thoughtful consumption

Blueberry ricotta pancakes!

I ended up with extra ricotta cheese, and that’s the kind of thing that will sit in my refrigerator until it’s all kinds of crazy colors. To preempt the rainbow of doom, I dug around the internet to find uses for ricotta. Didn’t take long to hit on blueberry ricotta pancakes. We’re making them in the morning. (Ah, the benefits of being under-employed!)

I had the ricotta because of some tomato-basil soup I tried to make last week. I decided it was too strong for soup and too thin for sauce. So I bought some ricotta, and we added it along with some Parmesan and enjoyed the newly forged sauce over some penne pasta and linguine. (I felt really strange mixing pastas. Is there some natural law against it?)

It’s funny the paths you can get led down when you’re cooking. But any path that ends with blueberry ricotta pancakes works for me. I’ve been saving up frozen blueberries for just such an occasion. We snack on frozen strawberries and blackberries after supper but not the blueberries.

Baba ghanoush

I finally got to make some baba ghanoush. It worked out fine with the globe eggplant – much better than with the Asian ones. I used the dry-method from How to Cook Everything to cook the eggplant. But when I went to cut it, I wasn’t sure it was done all over, so I stuck it in the toaster oven for a while longer.

The eggplant wasn’t bitter at all and had that nice smoky flavor. I added garlic, tahini,  and salt and pepper and ground it up.

Then I added the olive oil and lemon juice. I did seed the eggplant before grinding. I wonder if that’s better or if it just wastes eggplant. Before we went to the beach, I blanched and froze some Asian eggplant slices. Maybe I can roast the slices and make more baba ghanoush – that is, if the masochistic urge to make Eggplant Parmesan refuses to strike.

We had the baba ghanoush along with sausage and sliced tomatoes. Sausage and baba ghanoush were an odd pair, but they got along okay.

I saved the sausage drippings in the hope of more field peas next week. And I ordered another pound of sausage. It’s expensive, but so, so good! I may go broke on the Farmers’ Fresh online store. I bought sausage (again), field peas (again), onions, and pancake mix this week.

Amateur spotlight

We’re eating our very own tomatoes and potatoes this week. I made bacon, basil, and tomato sandwiches one day for lunch. Sadly, I was out of mayo and too hungry to stop and make some. The sandwiches were good, but you have to really like fresh basil. I’m not sure Chris does.

Last night we had some yummy mashed potatoes. Unfortunately, it used up our entire potato harvest for the year. (Our potato plants got eaten and died last month.) We also had red cabbage and scrambled eggs.

The first step of the cabbage recipe calls for sautéeing chopped onion and apple in olive oil. Well, I’m out of onions till Wednesday, and I had bacon grease from cooking the bacon for the third step in the recipe. So I left out the onion and sautéed the apple in bacon drippings. It would have been a better with onions, but I liked using up the bacon drippings instead of olive oil. Why waste the flavor (and the olive oil) if something’s going to have bacon in it anyway?

This supper was actually my first time scrambling eggs. Chris is the professional scrambler in our house. The eggs were a last minute addition when the defrosted pork loin smelled terrible and had to be tossed. Thankfully, CSA eggs are always a treat and could replace any entrée as far as I’m concerned.

Squash muffins

I finally made squash muffins after seeing the pictures at Kitchen Kung Fu. The recipe is from the 7/22 CSA newsletter.

Ingredients

* 2 cups all-purpose flour

* 1 tablespoon baking powder

* 1/4 teaspoon salt

* 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

* 2/3 cup grated yellow squash

* 1 egg, beaten

* 3/4 cup milk

* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Directions

1. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and squash in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture.

2. Combine egg, milk and oil; add to dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened.

3. Spoon batter into lightly greased muffin pans, filling two-thirds full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove muffins from pans immediately.

Yields 1 dozen.

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They were tasty (especially with the recommended butter and honey) and went great with leftover vegetable soup. They had zero squash taste as far as I could tell, and I’m not sure whether that’s a plus or a minus. We went through seven of them pretty fast. I’ve got three left that I’m saving to go with the last bit of vegetable soup tomorrow. Either way, I’m glad to have this recipe. I don’t seem to have extra squash much, but it’s good to have an emergency plan.

