Roasted Radishes

I have to admit this recipe is a few weeks old, but it is too good and too simple not to share.

H and I are in our third year of garden attempts, and due to (what I think is) perfect placement as far as sunlight is concerned, raised beds, and a heck of a lot of critter proofing, this year is actually going pretty well. Third time is a charm, right? Our pumpkin, beans, cucumber, squash, and spinach seem to be coming along nicely, and we had a successful crop of peas and radishes a few weeks ago. Now, radishes are notoriously easy to grow, so this isn't a huge feat, but I am taking it as a good sign of things to come.

I enjoy radishes raw in salads, but since we had about 30 of them, I was looking for something different to do with them. I love roasting vegetables- asparagus, tomatoes, beets, carrots, potatoes, green beans, broccoli, you name it- I'll roast it :) So why not try it with radishes?

I am certainly glad I did, I will have to add radishes to my roasting repertoire! The roasting mellows the peppery flavor they have raw, and they end up almost tasting like a less sweet version of a beet.

Roasted Radishes

20-30 radishes, rinsed well, with tops removed and set aside
1 Tablespoon of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

Directions: Preheat oven to 450. Line a baking pan with aluminum foil. Place radishes in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Stir to coat.

Place radishes on the baking sheet, cut side down. Cook for 10 minutes, remove, and give the pan a light shake to mix them up. Place them back in the oven for another 8-10 minutes, or until they are slightly browned and wrinkly.

Slice a couple of the radish tops for a garnish and sprinkle on top of the radishes. Enjoy!

Very loosely adapted from bonappetit.com, original recipe here.

Naturally-Dyed Easter Eggs

I really enjoyed dyeing Easter eggs when I was younger. I was always getting creative with stripes and layering different colors and drawing on the eggs with beeswax, in the Russian style my family used to decorate eggs (although ours looked nothing like that!). After H and I got married, dyeing eggs sort of fell by the wayside, as Easter isn't a huge holiday for us.

However, when I saw this blog entry from Two Men and a Little Farm (brought to my attention via Pinterest!), I knew we would be dyeing eggs again this year. The gorgeous, oh-so-different-than-the-PAAS-kit colors and all-natural dyes are totally up my alley and I was excited to try it out!

We only did 12 eggs/6 colors and I am really pleased with the way they turned out! It was so cool to see how each item colored the egg. Many of them ended up with a marbled effect, which I was totally digging. In case the picture is too small to see, the spinach and dill made a brown-ish/green, the beets a pink, the red wine a lavender purple, the carrots and turmeric a bright yellow, the coffee an earthy brown, and the purple grape juice a light blue.

And bonus- they are totally easy! Any of the items that aren't liquid to begin with need to be simmered in water for 30-60 minutes (and then strained of the sediment) to allow the color to come out. Then you'll need to add about 1 Tablespoon of white vinegar to every cup of liquid to help the color bond to the egg shell. They need to sit in the liquid for much longer than the fizzy tablet dyes, so I just left them sitting in the color in the refrigerator over night. Taking them out of the dyes was a wonderful Easter surprise!