Veggies!

I’m traveling this week, but still wanted to share my photo and recipe ideas. Which won’t be much, really. I picked up veggies on Tuesday afternoon, and pretty much just sorted them into their appropriate corners of the kitchen. Then I left super early on Wednesday morning.

 
Last Week
My main push earlier this week was to clean out the fridge and save as many things as possible, so they didn’t spoil. It was a bit of a challenge, but I managed to either use or store all the veggies from last week, but only barely. Mainly, it happened in one big meal that we enjoyed over two days. I roasted a chicken, made this wonderful roasted cauliflower and couscous dish, and then made a salad with fresh lettuce and roasted beets. Yum!

I managed to sauté up the kale and greens, and then put them in the freezer for use in this and that. In fact, I made up some soups for Eric to eat while I’m gone, and included a hefty serving of chard in each. Also a couple of small tomatoes.

The green tomatoes got roasted up with a few peppers I had in the back of the fridge, and an onion, and then put in a jar in the freezer for a future pork chop or chicken breast.

Instead of the cauliflower and cheese dish I had been planning on doing, I went with a new recipe I found for roasted cauliflower and kalamata olive and israeli couscous on Oh My Veggies. “Oh my!” is right! I think this is my new favorite cauliflower recipe. I adjusted it a bit, and will continue to tinker with it. And then I’ll share it with you all.

I didn’t get to the braised broccoli or chorizo and bean soup. The broccoli got chopped and frozen. The beans are waiting in a jar on the kitchen windowsill.

 
If it looks like a smaller haul this week it’s only because the scale is skewed by the size of this enormous cabbage! We also got three cups of cornmeal (which the farm grows and processes on site), a rutabaga, some small red tomatoes, a butternut  squash, a white onion, and one teeny shallot. (I traded endive and half a pumpkin for the whole squash and small shallot.)

This Week
Well, nothing, really. Unless I do some cooking for my hosts. If I do, I’ll be sure to share it. Otherwise, I’m going to enjoy my mini vacation, and visit with my friend and her parents.

The cabbage will keep for a week in the fridge. The cornmeal goes into the freezer. The rutabaga goes in the crisper, and the squash and onion will go on the counter. Eric has been instructed to eat the tomatoes.

Although I’m not cooking, I am already thinking of things to do with these yummy veggies. The rutabaga will get roasted with other root veggies, and the cornmeal is going to become delicious griddle cakes. I just need to come up with something fun for the cabbage.

Any ideas?

Roasted Tomato Soup

Several years ago my friend Chuck turned me on to this truly magnificent recipe from Smitten Kitchen for Roasted Tomato Soup with Broiled Cheese. Seriously. It’s even better than it looks in that post, if you can believe it. It’s like tomato soup and grilled cheese had a baby. A delicious, delicious baby.

Unfortunately, that first year, it was late in the season, and I only got to make a couple of meals worth, and then I had to wait eight long months until tomato season rolled around again. Ever since, every year between August and October, I make it a point to buy up as many tomatoes as I could afford, and store away as many jars of this soup as I can. It’s become my standard sauce for pretty much anything using tomatoes. In addition to making that delicious soup with broiled cheese, it’s my go-to sauce for a quick pasta meal all winter. Yum!

 
Instead of using paste tomatoes, I prefer to use more flavorful heirloom beefsteak or slicer tomatoes. The drawback is that they’ve got a higher water content than paste tomatoes, and reduce down to a smaller amount of tomato with more liquid. That’s easy enough to fix, though. I just skip the step of adding stock to thin the soup. And since they’re getting roasted right away, I’m happy to buy up bruised or ugly tomatoes, which discounted at my CSA. (Honestly, is there really such a thing as an ugly tomato?)

 
I slice them and salt and pepper them liberally, and then drizzle them with olive oil.

 
I place them in a 325-350 degree oven and cook for about an hour to an hour and a half, until they begin to caramelize. You can see how much liquid they give off. Because of that, I roast them in a casserole dish rather than a cookie sheet. I also include a whole onion cut into wedges in one of the pans.

 
Once they’re done roasting, I pour them into a large stock pot and let them simmer while the next batch is roasting.

