Week nine- tomatos two ways

We've had lots of tomatoes in the house all summer, and with these little cherries Phil and I each got to have tomatoes our favorite ways.

His favorite way is raw, so I cut up several cherries, diced a cucumber, halved some pitted olives, and mixed it up with a little Italian dressing and fresh dill. Phil says it's the dill that made this quick salad out of this world. Oh, he also said a little feta cheese on top made it out of this galaxy.


My favorite way is cooked, so one night I got home way late, so I did the old sautee of olive oil-garlic-smashed tomatoes that I so love. Used the rest of my orzo which I'd boiled a day or two before, then added some shaved hard cheese-- something from Trader Joe's, of course. This dinner was the best of the week, if you ask me.

Week nine- zucchini bread revisited

I posted a zucchini bread recipe earlier this summer. It's a recipe I totally love, but have been experimenting with throughout the summer to see if there was any way to health it up. Mostly I was interested in seeing if I could reduce the amount of oil and/or white flour. I tried to substitute half the white flour with whole wheat flour, but the bread was too chewy. I made a batch with 1.5 c. white flour and .5 c. whole wheat, but I don't know if it was worth the trouble. What did work out well was subbing apple sauce for the oil. There's 1/2 c. oil in the recipe, so I did an even switch with apple sauce and it resulted in a great tasting, way healthier bread.

So, if you tried the zucchini bread from a few weeks ago, try it with the apple sauce substitution. And if you haven't tried it, try it. It's so good.

http://imacsablogger.blogspot.com/2011/07/week-five-zucchini-bread.html

Week nine- beets with orzo

I've been looking forward to this experiment all summer! I love roasted beets, and have been thinking about orzo-beet salad for weeks, but could never find a recipe that sounded great to me, so I just kinda winged this, and was pretty happy with the results.

First off I roasted the beets. These were medium-sized beets, and I rubbed them with olive oil, wrapped them in foil, and roasted them at like 375 for about an hour. After that, the skins just slip off, and the knife (and your hand) get very red.


I diced the beets and tossed them with some orzo pasta, which is awesome (it's also awesome how it got beet-stained). I really like orzo. I made a citrus vinaigrette and chopped up some dill and tossed it all together. Topped it off with some great Vermont-made goat cheese that I got at Fresh Market. I loved this salad; it was different and beautiful.

Week Nine

Week nine!

Zucchini (yay, 'cause I'm working on changing up that zucchini bread recipe I have)

Summer squash

Beets

Cantaloupe

Cherry maters

Various sweet peppers

Week eight- sausage with peppers and onions

As soon as I saw the peppers and onions in this week's share, I knew we had a bad a** batch of sausage with peppers and onions in our near future. I like to have a package or two of Trader Joe's chicken sausages in the freezer... they keep in there a long time, and there are lots of different flavors. For this dish I used the Zesty Italian (or something like that) sausages. I sauteed a sliced onion in olive oil for a few minutes, then added the sliced and seeded peppers. Stirred that around for a few minutes, till the veggies started to soften, then added the cut-up sausages. Poured in a little beer, put a lid on it, then let the whole thing steam for a few minutes. Took the lid off and stirred occasionally till the liquid evaporated. These peppers and onions were so sweet with just a hint of zing... we were surprised at how great this meal was.

As good as the dinner was, I was really excited to use the leftovers for an eggy weekend brunch. Chopped up the sausage and veg, diced a mozzarella cheese stick (ok, it was a thing of string cheese), and scrambled it all up with a few eggs.

Week eight- dragon tongue beans

Somehow, these beauties were left out of the group picture for week eight. These are dragon tongue beans.

We very much love the beans with tomatoes and Greek seasoning around here, but I wanted to do something different with the beans this week. We'd just eaten at St. Elmo's, where they have very garlic-y green beans, so I wanted to try to get my beans to taste like theirs.

I steamed the beans for just a few minutes. While the beans were steaming, I put a tablespoon or two of butter in a fry pan and added some finely diced garlic-- about 3 cloves. Stirred the garlic around in the butter while the beans steamed, then added the beans. Sprinkled some salt and pepper onto the beans, stirred it all around for a moment, and voila! Beans that are just as good as the ones at the fancy steakhouse.

Of course, like many fancifully striated veggies, once cooked the beans lost their stripes.

Week eight- freezing tomatoes

Between what we're getting from the share and what we're getting from our (former) backyard, we've had lots of tomatoes this summer. My mom also has lots of tomatoes, and a couple of weeks ago I was talking to her while she was prepping tomatoes for freezing. What a great idea!

I brought a large pot of water to boiling. While waiting for the pot to boil, I filled a large mixing bowl with ice and water. Once the water boiled, I spooned in whole tomatoes. After about 40 seconds, I removed the tomatoes and placed them in the ice bath, so they didn't get totally cooked.

After ice-bathing the tomatoes, I put them in my colander over the sink. I took a whole tomato, quartered it, slid the skin off (the quick-boil process helps loosen the skin so it's easily removable), then scooped out the gooshy innards.

Packed the quartered tomatoes up in a freezer bag, got as much air as possible out of the bag, and now they're way in the back of the freezer, waiting for soups and stews and pasta dishes this winter.

