Throwing a Little Something Together...

     I've got friends who have an obsessive desire to follow recipes exactly.  I used to be this person.  It's what you do when you're first learning how to cook.  But I think it makes you afraid a little.  Afraid you might mess something up.  You know what?  You almost never do and a lot of times what you come up with is better than what the Internet says, especially one of those recipes from TV, blerg.  AND most of the time the recipe has got one or twelve things you don't have sitting in your fridge at the moment.  So let's talk about what is in your fridge.  At any moment I have every ingredient necessary for a good soup, Italian anything, stir-fry, and hummus.  Always have the ingredients for hummus.  All you need for hummus is any bean variety, oil, garlic, and salt.  All you need for soup is a can or two of tomatoes and a variety of vegetables, and sometimes you can pull it off without the tomatoes!  Italian needs tomatoes, basil and garlic.  Mushrooms are good, other herbs, or onions, but really all you need are tomatoes, basil, and garlic.  Let's get to that stir-fry now.

I started on this because I had some peanut sauce from the Farmer's Market calling my name all week.  I also had purple cauliflower, red cabbage, carrots, a squash from my garden, oyster mushrooms, a white bell pepper, half an onion, and some garlic.  Sounds like stir-fry to me.  Does it matter what color your vegetables are?  Nope.  Do you need all those vegetables to make a stir-fry?  Nope, though it does help to feed a larger group to have a variety if you only have small quantities of each like I had.  Do you have to have fancy soba noodles like I did?  Not even.  I wasn't even thinking of noodles when I realized I had the makings for stir-fry.  I was going to do rice first, but realized I hadn't left enough time to pull it off, so noodles it was!  What I'm trying to say here is relax.  Take a deep breath.  It's just one dinner.  You can do it.  If all else fails, there's always peanut butter or grilled cheese, or whatever sandwich combination your family is allowed to eat in this day of allergens and intolerances.

The biggest thing to remember when doing a stir-fry for a family is not to cook everything in the same pan unless you have a huge pan.  I like my stir-fry veggies warmed and nearly raw, cooking everything in the same pan tends to steam everything and take forever so you're left with a long cook time and mushy veg.

Refrigerator Clean-Out Stir Fry
Serves 4

3 large carrots, sliced
1/2 large onion, sliced
2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 medium cabbage, sliced
1 large or 2 small yellow squash, sliced
1/2 lb oyster mushrooms, chopped
1/2 cup cauliflower florets
1 bell pepper, sliced
2 green onions, sliced
1 Tbs sesame seeds
1 bunch of soba noodles, boiled and drained
1 tsp high heat oil
1 Tbs peanut sauce, soy sauce, or tamari sauce

On medium/high heat, cook onions first in a small amount of oil until they have softened slightly, then set them aside, then carrots cooked until slightly soft and set aside, continue cooking vegetables one at a time until all are cooked, excluding the green onions and sesame seeds, mushrooms and garlic can go in together.  Mix all the veggies together.  Plate noodles and top with cooked veggies, finish with the sauce of your choice.

Now, go to your fridge and start experimenting!!  Here's a few more ideas to get you started:
Chicken, pork, or tofu, eggplant, peas, bok choi, broccoli, any color of bell pepper, zucchini, green beans, water chestnuts, baby corn, bamboo shoots.

The ol' Blue and Gold.

     When I was a kid I had absolutely no interest in being a Girl Scout.  I didn't know what they did, except every now and then, they'd show up at school in their uniforms and apparently they sold cookies, though I don't think my folks ever bought any.  (I made up for this in college by buying and consuming an entire childhood's worth of Thin Mints every year on the first day of sales.  This was how I learned that eating an entire childhood's worth of mint extract makes my tummy feel funny.  And by "funny" of course, I mean "rolling around on the bed moaning in agony while still shoving Thin Mints in my face." This may or may not have helped solidify my complete lack of excitement about Girl Scouts.)  But anyway, what I really wanted to be was a Boy Scout.

     My brother was a Cub Scout for about 30 seconds when we were kids.  He went to a few meetings, made a pinewood derby car, we went to a Jamboree one year, and I think that was pretty much it for him.  But we got Boy's Life for years and years and I loved them.  There was some kind of comic about a burro and I'm pretty sure Boy's Life is where I learned how to install insulation.  You know... Like you do. 

     One of my greatest hopes for my boys is that they would want to join the scouts when they were old enough and last week we went to my son's very first meeting.  He is beside himself.  My little one is a grumbling ball of jealousy.  Fortunately, the second meeting he attended was the Blue and Gold Banquet which is for families.  My youngest was amazed by the theatrics, my eldest mostly wanted to run around like a monkey with all his new friends, while I was mostly sitting there bursting my goshdarn buttons.

     Our den's offering for the banquet was spaghetti and seeing as how it was my son's very first one and how it was only our second meeting and how I was so goshdarn proud and all, I decided to make homemade sauce.



Blue and Gold Pasta Sauce
22 Roma tomatoes
1 Tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 large onion (about 12 oz), chopped roughly
8 oz small sweet peppers, sliced into 1/4 inch rings (about 2 1/2 C)
8 oz baby bella mushrooms, chopped
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 C mixed olive tapenade (opt)
2 Tbs tomato paste
3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 C sliced, frozen artichoke hearts (still frozen)
4 Tbs chopped fresh basil
1 Tbs chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp thyme

Cut X's in the bottoms of tomatoes and broil until skins begin to brown.  Remove from oven and allow to cool until you can touch them.  Remove peels and set tomatoes aside.  In a large stock pot, heat olive oil.  Cook onion until slightly brown and softening, then add peppers and mushrooms.  Cook until soft.  Make a small well in the middle of the veggies and add garlic to the dry pan, heat until scent blooms and stir in.  Stir in tomatoes and olives.  Cook until tomatoes have softened, about an hour.  Add salt, pepper, tomato paste and artichoke hearts.  Heat a little more until hearts have warmed up.  Remove from heat and stir in fresh herbs.  Makes enough to coat 1 16oz bag of pasta well.

