It’s been a few weeks since I have had time to cook anything fun – too much work and traveling. Friday I got to go home for a few days, and as we finally got to go to the grocery store yesterday, we got good veggies for cooking. On the weekends, we try to cook something that will last a few days, in order to get ahead a bit on the cooking when we come home during the week and are too zonked to cook anything.

So, today, we made:

• the Minimalist’s roasted tomato soup (oven roasting is recommended as a way to perk up canned tomatoes, even if they’re your own cans of your own homegrown tomatoes)
• pesto pasta, with leftover sauteed mushrooms, red pepper and onion;
• roasted potatoes with rosemary (tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper, and whole rosemary – baked in the oven on a cookie sheet 375ºF for 40ish minutes or until you think they’re done)
• roasted asparagus (tossed in olive oil and roasted on a cookie sheet at whatever you have the oven at – we were between 375ºF and 450ºF), and
• roasted brussels sprouts (put oil into a hot cast iron pan over med-high heat, heat until shimmers, then put halved sprouts face side down, add cloves of garlic, salt and pepper; when sprouts begin to brown, put the whole pan into a 450ºF oven for 30 minutes or until done).

We felt a little guilty that so few of these vegetables are actually in season – the asparagus is (hence the $2/lb price), but the sprouts and potatoes are from last fall, and the tomatoes are from last August. Who knows when the mushrooms and pepper were from? And the pesto was not our own, even though we do have some in the freezer.

But we could have done worse, as the tomatoes were our own cans, and the sprouts and potatoes can keep (although, we suspect, not for the months they would have needed to). And, in general garden karma, we transplanted some of our seedlings today – basil, parsley, brussels sprouts, four season lettuce, and onions – to get ready for starting our own annual backyard food production. (Nothing doing on the peppers yet, or the Jericho lettuce.)

Although it snowed today, so it might be a while yet before we can plant them outside.

We’re still contemplating a strawberry-red currant tart, from our fruit of last summer, frozen in our chest freezer. But it’s also rhubarb season, and there’s nothing better than stewed rhubarb and cream for dessert… mmmmm…

What are your favourite seasonal foods of spring?