Monthly Archives: August 2012

A Midsummer’s Favorite – Roasted Vegetable Gazpacho

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Such a bountiful CSA Pick-up on Saturday…Here it is on my countertop and I already stored the purple potatoes.

CSA Pick-up 8/4/12

I had a few recipes in mind, like Gazpacho and Zucchini Bread. I also wanted to think of something to do with the corn, since we had corn on the cob the night before, and our pick-up included 6 ears. After June graciously picked some kirby cucumbers for us, I considered a standard gazpacho, but then remembered a favorite recipe from summers past.

I’ve made this recipe  for Roasted Gazpacho from Mark Bittman many times and it’s always been a success. It’s also a good way to use some vegetables like eggplant, squash, and overly ripe tomatoes in bulk that might be otherwise difficult to use up. In a nutshell, you chop up zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, onions and garlic, toss with olive oil and roast at 400 degrees. I used yellow squash instead of green zucchini here (picture below). Either works fine – another forgiving recipe.

Preparation for Roasted Gazpacho: Chopped vegetables tossed in olive oil and dash of kosher salt, ready to go into oven.

Cool, purée with 1/4 cup red wine vinegar and 4 cups water. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with chopped pepper, cucumbers, and/or tomatoes to add crunch. Enjoy!

Rebecca, a blogger in Colorado, transcribed the recipe and included a pic, and funnily enough, her final product looks nothing like mine.

I also made 2 loaves of yummy Orange Zucchini bread.

Orange Zucchini Bread

Our friend Nash passed along the recipe and it was the first time I tried this variation on the classic zucchini bread. The orange rind and juice add a nice touch – slight tartness and interesting accent of flavor. You can also use less white sugar since the orange juice adds natural sweetness than with a traditional recipe (usually calls for 2 cups of sugar).

Zucchini Orange Bread batter

Here is the recipe I followed, similar to the Cooks.com recipe I linked to above:

Orange Zucchini Bread

1/2 c. canolaoil
1 1/2 c. sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 c. flour [I used 1 cup whole wheat, 2 cups all-purpose]
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. orange juice
2 tsp. grated orange rind
2 c. grated zucchini

Instructions:

Mix all dry ingredients and set aside. Then mix the rest of the ingredients and cream well. Add the dry ingredients and mix well. Grease 2 bread pans and bake at 375 degrees for 50-60 minutes. You can add 1/2 cup chopped walnuts to batter as well.

Stay tuned for a great recipe for Sauteed Corn and Herbs…

 

 

Preview: CSA Pick-up 8/4/12

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All this and more! Wow, I felt exhausted and excited just looking at this list. And then I spied a basket of small, shiny green peppers. I chatted with June and mentioned that there was so much included in this week’s pick-up that she didn’t bother with the peppers even. She feared members would have my reaction! But when I told her I was thinking about gazpacho, she kindly offered to pick a few cucumbers for me and said to help myself the peppers, too. So nice! Thank you, June!

Stay tuned for more on the recipes…

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Vegetables and Trickery

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I had absolutely no plans for Friday night dinner. I vaguely thought we’d pick up something ready to go for dinner and relished the absolute lack of planning. While in the car, we made a pit stop at the Farmer’s Market in Sheffield, MA, in search of inspiration for our meal. I was conscious not to be tempted by the wares on display and splurge the night before our CSA Pick-up, and focus only on the meal at hand. I also knew what we had in the house

  • 1 v large zucchini
  • 1/4 head of cabbage
  • Potatoes galore
  • Eggs

Pretty limited selection, I know. We picked up a few ears of corn from a trusted farmer and had hopes that it would be tastier than last week’s. Hubs and I talked over a tomato salad and looked around for some, but only “paste tomatoes” were on display.  Still early in the season, said Dominic and his crew from Moon in the Pond Farm. A vague idea started forming in my mind about zucchini fritters or some kind of veg pancake. I suggested it to Hubs and he looked nonplussed.