Review:
My youngest, aka Mr. Idonlikeit, ate three helpings of this pasta at the banquet and hasn't turned his nose up at leftovers, either.  When I was making it, I ate a solid cup of it with a fork before I even got the pasta ready.  This stuff is serious, ya'll.

Mexicanesque Corn

     I know it's not completely seasonal, but if you've got a bit of corn in your freezer right now this is just the thing to do with it.  Especially if you like a nice burrito every now and then!  My kids like a nice burrito three times a week at least.  This corn makes a nice side or filler.  I'm not sure if much of the food we eat in the states really qualifies as authentic Mexican but this goes with burritos, so I'm calling it "Mexicanesque."  This is so quick to put together, if you're a quick chopper, you could have this on your plate in 15 minutes. 

Mexicanesque Corn
1 tsp olive oil
1 C chopped mushrooms
3/4 C chopped onion
2 Tbs diced jalapeño
1 Tbs minced garlic
1 lb frozen or fresh corn
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 C fresh cilantro, minced

Heat oil in a large skillet and add mushrooms and onion.  Cook until onion has begun to brown and mushrooms are soft.  Add jalapeño and garlic and cook about 20 seconds until garlic has released its fragrance.  Add corn.  Cook until corn has warmed up.  If a few kernels begin to brown, all the better!  Season with salt and pepper and remove from heat.  Stir in cilantro just before serving.

Review:

This one was a hit with everyone for once!  Add a little more jalapeño or cilantro as you see fit!

Single Serving...

     I have gotten several e-mails over the years from readers who are in the same boat I am: the only vegetarian in the raft.  A lot of times we end up either making an entire vegetarian meal or falling back on store-bought entrees so we're not making two entire meals at the same time.  It can be daunting.

     A few of years ago, when I started getting concerned about GMO's, I also read an article condemning the extraction process in most soy products as a cancer-causing air pollutant (The Cornucopia Institute).  And when I started participating in October Unprocessed I cut nearly all pre-processed soy products completely.  Sometimes I'll have a Boca at a restaurant if I can't get anything else, but I haven't bought a box of soy burgers in years.  Soy lecithin is harder to avoid, that stuff's in everything, but I do what I can.  What that translates to in the kitchen is lots of beans.  Beans!  Beans for everyone!  Whee!  At this moment, I've got at least three different kinds of lentils in my pantry, and I don't even want to hazard a guess as to how many other bean varieties I've got hanging around in there.  Even with a pressure cooker, beans take time and honestly, every now and then I'd like a good burger with everybody else.

     This lead me on my quest to find a good homemade veggie burger recipe.  There are lots of recipes out there.  The problem is they usually make, like, 47 burgers, they're bland and mooshy, and between all the shredding and boiling and resting they take forever.  I wanted something that I could make quickly, didn't require pre-cooking, and didn't taste like a soggy pile of oatmeal and beans.

     So, I came up with my own recipe one night because I was desperate.  And you know what?  It's pretty darn good!  The best part is I can make one large patty or two medium ones and cook it in the time it takes for my family's burgers to fry in a pan.  This makes more of a "batter" than a "patty" so it's not one to make on the grill, but I bet it bakes up pretty well if you're in the mood for that.  The one caveat for this recipe is that I've got a small food chopper style food processor.  I'm not sure how well this would work with a larger processor.

Single-Serving Mushroom Burger

8 button mushrooms, quartered (about 4 ounces)
1/4 C onion (1 oz)
2 small garlic cloves
1 handful organic low salt blue corn chips (1 oz)
1 tsp oil
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Opt:
fresh herbs like thyme or finely chopped rosemary
sub the button mushrooms for the same amount of crimini mushrooms

In a small food processor, chop the corn chips until a fine meal forms.  (Or, leave bigger chunks if you like a little crunch in your burger.  I like it both ways.)  Pour chip crumbs out and reserve.  Put mushrooms, onion, and garlic in the processor and grind until finely chopped.  Add egg, oil, salt and pepper and herbs if desired.  Process until well combined and veggies are pureed well.  Pour chip crumbs in and process until combined.  Pour as much of the mixture as you need into a frying pan and fry in a pan with a little bit of oil for 5-10 minutes.

Notes:

Make this vegan by substituting 2 Tbs chia seed ground and mixed with 1/4 C water.  It makes more of a patty, but it does change the flavor.  I suggest adding a teaspoon of fresh thyme, or 1/2 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary.

If you are one of the lucky families out there who raises their own chickens or has access to various size eggs, a smaller egg is better in this than a larger one.  If all you can get are the XL eggs in the grocery, they will definitely work, it will just make a larger portion.

If you have extra, I've got a recipe coming for that very soon.

Review:

This little patty is so good, my kids actually begged me to have the one I made for these pictures for dinner!  I don't love the vegan version as much, but it's definitely edible and still much better than most.

20-Minute Dinner...

     Spring seedlings are issuing forth their delicious and copious bounties.  The end of Summer is fast approaching but while the mid-afternoon heat still swells, I find it necessary to invent recipes that take very little time cooking.

     For dinner a few nights ago, I broiled golden tomatoes, eggplant, garlic, mushrooms and various herbs to make an interesting topping for potatoes, rice, pasta, or quinoa.  Not quite a sauce, I'm sure there's some sort of fancy chef word for what this is.  I think I will probably just call it Broiled Veggies with Boiled Potatoes.

