Oops

Missed last week but that's the way it goes. I just forgot about posting.


Sunday: A lunch for friends - Beef brisket, salad, pie (my mom's cheesecake cherry pie topped with leftover pavlova elderberry/strawberry/blueberry mix I'd frozen)


Monday: Homemade pizza, salad


Tuesday: Ham steak, salad, Kerry's baked beans


Wednesday: Tomato sauce (one 28 oz can crushed tomatoes, one onion sliced and sauteed in olive oil until soft, salt, lots of black pepper, a can of butter beans, about a tablespoon of fresh chopped oregano added at the end) over chickpea pancake, broccoli. Sam and I both loved the tomato sauce/pancake combo. Ben lamented the lack of meat.


Thursday and Friday: Ate out both days - one night Indian food, the other Vietnamese

Saturday: Roast chicken (I cheated and got a "flippin' chicken" at the store, mashed potatoes, spinach salad

Green tomato cake

Yes, you read that correctly. Cake. With tomatoes. And you know, it was good, very good. No one had a clue that it had tomatoes.


Green Tomato Cake

350°F
30 min for cupcakes, about 45 for cake

Blend these together in one bowl:
2 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 c oil
1 stick butter, melted
3 eggs
2 t vanilla

Sift these together in another bowl:
3 cups flour
1 t salt
1 t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg

Add the sifted stuff to the wet stuff gradually. Then add:
1 c chopped nuts
1 c craisins
2-2 1/2 c diced green tomatoes (about three)

Add to greased pan and top with:
coconut

Bake until a tooth pick comes out clean.

This made 16 cupcakes and a 8x8 cake pan. It would make one 9x13.


Three big thumbs up. Come try one and see if you can tell there are green tomatoes in it!

Tomatoes and Basil

I've been overwhelmed with tomatoes and basil lately but to clarify, I don't necessarily consider that to be a bad thing. I've been looking at recommendations for tomato sauce they all say to remove the skin and seed the tomatoes before making sauce but frankly, that sounds like a waste of time and nutrients to me.

My basil is still going strong and I've also got some fresh oregano out in the garden and I want to preserve those flavors of summer for the long winter ahead. I've got pesto in the freezer as well as some chopped basil I've frozen in water in ice cube trays to see if it holds up for future use.

I have only a few tomato plants so I pick them every few days but I like to have enough tomatoes to make the processing time worthwhile so I toss the whole tomatoes in the freezer until I have enough to make a good sized batch of sauce. And why make plain old tomato sauce when I can make marinara sauce and derivations of marinara instead? That saves work when I need a quick dinner.


Tomato, Basil, and Summer Squash Sauce

2 medium onions, diced
4 large cloves garlic, minced
Olive oil for sauteing
Approximately 10 good sized tomatoes, diced large, centers removed
3 small summer squashes, diced
1 large bunch of basil, washed and removed from stems
handful of fresh oregano, washed and removed from stems
Salt
Pepper
Cayenne Pepper

Saute the onions and garlic in olive oil. Add squash and saute for a few minutes. Add tomatoes, salt, and pepper and cook until the sauce is to the desired consistency at medium heat stirring frequently. Remove from heat, add the fresh herbs and cayenne, then puree the sauce (I use an immersion blender).

I'm hoping this will freeze well and not lose it's fresh herb flavors over time. The fresh sauce is very good. I bet it would make a spectacular lasagna.

Stuffed Roasted Tomatoes

A friend of Ben's family was in Vermont and made this for everyone. I made a variation using the fennel from the share in place of the olives and the tomatoes I had (about 5 and some cherry tomatoes as well) instead of the plum tomatoes.


Slow roasted Tomatoes with Feta, Olives & Pine Nuts

12 medium plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise and seeded
1 1/4 tsps. salt
1/2 cup pine nuts
2 cups crumbled feta cheese (about 8 ounces)
1 3-ounce package cream cheese
2/3 cup pitted, coarsely chopped Kalamata olives
2 tsps. dried oregano (I used fresh)
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

Sprinkle tomatoes with salt and turn, cut side down, to drain for 30 minutes on a wire rack set over a cookie sheet with a rim. Meanwhile, warm a small skillet over low heat. Add pine nuts; saute, stirring constantly until golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes.

Adjust oven rack to center position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Mix feta, cream cheese, olives, pine nuts and oregano in a medium bowl. Turn tomatoes cut side up and fill with about 2 Tbs. of the feta mixture. Bake until tomatoes are soft but still hold their shape, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and brush with oil. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.

Verdict: The filling is tremendous and would make a great spread for other things. They were good hot and warm but really, these were best as leftovers, cold out of the refrigerator and I don't really know why that is. But if I make them again, I'll make them the day before and serve them cold. Hmm, an appetizer.

Quick, Easy, Yummy

Sometimes I just throw things together and I'm very happy with the results. Tonight was one of those nights. Sam helped cook!


Tomato, Zucchini, Bean and Basil Sauce

1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Olive oil for sauteing
4 tomatoes, diced
3 small zucchinis sliced or diced (or any other summer squash)
1 c basil chiffonade
2 cans beans - I used small red beans and dark red kidney beans at Sam's request
Salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion and garlic. Add tomatoes, zucchini, beans, salt and pepper. Cook to desired consistency. Add basil shortly before serving.

Serve over pasta.

Thumbs up!

Eggplant Tests

Eggplant isn't something I've commonly used in cooking. It's a pretty plant but, eh, just not my favorite. I tried two different recipes with the ones from the share this week with mixed success - one excellent, one mediocre.

