easy-peasy, with Mr. P in charge

Mr. P got home slightly earlier than I did this evening and defrosted our frozen spanekopita that we made a few weeks ago, made rice, and made a tasty salad. Very easy, especially since I just had to wash a few dishes at the end. And quite tasty.

wrapping up at the farm

We have a few more weeks to go at the farm, but things are definitely winding down. We're getting a last push of greens, but this year, the tomatoes and basil just aren't producing like they did last year.

Two nights ago, we had an easy melange, mostly based on kale and "tween greens" -- a nice mix of young greens just right for a quick cook. I threw in the last of the salsa (which after all, was mostly onions and tomatoes with a little spice) and some onions and mushrooms, then at the end, tossed it with a little tahini. We served it over rice and it was definitely a repeat.

Last night, I pulsed a few not-quite ripe tomatoes, some onions, a seeded jalapeno, and a few tomatillos in the food processor, then sauteed it, added in new greens -- chopped chard, I think -- and some chick peas, cumin, and garlic. We served it over whole wheat pasta. It was very tasty.

In a few more days, we'll vacate the kitchen and pick up new cooking inspirations in the American Southwest. Our house sittter will be carrying on, cooking up his own personal inspirations in our absence.

dinner review

Last night's dinner was a huge success. By accident (whoops) I put an entire jalapeno in each salsa, making it hot enough to buzz my nose but not so hot that I couldn't taste anything. And tamale pie -- you start with a crude polenta, which is the "crust", then make a filling. In this case, I sauteed the remainder of the purple onion and a small white onion, some kidney beans, sliced olives, and part of a green pepper that I barely cooked. After the sauteeing was done, I tossed in grated mozzrella cheese and covered the whole thing with more polenta. By the way, the crust had lots of cumin and chipotle in it. Then I covered the dish and cooked about half an hour. So good.

We put out chips for more salsa and guac dipping. Our guest had seconds and took home some of the salsa with him. Mr. P forgot to sneer at my attempts, saying that it all tasted far more authentic than northern style tex-mex usually does. (Actually, he doesn't sneer outwardly, but I can tell that he's being slightly dismissive. I usually ask him to make tex-mex because I know that I'm doin' it wrong.)

For dessert, we had cut up watermelon, store-bought carrot cake, and a very cool mixed lemon gelatto and vanilla ice cream.

Definitely a repeat menu, though with less adventuresome friends, maybe I'd back off a little on the hot stuff.

farm bounty and beyond

Things seem to be slowing down ever so slightly on the farm. On Wednesday, I made a fairly passable baby eggplant curry with paneer. Flavors and textures melted together. Served over rice with a small salad.

Last night, I seemed to be suffering from extreme overload. We went out for fish.

Tonight, a guest is coming over. This particular person hates goat cheese and cilantro. I'll make tamale pie, two kinds of salsa, guacamole, and a side salad.
Salsa one has: tomatoes, chipotle (powdered from actual chipotle peppers), lime, a little purple onion, salt, half a seeded jalapeno
Salsa two will have: roasted tomatillos, lime, a little purple onion, salt, half a seeded jalapeno
Guacamole will have: lime, a little purple onion, avocado, a little tomato, cumin

Tomorrow, we're attending a dance that has a dinner in the middle. We're allowed to bring a side dish, so we'll make salad and probably bring store-bought dessert leftover from tonight.

almost too weird for words

My farm share partner has asked for no peppers and no tomatillos. Consequently, I brought home 1.5 pounds of tomatillos today. I gave half to my neighbors who were curious and up for an adventure.

Mr. P said "salsa verde". Into the food processor went tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers (with just a little bite), some cilantro paste I'd made, and a-pulse, and a-pulse, and a-pulse. Mr. P fried up tofu (making a horrific mess in the process, but oh well, it was for art, or at least for dinner) and threw in some garlic at the last second. We served it in layers -- pasta, tofu, salsa verde, toasted cumin seeds, and Greek non-fat yogurt, which tastes like sour cream. It was too delicious to stop eating, but awfully weird. We dragged out some chips and finished off the salsa and most of the yogurt.

Not sure it's a repeat. Not sure what we learned from the experience, but we may try a variation on the theme before the rest of the tomatillos go bad.

eggplant!

I attempted another yu-siang eggplant tonight. It didn't come out exactly like it does in restaurants, but it was still tasty. The whole point of the exercise was to use up an eggplant before tomorrow's farm deluge. I got most of the way through the prep work before realizing that the eggplant on hand was old and too tired to use. A quick call to Mr. P on his way home brought the promise of a new eggplant from the very place where, just an hour earlier, I had bought onions, mushrooms, and water chestnuts, and scallions.

I sauteed onions, mushrooms, and water chestnuts, then chopped the eggplant and added to the pan along with a secret sauce -- vinegar, water, sugar, soy sauce, evil hot Chinese chili bean sauce. Then I covered the pan and simmered for quite a while, stirring occasionally when the mood hit.