I hit the books when we got home and offered a few suggestions based on an old copy of Bon Appetit and my handy How to Cook Everything Vegetarian cookbok by, you guessed it, my food idol Mark Bittman. I suggested this recipe for Shaved Zucchini with Parmesan and Pine Nuts to Hubs. He scoffed – too obvious a use of zucchini, a verboten vegetable. I then suggested some fritter recipes and we settled on Korean Style Crispy Vegetable Pancakes. The fact that the recipe name contained the words “pancake” and “crispy” helped sell it.

Vegetable Trickery: Korean Style Crispy Vegetable Pancake

I followed the recipe with the exception of using rice flour, which I didn’t have on a hand. I halved the recipe and it made 2 large pancakes. My first pancake did not turn out as crispy and I considered it my “tester” pancake, a phrase coined by Hubs. The second pancake is pictured above. I used about a cup of shredded zucchini, a healthy handful of thinly shredded cabbage, as well as a carrot, scallions and chives from the garden.

So that’s where the trickery comes in. You couldn’t individually identify the zucchini or cabbage, but they were in there. On their own, these ingredients would never fly in our house, but mixed into a dish with the word “pancake” in it, I could get away with it. There are a bunch of food writers out there proposing recipes like this all the time, especially for kids.  Things like stashing sweet potatoes in muffins, not to name names [Jessica Seinfeld], but I’m generally not a proponent of this method. I want ingredients to shine and for the people I’m cooking for to know what they are eating. But I mention it here because you could put almost any veg in this dish, serve it with dipping sauce and it would be roundly praised.

Scallion Ginger dipping sauce

Final word from Hubs: “Pretty good for an impromptu meal.” I would definitely make the Crispy Pancakes again, using rice flour as Bittman recommends. We also had corn on the cob and some mixed greens. The corn was sweet and succulent, with even rows of ears. As it should be.

It’s Thursday and do you know what’s Left in your CSA Basket?

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Our CSA Pick-up day is Saturday and I’m usually out of food, ideas and energy for creative home cooking by Thursday night. Quick review of this week’s recipes:

But I’ve still got a few usable and useful items left, so it’s back to work tonight. I have the following left:

  • 1/3 quart cherry tomatoes – dinner tonight
  • Shallots and Garlic- dinner tonight,and these will last, so no hurry
  • Zucchini – have plans for zucchini bread this weekend, so sit tight
  • 1/2 head of cabbage – I’m out of ideas for you, cabbage head
  • 1 ear of early drought corn – Sam was going to eat for dinner, but the crazy rows look uninviting

Krazy Korn from CSA Pick-up 7/28/12

Krazy Korn is going in the compost bin.

We’ll have Salmon en Papillote and a green salad for dinner tonight. As I wrote in an earlier post, fish en Papillote is a simple to prepare dish for the kitchen weary. I’ll use the cherry tomatoes and shallots from my CSA pick-up, and then we’re ready again for Saturday’s stash.

Shrimp Tacos and All the Fixins

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Novagirl, I thought your recipe for Honey Lime Shrimp Tacos was awesome.  I made a few modifications here and there. I added a tablespoon of orange juice to the marinade as I was low on lime juice and used a grill pan to cook the shrimp in my apartment. Here’s the final product:

Honey Lime Shrimp Tacos

The grill pan worked like a charm. I cooked the shrimp about 2 minutes on the first side, then 1 minute on the second side and they were perfect. Still tender and slightly charred. They missed the smokiness you’d get from a real grill, but this definitely worked in a pinch.

Grilling Shrimp on Grill Pan – side 1

Grilling Shrimp on Grill Pan – side 2

Grilled Honey Lime Shrimp

I was pleasantly surprised at how well the shrimp turned out on the grill pan. Had never cooked them on it before, and it was fast, tasty and gave them nice char marks, too.
Here is the spread of fixins that I prepared: shredded cabbage, sliced radishes, shredded cheese, salsa verde, pico de gallo, chips and soft corn tortillas.  The cabbage was from my CSA pick-up. and the radishes were a gift from Steve at Berkshire Bounty Farm. As an aside, I still have over half a head of green cabbage left after making a large batch of coleslaw and using it here as an accompaniment to the tacos. It is hard work making use of an entire head of cabbage.

