Veggie Pasta!

A while ago my CSA had mentioned making zucchini pasta with a spiral slicer on their Facebook page which got my brain spinning with ideas. I promptly ordered a World Cuisine Spiralizer and Laguna Farm sent me some very nice large zukes in my next CSA box. I had saved the turnips from the week before because I thought they would work well together. Here's the result, and how I got there.

I started by setting up the spiral slicer, which has three plates for different sizes so I chose the smallest since Matt prefers a thinner pasta. I also prepped my veggies all at once so I could just run them through quickly.

Zucchinis and turnips, ready to go!

I found that the soft veggies like zucchini hold better if you just chop in the middle and stick the untrimmed end on the spikes. You have less waste that way too.

How pretty is that?!

Once my veggies were all sliced and then separating the zucchini from the turnips (I realized the turnips would need to cook longer) I started some butter heating in a ceramic coated cast iron pot. Any heavy skillet or pot would work just fine. I added chopped onions and minced garlic to the hot butter and browned it to just about this point.

After that I added the spiraled turnips and let them cook until they were fairly soft since they have a lot of bite to them otherwise. Once they were soft I quickly threw in the zucchini strands and gave it a swirl, pretty much just getting it barely heated up and then turned off the stove.

Luckily there was frozen simple pesto that I keep in the freezer and replenish every time the basil gets too big or someone gives me a bunch of it (simple pesto recipe at the bottom). About three ounces of that went in as well as some chopped tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste. Put it in a bowl with a little chiffonade of basil on top since we love basil in this house, and it's done! The whole thing took less than half an hour and was a hit! It was good as a cold pasta the next day too.

The only thing I would change the next time I do it is to rough chop the veggies after spiral cutting them. Some of those strands were about four feet long which isn't exactly easy to serve or eat! I had figured they would break up while cooking... they didn't.

Zucchini and Turnip pasta recipe

3 large zucchini

3 medium turnips

1/2 of a medium yellow onion

2 garlic cloves

5 roma tomatoes

3 oz simple pesto

salt and pepper to taste

Simple Pesto Recipe

1 large bunch of basil

1/4 C olive oil

8 or 9 toasted almonds (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

2 cloves (more if you prefer) of garlic

salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste

You pretty much just throw all the ingredients in a food processor and process until you like the texture. I like to freeze it in small canning jars. Couldn't be easier. I started using almonds instead of the traditional pine nuts because we just don't like the flavor of pine nuts. I'm guessing you could use whatever nuts you prefer and it would taste great. I go a little light on the garlic because I almost always use sauteed onions or garlic in my cooking, but if you want to skip that step you can make a heavier on the garlic pesto.

Home Alone

When Matt isn't home for dinner, I usually cook foods that I like, but are not filling enough for Matt. The last time he was gone, this is what I made.

The potatoes were thrown in the oven first at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. I drizzled olive oil over them and added chives, oregano, and lemon thyme from my herb garden. A sprinkle of sea salt and pepper and then popped it in the oven.

The green beans were just thrown in a nonstick small skillet with some grapeseed oil, salt, and pepper until they were tender but not squishy. I plated it and finished with drizzle of good quality balsamic vinegar  and toasted almonds (I keep a jar pre-toasted in the pantry).

For the cod, I just threw it in the same skillet with the grapeseed oil, added a tiny squeeze of fresh lemon juice, and some sea salt. With cod it seems to work best to cook it on a higher heat for a very short amount of time to avoid it getting dried out. For fish I find that sometimes keeping it really simple with the seasoning is best since it has such a good natural flavor.

Mini-post

Amid the bridal season rush in my shop, I am still managing to throw together some quick meals so we don't eat out a lot. We both prefer home cooking, no matter how simple it is. One of my quick and easy dinners last week was made because the CSA sent the first fresh basil of the year.. a huge bunch of it! I could smell it as soon as I walked out the door to grab my veggies from the bin.