 
I also roast up a whole head of garlic (peeled) in a foil packet, drizzled with a little olive oil. I mean… look at this gorgeousness! Can you imagine how heavenly the house smells while this is going on?

 
At this point, I add basil and oregano, and let things simmer. Actually, this is a good place to note that I often do this in stages. The roasting going on one evening, and the simmering, blending, and canning happening sometime during the next day or so.

 
Once I feel like everything has had a chance to simmer and let the flavors mingle, I send everything through the blender until smooth.

 
Which is almost a shame. Look how pretty this looks, with the colors jostling up against each other. I especially love it when I’ve got a good mix of tomato colors in there.

 
OK. So, I also think this uniformly red-orange mix is beautiful too. But more because I know how delicious it is.

 
Then, pretty quickly, while the soup is still hot, I put it in jars and drop them into my canning pot with the water already boiling. Fifteen minutes in the canning bath, and then out onto the counter to cool while I enjoy the tell-tale pop of the seals sealing.

As of this writing, I have set a new record for how many jars I’ve put up in one season. My count stands at 20.5 quarts, in a mix of quart and pint jars. That’s from four batches, with each batch about 13 pounds of tomatoes each. I’m already dreaming of all the things I’m going to cook up this winter!

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More info:

Can I freeze this instead of canning? 
Yes! Absolutely! If you use the jars, be sure to leave extra room at the top and keep the lids very loose. Or, you can use freezer bags or other containers. I can it because I can. Which is why I don’t put any meat or cheese in the sauce when I’m cooking it before canning, although I often do when I use it in meals later.

Can I change up the recipe? Add more veggies or other things?
You bet! I was toying with the idea of making some with mushrooms and other spices, but decided this time around to stick to the original plan of just tomatoes, onions, garlic, and herbs. If I get more tomatoes next week, I might make a roasted tomato and pepper mixture to can, using up a lot of the peppers I’ve been meaning to cook up over the last couple of weeks.

Can I make it chunkier?
Certainly! I like it smooth, but chunky would be just as delicious and easy to can or freeze.

Do I have to save it for later?
This is the question I ask myself every time I make this. And the question Eric asks me as well. I don’t always can up all the sauce I’ve made. Sometimes it’s too good to not eat right then. The original recipe from Smitten Kitchen is not for preserving, but for cooking and eating that night. The reason I put away so much is because I want to enjoy it all winter long, and refuse to buy tomatoes out of season.

Veggies!

First, a quick check in on last week’s veggie plan. It went great! Frittata? Check! Tomato sauce? Check! Sautéed kale? Bean salad? Salsa? Check. Check. Check!

We didn’t make a roast chicken or a pot roast, as our dinner plans with a friend was postponed. But carrots and potatoes store well, and now that we have some fennel, that’ll make a perfect pot roast!

Veggie Day

OK, so normally Tuesday is Veggie Day, but I wasn’t feeling very well on Tuesday, so I pushed it off until today.

First, let’s check in on how things went veggie-wise last week. No new or exciting kitchen creations. Oh well. We were out of town for a long weekend, so there weren’t many dinners at home last week.

Pretty much everything went into the freezer (celery & broccoli), pantry (onions), fridge storage (beets), or put on display (pumpkins).

Or got eaten (tomatoes). Nothing fancy. The green tomatoes were made into a jar of salsa. The orange cherry tomatoes were washed. Both were taken on our trip to Redding and enjoyed there with Eric’s mother and step-dad.

 
This week’s haul:

• potatoes
• carrots
• tomatoes
• zucchini
• green onions
• kale
• shelling beans

It’s definitely starting to feel like autumn here, but we’re still enjoying the end-of-summer produce, as you can see from this photo.

In addition to the huge bag of veggies, I also bought more tomatoes! Tomato season is drawing to a close, and I don’t feel like I have enough jars of tomato sauce on the shelves for winter. These’ll get roasted and canned tomorrow. I’ll even take photos and share them here once it’s all done.

 
And, because I have some cash in my account again, I also splurged and bought some more of these little cuties. These little orange cherry tomatoes are my all-time favorites. So sweet and delicious. Like eating candy.

