Ramps and I started off on the wrong foot this year. It’s nothing personal against ramps; I just want to hate them because they’re so hip. But that’s not really fair. Ramps are pretty great: for one thing, they’re members of the onion family, and I could never hate an allium for long. And, in Minnesota at least, ramps start to appear well before even the earliest spring onions. Given the choice between locally-grown ramps and green onions trucked in from California, I’ll take the ramps.

In most cases, you won’t even notice the difference substituting ramps for green onions. One of Martha and my favorite dishes is a “Mexican Caesar Salad” (which comes from [cough] the Chevy’s & Rio Bravo FreshMex Cookbook; also, Mexican caesar salad? Where does caesar salad come from?) that combines green onions with cilantro, garlic, mayonnaise, anchovies and lime juice. I’d like to say that my sensitive palate picked up the extra grassy notes contributed by the ramps, but up against flavors like those they don’t stand a chance. Possibly a waste of good ramps, but on the other hand if you happened into a wild ramp bonanza and have more ramps than you know what to do with, this is not a bad way to use a few.

But what if you want the flavor of the raw ramps to stand out more? One of the best ways I know to highlight the flavors of fresh raw vegetables is spring rolls; what could be more spring-like than the flavor of fresh veggies rolled together with bean threads in a rice paper wrapper? Nothing, that’s what. Besides thinly-sliced ramps, I rolled in carrots, jalapeños, mint, cilantro, bean threads and cilantro chicken sausage from The Wedge. As the only onion the ramps contributed a distinct pungency but were balanced by the other flavors.

To some people, the idea of eating raw ramps —no matter what they’re balanced with — would seem barbaric. Ramps can be cooked too! They are excellent with eggs; I sautéed some thinly sliced ramps in butter until they were just starting to brown before stirring in a few eggs and queso fresco to make a frittata. With only mild cheese and eggs to stand in their way this was the best dish I’ve made recently for showcasing the unique flavor of ramps. They’d also  make a fine substitute for chives in topping scrambled eggs.

The challenge with ramps is that their timing — far and away the first vegetables of spring — makes them feel like they should be  treated with a special reverence. But hey, they’re just onions. By using ramps as a more everyday ingredient, I was able to taste them in unexpected ways.

Loving garlic as much as I do — and I love garlic — I was briefly in heaven when I discovered at a Lebanese restaurant in Cairo a dip called thoumiya. The name presumably derives from the Arabic thoum (ثوم), which means garlic, and this dip was all about garlic — almost pure garlic, touched with lemon juice and beaten into a fluffy cloud of ecstasy.

As you can tell, I departed the Middle East with no small amount of enthusiasm for this dish. Imagine my dismay when I found no mention of it in any Middle Eastern cookbooks, and could find no information on the Internet (perhaps owing to transliteration difficulties). It was as if I had imagined the whole thing, or perhaps been tricked by a djinn.

Or so I thought, until today, when on routine provisioning trip to Kowalski’s I saw glowing out from the shelf like a red and white beacon the words “Garlic Supreme”. One look at the texture and color and I knew I had finally found that magical sauce from of my memories, courtesy of the St. Paul Flatbread Co. The first thing I did upon returning home — before even putting the groceries away — was crack this open and I was immediately transported; it was perfect, lemony, light, and above all garlicky.

It would be more in the spirit of this blog for me to post a recipe for a homemade version — and I suppose I will probably do that one day — but for the moment I am happy that I can have a small piece of heaven for just $3.99.

Let me start by saying I don’t like squash. I kind of hate it. It’s certainly not an aesthetic objection: nothing brightens up the drear of the fall farmers’ market quite like all the whimsical varieties of winter squash — impossible to resist! This combination of compulsive buying and strong dislike leads me to accumulate squash in the fall. Earlier this month, our squash collection reached critical mass and it was time for desperate measures. And so the idea was born: the week of squash. We would cook and eat a different squash each day for five days. At the end of the week, we would have finished our kuri, delicata, acorn, butternut and spaghetti squashes. And I would either have learned to love squash or never need to eat it again.