Tonight, however, we’re having our squash stir-fried. I’ve never stir-fried patty pan squash, so I’m interested to see if there’s a difference. We’re also having leftover field peas, sliced tomatoes, and barbecue roast beef sandwiches. I got a good deal on a pack of deli roast beef, and I’m going to slice it up, simmer it in some barbecue sauce, and serve it on over bread. If we had more field peas left, I’d make the rest of my forbidden black rice and save the roast beef for another time. Now, we’ll wait until next week to have field peas and black rice.

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Last night, we had butter beans, creamed corn, and some terrific sausage from Gum Creek.

The sausage was delicious! It made the house smell good for hours. The butter beans weren’t bad either. The corn was creamed corn from a can – a little too sweet but entirely edible.

The creamed corn was an accident. I made vegetable soup the other day and didn’t want to use my frozen CSA corn for soup. But I grabbed the wrong can from the pantry and didn’t realize it until it was too late.

Field Peas – yay!

I take back my whining about the field peas. We had some for lunch today, and they were really good.

(There was supposed to be some rice grits, too. But I walked away from them before turning them to simmer and burnt them to an incredibly acrid crisp.)

Most recipes call for some salty pork to cook with the field peas. I’ve got some bacon, but I need it for red cabbage and bacon, basil, tomato sandwiches with our very own tomato!

It's a tomato - we're so proud!

Instead, I just reheated the sausage drippings from last night’s supper before adding the peas and the water.

A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it if you told me I’d clean my plate of field peas and butter beans. But I really did!

and I didn't scrape them on to Chris' plate, either!

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• eggs
• red cabbage
• butter beans
• dried red peas
• apples
• watermelon
• sweet potatoes
• patty pan squash
• rice grits
• globe eggplant
• tomatoes
• basil

I also ordered field peas, 2 lbs of apples, and 1 lb of sausage from the store.

Beans and peas

Every CSA season I discover a couple of vegetables that I thought I didn’t like but actually do when they’re fresh and yummy. (I’m going to be the best eater in a few years!) Last year the big winner was field peas. This year it’s sorrel, and I’m hoping to add butter beans. I shelled a few of the butter beans because I wanted to see whether they were the little green kind or the big white kind. Well, they’re both.

I always thought that the green and white beans were different animals that someone had carelessly given the same name. But it seems to be a matter of maturity. The big white ones practically leap out of their shells while the little green ones have to be dug out. I’m going to cook them all together and hope they’re wonderful. I’ll probably cook them tonight and serve them with some sausage and maybe a sweet potato.  (I can’t wait any longer to try the sausage!)

Having fallen in love with field peas last year, I was happy to order them this week. Unfortunately, many of the pods weren’t as fresh. (I think I missed Fresh Field Pea Week while at the beach.) Here are examples of the three types of peas I shelled.

The green ones are the freshest. That’s what they looked like last year. The middle set looks like the majority of our peas. I’m going to cook those with the green ones and hope for the best. The last set are beans that dried in the pod. I’m going to keep these and use them in some soup. Or maybe I can plant them next year and grow my own field peas. Mmmm…

Finally, I’m going to give the dried red peas another shake. The first time I got these peas I made Hoppin’ John. Unfortunately, I made entirely too much Hoppin’ John and got sick of it. So the last time I gave my peas to my mom. She and my dad love them. This bag, though, I’m going to attempt to use in moderation over a longer period of time. But I haven’t decided how just yet.

Flying saucer squash

I’m not sure I’ve ever had patty pan squash before. Here’s one recipe with sausage that’s a possibility.

Baked stuffed pattypan squash (Serves 4)

• 4 Pattypan Squash, washed
• 1 Onion, chopped
• 1/2 lb. lean sausage, chopped
• 3/4 lb. Parsley, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups Bread Crumbs
• 1/2 teaspoon Pepper
• 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cut squash in half (horizonally) and hollow.
3. Chop onion finely.
4. Crumble the sausage into a pan and cook until no longer pink.
5. Remove sausage from pan and set aside.
6. Add onion to the pan with sausage fat and cook about 2 minutes or until soft.
7. Mix together in a bowl the sausage, onion, parsley, bread crumbs, pepper and 2 tablespoons water.
8. Divide mixture among squash halves.
9. Brush the tops of the stuffed squash with olive oil.
10. Place squash in single layer in baking dish just large enough to hold all of the squash.
11. Fill baking dish with 1/2 inch water.
12. Cover and bake 30 minutes.
13. Uncover and continue baking about 15 minutes or until stuffing is browned and squash tender.