Broiled Veggies with Boiled Potatoes
Yield: 4 servings
1/2 pound ozette or similar, small potato
8oz Eggplant, sliced paper thin with a mandoline
1/4 C Flour
1/4 tsp Black pepper
1/2 tsp Salt
12 oz Tomatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 oz fresh Oyster Mushrooms, sliced thinly with a knife
2 oz Onion (1 med), sliced paper thin with a mandoline
4 cloves Garlic, pressed
1 tsp fresh Thyme leaves
1 drizzle Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 Tbs chopped fresh Basil 

Cut potatoes into bite size pieces and set to boiling in a pot on the stove.  In a ziplock bag or medium size bowl, add flour, pepper, and salt and stir to combine.  Add eggplant and toss until coated.  Line a baking sheet with parchment or foil and turn the broiler on.  Spread the eggplant out in a single layer and broil for 5 minutes.  Add onion to the baking sheet in a thin layer over the eggplant.  Broil for 3 minutes.  Then add a layer of mushrooms, crush garlic cloves on top, and broil for 2 minutes.  Next add tomato and thyme and broil for a final 5 minutes.  When the veggies are done broiling, the eggplant that wasn't covered with tomatoes will be a little crispy, the mushrooms will be soft, and the tomatoes will be slightly browned.  Remove from oven.  Check the potatoes for doneness.  When they are done, drizzle veggies lightly with olive oil and season.  Serve potatoes covered with veggies, sprinkle fresh basil immediately before serving.

Review:
We've had this twice now and even the boys love it!  You could add some lentils for a little protein and maybe a little feta cheese if you want.

Fresh and Fast...

Today, I've got three vendors I mentioned in my last post.  They are still three of my very favorites!

     The farm I probably mention most often here is Garden Treasures.  I get my bulk canning tomatoes from here as well as most of my produce.  They are even carrying mushrooms now which makes me ever so happy since the forager who came two years ago has apparently gotten out of the business.   Their produce is consistently beautiful and top quality.  And they carry purslane which I am helplessly in love with.

Roasted Strawberry and Black Pepper, Spiced Rhubarb, Lavender and Lemon, and Fleur de Sel Caramel Macarons.

      Lilli-Pilli is still going strong selling fabulously creative French macarons, and she has branched out into jams and jellies as well.  She never seems to run out of ideas for interesting new flavors and is inspired by the fruits and flowers of the season.  Rhiannon sources her berries and fruit from farmers at this market.  I love it when vendors support each other!  She has opened her own kitchen operating out of her house and I think they are even better than they have been in years past!

     I mentioned Patty Pan Cooperative last time.  We still visit this stall regularly for their veggie quesadillas.  When they've got vegetarian tamales in the freezer we pick a few of those up, too.  They are so great for a quick meal when I'm too tired or brain-dead to make dinner happen on my own power.  They also source many of their veggies from farmer's market farmers. 

     As it happened, last night, I went out with a group of friends and left the hubby home with the boys to fend for himself.  Squash blossom and smoked Gouda tamales with a side of vegetables for dinner with a lovely little macaron for dessert filled the bill perfectly!  I cooked the veggies ahead of time so all he had to do was pop everything in the microwave.  Beats the pants off a meal from a box.

Sauteed Vegetables 

(serves 2)

1/2 C chopped onion

1/2 C chopped tomato

1/2 C mushrooms

1/2 C purple pepper (green is OK)

1 C sliced zucchini

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1/4-1/2 C deglazing liquid (I used beer, but you could use water or stock)

Oil for the pan
Salt and pepper

Heat oil over medium high heat until it shimmers.  Add onion, zucchini, and mushrooms and cook until browned.  Add garlic and cook for about 30 seconds until scent blooms.  Deglaze the pan, scraping up all the lovely brown bits off the bottom of the pan.  Add peppers and cook for about a minute and then tomatoes and cook until just warmed through.  Peppers should still be crunchy and tomatoes should hold their form.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Serve with your favorite tamale and you might as well go ahead and finish off that beer, too!

Snacks on a Plane...

     In getting ready for our trips, one of the biggest bags I pack is the snack bag.  It started when the boys were little and couldn't make it for 10 minutes without eating something.  Now that they are older, of course, they can't go 5 minutes...  Because meal service isn't until the flight is in the air good and proper, it surely helps to have some goodies for the boys to occupy themselves with. 

     One thing I pack every single time is hummus.  It doesn't need refrigeration, it's yummy, it doesn't smell too much, it's vegetarian, and relatively healthy and filling.  The carrot sticks and pita bread triangles, make it a quick meal with no utensils necessary.  Find my go to recipe here.  This trip, I'm also packing freeze dried bananas and rice cakes for a quick crunchy diversion.  Pirate's Booty is an absolute must for us every flight.  It's virtually the only time I buy it and the boys look forward to it every time.  That nifty green and orange container there is full of homemade yogurt.  You Moms out there all know how many cool things come in pouches now, and I found these awesome refillable ones by Boogin Head on zulily a few months ago.  I use them for applesauce, pear sauce, yogurt, hummus, even egg salad!  And last but not least, my friend Lauren turned me on to these beautiful chocolates from Trader Joe's which contain nothing but dark chocolate, honey, and peppermint oil.  Hello, darling, let me lick you...

     Another thing I do before every flight is make muffins with whatever fruit I've got leftover in the fridge.  This time, I didn't have really any fruit spoiling, but I had a large bag of mushrooms starting to look pretty pitiful in there so I decided to try a savory muffin instead.  These things are something else, folks!

Savory Mushroom and Olive Muffins

Yields 11 muffins

1 C Whole Wheat flour

1 C Unbleached White flour

1 tsp. Baking soda

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 C Skim milk

3 Medium eggs (or 2 large)

1/4 C Vegetable oil

1 C Diced mushrooms

1/4 C diced onion

1/2 tsp Finely chopped rosemary

4 tsp Chopped olives

3 Garlic cloves, pressed

Line a muffin tin with paper cups.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Whisk together dry ingredients, then add eggs, oil, and milk.  Stir until combined, then add remaining ingredients and stir until well incorporated. Use an ice cream scoop to transfer batter to liners. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Review:

I never thought in a million years the boys would like these.  My youngest won't touch muffins with a ten foot pole, usually.  They loved them!!  My husband wished there was a little more salt, but I say that's nothing a little butter can't fix.  Still, if you're going to be on an airplane where butter isn't readily available, perhaps doubling the salt wouldn't be a bad idea.

