Food In Many Forms

When the farm share starts in June, one of the first things we always get is lots of greens - salad greens, spinach, cabbage, kale, rainbow chard. Some of the more exotic ones are a hard sell in my house - I was enjoying rainbow chard in omelets, and sauteed in olive oil, but I couldn't inspire any enthusiasm for it. The end of the season also brings lots of greens, so I had an opportunity to try again. This recipe, inspired by Martha Stewart and the New York Times, makes Swiss chard a bit more palatable, without the elaborate assembly that lasagna normally requires. INGREDIENTS 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 medium red onion, coarsely chopped 1 pound Swiss chard 5-6 cloves garlic, crushed 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes 1 can whole-peeled tomatoes with juices (do not drain) 8 no-boil lasagna noodles 1-2 cups of fresh whole milk ricotta cheese Salt and pepper to taste DIRECTIONS Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash the chard and separate the leaves from the stems. Chop the onio...

I couldn't keep up with the weekly posts, but this week seemed like a good week to get back into it. I had winter squash accumulated from multiple weeks - butternut squash, acorn squash, delicata squash, and 2 different types of pumpkin - and I just got a new Blendtec blender, so it seemed good timing to do a squash soup. I halved the pumpkin, delicata and acorn squash and roasted them in the oven at 350 degrees, taking them out one-by-one as they softened up.  All my blanching and freezing these past few months paid off when I had celery and onions, but not carrots. Luckily, I had carrots from August all sliced up in my freezer. I sauteed them in a stockpot with olive oil, until they just started to caramelize.  In the blender, I put 2 cups of chicken broth, the squash, and 1-2 cups of mirepoix. The squash was still hot from the oven, and after 90 seconds of blending it was ready to eat! It was surprisingly sweet, so I may have to add a little cayenne pepper or something to g...

This week's share: - Eggplant - Yellow squash - Hot peppers - Potatoes - Heirloom tomatoes - Baby tomatoes - Cantaloupe - Beets - Cucumbers - Garlic Until today, I had only managed to cut up the cantaloupe from the share this week. I could smell it ripening on the counter. So I needed an easy way to use up a few different vegetables today and came up with a pasta primavera. Every vegetable, apart from the additional small peppers, came from the farm share. Epicurious adds lemon zest, pine nuts, and crushed red pepper, which might some good ideas for next time. Farfalle Primavera INGREDIENTS 1 purple pepper, thinly sliced 2-3 small red & orange peppers 1/2 white onion, thinly sliced 1/2 large yellow squash, thinly sliced 1 cup baby tomatoes, halved 2 small carrots, peeled and sliced 1/4 cup fresh basil 4-5 cloves garlic, crushed 8 oz farfalle pasta 1/4 cup grated Parmesan 2 Tbsp Olive oil Salt & pepper DIRECTIONS 1. Cook the pasta per package instructions, drain, and set as...