Today we're gonna talk
as we always do, about seasonal vegetables.
You know, I think,
I love that we're talking about squash.
Yeah.
You know, we really like to eat-
One of my favorites, this, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Eat seasonally, think seasonally.
And when we're looking at squash,
you see how these kind of have a color
that's sort of almost dulled over?
They start more like this, but they end up dull.
This is when they're ripe and ready to eat.
Mm.
We tend to like to pick them
a little bit smaller.
When you're harvesting them,
or when you're at the store looking for them,
get 'em a little bit smaller.
You want 'em to really have a good weight to them.
But look for it not so shiny.
If they're shiny, they're still a little bit,
what we would call green.
They're not quite ready.
They're not quite ready yet, right.
Right, right.
So if you can get that dulled over color,
then you know that it's been ripened on the plant right.
You know, and we love to just,
you take and break that stem off,
and Mary will actually put 'em in the oven.
They're so, I'm always scared
when I'm cutting these babies,
cause they're just so hard.
But you can put 'em in the oven ahead of time
and soften 'em up.
Yeah-
And cut 'em.
Makes it a lot easier, yep.
You wanna get a little bit squarer than I did,
I got one half of them.
No, it's fine.
And then pull those seeds out.
We'll put a little sausage in.
Mary will put some raisins in.
Yum.
You know the 898 is one that,
of course Dan Barber helped develop.
Oh, I love, yeah, Dan is amazing.
Another great chef, Dan Barber.
You know, it's so cool
that you've got like, a serving sized butternut squash.
Yeah. John and I love to use these,
because everyone at dinner has a pre-portion.
We make a double stuffed squash,
just like people make double stuffed potato.
Yeah, exactly.
And everybody has their own little boat.
(audience applause)
Beautiful.
You know, you can put these on the kitchen counter,
and they're gonna last a couple of weeks.
Keep em cool.
Keep 'em dry.
And they'll last even into the spring.
It's unbelievable how long they'll last.
We live in upstate New York.
It's cold there all the time.
It'll definitely be good in our house.
So move on down the line now, Lee,
Oh my gosh.
I'm so excited about sweet potatoes, Rach.
We're working with LSU, okay?
(audience gasps and claps)
Wow.
Preserving old heirlooms.
The only ones we're seeing
in the store are gonna look exactly the same every time.
Look at these.
Look at the size, you would never see these in the store.
Look at the personality differences, you know?
Right, these are old world heirloom varieties.
This one's called a creme brulee.
There's a Beauregard , there's a copper penny.
We've got a purple one,
and some of these old varieties
are just so amazing in flavor.
You're looking for firm.
You don't, you wanna stay away from the soft.
Look, these will hold a long time too.
Aren't these the most nutritional,
one of the most nutritional vegetables you can eat?
Nutritionally dense, yeah.
Nutritionally dense vegetables?
Per weight.
They really are,
get those sweet potatoes into your diet.
And there's so many ways you can use 'em,
and sweets, huh?
I like my sweets, and pie!
Chef Jamie's actually made sweet potato ice cream.
(audience applause)
Ah, I love Jamie so much.
Cause is so diverse that if you see one
that's bruised or skinned,
obviously if you haven't bought it yet, stay away from that.
But if you've got a bruised one, go ahead.
It's okay.
But use that one first.
Yeah.
We'll take and put these in an old onion sack,
like a mesh sack, and hang 'em in the garage.
Yeah.
And they'll hold their all winter long,
as long as they don't freeze.
(audience applause)
Look at the colors, look at that, huh?
The thing that I wanted you to notice,
we didn't clean the soil
off of these, some people-
Yeah, but we talked about that too.
We put that everything away dirty.
The way it comes outta the ground.
Right. It'll hold so much better
if you can leave that soil on.
Don't clean it up until you're ready to use it.
Scrub it clean, but leave the skin on.
We peel a beet, we peel a carrot, we peel a radish,
we peel a peach, we peel it apple,
and we're throwing away the most nutritious part.
Leave that skin on, it's delicious.
All right, moving on down the line
to one of our family favorites
for salads, and roasting, and charring.
Well we are Italian.
And we are Italian, yes.
(Rachael laughs)
Are you really?
Yeah you wouldn't know, right?
You wouldn't know, right?
You'd never know. You'd never know.
Well this definitely screams Mediterranean.
We looked into this like 40 years ago,
and they said it can't be grown in the United States.
We founded, a little Italian man in Italy,
found out the varieties
he was growing and started growing it here.
You know, it is so good for the digestive system,
it's bitter, I like to mix it in
with some sweeter salad greens and put it in a salad.
Yeah, you could put it in a blended, three color salad,
right, that everybody makes.
And it's also delicious to char.
It is delicious to char.
I love delicious charred radicchio
with a nice blood orange dressing
or it's a sweet winter fruit dressing is delicious.
And you know, one of the things that's cool,
you know, you're gonna lose some of the color
when you put some heat to it.
But you can take and put a little olive oil on this
and put it in, and cook it from the bottom up,
and then you still get the color on the top-
That's right.
And then you get the charring.
You get the char.
It's a really delicious choice.
And it's a great side dish
with a simple sliced steak, supper, sliced protein.
Oh, radicchio is like,
we eat that multiple times a week.
Yes. Yes.
Look at that, look at that.
Look at that at the color!
Look at that!
(Rachael screams)
Oh that gets me excited!
I'm so excited!
(audience applause)
(logo glimmers)