Reading Week!

When my oldest was two, The Tawny Scrawny Lion was his very favorite book.  My husband and I knew the book by heart.  *Spoiler Alert!  The Tawny Scrawny Lion starts out thin because he has to work too hard to eat meat so he meets a rabbit who feeds him carrot stew and becomes fat and happy The End.  

This book lists the ingredients for the rabbit's carrot stew including:

Carrots

Mushrooms

Good-Smelling Herbs

Fish

Don't ask me why the rabbit family eats fish.  Perhaps they're pescetarians.  

When my son was little I wanted to make the stew for him, but I couldn't bring myself to put fish in it until I thought of Goldfish crackers!  It's been a hit ever since.

March is reading month apparently, and I have been wanting to share some homeschool/preschool recipes with you guys.  What better way than to start with a week's worth of food based on children's books?

 

Tawny Scrawny Lion Carrot Stew

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic

1 (4-5 oz) chopped portobello mushroom (gills removed)

2 lbs carrots, peeled and sliced

5 C water

1/2 tsp fresh rosemary leaves, diced

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

Salt and Pepper to taste

Olive oil

Heat a little olive oil in a large pot, then add the onion and cook until it is transparent.  Add the garlic and cook until the scent blooms (about 30-50 seconds).  Add the mushrooms.  Cook until the mushrooms release their juices.  Add water, carrots and herbs and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until carrots are soft.  When the carrots are cooked, use an immersion blender to puree the soup.  Serve with fishy crackers and berries for dessert!

 Review:

 My guys love this soup! 

Home Again Dinner

Last weekend I flew to Southern California to wish a dear, dear friend a Happy Birthday.  How dear?  Well, let's just say, there aren't many people who could persuade me to take a picture like this...

If you're going to rock a duck face, the only way to do it is in fabulous glasses.

I hadn't been back in CA in 4 years.  It was a little surreal to see the old stomping grounds again.  Between seeing old friends and visiting old places there was lots and lots of eating at old favorite restaurants.  Imma pretend it was all 100% unprocessed, m'kay?  When I got back, I needed something to cleanse my palate from all the Indian/Fondu/Italian/Random Stuff I Found in People's Pantries/Disgusting Water Kefir (a story for another day) I'd been pounding for two days.

This is the kind of meal we eat a lot.  Simple, balanced, seasonal.  I threw this together with what I found in the fridge.  If you have the beans and beets made ahead of time, this comes together pretty quickly.  

Roasted Beets with Sautéed Chard, White Beans and Quinoa

2 C cooked white beans

1 large roasted beet, peeled

1 bunch chard, washed and roughly chopped

2 large cloves garlic, pressed

3 C cooked quinoa

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

1 tsp olive oil

feta or fresh Parmesan cheese (opt)

If you don't have your beans and beets made, go ahead and get that started.  You can quick soak your beans two or three hours ahead by bringing your beans to a boil, turning them off and letting them sit covered for an hour.  When the hour is over, drain the beans, cover with water and add a teaspoon of salt and boil for another hour or until beans are tender.  Or of course you could use canned.  

To roast your beet, preheat the oven to 350°, wrap the beet in foil and put it on a cookie sheet.  Bake until you can pierce easily to the center.  It took about 40 minutes to cook my large beet, but I've had them take up to two hours!

When beets and beans are nearly ready, start quinoa on the stove.  Wash your quinoa with clean water until water runs clear then boil with a little salt for about 15 minutes.  

Once your beet has finished, wait until it cools enough to touch, then peel and slice as desired.

Meanwhile, sauté chard and garlic in olive oil until chard wilts and garlic becomes aromatic.  Add thyme and cook until fragrance releases (between 30 seconds and a minute).  Remove from heat.

You can plate it as I have above, or you can just mix it all up together and top it with cheese.  We don't stand on ceremony much in this house...

Substitutions/Additions:

If I'd had it, I would have added 1/2 C chopped chanterelle (or other) mushrooms to this, but I was slap out.  If you have mushrooms, add them when you add the chard.

You can sub the beans with just about any kind, goat cheese would be a nice sub, too.  And kale or beet greens could easily stand in for chard if you have them.

On an Unprocessed note, Mary Papoulais-Platis posted a very interesting article on Eating Rules for last year's October Unprocessed about olive oil.  Did you know that a lot of the cheap ones aren't even 100% olive oil?!  It pays to know what you're paying for, folks.

Blood, Bandages, and Beet Greens...

I'm a pretty lax parent when it comes to crying kids.  When a kid comes wailing through the front door, my first question is, "Are you bleeding?"  If the answer is "No" my usual response involves the words, "You'll" and  "survive."  Blood gets antibiotic cream and bandages.  Splinters get ice cream.

I stocked up on bandages today.  We're having a party Saturday.  With kids.  At our last Summer party every single kid hit the dirt at least once as the evening wore on, including my youngest who bit it while heading full speed down our steep driveway.  There was blood.  I even had to dig half a tree stump out of the thumb of one of our best friends, who's driver's license claims he's a grown up though his personality reveals a different story.  I can't remember if we scrounged up any ice cream for him or not...

Since this is party week, I am generally preoccupied with planning and details, and invitations, and table cloths, and party games, planning, and seating, and planning, and wondering where in the heck all my time went so my whole decision making process is scattered to the wind right now.  Fortunately, tonight's dinner is staring me in the face every morning when I look out my bedroom window.  