 
This week’s veggie plan:

Frittata: We’ve got some great wild caught salmon in the freezer, and I love cooking it up in a frittata with baby potatoes, a diced carrot, and whatever else is on hand. I think this one will have some sautéed kale, zucchini, and topped with little orange cherry tomatoes and finely chopped green onions. Stay tuned for the recipe!

Tomato Sauce: Years ago, a friend shared this fabulous SmittenKitchen recipe for roasted tomato soup, and ever since, I’ve made a point to cook up and can as much of this soup recipe as possible, to enjoy over the winter. I don’t always use to make the soup, though. It also makes a wonderful pasta sauce. I just love having several jars of it on hand to use for quick winter dinners. So far, I have six jars. This weekend I’ll be making six more.

Sautéed Kale: We like including greens with our breakfast of black beans and eggs. It’s a great way to get some extra vitamins in, and they’re delicious. I just rinse and chop the kale and add it to a pan with some bacon fat, chopped onions and garlic, and sauté until softened. Yum!

Bean Salad: I’ve seen some intriguing recipes for bean salads, and plan to try one of them out with these shelling beans. They’re black coco beans, so I think they’ll make a pretty dish with the orange or yellow tomatoes and green onions.

Salsa: Any tomatoes that don’t get eaten with breakfast or snacked on during the day, or made into sauce, will be made into Eric’s fantastic salsa fresca. Probably one of the last batches of the year. Which means it will be enjoyed with much pomp and circumstance.

Pot Roast OR Roast Chicken: While the daytime temps are still in the mid-70s, the evenings are cool and that makes me start thinking about using my oven again. I have both a pork butt and a whole chicken in the freezer. Which one I decide to roast up will probably be determined by how I feel on the day I go pull one or the other from the freezer to thaw. I’m leaning toward the pot roast so I can use up these cute little potatoes and a couple of carrots. But, you never know.

Zucchini: Honestly, we’re about done with summer squash. I’ve been freezing it to include in pasta dishes and soup all winter. If there’s anything left from these, they’ll get added to that stash.

Tuesday – Veggie Day

This is the beautiful sight that greeted me when I stopped into my CSA to pick up this week’s supply! It’s finally pumpkin season! While other people are feeling enthusiastic about Pumpkin Spice Season, I’m not a die-hard PSS person. But, I do love a good pumpkin pie, or maybe some curry pumpkin soup. And then there were those amazing pumpkin scones I made years ago when I baked. And I’ve been meaning to try my hand at duplicating the delicious chicken and pumpkin curry the local Thai restaurant makes.

So many good pumpkin recipes! So, I guess it’s good that we got two of these little cuties (Baby Bears) in our box this week! I also want to mention how much I love how the two seasons (summer and autumn) overlap quite nicely here in California. Pumpkins AND tomatoes at the same time? Yes, please!

The contents of this week’s ‘box’:

• 2 Baby Bear sugar pumpkins
• 2 very large yellow onions
• 1 pound of heirloom tomatoes (green)
• 1 pint of mini golden tomatoes
• 1/4 pound of broccoli spears (the second harvest)
• 2 pounds of beet (yep, just one very big beet)
• 1 summer celery
• 1 teeny Fuyu persimmon with a tiny bruise (a bit of lagniappe)

The goal of these post, in addition showing off the fantastic produce my farmer-friends offer, is to spur me to think about what will get used and how, and maybe even encourage me to make a weekly meal-plan.

So, after a little thinking, my tentative plan is:

• keep the pumpkins until I have a minute to roast them up
• put these onions with the rest of the 10lbs I bought last week until I have a chance to dream up my own version of an onion pie, which I’ve been dreaming about for a week or so now
• talk Eric into using these beautiful green tomatoes in his next salsa batch for a fun variety of color
• eat these cute little orange cherry tomatoes for lunch tomorrow… if not later tonight
• steam and add to our breakfast of eggs and beans
• save the beet with the other beets in the crisper drawer, but sauté the greens up to eat with our eggs and beans breakfast
• honestly, this isn’t snacking celery, so it’s going to get chopped and frozen for using in soups and casseroles this winter
• slice and enjoy!

