Sorry folks, it's been a while. We are still cooking on a regular basis, but we've just been too busy to take photos and blog.
One reason we have to keep up on cooking is that we are getting a CSA (community supported agriculture) box every other week. If we don't cook regularly, the produce piles up. It seems like some things come in waves and we tend to get a lot of one particular fruit or vegetable. For a while it was apples, and now we're been getting a lot of avocados in our box. They are good avocados, but there is only so much guacamole you can eat. So, we have been searching for avocado recipes to get out of the guacamole rut. With that in mind, we found "Fresh Tomato Pizza with Avocado" from Jack Bishop's "A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen."
When we looked at the ingredients we thought that it could not possibly be bad and we were right--it was delicious. The ingredients are: fresh tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, a jalapeno chile, farmer cheese (we used goat cheese instead), avocado, lime juice, and cilantro. We got a frozen pizza dough so it was pretty quick to put together.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Avocado Pizza
Monday, February 22, 2010
When Life Gives You Squash...
One of the troubles of getting a box of produce from a local farm, is that you often end up with surplus veggies.
Such is the case with the farm we get things from, Farm fresh to you, although they have a nifty option where you can go online and go "enough squash already!" After you receive the seventh butternut squash.
Of course, by then you've had squash soup, and pumpkin pie, and squash waffles (yes, based on an Alton Brown classic,) and now (if you are like me,) you are looking at three squashes on the pantry and thinking "what is in store for you jokers?"
Couple this abundance of squash with a newfound muffin obsession, thanks to the absolute artistry of The Sentinel, a local lunchtime sandwich shop that secretly cranks out hot muffins made from seasonal ingredients every morning to sell to commuters with coffee. If you find yourself near Second and Market at 7:30 AM on a weekday, try them out, it'll be the best $2.50 you spend all day.
Anyhow, I am on a BUDGET, dern it, I can't be dropping $2.50 out of my budget each morning for muffins, and ALSO, I have all this squash! So I borrowed a page from the Sentinel's book and crafted a muffin recipe using these crazy squash.
Squash Muffins (No pics this time guys, maybe in the future... But don't let that stop you, this is a fun recipe.)
One medium to small butternut squash, sliced in half and roasted sliced side down on a foil covered cookie sheet at 400 degrees for an hour. (Putting the sliced side down keeps it from drying out.)
There's another advantage to putting it cut side down. The sugars in the squash will run all over the foil and carmelize. Pry the squash off, scoop out the seeds, and then scoop the squash out of the shell. You should have about 2 cups of squash.
Lower the heat on the oven to 350. Grease a muffin tin, or put paper liners in a cupcake tin. (This recipe will make about 9 muffins, or 18 cupcakes.) Whip the squash with a fork into a puree. Add 1 Cup brown sugar, 1 Tablespoon molasses, 2 egg yolks (put the whites in another bowl, and beat them to stiff peaks and put them aside,) 1 teaspoon of grated nutmeg, 1/4 cup canola oil, and 1 cup of buttermilk, and mix this all up into a batter.
In another bowl, sift together 2 cups white flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1 teaspoon of salt. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix just to combine. Once combined, carefully fold in the beaten egg whites. These are super moist, super dense muffins, the whipped whites add a little airiness and keep the cake crumb from being, well... gooey.
Put this mixture into the tins and bake. Fill up each tin till just below the rim. (The difference between a muffin and a cupcake, is that a muffin goes over the top of the tin, so fill those puppies up.) You may have noticed the numbers are a bit off. You'll have enough to fill one muffin tin completely and another tin halfway. Cooking the half tin can sometimes be a problem, because the half filled tin tends to heat up too much, making the muffins dry. These muffins are uber moist, so you don't need to worry about it at all. (If you run across this problem with normal muffins or cupcakes, fill the remaining holes of the tin with water for more even heating.)
Cook these for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the tin for five minutes or so, then cool on a rack until completely cool. These will fall a tiny bit while they cool. You don't want to eat these muffins until they cool completely, or they will stick to the cupcake paper. As they cool, they firm up.
The neatest thing about these muffins is that they are actually better after they completely cool, and hold their texture for days in the fridge.
I've also found that a nice variant is to add some upscale bittersweet chocolate chips and a tiny pinch of powdered cloves. They'd probably also be good with orange or lemon zest.