As you can see, our garden is coming along nicely, though it looks pretty scraggly.  The slugs have been voracious this year and the birds have eaten every carrot seed I've planted (twice!) as well as all the slug bait!  Twice!  Then there was the deer who snuck in one afternoon and at an entire chard plant (the largest one, of course).  The result is two empty rows in the middle where the carrots should be, another two rows containing three sad slug bitten miner's lettuce, and a fantastic lopsided end of the garden full of beans, peas, tomatoes, and potatoes bursting forth and making me hopeful for a later season harvest.  But in the middle, between the blank rows, I've got a few chard plants, a couple of beets, a little purslane, and a massive amount of kale. 

I love growing greens in my garden because they (usually) perform the best of any plants in my limited sunlight and because you can eat them right away.  No need to wait for a seed or a fruit to form, just pick a leaf and you've got a snack.  The sight of these greens staring me down every morning makes me think of my very favorite way to eat them: Veggie Quesadillas.

Kale, beet greens, chard, spinach and purslane rinsed and ready to be spun.  You can use any greens in this you want, one of my favorite additions is finely shredded raw beet.  Carrot would be great in this, too.  The ratios in this can be edited based on what you have, this is just a general guideline.

Vegetable Quesadillas
Yield:  4


1 bunch kale
1/2 bunch chard
3-5 beet leaves
6-8 spinach leaves
1/2 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 package mushrooms, sliced
1 C shredded mozzarella cheese
4 tortillas
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
Two large skillets

Wash, spin, and roughly chop greens.  Heat the olive oil in one skillet and sauté the onion until slightly browned.  Add garlic and cook till fragrant.  Add mushrooms and cook until browned.  Last, add greens and sauté until they have wilted slightly.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Load tortillas with greens and top with cheese, fold, and toast lightly in second pan just until slightly brown and cheese has melted.

Review:
My whole family loves this and you know that's sayin' something when my boys will eat it!  I recently served this as a side to some grilled chicken and the meat eaters were very pleased.

Sorry this is sort of a scattered, droopy post.  I've lost my mind, you see...

Vegetables for Breakfast...

     I've been noodling over the idea of vegetables for breakfast lately.  How many vegetables do you think about as breakfast food?  Potatoes of course.  Maybe onions, or spinach or asparagus.  Now what would you do if you didn't have any eggs?  Because that was the boat I was in on Father's Day...  My farmer's market is on Sunday.  I used the last egg on Saturday.  I had some duck eggs, but hubby doesn't like them a super lot.  I use them for baking, which they are awesome for.  So rich!  But anyway, I was down to a few veg and that was about it.

Let me further explain by showing you this:

Strawberry Cake with Blueberry Frosting and Strawberry Frosting Filling.  

Looks OK from the outside, right?

And this:

See how thick that frosting is?  Yeah...  My cake had some issues...

     Hubby's birthday was last week.  He loves strawberry cake.  I would rather lick my shoe than eat a boxed strawberry cake.  So I endeavored to make him one.  I picked a yellow cake recipe and subbed strawberries in syrup (homemade of course) for the milk.  Apparently milk is important because it totally sank in the middle.  But oh my gosh was it delicious!  I will be revising this ugly duckling for sure.  At any rate, following the collapsed (if delicious) Birthday cake fiasco, I was hoping to make him something that was delicious and beautiful for Father's Day.

So I made this:

Hello, Gorgeous...

Pastry on the bottom, vegetables in the middle, bacon, and homemade herbed ricotta on top.  I will never be sad we're out of eggs again.  This could be called a "tart," I suppose.  I'm just calling it "brekky."

This particular recipe took a long time to make.  If you make the dough a day ahead and use leftovers for the filling, everything will go much faster the day of.  As it was, I didn't have any leftovers suitable, plus, he was sleeping in, so I had time.

The vegetables I had were potatoes, sweet potatoes, asparagus, onion, garlic, and mushrooms.  And bacon.  A highly underrated vegetable. I made an oatmeal crust following Mark Bittman's recipe in his book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (p.866). 

Father's Day Brekky
Oatmeal Crust:
1/2 C + 2Tbs white flour
1/4 C whole wheat flour
1/4 C oatmeal
8 Tbs cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
3 Tbs ice water, plus more if necessary

Filling:
1 medium sweet potato, peeled
1 medium white potato, peeled
1 medium onion
4 cloves garlic
2 pieces of bacon
4 button mushrooms
1 bundle of asparagus
olive oil (a drizzle here, a drizzle there...)

Herbed Homemade Ricotta Cheese:
1 C cream
2 C whole milk
1 1/2 T lemon juice
thyme

Make the ricotta.  I already had some in my fridge.  I used this recipe from Zestuous.  It would definitely help to make this the day before.  Even though the process is quick (about 35 minutes), it will add quite a bit of time to the process for this recipe if you make it the same day.  And can I just say here that this is the best ricotta cheese I've ever had in my entire life?  You will never want to use store-bought again.  Save the milk, too.  It's to die for.

Preheat oven to 400°.

Begin by making the crust:
Combine the four, salt, and sugar in a food processor and pulse once or twice.  Add the butter and turn on the machine; process until the butter and flour are blended and the mixture looks like cornmeal, about 10 seconds.

Put the mixture in a bowl and add 3 Tbs ice water; mix with your hands until you can form the dough into a ball, adding another tablespoon or two of the ice water if neccessary (if you overdo it and the mixture becomes sodden, add a little more more flour).  Form into a ball, wrap in plastic, and freeze for 10 minutes or refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.  (You can refrigerate for up to a couple of days or freeze for up to a couple of weeks.)

Next, make potatoes:
Thinly slice sweet and white potatoes, lightly toss in olive oil and salt, cover with aluminum foil, and put into preheated oven.  I put mine on two different sheets in case they took different times cooking.

Begin onions:
Thinly slice with a mandolin if possible, and caramelize over low heat (can take up to 1/2 hour).

While onions are caramelizing, chop bacon roughly, mince mushrooms, and thinly slice asparagus to about 1/2 inch.

 

At this point, put garlic on a little foil and drizzle with a splash of olive oil.  Wrap garlic and place on top rack of oven with potatoes.