First the excellent one...we had it as a side but it would make an excellent pasta sauce. I had 4 yellow squashes and two patty pan squashes in the share so I used all of it in this. I put the patty pan squash in the microwave for a couple of minutes to make them easier to cut


Summery Eggplant and Summer Squash with Basil

1 large onion, diced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
Olive oil for sauteing
1 Japanese eggplant, diced about 1/2"
6 small summer squashes, diced about 1/2"
3 medium tomatoes, diced
1/2 c basil chiffonade
salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil. Add the remaining ingredients with the exception of the basil and cook until the vegetables are soft. Add the basil.

Verdict: Excellent! Put some freshly grated Parmesan cheese on the top and enjoy. Ben discovered that reheating the leftovers in butter added a nice touch too.


Eggplant Gratin

Olive Oil
1 Japanese eggplant, peeled, sliced into pieced 1/2" thick
1 small onion cut into quarters
1/3 c milk
1 egg
4 oz grated misc cheese (we had cheddar, goat cheese and something I can't remember)
1/2 t minced fresh rosemary
salt and pepper to taste
breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 450. Break apart the onion pieces and coat that and the eggplant with a thin layer of olive oil. Roast in the oven until the pieces brown a bit, about 20 minutes. Meanwhile mix remaining ingredients except the bread crumbs. Grease a very small casserole dish. Reduce oven to 400. Put eggplant and onion (chop this smaller first if you wish) into the dish, pour egg mixture in and mix it around a bit. Top with breadcrumbs. Bake 30 minutes until top is browned.

Verdict: I just didn't like this very much, the flavors just didn't seem right and I didn't care for the texture. Sam liked it a lot. Ben liked it too.

Oh, I was fairly accurate in my prediction that most everything would still be uneaten when we got home. The only vegetables Ben had eaten were the beets.

Tomato Barley Soup

We've gotten frozen tomatoes in our share a couple of times and they were building up a bit in the freezer since I hadn't been inspired to make anything tomato based in awhile. I'm not a huge fan of tomato soup since it's pretty bland but most people seem to love it and I know that it's a favorite of Ben's so I gave it a try. Without a recipe of course.

I pulled them out, ran them under hot water to peel the skins right off and then stuck them, whole, in the oven to thaw and roast. I'd say I had about a dozen tomatoes in all.

Here's the kicker though, I also had some frozen leftover barley that I'd cooked with chicken so I got to be really lazy with this soup but it was also a good reminder of why I freeze things for future use, even if I don't know what that use will be at the time I freeze it. I love reinventing leftovers into something completely different.


Tomato Barley Soup

12 tomatoes, roasted
1 onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 carrots, diced
Butter or chicken fat
Cooked barley - about four cups
Salt & pepper to taste
Basil to taste
Water or broth if necessary

Saute the onion, celery, and carrot in the fat. Add the tomatoes and any juice that may have accumulated in the tomato pan while roasting. Puree the mixture and return to the pan. Add the barley and season to taste.

Serve with a little grated parm


What did we think?

Me: It's a little bland but I guess tomato soup is supposed to be bland and tomato-y. It's ok.

Ben: I don't think it's bland, I like it.

Sam: I took a no thank you bite and I don't like it.

Lasagna

Now, lasagne isn't much of a native Vermont food but it's wonderful stuff and we've got lots of the ingredients for it right here in VT. Our farm share had the local ricotta and I had some of the local mozzarella here and it was a rather slow weekend so it was the perfect time to pull it all together.

I don't really like the actual process of making lasagna -- all those different components -- but I've found ways to make it easier. First is to make the sauce in big batches and freeze it. I use it for baked ziti, quick pasta dishes, etc. Mine is a simple tomato sauce, nothing fancy.

This makes a small, 8x8 pan of lasagna.


Tomato Sauce

I almost always make more than this but it's easy to multiply out based on the cans of tomatoes used. I'm hoping to be able to make and freeze a bunch when tomatoes come in season in the fall. This make s a very "bright" sauce and it doesn't have a huge depth of flavor, it's more a splash of summer year around.

1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes in juice (not puree, it makes a difference in flavor)
1 onion, diced small
1 clove garlic, minced
Olive oil
salt
pepper
basil
touch of cayenne
sugar if needed

Sautee onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Drain tomatoes, throw them in the food processor until smoothish. Add to onion and garlic. Add seasonings to taste, simmer for about 10 minutes.


Ricotta Filling

1 lb ricotta (could use a little less if you'd like)
dash ground nutmeg
1 egg

Mix together


Spinach Lasagna

Tomato sauce
No cook lasagna noodles (I like Barilla because two fit perfectly in an 8x8 pan)
1 box frozen chopped spinach - thawed and wrung out
Pesto (I use about 3 T - make your own and freeze in ice cube trays to have measured amouts)
Ricotta filling
About 10oz grated mozzarella more or less to taste
Parmesan cheese, grated

Put a layer of tomato sauce in the pan. Cover with noodles, then ricotta filling, some mozz & parm. Noodles then spinach mixed with pesto topped with mozz. Noodles, then ricotta filling & cheese, noodles sauce and topping of cheese.

Of course you're free to do the layers however you like.

Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

I made a second one with a layer of cooked Italian sausage mixed with sauce in place of the spinach layer.

I often make a couple of small lasagna's at once so I don't have to make it often.

Rating: Excellent. The local mozzarella and ricotta are much firmer than the stuff I normally get and I really like that in the ricotta, not quite as much in the mozzarella. They're also less salty than most of the other brands. What we didn't eat I froze in single servings to be reaheated for lunches.