I boiled up some homemade garlic fettucine (added garlic juice instead of water to make the dough pliable at the very end) that I had in the freezer from my last big pasta making session.
Threw the basil in the food processor with a little olive oil and sea salt. Stirred it into the pasta and threw some Pepper grilled shrimp on top. I just got a new Lodge grill pan and had to try it out! Quick, filling, and there was plenty of leftovers for Matt's work lunch.

The same thing would work with any type of pasta that you have on hand, but if you use a plain store pasta I'd probably throw a little garlic in with the basil for a nice balance of flavor.

Pantry Remodel!

Here is the pantry before.. what a mess, right??? It was about the size of a typical coat closet and just had kind of deep shelving. You know the kind, where everything gets stacked in front of something else and it can never be organized properly.

Then my very handy husband went to town on it.

He looks a little terrified.. turned out it was a much bigger job than expected!

But it all ended well.

I drew out a rough sketch of how I puctured it and he made it happen. There will be a few more shelves going higher, but we started with this since I'm under five feet tall. I can actually walk right into that low back section without ducking, in boots! The shelving is very narrow, but there is still more shelf space because of opening the wall.

Here are some closeup looks:

This is to the back left where you can't really see in the other photo, it's the empty space that was under the stairs. Bins for fruit and root veggies, packets, etc. rolling pin storage in the little cubes, top shelf is some of my molecular gastronomy supplies before I finished adding them in, second is pasta supplies and below we have cookie sheets, rolling pins, etc.

And all my little bale jars. Filling and labeling these was so much fun!...but I'm strange and love to organize.

And on the left side of the pantry I have a bunch of pop up containers by OXO. These things are awesome, they have an automatic airtight seal to keep things fresh. I still need to get a few more, once we add some more shelving.

Chicken and Veggies

Lemon Chicken

I used a vac-packer marinator to marinate the chicken in lemon and garlic for about an hour, but throwing it in for a couple hours not vac-packed works just as well.

Then it got salted and peppered and tossed in a pan with olive oil. Cooked on a low heat (olive oil has a low burn temperature) and served with the leftover tarragon aioli from this post http://morebasil.blogspot.com/2012/02/saucy-little-crabs.html
I had an entire jar of it left, so had to find a way to use it! It's only good for a few days after making since it does contain egg.  I put Matt on veggie duty which he was a little worried about since usually he just chops things for me. He used some chicken stock, pepper, and oregeno and cooked the cauliflower in it until it was just barely tender. Then added the chard until it was wilty. Good job Matt! It tasted great!

CSA Box 6

The Bread

Okay, this was a bit strange this time. It still tasted good, just different. It was a very heavy bread with a sourdough taste and walnuts (I think) in it. And it was a strange color inside. Almost purple! Still trying to wrap my brain around that one.

The Fruit

Our fruit use has pretty much ended up being Matt eats all the apples, and I juice the citrus fruits for my breakfast. It works out pretty well! When there are other types like kiwis or pears, we usually eat them for dessert after dinner. As soon as my current batch of pears ripen I'll be posting a cinnamon and vanilla bean pear dessert. Yum.

The Veggies

This time we got cauliflower, beets, leeks, onions, and the usual salad mix and saute mix (not pictured). I'm not sure what to do with those beets. They are not something we usually eat, but I'll figure it out!

Saucy Little Crabs

My brother in law is a fisherman so yesterday my sister brought over two lovely, very fresh crabs. They were Dungeness which taste a little crabby for me to eat all by themselves so here is what I did with them.

Petite Crab Cakes with Tarragon Aioli

The green stuff is sauteed rapini and broccoli which almost ended up being the star of the plate. Matt kept taking bites and saying "what is this?!" and eating more. He loved the rapini. Then there are the crab cakes with hardly any filler, which is key in a good crab cake. And my Tarragon Aioli! I've never made aioli before so I was pretty excited that it actually worked. It really wasn't that hard either. This recipe will make a lot of it, so we're having chicken sandwiches with it tonight. I had a whole mason jar worth left over!

