Cooking with Honey at the Edible Columbus Cooking Class

For the past few weeks we have increased our honey consumption by ten-fold here at the Barnes household. This is pretty impressive, considering we already ate a LOT of honey. Isaac is our chief consumer, as he puts it on everything. But I began to realize that I was not utilizing what a wonderful supply we had on hand, and there really are so many versatile ways to use honey. It is so much more than just a sweet treat.

All of this was spurred on by an invitation to speak at an Edible Columbus cooking class on "Cooking with Local Honey." While I spoke on the benefits, types and varieties of local Ohio honey (shown above, our Spring, Summer, and Fall honey, left to right) I really learned so much more about cooking with honey just by sampling the wide array of offerings chosen by Tricia Wheeler, editor of Edible Columbus magazine. You can follow this link to find all the recipes we sampled in the class, but I am going to post my two favorites here. I cooked them both this past week and received rave reviews from Isaac.

Honey Roasted Root Vegetables

4 pounds root vegetables, like butternut squash, celery root, rutabaga, beets, parsnips, pumpkin and carrots, cleaned and cut into 1/2 inch cubs
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup honey
3 tablespoons fresh chopped rosemary

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss the vegetables in olive oil, salt and pepper and spread onto a foil-lined baking sheet, or two if needed. Rotate the tray halfway through cooking until vegetables are lightly caramelized and fork tender, about 45 minutes. Toss periodically to make sure they cook evenly. While vegetables are cooking, whisk honey and butter together into well incorporated.

During the last 5-10 minutes of cooking, remove vegetables and brush them with honey butter mixture. Sprinkle with rosemary and return to oven to continue cooking.

Honey Marinated Chicken Breasts
Serves 6

6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1/3 cup Dijon mustard
1/4 cup white wine
1 tablespoon honey
2 cup fine breadcrumbs
1 cup finely grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Flatten each chicken breast half with a meat pounder. For the marinade, put the mustard, wine and honey in a large ziplock bag. Add the chicken breasts, seal the bag and marinate in fridge for an hour. In a medium bowl, thoroughly mix the breadcrumbs and grated cheese. Dip the marinated chicken breasts in the mixture, coating all sides. Place the chicken breasts in a greased baking pan and cook in the preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes.

Our kids liked it too, but they have yet to master the art of comments like, "This is amazing, mom!" I wanted to take beautiful photos of both dishes. But sometimes after working hard on a meal, you just want to sit down and eat it, you know what I mean? So you have to use your imagination... but trust me. They are both delicious. I've included the above picture of our kids, Maizy (2) and Mason (3) after we made homemade spinach ravioli last week. No honey in that recipe, but it is included in the Fall issue of Edible Columbus, mentioned in the previous post. Go check it out!