We served it over rice, and as I say, it was good -- enough so that I wanted seconds and may take the leftovers to work tomorrow.

We served it with a side salad -- the last of the poodle lettuce, scallions, avocado, cherry tomatoes, homemade mozzarella (but not made in this home), tomatillos, the last greenish-reddish pepper.

For dessert, we had the last of last week's watermelon, which wasn't as tasty as some melons have been. So I added some maple syrup and (ok, weird) salted toasted sunflower seeds. Not bad.

stir fry

The weather has turned dramatically. Last night felt like a good time to make a stir-fry. I started up a pot of rice.

Then I sauteed mushrooms, added a can of drained rinsed chickpeas, and chopped up the last of our farm carrots (there are more coming this week). When they'd gotten a good head-start, I added some Trader Joe's simmer sauce (I think I used masala) and a little water, then lowered the heat, covered, and simmered.

About 15 minutes before the rice was done, I added a grated squash (a fat round light green squash that I've heard is popular in Lebanon), chopped chard, and chopped garlic, all from the farm, then covered and returned to low heat. Oh, I added a small amount of hot oil, too.

It came out well, especially with the addition of a little salt and pepper.

We served it with a side salad -- lettuce (it's not frisee, but it has lots of indentations, so I call it poodle lettuce), tomatillos, lots of cherry tomatoes, fresh green peppers, avocado, and feta cheese.

Tonight, we'll have another salad and some kind of eggplant stir-fry, perhaps a reprise of that yusiang eggplant I made a few months ago. At that point, we'll be totally done with this week's farm goodies, just in time for our next pickup tomorrow.

leaky leeks and quiches

A friend suggested that I attempt a leek and goat cheese quiche, so I did just that last night. It was part disaster and part so delicious I wanted to eat the whole thing in one sitting.

The parts that didn't work so well were that I shouldn't have started it so late on a weeknight. These things take a while. Next time, I'll either make half the night before or try it on a weekend. Ah well, while eating late, we just pretended we were in Spain. Another thing is that it was full of liquid, even after being cooked thoroughly. I think the veggies were wet and I didn't let the quiche sit long enough after taking it out of the oven. And also, the goat cheese I used would be fine on crackers but it wasn't "goaty" enough. Next time -- skip the Trader Joe's and go straight to the Costco cheese. I might actually consult a recipe next time, at least for some guidelines.

That out of the way, what did work? I made up the pie crust recipe and though I couldn't roll it and had to press it into the pie plate, it came out really well, very tasty and the right texture. For veggies, I used leeks and chard, which were tender and flavorful. The cheese, while not extremely flavorful, was creamy. The eggs and milk also had a nice texture. We both wanted seconds, though we didn't manage to completely consume the entire pie.

Dinner was served with a small salad -- lettuce, tomatillos, carrots, fresh dill and cilantro, mushrooms, and fresh mozarella. All but the shrooms were from the farm, meaning they were very fresh and organic.

A very good dinner and a dish I'm willing to keep working on.

farm night

The take from the farm seemed a little slight today until I divvied it up to take half the share to my share mate. Then it seemed like I was lugging pounds and pounds. And because of the rain, I didn't even pick three quarts of cherry tomatoes and two quarts of beans; that will wait until Friday when it's a little dryer.

For dinner, we had the last farm corn of the season, though corn will continue to be available at other farms until first frost and maybe a little beyond. Tonight's ears were small and oh so sweet. We also had a small amount of basil on hand, so I made the first pesto of the year and we ate half of it with potato gnocchi and chard. The other half is in the freezer for a day when we need to recall the delights of summer. For pesto: Olive oil (preferably organic; ours is from Costco), fresh basil, garlic (we have some from the farm), Costco pine nuts, and Costco Romano cheese -- whir whir whir in the food processor until it's a paste. Oh yum.

A friend suggested that our leeks might go nicely into a goat cheese / leek quiche; perhaps I will attempt it tomorrow night, assuming I can remember to pick up milk on the way home.

eggplant and salmon...

... but not in the same meal.

I mentioned in an earlier post that last night, I made the foundation for a tomato sauce. We've been getting so many cherry tomatoes (about a quart and a half) each week that it's hard to also use the plum tomatoes. So last night, I cut up the plums, tossed them with some chopped chard and garlic, along with olive oil, salt, pepper, and some dried herbs, then roasted it all in the oven. When it had cooled, we stored it in the fridge. Today, I "pulsed" it in the blender to get a lovely looking and smelling sauce.

I also lightly coated slices of eggplant with olive oil and roasted those for a while. When they were done, I made sandwiches of eggplant with a mix of ricotta (which I used instead of cottage cheese in the spanekopita last night) and shredded mozzarella. There was too much "sandwich" stuffing, so we put little poofs of it on the top slice of eggplant, then put about half the tomato sauce on top of that and covered with aluminum foil before putting it all in the oven. We can put more sauce on top when it's on our plates.

