Episode 30: The Latest Veggies with The Frizzled Leek

In Episode 30, we talk with Mike Cleavenger from The Frizzled Leek about his ideas for cherry tomatoes, scallions and delicata squash. We also hear about his ideas for using appliances such as an air fryer for convenient preparation of local food.

In this episode, we cover:

How Mike got interested in cooking at an early age.
Gaining a foundation of classic cooking techniques at culinary school.
How to use an air fryer for slow roasted tomatoes.
Ways to prepare a delicata squash.
Mike’s motivation for starting The Frizzled Leek website and what it offers home cooks.
How an air fryer and sous vide preparations can help with dinner prep.
His tips for grilling scallions.

You can also listen on:

Apple podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

Today’s guest
Recipes and resources from Mike
What we made – 2nd September CSA

Today’s guest

Cook Local Eat Local Podcast cover with a photo of guest Mike Cleavenger,.

Mike grew up in a family that loved to cook. He went to Culinary School in Ohio at Hocking College, then moved to California and started working in restaurants, hotels, and resorts.

After his wife had their second daughter, Mike started his blog, The Frizzled Leek. Working in restaurants is hard on families and he wanted to be there for his 2 girls growing up. The Frizzled Leek introduces innovative techniques like sous vide, and air fryer recipes. The site also has Whole30, Paleo, and healthy recipes.

Recipes and resources from Mike

Here are some of the recipes Mike mentioned on the podcast:

What we made – 2nd September CSA

a variety of vegetables from a CSA farm share on a counter, including corn, cherry tomatoes, kale, delicata squash, garlic and scallions.

Here’s what we made with our second September CSA vegetable pickup.

Purple kale

We got purple kale in this CSA share, a variety I wasn’t too familiar with. But as this article indicates, it might be even healthier than regular kale!

The weather was starting to get cooler when this CSA arrived, so we used the purple kale to make our first batch of Portuguese Kale Soup this season!

bowl of Portuguese kale soup served with red wine and bread.

Always a favorite here! Our CSA has started offering pork products from a local farm this year. So I grabbed some of their Andouille sausages to go along with the veggies this pickup, and used them for a delicious batch of kale soup!

Broccoli

When I see broccoli, making our fettccuine primavera is one of my first instincts.

Fettuccine Primavera is a creamy and satisfying pasta dish that is very easy to make.

This time was no exception, and fettuccine was on our menu this week!

Scallions

We’ve been seeing a lot of scallions lately.

So we had more than one bunch of scallions to work with in the past week or so. We made a batch of our Spicy Green Onion Dip for starters.

Always a hit! Just need to be sure to have a cold beverage handy, we aren’t kidding about the spicy part.

Scallions are also one of several fresh vegetables needed for this Haitian Epis recipe.

Haitian epis sauce in a food processor, with a spoon taking a scoop of it out of the processor.

I first learned about this recipe from Food Fidelity when I had Marwin Brown on Episode 6. It also uses hot peppers and bell peppers, plus a lot of parsley.

I made a batch of his Smothered Green Beans and Potatoes once I had the epis made. I’ve also been using it to top pork tenderloin, as a sandwich spread and in place of salsa for tacos. A versatile flavor boost to have in the fridge!

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