Such is the case with the farm we get things from, Farm fresh to you, although they have a nifty option where you can go online and go "enough squash already!" After you receive the seventh butternut squash.
Of course, by then you've had squash soup, and pumpkin pie, and squash waffles (yes, based on an Alton Brown classic,) and now (if you are like me,) you are looking at three squashes on the pantry and thinking "what is in store for you jokers?"
Couple this abundance of squash with a newfound muffin obsession, thanks to the absolute artistry of The Sentinel, a local lunchtime sandwich shop that secretly cranks out hot muffins made from seasonal ingredients every morning to sell to commuters with coffee. If you find yourself near Second and Market at 7:30 AM on a weekday, try them out, it'll be the best $2.50 you spend all day.
Anyhow, I am on a BUDGET, dern it, I can't be dropping $2.50 out of my budget each morning for muffins, and ALSO, I have all this squash! So I borrowed a page from the Sentinel's book and crafted a muffin recipe using these crazy squash.
Squash Muffins (No pics this time guys, maybe in the future... But don't let that stop you, this is a fun recipe.)
One medium to small butternut squash, sliced in half and roasted sliced side down on a foil covered cookie sheet at 400 degrees for an hour. (Putting the sliced side down keeps it from drying out.)
There's another advantage to putting it cut side down. The sugars in the squash will run all over the foil and carmelize. Pry the squash off, scoop out the seeds, and then scoop the squash out of the shell. You should have about 2 cups of squash.
Lower the heat on the oven to 350. Grease a muffin tin, or put paper liners in a cupcake tin. (This recipe will make about 9 muffins, or 18 cupcakes.) Whip the squash with a fork into a puree. Add 1 Cup brown sugar, 1 Tablespoon molasses, 2 egg yolks (put the whites in another bowl, and beat them to stiff peaks and put them aside,) 1 teaspoon of grated nutmeg, 1/4 cup canola oil, and 1 cup of buttermilk, and mix this all up into a batter.
In another bowl, sift together 2 cups white flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1 teaspoon of salt. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix just to combine. Once combined, carefully fold in the beaten egg whites. These are super moist, super dense muffins, the whipped whites add a little airiness and keep the cake crumb from being, well... gooey.
Put this mixture into the tins and bake. Fill up each tin till just below the rim. (The difference between a muffin and a cupcake, is that a muffin goes over the top of the tin, so fill those puppies up.) You may have noticed the numbers are a bit off. You'll have enough to fill one muffin tin completely and another tin halfway. Cooking the half tin can sometimes be a problem, because the half filled tin tends to heat up too much, making the muffins dry. These muffins are uber moist, so you don't need to worry about it at all. (If you run across this problem with normal muffins or cupcakes, fill the remaining holes of the tin with water for more even heating.)
Cook these for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the tin for five minutes or so, then cool on a rack until completely cool. These will fall a tiny bit while they cool. You don't want to eat these muffins until they cool completely, or they will stick to the cupcake paper. As they cool, they firm up.
The neatest thing about these muffins is that they are actually better after they completely cool, and hold their texture for days in the fridge.
I've also found that a nice variant is to add some upscale bittersweet chocolate chips and a tiny pinch of powdered cloves. They'd probably also be good with orange or lemon zest.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Apple and Mint Souffle
Second take on a souffle came out much better than the first. (And I didn't think there was anything wrong with the first one!) But these guys took off like rockets!
The souffle recipe is the same as the recipe from earlier, but the eggs were beaten just a bit longer, until the whites did not slide along the bowl when I tipped it. (That advice from the Herbfarm cookbook's "sidebar" section on souffles, which made the process that much easier!)
These were apple, mint and parmesian souffles. There is a sliced apple, fried in about a tablespoon of olive oil with salt and mint, which was added to the base just before the whites.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The Ghost of Christmas Pasta
Forgive me, the pun had to be done.
This is our christmas dinner, in a bit of a fit of untraditional abandon, it's Lasagne.
This is a bit of an odd Lasagne, but it was relatively easy to create.
Semi-Long Mushroom Sauce:
2 T Olive oil
a healthy sprig of fresh thyme
3 or 4 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 pound crimini or button mushrooms, sliced
Salt
1 oz dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted in hot water then strained, soaking water reserved, and after any extra grit is picked out of the mushrooms, they are then diced.