Tarragon Aioli Recipe

2 egg yolks

3-4 garlic cloves (depends on how much you like garlic!)

juice from one lemon

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 C. of almost boiling water

2 C. Olive oil

1 small bunch of tarragon, chopped fine

You want to use your food processor for this, and add your egg yolks, garlic, lemon juice, and salt. Give it a whirl until the cloves are all chopped up. With your processor running on low, pour in the hot water and process for about 15 seconds. Keep the machine running and slowly drizzle in your oil, once it's all incorporated the texture should be like smooth mayonnaise. Stir or process in your chopped tarragon and you're done! If you choose to process it in, do it by pulsing and only barely mixing it in, otherwise your aioli will be very green!

Crab cakes recipe

12 ounces Dungeness crab meat

1/3 C. Panko bread crumbs

1-2 green onions

1/4-1/2 C. tarragon aioli

Oil for cooking

Combine your crab, crumbs, and green onion. Add your 1/4 cup of aioli and gently work it together. Don't overwork your ingredients. The cakes should be loose and just barely hold togther. If they don't hold, add a little more aioli until they do.

Form into cakes and gently roll in bread crumbs. I got seven petite cakes out of mine. I then set them aside on a plate and quickly heated up about two Tbsp. of oil in a large, heavy skillet. Once your oil is hot, very gently put in your cakes. Saute until lightly browned and gently turn over. This part is hard.. a spatula by itself breaks them, so does tongs, so I used a combination of  a spatula and a spoon! Once that side is browned as well, plate them up and serve with some additional aioli sauce.

Teriyaki chicken salad

Teriyaki Chicken Salad

At the end of the week I go through the fridge and use up whatever is in there in preparation for the next CSA box delivery. Things like this happen. I soaked the pineapple and chicken in teriyaki marinade and grilled it. Then grated fennel and carrots, mixed it together, added a dash of lemon and pepper. Without the lemon, fennel browns. To add a little crunch I made some parmesan tuile. Or as Matt called it "That Cheese Thing". To make tuile all you need is a nonstick pan and grated parmesan. You put a thin layer of it in the bottom of the pan and cook on medium until it starts to brown. Using a very large spatula, flip it over and brown the other side. Most of the oils will cook out of it, so blot with a paper towel. You want to end up with a crunchy, dry cheese wafer. If you don't blot, it will be chewy.  To serve an appetizer in it you can do fun stuff like roll it before it cools and fill it, or cool it in a little bowl or ramekin so it has the bowl shape. It has a lot of neat applications.

Corned beef hash

This is my version of corned beef hash. When you have a ton of veggies to use each week, things like this happen.

Brown the potatoes

Add cute little mushrooms, corned beef, seasonings (whatever you like), and rapini.

Saute until everything is nice and toasty but not completely squishy. We like our food to not have the texture of baby food.

And there it is all done. Matt made the eggs and did a lovely job. Not your usual corned beef and hash, but change is good!

CSA Box 5

The Veggies

Carrots (so much better than store carrots!), cute little mushrooms, and rapini. At least that's what I think it is.. I really can't identify the green leafy stuff half the time.

More Veggies

Fennel, radishes, and broccoli

Raisins!

This was a very cool surprise this week. Normally I won't eat raisins plain just in baked goods because they are dry, chewy little things. These ones were not. They were very moist almost to the point of actually feeling wet to the touch and you could tell they were extremely fresh.

The Fruit

Pears and apples

Whole Wheat Sourdough. Probably. Good, whatever it was.

Barley Stew

The thing I love about barley is you don't have to soak it before cooking so if you want soup (which we quite often do!) you can have it in a hurry. You can cook barley just like rice 1:2 ratio with water and seasonings or chicken broth and then fluff after it's done cooking, or if using it in soups just throw it in whatever stock you use and let it simmer for about 45 minutes or until tender.

