In the Kitchen and On the Town

I want to apologize for my long absence. Not only have we been having some web server problems, but the shortened days have made it very difficult for me to take pictures, since my sub-par camera means I need the sunlight. Rest assured, I have been eating well, and on the occasion of my birthday, decided it was time to get back in gear.

I made several dishes for a potluck Thanksgiving dinner I attended, including a pumpkin pie with assorted goodies. Having decided that coconut milk would be just right, I was going to improvise my own recipe when someone posted one from The Savvy Vegetarian that was just like what I had in mind, so I went ahead and used that one. Then I roasted the pumpkin seeds (sweetly this time) with the idea that they might make a good topping. The next day, having chilled the pie sufficiently, I considered how nice a whipped topping would be, so I used the leftover tofu and coconut milk to attempt one, but while it would have likely been perfect out of a whip-it (and was quite delicious), it was too thin on its own. I thickened it a bit with some tapioca before deciding to just call it a sauce. It worked wonderfully on the pie as well as on the apple crisp I’d also made.

Yay for experimentation! Click through for the many recipes.

(more…)

I love pickles and I always have. As a Jew and a native New Yorker, it is in both my nature and nurture so shouldn’t surprise anyone. Perhaps more surprising in that I’ve rarely actually made them and thus far never made my favorites, but we start simple and work our way up. These two varieties of refrigerator pickles are very easy and quite yummy. I made the Swedish-style sweet slices for the first time last year when I was getting many many cucumbers in my farm share and couldn’t come up with ways to use them up fast enough. I used the food processor’s slicing disk to make ultra-thin slices and the results were fantastic (and never lost their crunch!) For the sours, I wanted something heftier, so I sliced them thickly by hand. I had far fewer cucumbers this year (sadness), so it didn’t take too long. I used plain distilled vinegar, so the sours are quite sharp, whereas the sweet were in white wine vinegar. You could certainly use a nicer vinegar for the sours.

I wanted to can pickles this year and I’d tried to grow pickling cukes in my garden, but they didn’t really flourish. I ended up with many small ones, useful (& yummy) for one or two salads apiece, but not really appropriate for pickling, and I neglected to buy a bushel from a local farm. Ah well. Still, these were all nummy and quite popular at potlucks.

Both of these can be scaled as far up as you want to go and keep quite well, assuming you can keep them from getting et.

(more…)

For about a month, I was getting a lot of corn with my farm share. Ah, those were the days! With 12-24 ears to work with, I could make anything. Anything! Well, anything involving corn.

On the left is Chipotle Corn Soup (or maybe it needs a better name?) and is something I came up with. The first time, I just processed the corn raw, which was great, but I felt that roasting would really add depth so I wanted to try it that way, too. Then the second time, I didn’t roast because I was in a hurry. But after that, I took the time to grill the corn and really love the added smokiness. It’s great either way, though.

On the right is a Bean, Corn, and Chili Soup from DD’s Stillman CSA newsletter that Mark made while they were both over. The recipe called for pinto beans, but he also used Great Northern. All the vegetables except garlic were from my or DD’s share (the cilantro and celery I’d frozen), with tomatoes and basil from the garden. Very different from the first soup, it was still delicious.

(more…)

For a few weeks, we’ve been getting tomatillos in the farm share and, as strangely cool as these weird little things with their papery husks are, I didn’t really know what to do with them.  Once  had a couple of pints (which later turned into three), I knew something had to be done so I decided to use it all to make a big batch of salsa verde, aka green salsa, aka tomatillo salsa.   Googling around turned up this recipe, which looked good to me so I stole it almost verbatim.  As an added bonus, I used  share cilantro that I’d previously frozen into ice cubes as well as share onions I’d chopped and frozen.  It all worked out quite well.

In addition to eating it with chips (shown are Trader Joe’s Flax Seed Tortilla Chips), I think it’d work very well over quesadillas or other spicy dishes.  Last night, DD and I grilled some tempeh rubbed with a hot cajun mix and the salsa made for an excellent topping.

(more…)

Some years back, DD’s mother passed along a recipe for Passover “rootkes”, aka latkes but with assorted root vegetables other than potato (more recently, I ran across a similar recipe on PPK). Since I’d already shredded a boatload of farm share beets, rootkes seemed the obvious choice, especially since I also had the share potatoes, carrots, and onions. The original recipe called for sweet potato, but I found it worked quite well with the regular kind, too. I used flour instead of matzah meal (and cornstarch instead of potato starch) because, well, it’s not Pesach, and it was just easier this way.

I also tested two cooking methods: frying and baking. Fried was somewhat tastier (no surprise there), but baking was also quite yummy and had the advantages of using less oil and not needing to tend to a pan in front of a hot stove in the summer. These were so full of yummy that I’m ashamed to admit how many I ate in the name of testing.

(more…)

Last weekend, my friend John gave me some peaches out of the bushel or so he’d picked from a friend’s trees. The were quite delicious, but too many to eat before they turned (especially with more peaches coming in my farm share). Being a traditional Southern gal, my thoughts immediately went to peach cobbler. Okay, that’s a lie, but I do sometimes out a jaunty twang in my voice.

I’d made a delicious (backyard) blackberry cobbler a couple of weeks prior with a recipe I found online, so I modified it a bit for the peaches. It turned out delicious. I’ve made many many pies in my time, but I’ve also become quite a fan of cobblers (and crisps) for their fruity yumminess with much less effort. Watching the batter rise up through the fruit is a lot of fun, too. The result is a very light cake-like concoction spread through with peachy yumminess.

(more…)

This is one of my staple dishes. It’s easy to make and works with any number of veggies, so it’s great for using up whatever might be around in a simple, healthy way. The only things I pretty much *always* include are onions and garlic. It’s gone over very well at potlucks and barbecues, too. I’m almost embarrassed to admit how easy it is given how well it’s been received.

Seasoning can always be adjusted as desired, but Spike is always a good bet.

(more…)

I’ve been getting eggplant in my farm share (ir)regularly and though I’d take a shot at baba. I recall enjoying the dish when I was a kid, but on my second trip to Israel, when I worked as a volunteer, we were fed eggplant (usually roasted and mashed in some baba variant) just about EVERY meal EVERY day. After my return, I found myself unable to touch the stuff for years. I gradually worked my way back, starting with roasted, fried, and various curries, finally got to the point where I could eat baba, but it took quite a while before I could actually enjoy it. This represent the final milestone achieved: I actually made my own baba and enjoyed it. Only took me 15 years.

(more…)

For a few weeks, I was receiving tons of beets with my farm share. One day I decided to shred a dozen or so, which sent me from wondering what to do with beets to wondering what to do with shredded beets. Inspiration came from pondering other available produce, which included farm share spring onions and carrots as well as a couple of apples. I love the shredding disc on my food processor. And I love caramelized onions. The whole thing came together beautifully with a splash of balsamic vinegar. My friend Jay was over rah-rah-ing the whole way, which also helped. We ate the lovely and yummy salad sitting out on the porch. The balance of the various sweet, sour, and tart flavors worked out just right.

(more…)

On a beautiful summer day, I wanted some freshly baked bread so decided it was time to take my first shot at focaccia. I searched many recipes and ended up combining aspects of several of them. The result was not quite the texture I was aiming for, but it was still light, flavorful, and delicious. I incorporated rosemary from my home garden (the top of the plant is visible to the right of the olive oil) in the dough as well as on top and also topped it with onions made from my farm share caramelized with some maple syrup and red wine.

(more…)