Globe eggplant, red cabbage, tomatoes and basil

Asian eggplant is great, but globe eggplant is easier to make baba ghanoush with. So that’s what I’ll do with this one.

I’ll cook the red cabbage according to this recipe. I’ll probably use only half of the cabbage for the first batch and then decide whether to make more.

Maybe I’ll make more cream of tomato soup with lots of basil. I’ll have to add some canned tomatoes to stretch it but that worked fine before. Gotta get some bulk tomatoes soon!

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I was so excited to go to the beach last week. But of course there’s a lot to do before you go. So I cooked and froze a bunch of produce and shelled pecans (2 shelled pounds worth!). By the end of the day, I had burns from the oven, lacerations from pecan shells on my hands,  and a scratched eye from more pecan shell shrapnel. “Saltwater will fix that.” That’s what we kept saying as we limped our way to Daytona.

And it worked, more or less. Or at least we had a great time.

We got a little condo with a kitchen, but I didn’t do any serious cooking. My guys aren’t really into seafood. So I didn’t cook any fresh-caught seafood. We went out a few times, though, and I had some really tasty shrimp.

I made easy food: tacos, stuffed baked potatoes, spaghetti, and sandwiches. Last year I learned my lesson about buying produce at the store. It really is different.

Last year, I went to the Daytona Beach Publix and saw all this produce I recognized and had come to love. So I bought some zucchini not even considering that it might taste different from what I was getting at home.

Same recipe, but the results were bland and kind of mushy. Blech. The guys liked it, but they’re better vegetable eaters than I am. I was really disappointed. And honestly, I wasn’t prejudging it. I was confused at first as why it wasn’t good. Not until the next day did I realize the only difference was the zucchini. So I ended up with the results of a semi-blind taste test that was a nice reminder of why I love my CSA. I wouldn’t be eating all these vegetables if they didn’t taste so good.

So this time at Publix I just bought tomatoes, onion, and a head of romaine for our vegetables. Lots of salad and nobody was disappointed.

When we got back Monday night, I made some vegetable soup with some of the stuff in the freezer to catch us up on our veggies.

For the farmers

It occurred to me that farmers don’t get to go to the beach. So for all you farmers out there…

The water was 72 degrees. That’s cold. It may not sound cold, but, when your chest deep in it waiting for a decent wave, it’s cold. Darn cold. And the sand gets everywhere.  And there were jellyfish, and the water tasted foul out of the tap.

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So here’s the run-down on supper. The broiled shrimp po-boys were pretty good but not super special. It was fun to make the garlic mayonnaise, though. I’ll definitely play around with homemade mayo again. And I loved the fresh sorrel! No one seemed to like it as much as I did, but who cares? That’s great stuff. I’m only sorry I ate it all fresh so I didn’t get a chance to make sorrel sauce.

The beginning and end of the meal were the best. The cream of tomato soup turned out great. It tasted really fresh even though some of the tomatoes were from a can. The process is conveniently timed, too. I cooked and pureed the tomatoes earlier in the day and then added them to the cream and heated it while preparing the rest of supper. If I get a chance to buy more tomatoes in bulk, I’ll make and freeze some tomato puree with a mind towards making more of this soup later in the year.

Dessert was my favorite part: frozen berries, sugared pecans, vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream.

I also loved the fresh sorrel on the

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So here’s my plan for Saturday’s supper. It’s all new to me, but, if something goes horribly wrong, we can have pasta with pesto or just go straight to dessert.

__________

Cream of tomato soup

I’ll use fresh tomatoes if they don’t get eaten before Saturday. My guest is bringing bread that we’ll have with the soup.