For my stew I cooked up some italian sausage in my dutch oven on the stove until it was about halfway cooked and crumbled it. Then I added some onion and garlic and let that get nice and toasty. I added the barley (1 small package) and five cups of water seasoned with beef "better than bouillion" which tastes so much better than buillion! Let it simmer for 35 minutes, added some kale, romanesco, and tiny turnips. Basically the veggies I had leftover in the fridge. You could add pretty much anything to it. I let it simmer about another 15 minutes and then it was done! We eat soup or stew at least once a week during the winter since Matt walks in the door starved and I can have it done early and heat it up when he gets back.

CSA Box 4

The Veggies

Some kind of squash, garlic, turnips, Cilantro, kale, and the usual salad mix and saute mix (not pictured)

Sesame Bread

The Fruit

Couple of oranges, some either satsumas or blood oranges-I never know until I cut them open! Apples, pears, and lemons.

Uh Oh. Sweet Potato.

It was time to use those sweet potatoes or they would end up spoiling hidden at the back of the veggie bin since Matt and I both hated them with a passion. After thinking long and hard I remembered something I had eaten at a restaurant but done with yellow potatoes. So I decided to try something similar. Here is what I came up with and guess what? We ate them!! They weren't awful, they were actually quite tasty. Pretty rich though so we could only eat a couple at a time.

Parmesan sweet potato oven fries

And here's how I did it. (approximately, I never actually measure anything!)

1/2 cup flour

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

2  egg whites

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese-I prefer a minimum 12 month aged, but any should do.

4 sweet potatoes cut into wedges (I got about six wedges per potato)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Stir together the flour and salt.

Beat the egg whites with 1.5 tablespoons of water until combined.

Dip a wedge first in your flour, then in the egg white and roll it in parmesan. I put the parmesan on a plate with a paper towel on it to make it easy.

Line 'em up on your baking sheet and grind pepper onto them. I used quite a bit because we like pepper around here! Bake until they are crispy on the outside and soft in the center. Mine took 30 minutes.

You might want to sprinkle on a little more salt when they're done, but taste first. It will depend on how salty your cheese is.

Vanilla Beans!

These came in the mail on the same day I had decided to try my hand at cinnamon raisin bread. So I used the seeds out of one in the bread.. just because. Fresh vanilla makes a huge change! I had already made the switch a while ago to using powdered vanilla instead of extract and that is an improvement as well. It's a little easier to use the powdered in place of extract than it is to use whole beans since they spoil quickly if they are fresh and moist like these ones. I'll be keeping just a couple out and then vac-packing and freezing the rest.

Raisin Cinnamon Loaf

Here's the recipe I used, including the adjustments made. 

 

6 Tablespoons Butter

2-1/2 teaspoons Active Dry Yeast

2 whole Eggs

1/3 cup Sugar

3-1/2 cups All-purpose Flour

1-1/4 teaspoon Salt

Vanilla seeds from one bean

For the cinnamon swirls

1/3 C. sugar

3 Tbsp. Cinnamon

For the bread glaze

a bit of egg and milk

Melt butter with milk.

Heat until warm, but don't allow it to boil.

Let it cool until it is just warm to the touch.

Sprinkle the yeast over your milk and butter mixture and stir gently, then let it sit for about 15 minutes.

While that is sitting, combine your flour and salt.

Use a stand mixer or hand mixer and mix sugar, vanilla seeds, and eggs with the paddle attachment until combined.

Pour in your wet mixture and give it a couple seconds on the lowest setting to combine.

Add half the flour and beat on medium speed until combined. Add the other half and beat until combined.

Use your dough hook attachment (or do this by hand) and knead the dough on medium speed for about ten minutes. If your dough seems too sticky, add a bit more flour at a time until it seems to be a proper texture. Your finger shouldn't really stick to it when it's right.