1 large can of strained imported italian tomatos. A can of tomato puree would also work. *
1 cup strong red table wine (In this case, a $3 Merlot that was languishing in the fridge)
1 T double concentrated tomato paste
a heathy sprig of fresh oregano **
In a large heavy bottomed pot, heat the oil over medium heat, add the garlic, red pepper and thyme. Once the garlic is golden, either remove it from the oil so that it does not get burnt and bitter, or if your pot has smooth sides like a bowl, push it up the side until it is off the heat. Add the crimini or button mushrooms and just a sprinkling of salt, and let this cook until just a bit browned. Add the red wine, cook for a moment, then the tomatos, and the garlic again, the soaking liquid, the diced porcini, the tomato paste and the oregano. Let this marry a bit at a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes, partially covered so that you don't loose liquid. Adjust for salt and pepper for your tastes.
"Ricotta-Tofu" Filling: ***
1/2 pint skim ricotta
1/2 lb firm tofu, passed through a potato ricer
1 chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, diced
healthy pinch of salt, pepper, and garlic powder
2 T minced Mint
2 T minced Basil
2 T minced parsley
1 Cup cooked long grain wild rice
(Optional: One egg.)
Mix all "ricotta filling" ingredients in a large bowl, adjust salt, pepper to your tastes.
Have some "instant" no-boil lasagne noodles ready, (Barilla makes them, they are lasagne noodles that are thinner than normal, and they cook in the sauce. They are excellent, a great time saver if you want lasagne in a hurry,) as well as three zuccini, sliced lengthwise into long thin strips and left raw. ****
In a 9 x 15 or so pan, layer the ingredients... Sauce, noodles, zuccini, filling, until you run out. I got three layers and was just missing enough sauce to coat the top, as is traditional. So if you guys want to double the sauce and have enough for the top of the lasagne, then save the rest for pasta, it will keep in the fridge for about a week.
Cover the pan, and cook this at 350 to 400 for around an hour. Let it sit for 15 minutes, covered, and then serve!
* Always use an imported italian tomato if you can get it. Make sure that the tomatos have no sugar and no citric acid added. The absence of these two extra ingredients usually means a good imported tomato. Italian san marzano tomatos are sweet, so any sugar is a tip off that you may not be getting the ripest tomato. Citric acid is added as a preservative, which they don't really need, because they are canned, ie: already preserved. So citric acid doesn't usually help there, but it actually does impart and acidic tone to the tomatoes that can add to any reflux issues that you may already have with tomatoes. In the best situation, the ingredients on your canned tomatoes should read, "tomato," and maybe one other ingredient like basil, or salt. I like it when a packager lets you taste the tomatoes for themselves and then decide whether you think they need sugar or salt or acid.
** Notice the order of adding the herbs to the sauce. Earthy, hearty herbs like thyme, rosemary, and sage, do well in a sauce at the beginning, to get their flavors into the oil. Fresher herbs with a lighter, gentler profile, (oregano, parsley, basil, etc) have milder flavors that tend to get lost as they cook, so they go in at the end, and they stand up much better. However, if the herbs are dried, they can go into the sauce sooner.
*** The filling takes the place of both the traditional layer of ricotta and herbs, and the seasoned meat in a meat based lasagne. The wild rice adds a grassy, herby, almost chocolate flavor that combines well with the herbs and gives some texture that would normally be lacking in a normal vegetable lasagne. If you want to simulate a more meaty flavor, add some nutritional yeast or even soy sauce in along with the rice.
**** The zuccini strips end up raw on top of the no-boil noodles, which while a great innovation, can sometimes be a little too al dente if your sauce thickens up too much, or if you don't make enough sauce to saturate the lasagne. The zuccini hold a ton of water in them, which will expell as the pasta bakes. Since the zuccini are right on top of the noodles, all that water will go into the noodles, ensuring that they get done.
This is our christmas dinner, in a bit of a fit of untraditional abandon, it's Lasagne.
This is a bit of an odd Lasagne, but it was relatively easy to create.
Semi-Long Mushroom Sauce:
2 T Olive oil
a healthy sprig of fresh thyme
3 or 4 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 pound crimini or button mushrooms, sliced
Salt
1 oz dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted in hot water then strained, soaking water reserved, and after any extra grit is picked out of the mushrooms, they are then diced.