Shrimp Taco Fixins

A few final words on this meal. The shrimp and salsa verde got big thumbs up. The wine pairing of Pinot Gris with the spicy salsas and shrimp worked well, too. The pico de gallo, while easy on the eyes, was lacking something. We thought it was salt, so Hubs added a healthy dash, but that wasn’t it. I think I was too aggressive on seeding the tomatoes, leaving it too dry as I had suspected earlier. Lesson learned.

Tomatillo Madness

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So what happened to the tomatillos? As many folks suggested, I prepared salsa verde, and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was and downright tasty. No fear factor anymore, my little green friends. The technique I had seen down in Mexico was more complex, using a comal, and probably more authentic, too, but the end result of this recipe was delicious. I boiled the whole tomatillos, then used the hand blender to blend them with white onion, cilantro and jalapeno. No need to marginalize this because of its simplicity – it definitely worked.

Looking to get a head start on things, I made the salsa verde Monday night in prep for Wednesday’s night menu inspired by Novagirl’s comment on shrimp tacos. Sad to say, the salsa verde has virtually disappeared by Wednesday afternoon. Uh-oh. I foolishly gave away 1/2 the batch thinking that it would never be consumed, but underestimated the addictive nature of salsa verde and tortilla chips.

Looking deeply in a glass jar: Salsa Verde (practically) all gone

I am such a fan of salsa verde now that I would even outright purchase tomatillos to make it again. Yum. So, I also prepared Pico de Gallo to make up for the salsa verde shortage.  I chopped and seeded 2 small tomatoes, chopped 1/4 of a medium-sized white onion, 1/2 jalapeno pepper and a few sprigs of cilantro. Mixed them altogether and listo, fresh Pico de Gallo. Since I had done such an expert job of seeding the tomatoes, the salsa turned out a little dry, so I added a handful of chopped cherry tomatoes that I had on hand from my CSA pick-up. They worked like a charm and added some interesting, if nontraditional, color.

Pico de Gallo with heirloom tomatoes and yellow cherry tomatoes

What to drink tonight? Beer would be an obvious choice, but I was thinking of a glass of wine. This dish is a tough one because it has a lot going on, particularly the heat from the jalapenos in both salsas. I thought about the bottle of J Vineyards Russian River Valley Pinot Gris that I had chilled in the fridge. I decided to do some research before risking it and opening this bottle I’ve been saving for a year. I was thrilled to find a reco from Snooth.com for Oregon Pinot Gris (close enough!), suggesting medium-bodied, fruity whites. A rose’ would work, too, or Torrontes from Argentina. I like Snooth’s tag line: Drink Better Wines.

Looking forward to tasting: J Vineyards 2008 Russian River Valley Pinot Gris

I stumbled upon a similar taco recipe from Food & Wine for Shrimp tacos with Pickled Red Onion Salad  in a post on Blog Your Own Wine.  I’ll have to try that at some point, too.

In the meantime, off to pull all this together into dinner. Stay tuned,  Novagirl!

Ye Grande Olde Yakitori

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“Greetings from Nashville, Tennessee,” said my father-in-law in a recent email, attaching this tantalizing photo.

Yakitori by chef Chieko Hamado – Nashville, TN – July 2012

The colors and textures of this meal look fantastic, and I love the bamboo placemats as well. Steve, my father-in-law, enjoyed this eye-catching Yakitori at his friend Chieko Hamado’s home in Nashville, TN. I researched Yakitori and learned from Wikipedia that it can refer to any skewered foods. Here are some details about the meal as told by Steve, my father-in-law and roaming gourmand.

Organic home grown carrots, cold new potatoes, shrimp and mashed avocado with onion and cream cheese, couscous and tomato and onion salad, prosciutto wrapped around cucumber, miniature tomato mozzarella.  Korean style BBQ beef and Yakatori chicken.  Garlic and olive oil  sauce from ground green leaf like basil called beef steak leaf.

Take me to Tennessee, I say.  Steve, please chime in on anything I missed.