Here's the tough part. You need a warm but not hot environment for your bread to rise. What I do is barely warm the oven, put in a glass bowl until it is just warm, not hot!  Then smear some butter in the bottom of the bowl and roll the dough until the butter coats it. Cover the bowl with a towel and then set it in a warm place (the oven in my case), for around 2 hours.

Once it's risen, punch down your dough and roll it into a rectangle about the width of your loaf pan and as long as you can get it. Thinner bread means more cinnamon swirl. Smear one side with some of the melted butter.

Mix your sugar and cinnamon together, then sprinkle it over the butter-smeared dough.

Roll it up and pinch the seam to seal. Phew! The hard part is over.

Grease your loaf pan with butter. Seriously, use butter. For bread, it's way better than nonstick spray. Put your dough in the pan, seam side down and cover with plastic wrap. Give it about another two hours to rise again.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together some egg and milk and use a pastry brush to brush it over the top. That gives it a nice brown color. Bake it for 40-50 minutes (could be a bit more or less depending on your oven and pans). I can't tell if bread is done by looking at it, I always pull it early so I've started using a meat thermometer. Once it reaches about 200F in the center, it's done.

Sliced Raisin Bread

And there it is! All done and sliced. And eaten. Yum. The morning after I made this I woke up early and made some french toast for Matt with it. He proclaimed it the best french toast ever but he might be slightly prejudiced.



Valentines

We don't really celebrate Valentines usually since it's a Hallmark holiday, but I did make Matt a good dinner the Friday before just because. I used some of the garlic from my CSA the week before, the saute mix, some romanesco, parsley, and the onions. I had an entire pack of pork chops to make so we ended up with 12 of them! Matt was eating them for his lunches for days, but seriously, that boy can eat!! I cook like I'm cooking for a whole family.

 I did what I call Hawaiian pork chops with BBQ sauce, pineapple, onion, and seasonings all baked up in the oven on a low heat. The green stuff is mixed saute greens, cilantro, and romanesco quickly cooked in a skillet with a bit of butter and olive oil. Garlic mashed potatoes finish out the plate and are covered in the thickened sauce off of the chops. Oven roasted garlic, not powdered!

For dessert I made couer a la creme which is so delicious, but rich. A once a year dessert. It's also called bleeding heart in some recipe books. Gross, right? The sauce is Grand Marnier, mint syrup, and pureed strawberries that have been thickened. A normal choice for thickening it would have been corn starch, but I had that molecular gastronomy kit and knew Xantham Gum would do the trick without having to cook out the fresh strawberry flavor. The base uses cream cheese, heavy cream, vanilla bean seeds which make the flavor incredible, and powdered sugar. You use a special mold with holes in the bottom and let the liquid drain over night and you end up with something similar to a heavy mousse. I used individual molds, but neither of us could finish a whole one because they were so rich. I think next time I'll do a large mold so we can just take a bit off at a time.

CSA Box 3

The cast of veggies

Look at that! This time I got TWO romanescos.. yum! They are one of my favorite new veggies. I also got parsley, two onions, saute mix and salad (not pictured) as well as four sweet potatos. Those potatos are going to be a challenge since they're absolutely gross in my opinion. Unfortunately Matt doesn't like them either or I would just feed them all to him. But that is the fun part about the CSA project, I have to turn things I didn't like previously or had never tried into something we like!  

The Bread

This bread was so fresh and delicious. I have no idea what it was except I think it had garlic in it. It made me decide to make bread a weekly thing as well.

A red pear (anyone know it's name?) some kiwis, apples, and oranges.

Ham and Potato Soup

The new CSA box comes tomorrow and what I have left at the end of the week is kale. The meat I have to use up is precooked ham. So.. ham and kale.. what goes with that? Potatoes! Because potatoes go with everything. So I did basically the same thing as the last soup with a few ingredient changes. Brown the potatoes, add onions and garlic, add chicken broth (always use low sodium with ham, way too salty otherwise), add seasoning.. salt and pepper, oregano, parsley. Let all that simmer until the potatos are tender and then added the ham. Once it's all warmed up, in goes the kale to get wilty. If I'd cooked the potatos just a bit longer it would have almost been ham chowder. Matt just happened to bring home some parmesan flatbread tonight too so it went with it perfectly.