OK, so this ‘box’ isn’t going to be the spark for a fantastic series of cooking posts anytime soon (although it reminds me of others I should add to the list). But, the components will surely show up in future cooking posts. I promise.

And who knows, maybe I’ll feel inspired to make a small bowl of tomato salad tomorrow to enjoy those little orange babies.

If it’s Tuesday, it’s veggie day!

It’s been a hectic time, what with school starting, work ramping up for the upcoming Heirloom Expo, and our annual vacation to Seattle for PAX.  We left last Tuesday, spent some fun free days around Seattle and visiting with friends. PAX ran from Thursday evening through Sunday evening, and then we flew out on Monday. We got home yesterday evening and spent some time unpacking all our new games. Since we missed our CSA pick-up from last week (we donated our share to a former CSA customer who is experiencing financial hardship and couldn’t afford a subscription this year), and had cleaned out the fridge before we left, we had no ready food in our fridge, so we got some delicious soup from the noodle house around the corner.

After sleeping in until nearly noon (guess we were tired!), we ran errands, and picked up our veggies.

Our share: lettuce, tomatoes* (we got three pounds!), wax beans, tomatillos, cilantro, peppers, and a melon.

Extras: cherry tomatoes and eggs.

*We were offered a choice of three pounds total of tomatoes, yellow summer squash, and zucchini. I haven’t filled my tomato craving yet this summer, so I opted for all tomatoes.

This Week’s Plan:
Tomatoes: Eric’s making me salsa, but I also hope to have some for breakfast this week. I’m in love with eggs and bacon with slices  of tomatoes on the side. So much umami!
Tomatillos: These will get roasted and turned into some delicious salsa verde!
Lettuce: It’s already washed and chopped and ready for salads!
Seranos: We got enough for salsa, tomatillo salsa, and guacamole. And, while at Trader Joe’s earlier, we bought two bags of chips! We’re ready!
Sweet peppers: These will make a great topping for pasta or pizza. One might even get cut up into a salad.
Wax beans: I’m sure these will get sautéed with some bacon for at least one dinner this week.
Cilantro: What doesn’t get used in salsa will probably get blanched and frozen for use this winter.
Melon: Sadly, as much as I want to eat this, my melon allergy is only getting worse. But, that just means Mr. Bob gets it! Lucky cat!
Cherry tomatoes: I suspect these will become my afternoon snack. If there are any left later this week, I’ll halve them and make a tomato salad with basil and fresh mozzarella.
Eggs: My breakfast for this week! Yum!

Thankful Thursday – fast food!

I haven’t been cooking as much lately, and part of that is because Eric doesn’t always eat dinner, and it’s hard for me to motivate myself to cook a big dinner for just me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have food on the brain. I’m still pretty much always thinking about food. I’d rather just snack. And thankfully summer is the time for the original “fast food” – fruit!

I’ve been picking up our weekly CSA stuff from Tierra Vegetables on Tuesdays. And then on Wednesday morning, I head over to the Santa Rosa Farmers Market to see what they’ve got. Lately I’ve been buying up fruit like it’s going out of style. Which it is. While we have a longer summer season than other places, it’s still a limited time.

I just can’t get enough peaches.

I make it a point to eat seasonal, locally-grown produce as much as possible, which gives Peach Season a new kind urgency. On average, I eat at least two peaches a day. This bowl of 6 peaches is already half-empty.

I’ve been buying up flats to freeze.

And even though Tierra has strawberries that produce all summer, I still can’t get enough. I’ve been buying a flat every other week or so. Right now, they just get cut up and put in the freezer. But I plan to make a huge batch of strawberry jam and syrup, with the hope of keeping my shelves stocked for winter.

A bowl of sugar!

One of my earliest memories is of me and my mom sitting under my Granny’s fig tree, eating figs. Apparently, my love of figs was renown among my aunts and great aunts. Aunt Gladys would so sweetly give me a plate full of canned figs whenever we’d visit her.

Figs have an even shorter season than stone fruits, and whenever I see them for sale, I buy them. This time, I bought TWO baskets. And already I’m wishing I’d bought more!

