October 1, 2012: I signed up for the class mainly because one rarely - if at all - sees a class just on root vegetables. I think, though, that I justified it in my head that it would mainly be about health food. Then class started with this carrot juice margarita, and moved into making a parsnip cake. Honestly, I wasn't too disappointed that what I perceived to be the dry, dusty, purely virtuous side of root vegetables was not the one we explored.
Diane Morgan's book Roots includes recipes for the actual root portion of the vegetables, naturally, but also give you some used for the often lesser-used bits, like making a pesto out of carrot tops. In class, we made a radish top soup.
Finished matchsticked radishes for garnish - good knife skills practice.
The soup also contains leeks, carrots, and potatoes. The potatoes add a thick creaminess once the cooked soup is whizzed up in a blender.
The soup is a brilliant green; Diane noted it also works well as a cold soup.
The salad for the evening was a celery heart, leaf and root salad. It was my first time working with a gnarly celery root.
More knife skills practice as I turned the root into matchsticks. Some were sampled; I enjoyed the crunchy celery flavor
Ready to toss the salad in one of The Pantry's giant bowls. Diane noted she loves having this kind of huge bowl for entertaining, and she uses disposable kitchen gloves to toss the salad by hand to get the best, most even dressing.
Finished salad
We also made a horseradish gnocchi. Be warned when using fresh horseradish. Like chopping onions or hot peppers, it's a sinus-clearing experience.
Mixing the horseradish into the gnocchi dough.
Rolling out the dough...
Slicing up the little pillows. I haven't made gnocchi before so please excuse my misshapen examples.
Combining the class's gnocchi for cooking.
Our dessert for the class was a parsnip cake, Diane's riff on carrot cake. The process is basically the same: grate up the vegetable and then fold into a cake batter.
Finished layers
Diane whips up the icing. Some of her cake-making tips include putting a little bit of icing on the base to help keep the layers stick in place, and turning over the layers to use the flat bottoms as the tops.
Diane icing the cake.
Bella! Diane likes to leave the sides un-iced for this rustic look.
Finished gnocchi - after being boiled, they were sauteed and topped with parmesan and chives.