"root vegetables" news and stories

Although fresh produce is arguably -- on the whole -- at its most glorious during the warmer months, this bountiful selection of winter's wares is certainly worth adding to your grocery list.

Flickr user Gato-Azul captured and created this colorful mise en place using fresh raw vegetables that pair together delightfully in terms of both aesthetic and taste. And while the assortment has an infinite amount of edible possibilities, as a collective it seems to be begging to be transformed into a satiating soup. With the addition of broth, hearty potatoes and carrots would provide a hefty base, augmented by the parsnip's nuttiness, and flavored with onion, leek and fresh sprigs of parsley. It's astounding how the most satisfying soups can be so simple to make.

Do you find your usual produce purchases to be vastly different during the winter months? Recommend your fresh cold-weather staples in the comments!

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

Despite the root vegetable's tricky pronunciation, jicama isn't hard to incorporate into your culinary repertoire.

Cream of tomato soup. Photo: YumSugar.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

Cheap, ripe, red tomatoes are prime for a homemade bowl of Cream of Tomato Soup.

Wolfgang Puck is getting into the iced coffee biz.

Come Party With Me whips up a pumpkin carving menu, featuring cheddar cheese balls, jalapeno corn muffins and more.

Quiz time: Can you look at a collection of root vegetable pictures and name them all?

Slime Rickey mixes grapes, lime, club soda and gin for a boozy beverage.

Applejack is a concentrated hard cider.

Guy Fieri: Love him or leave him?

If you devour Terra chips and wonder why potatoes are the only veggie that gets such beloved treatment, or if you love everything fried, you must try yuca fries.

Yuca is that large, kinda scary looking vegetable that pops up all over the place now, but still isn't getting its culinary due. It's starchy, full of good calcium, and even a taste of Vitamin C -- basically a sweeter sort of potato with a slightly different flavor and texture. Unfortunately, it's not quite as easy to prepare as our ol' potatoes. The skin is much firmer, and cutting it is more like a butternut squash than a potato.

Nevertheless, when you throw it into some hot oil, then spray it with salt and seasoning, it's french fries with a twist -- familiar enough that it's almost like old-hat, with a new and fresh flavor that ups the ante. Since it's quite a firm root, yuca is often boiled first, although the above fries were just thrown raw into some oil cooking away on med-high heat until they were crunchy. And of course, like potatoes, they can be made into some rather tasty chips.

As an eating and cooking culture, we're super-glued to our potatoes, and with good reason: They're delicious, versatile, and easy to prepare. But even as great as the taters are, sometimes other roots need their time in the spotlight.

Celery root, also known as celeriac, is the troll-like cousin of the regular ol' celery found in Bloody Marys and tuna salad. Unlike celery, celeriac is grown for its large taproot, which looks like a balled-up, fossilized squid. It has a celery-like taste, and is often used in soups or roasted like other root vegetables. Use it where you might use cauliflower, parsnips or fennel - it pairs excellently with nutty hard cheeses. The French use it in the classic céleri rémoulade, a salad of shredded celeriac with mayonnaise dressing (kind of a French coleslaw). There's a good recipe here on Epicurious. It's not in season now, but keep it in mind come fall. After all, looks aren't everything.