Winter Squash Soup

We've been just throwing together quick meals or eating soup this week, so what I have to show is two quick-to-make soups. Here's the first one.

 

Winter squash, potato, and chicken soup

It was pretty simple, I still had chard from the week before and needed to do something with it, so I decided soup was my best option. I started with browning the potatoes in a large ceramic coated cast iron pot.

When they were just about done I added some fresh minced garlic from my CSA box. Once the garlic was nicely toasted I thought it looked kind of plain and got the idea of adding the winter squash since I had never done anything with one. Everything is good in soup, right? It was a bear to cube so next time I think I'll bake it for a bit before adding it. That looked much better, gave the soup a bit of color. Time to season! I used salt and pepper, italian seasonings, some dried basil, and dried parsley. This is also when I added my broth. I had some turkey broth left over so I used that, but chicken broth is just as good. If it's storebought I do recommend low sodium, otherwise it's just too salty.

The meat I used was leftover chicken from the night before which is why this dish was so quick to throw together. If I didn't have any leftover chicken I would have cooked it in the pot first, set it aside, and then continued with the soup. Here is where I added in the chicken, let it warm back up and at the last minute the chopped chard went in to get a bit wilty. It was nice to have for these cold winter days and Matt loves taking comfort type food to work for his lunches. Neither of us were fans of sweet squash previously, but we liked it this way! I still have one left to figure out what to do with....

CSA box 2

I am way behind on posting this week since I've been so busy! Here is the CSA box for last Tuesday.

 

The Fruit

2 Grapefruits, 2 oranges, 2 apples, 5 lemons and 5 tiny oranges which may be Satsumas or might be blood oranges. Last week was a surprise when I cut open my little oranges and they were actually blood oranges. Very tasty though!

The Veggies

Radishes, Kale.. I'm assuming, alien vegetable, 2 sweet squashes, 2 garlic and there was the salad mix that we get every time (not pictured)

Okay... we really need to take a closer look at the alien vegetable. I had no idea what it was other than it must be in the broccoli family.

Up close... still weird, right? I looked it up and it is something called a Romanesco. It is a type of broccoli and was actually delicious! Since I had no idea what to do with it I tasted it raw and it is very similar to broccoli, but a little more flavorful and more tender. So we ended up just eating it raw with dinner a couple nights this week, if I get another this week maybe I'll try a few cooked recipes.

Mad Science!

My molecular gastronomy kit came today, so of course I tried it out as soon as I had that box open. I made caviar! No, I did not use mad science to turn myself into a fish, so I guess it isn't real caviar... but it is tasty. I'm not going to break it down, since it's basic reverse spherification. If you want to try it all you have to do is Google it. Tons of sites explain the process. The Youtube videos are particularly helpful.

Here's what I came up with first

You know those Satsumas in my CSA box? Turns out they were blood oranges! So here is some blood orange caviar. They weren't exactly perfect but not bad for a first batch.. the feel in your mouth is so strange, just like caviar with a satisfying pop and a rush of tart juice.

And then these..  Espresso caviar on ice cream! I made them hot so you had a fun temperature difference between the caviar and ice cream as well. These ones turned out more uniform although not quite spherical, and tasted great on the ice cream. I'm sure they'll get better with practice. With reverse spherification they are pretty sturdy and temperature doesn't really affect them.. which has my brain spinning with all kinds of ideas. I think cantaloupe caviar will be next on the menu.

With regular spherification they have to be served immediately or they will gel all the way to the center. With reverse spherification if you rinse them in clean water they won't continue gelling, and then you need to suspend them in the same type of liquid you made them with (fruit juice and espresso in my case) so they won't leech out flavor and you can store them in the fridge for a while.