1 large can of strained imported italian tomatos. A can of tomato puree would also work. *
1 cup strong red table wine (In this case, a $3 Merlot that was languishing in the fridge)
1 T double concentrated tomato paste
a heathy sprig of fresh oregano **
In a large heavy bottomed pot, heat the oil over medium heat, add the garlic, red pepper and thyme. Once the garlic is golden, either remove it from the oil so that it does not get burnt and bitter, or if your pot has smooth sides like a bowl, push it up the side until it is off the heat. Add the crimini or button mushrooms and just a sprinkling of salt, and let this cook until just a bit browned. Add the red wine, cook for a moment, then the tomatos, and the garlic again, the soaking liquid, the diced porcini, the tomato paste and the oregano. Let this marry a bit at a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes, partially covered so that you don't loose liquid. Adjust for salt and pepper for your tastes.
"Ricotta-Tofu" Filling: ***
1/2 pint skim ricotta
1/2 lb firm tofu, passed through a potato ricer
1 chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, diced
healthy pinch of salt, pepper, and garlic powder
2 T minced Mint
2 T minced Basil
2 T minced parsley
1 Cup cooked long grain wild rice
(Optional: One egg.)
Mix all "ricotta filling" ingredients in a large bowl, adjust salt, pepper to your tastes.
Have some "instant" no-boil lasagne noodles ready, (Barilla makes them, they are lasagne noodles that are thinner than normal, and they cook in the sauce. They are excellent, a great time saver if you want lasagne in a hurry,) as well as three zuccini, sliced lengthwise into long thin strips and left raw. ****
In a 9 x 15 or so pan, layer the ingredients... Sauce, noodles, zuccini, filling, until you run out. I got three layers and was just missing enough sauce to coat the top, as is traditional. So if you guys want to double the sauce and have enough for the top of the lasagne, then save the rest for pasta, it will keep in the fridge for about a week.
Cover the pan, and cook this at 350 to 400 for around an hour. Let it sit for 15 minutes, covered, and then serve!
* Always use an imported italian tomato if you can get it. Make sure that the tomatos have no sugar and no citric acid added. The absence of these two extra ingredients usually means a good imported tomato. Italian san marzano tomatos are sweet, so any sugar is a tip off that you may not be getting the ripest tomato. Citric acid is added as a preservative, which they don't really need, because they are canned, ie: already preserved. So citric acid doesn't usually help there, but it actually does impart and acidic tone to the tomatoes that can add to any reflux issues that you may already have with tomatoes. In the best situation, the ingredients on your canned tomatoes should read, "tomato," and maybe one other ingredient like basil, or salt. I like it when a packager lets you taste the tomatoes for themselves and then decide whether you think they need sugar or salt or acid.
** Notice the order of adding the herbs to the sauce. Earthy, hearty herbs like thyme, rosemary, and sage, do well in a sauce at the beginning, to get their flavors into the oil. Fresher herbs with a lighter, gentler profile, (oregano, parsley, basil, etc) have milder flavors that tend to get lost as they cook, so they go in at the end, and they stand up much better. However, if the herbs are dried, they can go into the sauce sooner.
*** The filling takes the place of both the traditional layer of ricotta and herbs, and the seasoned meat in a meat based lasagne. The wild rice adds a grassy, herby, almost chocolate flavor that combines well with the herbs and gives some texture that would normally be lacking in a normal vegetable lasagne. If you want to simulate a more meaty flavor, add some nutritional yeast or even soy sauce in along with the rice.
**** The zuccini strips end up raw on top of the no-boil noodles, which while a great innovation, can sometimes be a little too al dente if your sauce thickens up too much, or if you don't make enough sauce to saturate the lasagne. The zuccini hold a ton of water in them, which will expell as the pasta bakes. Since the zuccini are right on top of the noodles, all that water will go into the noodles, ensuring that they get done.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Tomato and Pecorino Souffle
Alton Brown needs to have an episode on Souffles (actually, it seems that he already has, so... So much for my "Good Eats" merit badge.