We'll serve that with a small salad on the side. I think that tonight's version has lettuce, org. carrots, cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs, avocado, tomatillo, cucumber, mushroom, and rye bread croutons.

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A few days ago, Mr. P went to Costco and picked up a package of roasted smoked salmon. Several nights ago, we had a traditional lettuce salad with the non-peppered half cut up and mixed in.

Tomorrow night, we'll try an experiment -- steamed and cooled brocolli, peppered salmon, a little seaweed (requested by Mr. P, hater of seaweed), sesame seeds and toasted sesame oil, scallions, and maybe other goodies as they occur to us. We'll possibly have cheese and crackers on the side.

We have a handful of beans left over, so I'll steam them and either serve them on the side or just cool them off and mix them in with the salad.

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At that point, we'll be at the starting point of the farm week. We may be getting one more week of corn, perhaps more melons (which are just delicious this year), possibly more tomatoes if the latest storm didn't wreck them, and who knows what else.

leeky brain

How could I have forgotten the leek soup? One day, we had some leftover milk -- we never buy milk but had had some teenage boy visitors so had stocked up -- five farm leeks, farm potatoes, and some onions. I quickly scanned through some internet recipes and came up with the following:

Wash leeks. The ends can fill up with grit, so I sliced off the root, then made a small slice orthogonal to the root and fanned the leek layers under running water. Then I made thin leek slices and chopped the onion and sauteed in a pot with a little butter and oil.
Wash and chop potatoes. Add to leek mixture, barely cover with vegetable broth, bring to a simmer, and cover pot.

I let it all cook at a very low temperature for about 30 minutes. I loosely mashed some of the potatoes, then added maybe a pint of milk (whatever I had left) and warmed, stirring occasionally, adding salt, pepper, oregano, a pinch of cardamom, oh, and a tiny amount of hot oil.

It came out very well and would go nicely with a green salad. The part of the potatoes that got mashed ended up thickening the soup but not too much.

long silence through many meals

For so many nights in the last few weeks, I've been way too tired to update my account of what we've been eating. The farm has been extraordinarily productive and we've been keeping up, but barely. One week, I could barely carry my half share. In the last few weeks, we've had a lot of salads for dinner, often with cheese added in. We've been eating a moderate amount of delicious, organic corn.

One night, I suggested we go out and Mr. P jumped at the idea, saying that he could use a break from cucumbers. That's when I realized that I'd served a cucumber a night for the previous five nights (usually in a salad) and we still hadn't worked through our supply. So one week, when the farm gave us the choice of cucumbers or something else, I took something else.

We had the last of last year's pesto with pasta and steamed chard and garlic. We tried making Thoren (that coconut flake curry with green vegetables) with carrots, which came out very well. I made a reduced fresh tomato sauce, and one night we had greens with balsamic vinegar served over rice.

Last weekend, we went to four parties. We were specifically asked not to bring food to one of them (it turned out that many people there were either kosher, had food allergies, or both). But we made two gigantic vegetable salads and one huge fruit salad, all of which were quite popular.
Last night, because the oven was on, I roasted tomatoes, garlic, and chard for a future sauce.

Last night, we had guests for dinner. The request was all vegetarian (easy in this household), no beans, mint, or cilantro. One of the guests is pregnant, so though she eats dairy, she can't eat soft cheeses, goat cheese, or feta unless it's pasteurized or cooked. So I came up with a good menu, I thought.

We made a vegetable salad (and used up almost all the farm veggies in the process -- I actually had to buy some produce at the store), with no cheese. We served spanekopita (Greek spinach pie), which was a huge hit. And for dessert we served a big fruit salad (some of which was from the farm) and bakery-bought brownies and macaroons. (When you have a bakery this good close by, it seems pointless to make dessert.)

Oh, and our friends' two-year old got hummus and crackers. He ate a couple of crackers, dipped his cracker into the hummus and immediately asked his mother to wipe the hummus off. And he loves hummus. Go figure. Then for dessert, he announced he was getting ice cream. Fortunately, we had a tiny amount in the freezer. Phew.

Here's a tip for working with phyllo dough. It helps to have two people on hand.

Melt about 4T of butter, then add about the same amount of canola oil. (The original recipe calls for two sticks of butter. We had a bunch left over at the end.) Wipe down the counter. Prepare the fillo stuffing, then place the pan between the stuffing and a clean tea towel. Unfurl the defrosted fillo onto its own wrapping on top of the towel, and immediately place over it a piece of waxed paper and a wet, wringed tea towel.

Spread a thin layer of oil-butter on the bottom of the pan. Then one person lifts three sheets of fillo at a time (traditionally, you use one sheet at a time) into the pan and immediately covers the remaining fillo to keep it from drying out. The other person spreads a thin layer of oil-butter onto the top layer. I think we did something like 3 layers, oil, 3 layers, oil, half the filling, three layers, three layers, the other half of the filling, and then we went by 3s until we had used up all the fillo.

Dinner was really tasty and in between bouts of the child being a two-year old, I think our guests were happy with the results too.