Once onions have finished, remove to a medium sized bowl and fry bacon pieces until crispy, and put those in a small bowl.  Wash pan and sauté mushrooms in a tad bit of olive oil, put those in the medium bowl with the onions, then heat the asparagus until slightly softened and add to veggie bowl.

Check potatoes and garlic for doneness...  If potatoes are tender (don't worry if some have gotten a little crispy), remove to a cutting board and chop into small pieces.  Add to veggie bowl.  If garlic is tender, squish from skin and mash lightly.  Add to veggie bowl.  Lower oven to 350°.

Stir contents of veggie bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Use one heaping tsp of ricotta cheese per tart you plan to make and 1/2 tsp of thyme per every six tarts.  Combine ricotta and thyme.

Once dough has finished resting, roll it out and cut rounds to fill the cupcake tin cups (I found I needed to knead the dough a few times to encourage it to hold together, less than a minute, I'd say...).  I used a glass with a diameter of about 3 1/2 inches which ended up being nearly perfect for my standard size cupcake tins.

Fill the cups with veggies, top with bacon (or not) and add a dollop of the ricotta cheese mixture.  Bake at 350° for 30-45 minutes, until crust is done.  Let cool slightly in pan, then pop them out with a butter knife.  Serve with a little fruit.

Tadaaaaa!  I probably could have gotten a dozen of these puppies made if one of my kids hadn't sneezed on the second half of the dough.  So we ended up with six.  I really wanted those other six.

Tips:

This would be much easier if you had some leftovers to fill it with.  Cooked sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, left-over steamed veggies, maybe even leftover garbanzo beans or lentils...  Use whatever filling you like, these will be fabulous.

Review:

One kid wouldn't touch it.  The other kid had a couple of bites, but decided to save himself for the samples at the farmer's market.  Hubby and I wonder what's wrong with these kids sometimes because these were fantastic!  The homemade ricotta just makes it.  The pastry is perfect, the veggies are wonderful, and hubby says the bacon adds a nice "breakfasty" touch to the whole proceeding.  The sweet potatoes are a lovely way to have a little something sweet for breakfast without any added sugar.

PS, Happy First Day of Summer to those of you who live where Summer happens!  For us up here in the Pacific Northwest a big, Hey, Wazzup Juneuary?!  Maybe we'll break 60 today!

St. Patrick's Day's A Comin'...

     Last year on St. Patrick's Day I lamented the fact that I didn't have anything green in my recipe box.  This year I've got another confession to make.  I've been deceiving you with my recipes (only a teensy bit).  Maybe "deceive" is the wrong word...  Exaggerating?  I do believe in eating fresh, organic, and local as much as possible, but we don't eat like this all the time, especially when my farmer's market is closed for the season.  I've got two little boys who can make gourmet meal preparation a challenge to say the least.  What we actually eat are things like macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, and burritos.

     Now, though I usually make them from scratch (no blue boxes of "mak n' cheaz" in my pantry, thank you) we are hardly the gourmands we seem to be with recipes like this, this, and this.  So this St. Patrick's Day I'm kicking off a new (occasionally updated) series called: "How We Really Eat."  The recipes are quick, sometimes use store-bought/name brand ingredients, are free of preservatives, as local as possible, and weird chemical-free.  (I spend a lot of time in the store squinting at labels, let me just say!) I'll be posting the recipes throughout the year. 

Today, for St. Patty's day, that traditional Ye Olde Irish dish:  Pesto Pizza

Check out the also not Irish beer.  It's local.  It's goooood.  It's Pike's Place Brewery Pale Ale.  You can get your own at Pike's Place Market and grocery stores in the greater Seattle area.  They have one called "Kilt Lifter" but I was afraid that a Leprechaun might beat me to death with a shillelagh if I used it in a St. Patrick's Day post...

Pesto Pizza 
Start with the pesto:
Yield: enough for two pizzas and a little left over
3-4 C basil, washed and dried
3 large garlic cloves
1/2 C olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
1/4 C pine nuts
2 Tbs shredded Parmesan
salt

Put everything in a food processor except the Parmesan and buzz until it's "pesto-y."  Then add the Parmesan and buzz it some more.

For the Pizza:
1 package Trader Joe's garlic and herb pizza crust, divided in half
4-8 sundried tomatoes packed in oil (Mediterranean Organic brand), roughly chopped
5-6 cloves garlic
baby bella mushrooms, sliced (these are button mushrooms pictured here, and they turned out fine, too)
feta cheese
mozzarella cheese
salt

Preheat oven to 425°.  Dust your work surface lightly with bread flour.  Divide dough in half and roll out as thinly as possible, about a 1/4 inch.   Lightly brush entire crust with olive oil.  Crush garlic with a garlic press over the crust and brush until it is distributed evenly.  Pesto is next, make sure to leave the edges clear.  If you really want to guild the lily, you can drizzle a tablespoon or so of oil from the sundried tomatoes bottle over the pesto.  Place mushrooms and tomatoes sparsely over  pesto.  Sprinkle salt around the edge of the crust.  This next part may seem weird, but trust me.  Put the pizza in the oven without the cheese.  Bake until the crust just begins to brown, about 10-12 minutes.  Remove from oven and sprinkle with feta and/or mozzarella.  The more sparse the better.  Then return to oven and bake for 2-4 minutes until cheese is just melted.

Optional:
If you don't want to make your own pesto, or don't have the time, Roland Pesto is the best!  The 3 oz jar should cover at least one crust and you can over the other with tomato sauce and see how you like that!

Review:
This my favorite pizza of all time.  My previous view of pizza was more cheese, more crust, gimme.  This crust is so crispy I just couldn't stand to make it all soggy under a million toppings and gobs of cheese. It's thin crust gone sophisticated with zero time spent slaving over a warm proofing drawer!

In a World...