Broiled shrimp po-boys

Marinated and broiled shrimp, homemade garlic mayo, and sorrel leaves in toasted hot dog buns. Here’s where the idea came from although I’m not going to toss the shrimp in gin and sherry before broiling. Gin and sherry?! It’s probably great, but I’ll just stick to the basic marinade for now.

Salad and green beans

Hopefully enough of the lettuce will still be around Saturday evening to serve. I can always stretch it with more sorrel leaves. I’ll toss it with a light vinaigrette and top it with craisins and toasted walnuts.

I’ll sauté blanched green beans in a little oil and top with salt, pepper, and some fresh lemon juice.

Frozen berries in whipped cream and candied pecans

I’ll whip the cream that’s leftover from making the soup. I need to make the pecans because I separated some egg whites yesterday and I’ll separate another to make the mayo. And we can take leftover pecans with us to the beach….

__________

Off to the beach!

Next week we’re going to the beach. So this means we have a lot to eating and cooking to do along with the planning and the packing.

We need to eat a bunch of fried rice, green beans, coleslaw, squash and watermelon. If we run out of time, I’ll blanch and freeze the green beans and squash.

I’ve already made the basil into pesto that will keep in the freezer until we return. If I have some sorrel left after Saturday, I’ll cook it into green sauce and freeze it, too.

I’m also going to make and freeze a couple of dishes of eggplant Parmesan with all that gorgeous eggplant. When I cook the eggplant, I know the guys will want to eat it instead of fried rice, green beans, etc. So I’m either going to cook it right after a big meal or just give in to the inevitable and serve it for supper one night and then freeze the leftovers.

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This week’s box

• garlic
• sorrel
• corn (minus two ears we ate for lunch)
• Pioneer Porridge
• honey
• green beans
• lettuce mix
• watermelon
• Asian eggplant
• basil
• eggs
• yellow squash
• tomatoes

Entertaining on a small scale

I’ve invited a friend for dinner this weekend, so I’ve been thinking about menus. With all the eggplant, eggplant Parmesan is one obvious choice. The sorrel and basil are interesting, too. I’ll look around a little more and report back.

Other plans

We haven’t tried the porridge yet. I think of it more as a cold weather dish. Mmm…. cold weather. Can’t wait for sweaters, snuggling, and porridge. And French onion soup on a cold night.

The green beans are delicious. I think they’re Romano green beans. I always think they won’t be as good as the skinny french beans, but they’re better. I’ve been blanching them and then quickly sauteeing them in a little olive oil and garlic and a little sliced onion if there’s any handy. We  had some for lunch the other day along with grits, summer sausage, Leiden cheese, and cooked apples.

I’m considering making cream of tomato soup using this recipe. If I cut it in half, I think I’ll have enough tomatoes. Maybe that’ll be the soup course for my Saturday supper.

Leftovers

The chicken with lemongrass foretold in the last post was tasty, but I didn’t make enough sauce. That supper I tried something else new and added cabbage to the stir-fried squash recipe. Big mistake. The cabbage changed the ecosystem of the pan, and the whole thing was mush. Overall, not a terrific evening but we survived. Delicious cantaloupe at the end helped.

The sausage tomato zucchini supper was better. I used a whole pound of sausage, and I think it overwhelmed the sauce. But it was still really good. Here are some pictures.

I also made some fried rice with onion, cabbage, garlic, and ginger. I liked the ginger taste; I’ll do that again. I keep ginger root in a bag in my freezer and chop a hunk off when I need it. It’s probably not as good as fresh, but it keeps much longer.

With another onion and the rest of the cabbage, I made coleslaw. I like the vinegary kind. This recipe you just boil some vinegar and oil together along with dry mustard and celery salt. Then you dump it over sliced cabbage, onion, and a little sugar. Stir it up and let it marinate in the fridge over night. It makes a nice refreshing summer side dish. Goes well with corn and tomatoes.

Our peach muffins turned out great! I pretty much followed the yogurt muffin recipe from How to Cook Everything. They were moist and not too sweet. Perfect for morning and afternoon snacks.

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Here’s last Thursday’s supper.

You probably recognize the cherry tomatoes. To the right is some butternut squash roasted with a little butter and maple syrup. Next is zucchini tian. I broiled the zucchini slices in my toaster oven because I couldn’t find my grill pan.