Anyhow, I've stayed away from souffles for ages, fearing that they were just beyond my abilities. I've heard a lot of horror stories. But after looking at several of our recipe books, I realized that souffles all start with equal parts flour and oil cooking on medium heat, with some herbs, onions, whatever you like... Then you add 1/3 cup of milk for each tablespoon of oil and flour and cook it till it comes to a boil and thickens up. Any of you country boys and girls out there know what this is ALSO the recipe for... You got it, GRAVY! So after all the intimidation and French pronounciations of stuff like roux blanc, etc, the base of a souffle is "make white gravy." Ladies and Gentlemen, I can handle that. Then, off heat you add one egg yolk for each tablespoon of oil/flour, put it back on the heat, and stir till incorporated. Then you take it off the fire and add whatever you are going to put into the souffle. (Like grated pecorino cheese and sliced cherry tomatoes in this case...)
Then whipped egg whites (stiff peaks) get folded in, and this is then baked in a little special dish called a "ramakin", which sits in another pan with water in it for 25 minutes. (The water is in the pan, the souffle is in the ramakin, the ramikin sits in the pan surrounded by water... This keeps the souffle from burning on the bottom.)
The last trick is to not mess with it in the oven, trust that it is done after 25 minutes, and serve it right away.
Oh yeah, it seems that 1 tablespoon flour, 1 tablespoon oil, 1/3 cup milk, 1 egg yolk, 1 egg white is the ratio for one little ramakin, so if you wanted to make 25, you'd just bump up that ratio times 25.
It was easier than I thought it would be, and very tasty!
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving!
Here's a pic of our simple thanksgiving dinner, 2009:
Clockwise from noon, a simple salad of butter lettuce, avocado and apples, in a dressing of olive oil, ume plum vinegar, a tiny bit of dijon mustard and a dash of worchestershire sauce.
At 5 o' clock, twice roasted sweet potatoes with maple syrup and olive oil. The potatoes are roasted for an hour at 450 degrees until very soft. Then left to cool, peeled, and drizzled with Grade B maple syrup and olive oil and then roasted again at 450 for 20 minutes more.
At 7 o'clock, a "mock" cranberry sauce, which is 1/2 of a small red onion, diced, four tomatillos, diced, 1 serrano chili, again with the dicing, 2 teaspoons of lime juice, some salt, and a half cup or so of freshly squeezed pomegranite juice. This is all boiled until it has reduced by half and then thickened with 2 teaspoons of arrowroot powder. Once it cools it should have the consistency of cranberry sauce, but be a little spicier and a little sweeter.
Finally, at 9 o'clock, to replace the turkey, a wild Coho salmon patty. (Specifically "Shogun Salmon Cakes" from page 148 of the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market Cookbook.) We rarely eat salmon any more, but this is the third time we've had this particular recipe this year. These are very very good, and much less hassle than a complete turkey. These paired really well with the mock-cranberry sauce.
Clockwise from noon, a simple salad of butter lettuce, avocado and apples, in a dressing of olive oil, ume plum vinegar, a tiny bit of dijon mustard and a dash of worchestershire sauce.
At 5 o' clock, twice roasted sweet potatoes with maple syrup and olive oil. The potatoes are roasted for an hour at 450 degrees until very soft. Then left to cool, peeled, and drizzled with Grade B maple syrup and olive oil and then roasted again at 450 for 20 minutes more.
At 7 o'clock, a "mock" cranberry sauce, which is 1/2 of a small red onion, diced, four tomatillos, diced, 1 serrano chili, again with the dicing, 2 teaspoons of lime juice, some salt, and a half cup or so of freshly squeezed pomegranite juice. This is all boiled until it has reduced by half and then thickened with 2 teaspoons of arrowroot powder. Once it cools it should have the consistency of cranberry sauce, but be a little spicier and a little sweeter.
Finally, at 9 o'clock, to replace the turkey, a wild Coho salmon patty. (Specifically "Shogun Salmon Cakes" from page 148 of the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market Cookbook.) We rarely eat salmon any more, but this is the third time we've had this particular recipe this year. These are very very good, and much less hassle than a complete turkey. These paired really well with the mock-cranberry sauce.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Apple Pie
This is my first apple pie in our new kitchen. Our new oven works great! We started getting a produce box from a local farm again and we ended up with more apples than we could eat. Pie seemed like the most logical choice. Hopefully there will be some left for Thanksgiving.
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