...where darkness reigns supreme.  Only one man can save Gotham.  And when he's done?  He's going home for a nice bowl of soup!

     A few months ago, my eldest, just being silly, said, "I wanna bowla BATMAN SOUP!"  And my little brain thought, "Hey!  I could totally make Batman soup!"  And then it thought, "Hey!  I could totally make a whole bunch of Superheroes!"  And this, my friends, is what you are about to witness.  Welcome to Day One of Souperhero Week!

Batman Black Bean Soup
Serves: 4

1 tsp olive oil
1 medium sized portobello mushroom, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 C onion, chopped
2 1/2 C mushroom stock
4 C cooked black beans
salt and pepper to taste
sliced cheese, biscuit cutter, and knife for making the symbol or these cutters
sour cream, optional

I cooked my beans ahead of time in a pressure cooker using this time chart.  You can use canned beans if you want.  Drain beans.  Heat oil in large pot and add mushroom and onions.  Cook until onions begin to soften.  Add garlic and heat until it just begins to cook.  Deglaze the pan with a little of the mushroom stock and then add the rest.  Add beans.  Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes; add salt and pepper.  While your soup is cooking, you can:

 (teehee!)

When the soup has reached a flavor you like, using an immersion blender, combine it into a smooth puree.  Pour into bowls and top with your symbol! 

If you're not looking for pure Souperhero Awesomeness, you can mix in a little sour cream.  It tastes yummy, but dilutes the color a little...

Review:
Holy Black Bean Soup, Batman!  The boys LOVE this!  When I was making this tonight for the shoot they both begged, "Are you going to give us a bat?!"  All your little Batman lovers out there will be all over this, I promise!

12 Days Detox

12 Days of cookies was soooo fun!  Thank you all for your following along and leaving me such kind comments!  Whew!  That was a lot of sugar!  Yummy, yummy sugar....  But now it's time to eat something that doesn't make my eyes twitch or float in it's own butter boat.  I thought I'd use some winter vegetables and a throw a little Christmas in there with some chestnuts!

Chestnuts are wonderful in this, but you could substitute hazelnuts.  I'd actually love to get my hands on some chinkapins one day.  Their sweet flesh would be beautiful with the kale.  But there aren't any Christmas songs about chinkapins that I'm aware of...

(Chanterelle mushrooms, kale, shallot, parsnip, chestnuts)

Parsnips are lovely.  If you haven't tried them, they're a little like a carrot.  When they're cooked, they're like a cross between a carrot and a potato.  Fried in a pan, they develop a delicious caramelized crust around the edges and it's just heaven.

I used a combination of chanterelle and yellowfoot mushrooms both of which are at the very end of their season here.

These are yellowfoot.  Yellowfoots?  Yellowfeet...?   Whatever they are in plural form, my forager, David, said that they are related to chanterelles.  They both like living under evergreen trees.  You can really tell when you eat a raw chanterelle.  They're hot and peppery and taste like a pine tree.  Cooked, they mellow out into chewy, earthy bliss.  The yellowfoot have a slight anise flavor raw.  They are smaller, so they cook up much more quickly than the chanterelles.  Very soft, and very similar to a button mushroom in flavor except for the faint taste of anise.  Unlike the chanterelles, I could happily eat these raw.

Pan Fried Parsnips
6 chestnuts shelled and sliced
2 large parsnips
olive oil
6 oz chanterelle and/or yellowfoot mushrooms
1 large shallot
1 bunch of kale
salt and pepper

Shell out your chestnuts and peel off as much of the papery inner layer as you can.  Slice thinly and cook over medium low heat for 3-5 minutes or until the skin begins to flake off.  Remove from pan and remove as much paper as you can.

While the chestnuts are cooking, you'll have time to slice the parsnips to about 1/8-1/4 inch thickness.  Once the chestnuts are done, put about a tablespoon of olive oil in the warm pan and add the parsnips.  Fry on medium-high heat until they soften and begin to caramelize, around 10 minutes for thinner slices.

While the parsnips are cooking, you can peel and slice your shallot and roughly chop the mushrooms.  When parsnips are softened, add mushrooms and shallots.  Cook until the mushrooms and shallots begin to brown (about 10 minutes).

Remove the well cooked parsnips, mushrooms and shallots to a side plate.  If there are any parsnips that aren't thoroughly cooked, leave them in the pan.  Deglaze with a little water or maybe some white wine.  (I didn't have any on hand, but I was wishing I did...) Add kale and steam in the deglazing liquid for a few minutes.  If you like (and I like) you can let the fluid cook away and brown the kale a little.

Stir the parsnips, shallots, and mushrooms back into the kale, salt and pepper to taste, and serve topped with chestnuts. 

Review:
The first time I made this, I only made about half.  Mr. Crackers and I were both really disappointed there wasn't more!  Serve this with rice if you like, I think tonight I'm going to try it with wild rice.  Other things you might try in this are apple, garlic and fresh herbs like thyme or rosemary. 

PS, Do you like that platter?  It's an early Christmas present.  I'm in love...

Everything is Gravy...

     I don't eat gravy very often but I loved the idea of doing a mushroom gravy for Thanksgiving.  The fact that I had a pound of chanterelles sitting in my fridge didn't hurt either... It's chanterelle season here in the Pacific Northwest.  If you can get some now, store them in a paper bag in your fridge and they should keep until you want to use them on Thanksgiving.

Mushroom Gravy
1/2 pound fresh chanterelle mushrooms
1/2 large portobello mushroom
1/2 large onion
2 medium cloves garlic, pressed
leaves from 1 sprig rosemary, chopped small
leaves from 3 sprigs thyme
3 C Water
1 C mushroom stock
1 Tbs butter
1/4 C whole wheat flour
1/3 C white wine
Salt and Pepper

Heat mushrooms and onions in a large skillet until onions soften and mushrooms release their juices.  Press garlic into pan and stir to cook it a little.  Add water and herbs, simmer on low, covered for an hour.  Add mushroom stock as water evaporates.  When mushrooms and onions have simmered, remove from heat and purée about half of it using a regular or immersion blender. In a smaller pan, melt the butter.  Add the flour and stir continuously until flour begins to have a cooked, toasty smell (1-3 minutes).  Add the wine a little at a time, stirring until it forms a paste.  Put large skillet back on the heat, and slowly incorporate the flour mixture.  Stir continuously to keep from forming lumps.  Season to taste.