I think it was easier and just as good. What’s a broiler but an upside down grill anyway?

The main dish is grits topped with half a broiled chicken breast, grilled onions, and tarragon goat cheese. I marinated a chicken breast in olive oil, basil, garlic, and tarragon and put it in the toaster to broil. Then I started sautéing some red onion slices along with some of marinade. But the chicken wouldn’t broil itself. I think it’s because I didn’t pound it like I did the last time. So the onions got a lot crunchier than I planned as we waited for the chicken to finish. But it was all still tasty with the grits and the creamy goat cheese and fresh tarragon.

Nighttime treats

Although I regained my senses about making fried peach pies, I decided I still wanted some Varsity food. So I made frosted oranges. Nothing from the CSA here – just vanilla ice cream and orange juice blended together. It’s really easy and makes a nice summer time dessert.

I’ve also made two pots of herbal tea with the hyssop and spearmint, and I take back what I said about not liking all-herbal teas. I used roughly 4 leaves and twenty flowers for each two cup pot and steeped it 10 minutes.

Italian food is yummy.

We had fun Italian food last night: fried eggplant and pasta with basil, zucchini, and pine nuts.

The fried eggplant was a great appetizer. I peeled most of the eggplant so that the batter would stick. I purged them, wiped them off, dunked them in egg wash and then in flour and bread crumbs. Then I fried them in olive oil.

We dipped them in marinara sauce (from a jar). The eggplant’s so creamy the texture is like fried mozzarella.

For the pasta course, I used a vegetable peeler to get thin strips of the zucchini. That’s when I realized I could have used the peels from the eggplant, too! But I’d already thrown them in the scraps bucket. So sad! The purple peels would have been really pretty with the zucchini.

I started with this pasta recipe but ended with this one. The Epicurious recipe instructs you to peel strips of zucchini and then purge them and use them raw. Interesting, but I wasn’t in the mood for zucchini sashimi. So I chopped up my zucchini strips and sautéed them quickly in a little of the olive oil leftover from the eggplant. I tossed in some basil towards the end, too. Then we mixed it in with the browned butter and pine nuts and topped it all with pepper, Parmesan, and more basil. It was delicious, and we were molto happy.

A detour through East Asia…

Tonight I’m going to make a chicken and lemon grass dish according to this recipe. I’ll serve it over rice and with a side of cabbage and stir-fried squash. I cut up onion and squash for this dish a few days ago, so now I really need to use it.

I’ll make extra rice for fried rice for lunch tomorrow. I’m not sure what we have to go in it. It will be mostly cabbage and onion. If there’s another yellow squash in the fridge, we’ll use that, too.

…and back to Italy again

Tomorrow evening, it’s back to Italy! I’ve already skinned and seeded all the tomatoes in preparation.

We’ll fry the rest of the eggplant for an appetizer and, this time, save the peelings. Then we’ll make tomato-zucchini-eggplant-sausage pasta.

Here’s the basic idea:

• Brown the sausage and remove it leaving the fat in the pan.
• Cook chopped zucchini, some garlic, and chopped eggplant peelings in the fat for a couple of minutes. They should loose some moisture and get a little brown.
• Add the sausage back plus tomatoes, rosemary, sage, red wine, and maybe another can of crushed tomatoes if necessary. Let it all cook together slowly. Add some fresh basil at the last minute.
• Serve over pasta. I’m using penne this time.

On the side, we’ll have butternut squash slices broiled with butter and a little maple syrup.

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• blueberries
• cabbage
• Nutty Girl exotic nuts
• onions
• cantaloupe
• Asian eggplant
• lemongrass, sage, and rosemary
• tomatoes
• green beans
• hyssop and spearmint
• half-dozen eggs (I forgot to put them on the table, but you know what they look like, right?)

Here’s a close-up of the nuts. They’re really good. We’ve just been snacking on them, but I bet you could add them to some rice for a side dish, too.

More blueberries was a great surprise. I thought they were all gone. We’ll put these to good use – probably in pancakes. Add a slice of cantaloupe, and we’ll call it brunch.

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Today I made apple-walnut pancakes and used up about a third of our cooked apples.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3... well, 4, actually

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