Week Eight

Week eight. The first week in our new house! Peppers, onions, cherry tomatoes, basil, and regular tomatoes (which did not make it onto the counter for the picture)

Week seven- pesto

I was very excited to get the bunch of basil this week, because what better use of my new food processor than making pesto! My mom has a recipe she likes that uses walnuts instead of pine nuts which is great if you have a pine nut allergy like my friend Matt. Also it's great because walnuts are cheaper than pine nuts. Anyway, this pesto is wonderful, and everyone I know who's tried it cannot tell there's been a nut substitution.

I like to put pesto on grilled cheese or with eggs, but my favorite way is just tossed with some pasta. Little cherry tomatoes add great color.

Mix in the food processor till they are finely chopped:

1/2 c. walnuts

3 garlic cloves

Add in:

2 c. or 2 ounces basil leaves

and a pinch of salt

Then add:

1/2 c. parmesan (I used a parm-romano blend, because it's what I had)

While continuing to blend, drizzle in:

1/3 c. olive oil

That's it!

Week seven- grilled zuke

Lots of zucchini this summer!

These grilled slices were really great, and so simple. Rubbed them with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and threw them on the grill. They only take a couple of minutes per side. I like them sliced thinly in this longitudinal way... I think they look neat.

And we stumbled upon this awesome trick to make grilled zucchini even better-- after you cook your steak on the grill, put the zuke on the same place on the grill where the steak just was. You will have steak-flavored zucchini. I guess it sounds kinda weird, but I'm telling you, we all loved it.

Week seven- roasted veg with fish

Week seven was the week right before we moved, so we were trying to use up as much food in the house as possible so we wouldn't have to move it. I found these mahi mahi fillets in the freezer, so we decided to do a simple fish and veg bake.

Before making dinner, Crystal and I had gone over to the neighborhood bar for our Last Time Going to the Bar as Neighbors. Knowing I was going to roast some fish, I asked the bartender if I could have or buy a few wedges of lemon. He said the next day was their re-stock day, so he gave me an entire lemon! Score!

Anyway, I sliced up an onion and zucchini, hit it with seasoning of some kind, then put the fish on top. Baked according to the fish packaging instructions, then a few extra mintues... all the veggies in there added to the cook time.

Week Seven

Week Seven

salad mix

basil (!)

romano beans

green pepper

zucchini

Week six- sunshine tomatoes

This was one of my favorite dishes of the summer. I am not usually too fond of raw tomato, but I ate a couple of these little guys one day, and when Mom asked what they tasted like, I told her they taste like sunshine. Really, they do. I could think of no other way to describe it.

Anyway, I thought the best way to use these little gems would be in a simple pasta dish. Sauteed some garlic and tomatoes in olive oil.

Tossed with some fun-shaped pasta, mozzarella, and basil from our back yard. Pretty much the perfect dinner.

Week six- grilled veg

It seems like a lot of our veggies around here get grilled, but that's ok, because it's very delicious. We have this great grilling tray... I rub some olive oil on the veggies, season to my liking (usually just salt and pepper), and hand the tray to Phil.

He brings me back a tray with tender, smoky vegetables. I put them in a bowl, toss with some chopped fresh herbs, and voila. I think we had this batch of veggies with grilled chicken, then put it all in soft taco shells.

Tragedy Resolved

Found my camera in a bowl on the top shelf of a cabinet.

Of course.

Week six- romano beans

This was very simple and very delicious. Do you know those green beans at a Greek restaurant that are so yummy? These are pretty much like those. The romano beans taste just like green beans, but the bean part inside is a little bigger than the bean part inside a green bean. As far as I can tell that's the only difference.

I sauteed some garlic in some olive oil, then added some quartered tomatoes-- seeds, skins, and all. Let that cook for a few minutes on medium, then started smashing up the tomatoes. Added some salt and pepper. Then added the green beans and a few shakes of greek seasoning, reduced the heat a smidge, put a lid on the pot, and basically let the bean steam until they were done.

Just like Santorini's! I think the second time I made these I added in a bit of lemon zest. I liked that a ton, but I think Phil preferred the beans sans zest.

Tragedy

My camera is lost. This move has not been as breezy as we were hoping for, and now, the icing on the cake. I just had it out a few days ago. I have seen it in the new house. And now it's nowhere.

Blog on hold until camera is found.

Week Six

Moving right along...

Week six brought us

A big green pepper

A big cuke

Romano beans

Onions

Beets

But wait, there are beautiful little tomatoes pictured, too... if those weren't part of the share, how did I get them, right?

This is how: during week 6 I spent a hot but really fun day volunteering at the farm.

I started by helping harvest zucchini, squash, and cukes. Then we were told to move to the dreaded bean plants! It was a really hot day, and several times during our hour or two in the bean rows I heard apologies and thanks from the farm staff for doing such an un-glamorous job on such a hot day. I will concede that picking beans is probably not the most fun one can have on a farm, but it was really neat to get to meet some of the people who grow and bring food to the markets. There was a very nice and cute farm dog named Copper, and we traveled from field to field by sitting in the back of a pick up with the tailgate down. I felt great afterward, after having worked kinda hard at something I've never done before. I have a few more work days scheduled in August, and I'm looking forward to getting back out there.

Oh, and those little tomatoes taste like sunshine. I don't care much for raw tomato, but I ate two of those little pearls on my way home from the farm. What I did with the rest of them will be a blog entry soon enough.

Week five- pea shoots

This is a quick and easy one. Put pea shoots on a cream cheese-smeared bagel. Mixed greens works as well.

Also, posting may be erratic for the next week or so, as we are trying to get settled in to our new home. Our first day here the air conditioning broke, but it's cool in here now, so let the unpacking commence!