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...

This week from the farm, we received: - Eggplant - Yellow squash - Fresh onion - Tomatoes - cherry, grape, peach, indigo, roma - Cucumbers - Carrots - Salad greens - Watermelon It's near the end of summer and that means all of the good stuff is coming in season! We got a beautiful little watermelon this week, and all the different color tomatoes are ready to pick. The heirloom tomatoes these past two weeks has made one of our favorite Chinese comfort foods extra delicious -  https://thewoksoflife.com/stir-fried-tomato-and-egg/ . The peppers and onions went into some enormous bean quesadillas. Then the leftover peppers went into a salad for lunch. The watermelon got sliced up for snacking and muddled into cocktails, like this one  https://leanneray.com/fresh-watermelon-mint-fizz/ . Hopefully, I can pickle some onions this week and snack my way through all the baby tomatoes.  Despite my best intentions to make zucchini muffins last week, I waited too long, and some of the z...

This week from the farm: - Beets - Carrots - Zucchini - Yellow squash - Salad greens - Cucumbers - Heirloom tomatoes - Baby tomatoes - Kale It must be peak tomato season because we got almost 3 lb of tomatoes, plus the ones we picked ourselves. I bought green peppers today to make a traditional Andalusian gazpacho with cucumbers, tomatoes, and garlic from the CSA. I am still getting way more zucchini than I know what to do with. A week or so ago, I roasted the squash in wedges with chunks of onion and made sandwiches with hummus and the roasted beets, tomato, and cucumber - I guess I will have to have repeat performance! The carrots were also accumulating in the fridge (I had about 2 weeks worth) so I decided to blanch and freeze them for later. I will definitely appreciate them next time I make stew. I only got 2 beets this week, but it was just the right amount to steam, slice and pickle with garlic and crushed red peppers. Spicy Pickled Beets 1/3 cup distilled white vinegar 1/3 cup ...

This week's CSA included: - Beets (red) - Multi-colored carrots - Cucumbers (3!) - Eggplant - Kale - Fresh onions  - Summer squash - Zucchini - Watermelon I am all kale-d out by now, so I was pleased to find a happy recipient for it. I already used kale for smoothies, omelets and kale chips. When I made baked chicken wings, I roasted my beets at the same time. Two of the cucumbers ended up in a Chinese cucumber salad, and the third ended up in a cocktail. The eggplant made some delicious caponata, and that used some of the fresh onions as well. The zucchini & yellow squash will find their way into a stir fry hopefully before next week.  Recipes: https://thewoksoflife.com/chinese-cucumber-salad/ https://cookieandkate.com/cucumber-mint-gimlet-recipe/ https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/classic-caponata-232539

This weeks' 1/2 share included: - Kale - Zucchini - Summer squash - Cucumbers - Arugula - Radicchio - Salad greens - Carrots - Golden beets We had an unexpected house guest last week, which took up most of our time, and prevented us from doing a lot of cooking. However, he did make us a beautiful Greek dinner his last night in town, and the tzatziki was a great way to use the cucumber and dill. Now it's Sunday, and most of the vegetables are still taking up space in the fridge. The squash needs to be cooked, salads need to be made. Dinner was Greek-themed wraps to use up leftover chicken and tzatziki, as well as greens and cucumbers from the share. The kale had to go, so I washed and (thoroughly) dried the kale, tousled them with some olive oil and salt, and threw them in the oven at 300 degrees. After 10 minutes, I rotated the baking sheet and then gave it another 10-15 minutes. Once they were nice and crisp, I sprinkled on some garlic powder. The golden beets were to challeng...