing blooms; the redbuds are trying on their frilly pink frocks, and the camellia outside the kitchen window is laden with tight, cabbage-like buds and a few pink, waxy rosettes. Yesterday was so lovely and sunny and warm that it was torture to stay indoors while little fluffy clouds danced across a jewel-blue sky. But today, as Mr. Seasonality observed, it is as though winter has taken a huge breath in and is about to blow out. Hard.

Such is the nature of spring. It is the season of change, of growth and potential, of plans laid out and often frustrated. It alternates between cold and hot, winter and spring. In Chinese Medicine, it is the birth of Yang, when vital energy is on the rise and waiting to burst forth in a shower of vibrant leaves. The element of spring is Wood, which is also associated with the color green and the qi of wind. When I lived in Boulder, I remember the springs to be ferociously windy, sometimes knocking over fences and newspaper stands, but here it isn't as windy. At least not physically. Wind is the qi or energy of change, it is the most yang of the climate energies, it induces movement and shakes things up. Which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes not. Likewise, Wind can be a pathogen, and on its blustery heels can be tacked any of the other pathogens. It enters the body quickly, and its symptoms change rapidly and it often leads to many other more unpleasant things. Common colds are an example of a Wind invasion.

One of my brilliant teachers tells us that like is drawn to like, so that if you have an internal state that is out of balance, it is vulnerable to pathologies. An little internal Wind means that you come down with a whopping cold or flu, but before you manifest the symptoms, things are already out of whack. You are simply attracting the pathogen that your internal state mirrors. Wind likes the upper body, so during spring, even though it may be warm out, still cover up your shoulders and neck and head because conditions can change in an instant. Scarves are really good. Get enough sleep, but not too much, and be sure to increase exercise during spring, especially if you can get outside to move around. The governing organ of Wood is the Liver, and the Liver does not like to be sedentary. It likes movement. While it is still cold out, consider doing gentle stretches like yoga on a regular basis (regularity is vital to the Liver) or smooth, non-draining movement forms like Tai Qi or Qi Gong.

I'm not a fan of traditional cleanses myself (I find them to be more draining than replenishing), but a supportive cleanse of whole foods like a congee or kitcheree fast would be appropriate during this time, especially when supplemented by lots and lots of leafy greens. Because no matter what else you may call it, Spring is the time for greens.

Today I wanted something green and light and tasty, and unknowingly, I picked the perfect dish to make in honor of Spring. Each of the ingrediants is the lovely, fresh green of early spring and highly nutritious as well. I'm having a love affair with Meyer lemons, as it is my belief that they are sunshine in fruit form, but if they are not available, normal lemons will do just fine. An interesting note: sour taste goes to the liver, but restrains it, so may make some stagnations worse. However, the aromatic peel of citrus fruit is quite moving, and its aromatic nature is light and fresh and dispels stagnation- particularly good for sluggish digestion and bloating. I think this is particularly true of Meyer lemon peel, which I believe has the added quality of alleviating depression due to qi stagnation, frustration, and repressed emotions. Fennel is also a carminative (digestive, gas dispelling) herb. It's hard to not like the sunny smell of this dish and feel just a little bit better about a cloudy, cold, almost-spring-but-not-quite-there-yet day.

Savoy Cabbage with Meyer Lemon Butter and Tarragon

(Adapted from Deborah Madison)

½ cabbage if large, whole if small

1 leek

1 large bulb fennel

Thinly slice all and cook till tender with a wee bit of butter and a pinch of salt

¼ cup of tarragon, add to chopped lemon zest

1 meyer lemon, with zest finely chopped and juice reserved- cook juice down to 1tblspn and add

1 tblsp butter

mix half of herb/zest blend into cabbage and half into butter, then toss it all together