Harvest Time!

My recent vegetable harvest has included lots of zucchini, rainbow chard, acorn & "cream of the crop" squashes, tomatoes and finally my long anticipated blue potatoes -- all pictured.

The chard I bring straight home from the garden, add a clove of minced garlic to a splash of olive oil in a frying pan then add the chard -- washed and chopped -- to the pan for just a minute or two. Only long enough for it to just barely cook. Delicious!

The cream of the crop squash was a treat. Looking like an albino acorn squash, they really are almost indistinguishble from an acorn squash in taste, althouh it may have had a slightly sweeter flesh. I cooked it via my standard squash cooking method: cut in half, scooped out seeds (save to roast!), placed cut-side down in a baking dish with about a quarter cup of water, then sealed in the baking pan with foil and placed in a 350 degree oven for about 35-40 minutes, or until the flesh of the squash is very easily pierced with a fork. Then flip to cut-side up, fill each cavity w/ a small pad of butter and a hefty drizzle of maple syrup. Place in back in the over for another 5 minutes or so. Yum.

Everything else I'll write about in a seperate posting. . .

Beets w/ Beet Greens

With lots of beets coming out of my garden, I've been making an adaptation of my favorite beet recipe a lot lately.

First: Cut off the greens and set them aside. Place the beets, dirty as they are, into a covered casserole dish and bake in the oven at 400 for about an hour. If the beets are big, they may need more time. If they're little, maybe less. They're ready when it smells like cooked beets in the kitchen and they are pierced easily with a fork. They peel very easily when they are still warm. If they are dark red beets, I spear them with a fork and peel them with a sharp paring knife. If they are golden or light colored, then don't be afraid to get your hands dirty. Sometimes I do this step a day or two ahead of time, then keep the roasted, peeled beets in a tupperware in the fridge.

Second: wash and chop the beet greens. Add a little olive oil to a pan, add a little minced garlic, then throw in the greens and a hefty dash of fresh or ground ginger. Peel and slice the freshly roasted beets and add the beets to the greens. Finish off with a splash of lemon juice. Voila!

I adjust the recipe depending on my beet to green ratio. I like to keep a bit more greens than beets, so sometimes save extra beets for salads and other uses.

Late summer gardening

Garden Vegetables Galore!

Now at the height of summer, we're starting to really enjoy the bounty of my vegetable garden. This week we've eaten Blue Lake green beans, heirloom "Chioggia" striped beets & beet greens (which have been fantastic!), rainbow colored Swiss chard, King Midas carrots, colonial era heirloom peas from the Philadelphia botanical garden, green leaf lettuce (pictured) and vine-ripened tomatoes. We've also had great zucchini, tiny-sweet strawberries, dill & mint.

Just about ready is the acorn & "cream of the crop" squashes and lots more tomatoes. Later in the summer we'll have (hopefully) blue potatoes, brussel sprouts, gerkin cucumbers, heirloom purple-tipped leeks, an onion and sugar-baby watermelons. The little watermelons are already on the vine -- they look like watermelons shrunk down to the size of an apricot!

For the most part, I haven't been cooking the veggies very much. The green beans I roast briefly with olive oil, salt, pepper & slivered almonds. The chard & beet greens I usually saute with garlic, ginger & olive oil. The beets themselves I roast for an hour or so at about 400 in a covered casserole dish until tender, then peel. The dill comes with us in our lunches to go with cheese & crackers. The mint has made great tea -- just a handful of leaves in boiling water is great in the evenings!

Moroccan Chicken

This recipe was FANTASTIC. I don't own a tagine AND I was in a hurry, so I just did everything in a big pot on the stove-top. I pre-cooked the potatoes in the microwave to speed things up. I also only used chicken breats. Even with all of my shortcuts -- it was still a GREAT recipe.

Moroccan Chicken

Serves 6

4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
1 ½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts each cut in half crosswise
2 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, excess fat removed
1 big Meyer lemon cut into 8 wedges
1 pound red potatoes halved or quartered if big to start
1 big yellow or white onion cut into 1” chunks
12 dates, pitted and halved
12 green olives, pitted
½ cup fresh parsley, coarsely chopped
½ cup low sodium chicken broth

Mix the spice rub ingredients together in a medium bowl. Add the chicken and coat it with the mixture. Let it sit for about 15 minutes. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the tagine or clay pot over medium heat and brown the chicken on both sides scraping the leftover marinade into the pot also. Some slow cookers have a removable aluminum insert to allow you to brown the chicken on a burner before slow cooking it. Add everything else. Simmer it covered for about three hours if you are going to eat it the same day or just part of that time if you are going to finish cooking it the next night. There is no one right length of time to cook this dish. Just sample it as you go along. I covered my tagine with plastic wrap to refrigerate it. Leftovers aka “planned overs” can be frozen for a quick already prepared meal another day.