Day 1 Curried Kuri Squash Soup

Not wanting to be too ambitious the first day, I went for an old standard: squash soup. Most of the versions of this I’ve had are sweetened with brown sugar and pretty fatiguing after just a few spoonfuls. To try to make it a little more interesting, I attempted squash mulligatawny; a squash-based version of the citrusy Angl0-Indian soup. After peeling and steaming my kuri squash, I pureed the flesh with some of the steaming liquid, and added ginger and curry powder. Back in the pot, I added a bit of cream and some lime juice. For garnish, I made a mint-cilantro-garlic yogurt sauce, dolloped generously in the center

Squash Hatred Level: 6. The squash was pretty passable, but I think I was a little too heavy-handed with the lime juice; the soup was overly sour. The yogurt sauce helped improve the soup’s flavor, but as is often the case with squash soup (for me, anyway) a few bites was enough.

Day 2 Delicata Squash Enchiladas

This dish was inspired by a post on Serious Eats and an email I received from my Aunt Ann talking about having made enchiladas using squash with chard, feta and onions. I kind of took the worst parts of both of these ideas, ignoring their saving graces, and added some even nastier elements. So my ‘enchiladas’ contained: roasted delicata squash, kale, never-tender-enough-sauteed chard stems, charred red peppers and onions, and cilantro. After preparing my fillings and tossing them in a bowl with the recommended enchilada sauce, I rolled enchiladas, topped them with more sauce and covered the dish with a healthy (or hopefully unhealthy) dose of pepper-jack and put it in the oven to bake.

Squash Hatred Level: 8. The squash soup was not good, but it was okay. These enchiladas, on the other hand, were just nasty. Even as I was putting the recipe together, I could feel the train-wreck beginning. Eliminating the black beans and the feta was obviously a mistake. And in my overzealous cleaning of the crisper drawer I didn’t think about why combining kale and chard stems was a terrible, terrible idea. The only salvation for this dish would have been a lot more sauce and/or a lot more cheese, and preferably just those things. At this point I was getting pretty discouraged about squash week.

Day 3 Stuffed Roast Acorn Squash

With exotic reimaginings of squash having utterly failed me in the beginning of the week, it was time to turn to a stand-by. Growing up, this was how I knew squash: an acorn squash, cut in half, stuffed with pork sausage, and roasted until both were nicely browned. Of course, as a child, I would only eat the sausage, though I did eventually learn to also eat the squash, provided it was mashed together with plenty of butter, salt and pepper.

Squash Deliciousness Level: 6. This is actually a very good way to enjoy squash: pork loves a sweet compliment and finds a great one in the flesh of the squash, and the pork fat mingled tantalizingly with the squash. I hardly needed any butter at all!

Day 4 Spaghetti Squash and Broccoli Gratin

I suppose the star of this meal is actually in the background of the above photo: slow-cooked duck legs with a red wine pan sauce. But squash is the point of this post, and squash we did have to the side of our duck. For this gratin, I combined the flesh of a roasted spaghetti squash with steamed broccoli and a generous handful of New Zealand cheddar cheese in a buttered gratin dish. I topped the mixture off with bread crumbs tossed together with parmesan cheese and baked the dish until the breadcrumbs were brown and the cheese bubbly.

Squash Deliciousness Level: 4. This dish had a good level of sweetness without descending into sweet potato pie territory, and the combination of textures — the still slightly crisp broccoli, the gooey squash and cheese, and the crunchy breadcrumbs — was interesting and pleasant.

Day 5 Butternut Squash Spaetzle

I kind of dread butternut squash because it is so popular and tends to get so repetitive. How many butternut squash raviolis have you seen on restaurant menus in the past five years? So I was very grateful when Serious Eats featured a recipe for butternut squash spaetzle. I mean, I have long wanted to learn to make spaetzle, and if I could liven up squash week in the process, all the better. I also thought the recipe an appropriate wrap-up to squash week, since squash figures into the spaetzle dough as well as being a part of the sauce (I guess the ultimate wrap-up to squash week would have involved all five squash varieties in some kind of squash explosion but even contemplating that makes me a little sick). The recipe was pretty easy to follow; I only screwed up in over-cooking the maple glaze to the point where it wasn’t so much a maple glaze as maple candy. Luckily, the dishes were for Martha.