Tips:
This could be easily veganized by substituting margarine or olive oil for the butter.  If you want to try it gluten free, I really like the Bob's Red Mill GF flour, but haven't tried it in this.  If you do, let me know how it goes!  Is corn starch GF?  That would probably work just fine, too and you could probably skip the butter all together...  See how well I research my recipes?

Review:
I could eat a whole pan of this stuff by myself, growling like a dog at anyone else who wandered into the kitchen.  As the lone vegetarian at my table, it really helps add some texture and depth to my plate.  And the meat eaters say it goes well with their dinner, too.  It reheats easily.  Just add a little water before you heat it and it should loosen right up.  A great make-ahead candidate.

I'm sorry.  I really did try to take a picture of the gravy that didn't look like dog food.  You'll have to trust me on this.  It's ugly, but it's Yummy!!

I'm a Little Weird...

I like to can.  I just absolutely love to cook up a giant batch of something or other, pour it into jars and pressure cook the snot out of it.  This year, I did three batches of jam, tomatoes, two kinds of pickles, and most recently, mushroom stock.  It is so reassuring to know that I am saving food for my family for a year or more.  And I use it.  When I put stuff in the freezer it usually lives there until it grows fur and I throw it out.  I've been doing the whole October Unprocessed thing this month and I decided it might be a great opportunity to put up some mushroom stock which I've always wanted to do but never got around to.  This was so incredibly simple, I can't believe I haven't done it before.

Mushroom Stock

3 large portobello mushroom caps
1/2  to 1 lb chanterelle mushrooms
3 medium carrots
1 large onion
4 large cloves garlic
4 sprigs thyme
1 sprig sage
4 sprigs rosemary
1 Tbs whole peppercorns
6 Quarts of water
Scant amount salt

Roughly chop mushrooms, onions and carrot.  Put everything else in the pot whole and boil in 3 quarts of water until veggies are soft.  Add remaining water and bring to a boil.  Salt very sparingly. 

In the mean time, prepare your pressure canner and canning jars.

Strain out veggies, catching soup in a large bowl.  Press juice out of the veggies as much as possible using a wooden spoon or a potato masher.  Place in jars and pressure can for 30 minutes.  Yields about 6.5 pints.

Review:

I realized a few dozen soups or so ago that portobello mushrooms add a whole new dimension.  They are so earthy and meaty they knock the socks off regular button mushrooms.  If you don't want them to turn your soup dark, you can remove the gills, but I think it's unnecessary.  I can't wait to use this stock in my next batch of soup.  If you must, you can freeze this, just don't tell me.  It might break my heart...

Speaking of soup and because I'm a little weird, I decided I couldn't bear to trash all those gorgeous mushrooms and veggies.  It took a huge leap of imagination on my part, but I turned them into "Cream" of Mushroom soup!  This whole "food blogger" thing isn't always kind to the ol' waistline, so instead of using cream, I tried non-fat milk.  It wasn't bad at all!

"Cream" of Mushroom Soup

1 batch of left-over mushrooms and veggies, herb stems removed
2 cloves garlic, pressed
2 C non-fat milk
2 C mushroom stock or water
Salt and Pepper

Heat veggies and garlic in water until it boils.  Slowly add in milk, salt, and pepper.  Purée.  Serve with a big hunk of crusty bread and a little fresh or sour cream drizzled on top.  Some fresh thyme would be nice, too if you've got any left.

Review:

Very nice.  Make sure you cook down your garlic well, though.  I didn't and the boys found it too hot.

I've got apple and pear sauces to put up yet this season.  I believe I'll do a more in-depth tutorial on canning if you guys are interested...

Chinese Okra

I talked in my farmer's market post about one of my favorite finds this year: Chinese okra.   In case you are lucky enough to come across these, I thought I'd share a couple of recipes.

The first thing to do, for both recipes is to trim the top, bottom and ribs off the okra:

This breakfast dish is the one the lady at the farmer's market suggested.  It's a light, fresh, way to start the day.

Chinese Okra Breakfast Scramble
1 medium sized Chinese Okra
1/2 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
2 eggs
olive oil
salt and pepper

Peel the ribs off the okra and chop into 1/2 inch cubes.  Cube the onion, and peel and thinly slice the garlic. Saute in a pan with a little olive oil until the okra is soft and the onion is browned.  Add eggs and scramble.  Season with salt and pepper as desired.  Yields about 3 servings.

It's terrific by itself or turn it up another notch with sweet, in-season tomatoes!

This recipe is very similar, but better suited for other meals.

Chinese Okra Sauté
1 medium Chinese okra
2 ears of corn
2 cloves garlic
1/2 medium onion
4 oz chanterelle or other mushroom
olive oil
salt and pepper
fresh rosemary

Peel ribs off okra and chop into 1/2 inch cubes.  Chop onion and mushrooms.  Cut kernels off corncob and thinly slice garlic. Heat olive oil in a large frying pan and sauté garlic, onion, mushrooms, and okra until okra is softened and the rest of the veggies are slightly browned.  Add corn last and sauté quickly until corn is slightly toasted.  Season as necessary and top with a few fresh rosemary leaves.  Perfect for a side at dinner or all by itself for a light lunch.  Serves 4 as a side, and 1 as a generous main dish.

Review:
A little like zucchini, a little like a green pepper, not at all like okra that grows so well in the south, this little veg is sure to please.  If you find some at your local market, try it out and let me know what you do with it!