Cooking with local, seasonal produce means getting comfortable with making a lot of substitutions in your favorite recipes. Just about any dark leafy greens can stand in for whatever a recipe calls for; I change them out depending on what's hanging around in the kitchen or left over from the markets. Running short on lettuce? Add some arugula or tatsoi to fill out your salad bowl. Cabbage not in season yet? There's bok choy aplenty - which can make just as good a slaw as a regular round cabbage. Love your beets for the greens more than the roots? Swiss chard was originally a beet plant, bred for better quality greens instead of big sweet roots. I think it's helpful in the kitchen to have a little general garden know-how, and familiarize yourself with the basic plant families. What grows alike tends to cook alike. Very often other members of one group can easily stand in for the one vegetable you're looking for, that may not be available at the moment.
Onions always seem to stump people the most. I use onions in almost everything I cook, but those familiar bulb onions are only in season for a few months of the year in late spring and summer. (It doesn't help matters that the majority of our onion crop rotted away in flooded fields this spring). Most years we have some sort of allium (onion-family plants) year-round, and all are generally interchangeable. I would not try to make a French onion soup with scallions, but I have done so with fabulous results using leeks. Hundreds of recipes start with a chopped, sauteed onion, but there's no reason you can't use scallions - just cook tender green onions for a shorter time, or throw them into your dish at the end. Get creative, and think outside your recipe box!
Onions always seem to stump people the most. I use onions in almost everything I cook, but those familiar bulb onions are only in season for a few months of the year in late spring and summer. (It doesn't help matters that the majority of our onion crop rotted away in flooded fields this spring). Most years we have some sort of allium (onion-family plants) year-round, and all are generally interchangeable. I would not try to make a French onion soup with scallions, but I have done so with fabulous results using leeks. Hundreds of recipes start with a chopped, sauteed onion, but there's no reason you can't use scallions - just cook tender green onions for a shorter time, or throw them into your dish at the end. Get creative, and think outside your recipe box!
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