Squash Deliciousness Level: 8. This dish did a really good job of using the sweetness of butternut squash as an accent while bringing in a variety of other flavors and textures to avoid palate fatigue. Although recommended as a side dish, it made a great light lunch on a fall day.

And so the week of squash ended. Although it wasn’t planned this way, after a couple of rocky starts the meals got progressively better; by the end of the week I could even say I almost liked squash. I suppose I will be able to eat it in the future. But five days in a row again? Probably not.

Let’s be honest: I’m not the pickling artist in the family. Normally I leave these things to others, but something needed to be done with the two banana peppers from last month’s trip to the market—they were starting to look a little sad.

Wishfully thinking about pizza possibilities, I decided there was no choice but to pickle these babies. Tom was busy making dinner, so this had to be a Martha project. As Tom pointed out, a one-quart Ball jar wasn’t going to work for two lonely peppers. Not wanting to give up for lack of a not-too-big jar, I dug a Bonne Maman jam jar out of the recycling and set to slicing:

• 2 banana peppers, seeded and sliced into rings

Once I had the peppers sliced, I stuffed them into the jar.

For my pint-sized jar I needed a little under a cup of pickling juice. First question. What goes into the jars? (I guess I should have read this post a little more closely.) Tom normally uses two parts vinegar to one part water with 2 tablespoons of salt and adds sugar as applicable. Working with a small jar, I upped the vinegar a bit and brought down the salt:

• 3/4 cup white vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon sugar

With these four ingredients combined in a small pot over high heat, I opened the spice cupboard and asked a few more questions. Tom had advice for the pickling spices: garlic and mustard seeds were a must, and I offered up a bay leaf and red pepper flakes—then thought better of it—and opted for whole dried chiles instead.

• 2 small garlic cloves, smashed
• Pinch of mustard seeds (black, yellow, or both)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1–2 dried chiles, whole (or substitute a spoonful of red pepper flakes)

The next step is to add the pickling spices and garlic to the jar of peppers. Once the vinegar mixture has come to a boil, pour it over the peppers until it reaches the rim of the jar.

Done! Now our soon-to-be-pickles need to cool. After the jar and contents hit room temperature, cover, refrigerate, and enjoy in a day or two… preferably on pizza.

You’ve no doubt heard about the latest apple innovation from the University of Minnesota: the SweeTango. Hot on the heels of the success of the Honeycrisp variety, the world is abuzz about this apple that promises to out honeycrisp the honeycrisp: a juicy, tart, sweet and crisp apple. I’ve been a big fan of Honeycrisps since I was first introduced to them a few years ago, so I was very interested in trying SweeTango—a cross of Honeycrisp and Zestar. At Kowalski’s on a late-night ice cream run, I saw the big display of apples and, in spite of the stupid name, came home with a couple of SweeTangos.

I cut into the apple with great expectation and was rewarded with a hearty crunching sound as blades pushed through crisp apple flesh. And then the moment of truth: as I bit into the SweeTango, my mouth was filled with sweet juice. Almost immediately, I started to pucker; the substantial acid was kicking in. This apple really has it all: firm crunchy flesh, lots of juice and a perfect balance of honey sweetness and lemony tartness, both flavors in abundance. Martha, not a fan of apple skin, appreciated that the skin on the SweeTango is thick enough to be noticeable but not so chewy as to remain in your mouth after the rest of the apple has been eaten. The flavor is similar to a honeycrisp with its floral character, but is bolder.

This apple is amazing raw; quite possibly the best apple I have ever eaten. I am guessing it would also be great for baking with its balance of sweet and tart and big flavor. Although I’m not in the pocket of Big Apples, I willingly fall in with all the rest of the hype.

SweeTango apples are $3.99/lb. at Kowalski’s, or about $2/apple.