Mizuna Greens & Mac N' Cheese

We just finished a delicious dinner, including one recipe I just made up myself. For a main we had baked macaroni & cheese, found here: http://www.recipezaar.com/Homestyle-Macaroni-and-Cheese-12360
I've made this recipe in the past, and knew that it was always too rich for our tastes, so I doubled the amount of pasta required. I also topped it with panko breadcrumbs mixed with Italian seasonings.

As a side I served sauteed mizuna greens, which I received this week in my produce delivery. They looked like a more delicate version of Dandelion greens. Knowing only that mizuna greens are an Asian cousin of the mustard green, I minced some garlic and red onion and sauteed in a little olive oil. When that smelled nice, I added a splash of Mirin (sweet rice wine) and threw in the greens. After just a minute, I added a splash of soy sauce and a couple of shakes of sesame seed / sea salt mixture. After just a minute or two on the heat, the greens had shrunken to half their original size. Luckily they were delicous! They had a good, interesting flavor, that niether of us could put a finger on. We'll look forward to receiving them again!

Vegetable Stock

After months of complaining about throwing away my vegetable scraps, it dawned on me that I could be making my own vegetable broth! So, last week I diligently collected my veggie scraps in a plastic ziplock in the fridge. When the bag was full, I threw everything in my big stock pot and filled it to the brim with water. Floating about were: carrot tops, onion & garlic skins, leek tops and bottoms, chard stems and a bunch of sad looking parsley from the back of the fridge. After letting the concoction boil away on the stove for a few hours, I scooped out all of the largest scraps and then poured the remaining liquid through a gold coffee filter to remove any leftover particals. Voila! Remaining in the pot was beautiful, rich colored vegetable broth. I haven't seasoned it yet, so it still needs some salt & pepper. Most of it now sits happily in my freezer, waiting to be used. It was so easy -- and made so much -- I'm all stocked up on stock for the foreseeable future!

Rainbow Chard!

Last week my produce delivery included a gigantic, beautiful Swiss chard bunch. I decided to chop it and saute it in butter with minced garlic, salt & pepper. DELICIOUS!!! In addition we had some leftover eggplant parmesan and a couple of baked sweet potatoes.

Leek & Goat Cheese Pita Pizza with Cucumber Salad

Last week I went to the grocery store to pick up some vegetables for dinner, but the only thing that looked good was the leeks. I grabbed a bunch and decided I would figure out what to do with them once I got home. I ended up taking some large whole wheat pita bread rounds out of the freezer, basting them with olive oil, and crumbling some herbs de provence goat cheese on top. I then sliced and sauteed the leeks in some butter, and piled them on top of the pitas as well. I popped them in the oven and baked them at 350 until the pitas were crispy and the cheese was a bit melted.

I served them with a salad I made with the only items I could find in the fridge: cucumbers, parsley, kalamata olives, red onions and feta cheese. All told, it was a very quick meal that was VERY delicious!

Homemade Granola Bars!

Since moving to Boulder, I've become more Boulder than most Boulderites by making homemade granola bars each week. I got tired of spending so much money on store bought granola bars that weren't that good, so I decided to start making them myself!

Here's the basic recipe: http://www.recipezaar.com/No-Bake-Granola-Bars-60235
I usually use half corn-syrup and half honey, sometimes entirely honey.

So far I'm made several different varieties, including peanut-chocolate chip, coconut-currant, peanut-raisin, and butterscotch-chocolate chip. This week I'm thinking about making a honey-almond-flax mix. The photo above is a chocolate chip peanut batch.

Blackbean Tortilla Casserole and Kale w/ Feta & Red Onions

Here are two recipes I make pretty often, especially the kale, which I receive often in my produce delivery box.

Blackbean Tortilla Casserole: http://www.recipezaar.com/Black-Bean-and-Tortilla-Bake-34881
Kale w/ Feta & Red Onion: http://www.recipezaar.com/Feta-Cheese-Kale-Red-Onions-16999

Chicken Garlic Bites, Roasted Zucchini & Sweet Potatoes

While my sister-in-law Danielle was visiting, I made a quick and easy dinner for us of: chicken garlic bites http://www.recipezaar.com/Chicken-Garlic-Bites-27733; zucchini that I chopped and roasted with sliced onions and tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper & Italian seasonings; and baked sweet potatoes that I served whole. Yum!