A summer counter!

I took this picture yesterday. Already the cilantro is half gone, the two blood oranges are gone, half the red tomatoes have been used up, and half those peaches and figs are in my tummy!

If it’s Tuesday, it’s veggie day!

Too many veggies over from last week. I haven’t been cooking up very much lately. Gotta get on that!

Leftovers:
Greens – I sautéed some for a frittata I made with duck eggs earlier this week, but there’s lots left. If it doesn’t get used up this week, it’ll likely get blanched and frozen.
Beans – I still have both the green and yellow beans waiting to get cooked up. I haven’t cooked up the recipe ideas I came up with for a couple of SmartGardener posts. I need to do that this week.
Turnip – This is just hanging out in the fridge. It’s good for a while.
Cabbage – Yep, still haven’t cooked it up. It’s good for a while.

This Week’s Haul:
Zucchini – Grilled up with olive oil and garlic!
Corn – Grilled and eaten, tonight! This wasn’t in the box. I bought this separately. It’s too good to not have.
Broccoli – I’ll save this for another duck egg frittata this week, with leftovers going into some pasta dish.
Yellow Cauliflower – I bought this especially for the duck egg frittata this week. It looked too good to pass up.
Carrots – One or two will end up in the frittata. The others will go into the same pasta dish as the broccoli.
Greens – Kale and Mustard greens — I’ll probably just blanche and freeze these.
Tomatoes – Sliced and eaten, just like all the others. Looking forward to the day when I have too many to just eat.
Eggplant – I normally take the price of the eggplant in trade, since I never know what to do with them. I decided to live a little a dangerously this week, and figure out something interesting to do with it.
Peppers – One sweet Gypsy, one hot Inferno, and lots of little Padrons. Gonna have to stretch myself a bit on these.
Garlic – This one will get added to the basket and used eventually.

So, already I’m falling down on my goal to have a plan for everything each week. Heck, I’m falling down on actually cooking the things I made a plan for. Gonna have to get my act together this week and do some cooking!

If it’s Tuesday, it’s veggie day!

This week’s take: turnip with greens, three ears of corn (delicious, delicious corn!), tomatoes, red onions, summer squash, beans (we got to pick between green, yellow, and broad), half a cabbage, and bok choy.

So much yummy!

Of last week’s veggies, the beets, though, got made into a delicious beet and chèvre salad. And the summer squash was grilled up with garlic and olive oil.

Unfortunately, I still haven’t used any of the greens or the green beans. D’oh! And we still, somehow, have some tomatoes left over. And some lettuce, but not that much.

The plan is to use up those veggies and the new bag is:

Corn – Already grilled and eaten!
Beans – I have some ideas for using up the beans for some Smart Gardener blog posts, so stay tuned!
Bok choy – I’ve been craving stir fry, so I suspect this will prompt some kind of noodle or rice dish.
Cabbage – Sadly, I still have part of a previous cabbage in the fridge. Part will go in the stir fry, but the rest might have to go into a soup.
Summer Squash – Likely grilled up with some salmon in tomorrow or Thursday night’s dinner.
Tomatoes – How I have some left over from last week is beyond comprehension. And something that will be remedied pretty much every morning this week, while I eat sliced tomatoes with my eggs and bacon.
Turnip – OK, this one has me stumped. I’m going to leave it in the drawer for a while and see what else we get in future that I can pair with with. Or, I’ll drop it in the soup with the cabbage.
Turnip Greens – I have some beet greens left from last week, so I’ll include these in the stir fry.

I’m also going to make a frittata with the last of the duck eggs I bought at the farmer’s market last week (blog post coming about that too). It’ll have some of the tomatoes and maybe part of a squash. Basically, it’s my go-do leftovers dish.

If it’s Tuesday, it must be veggie day

Today’s glorious haul from Tierra!

All the best flavors of summer!

So, the general plan for the use of these wonderful veggies are thus:

• tonight – grilled corn and zucchini, with sliced tomatoes, to go with the duck-apple sausage in the fridge
• tomorrow – roasted beets in a green salad with chevre

Which leaves the green beans, and the beet greens. Likely they’ll both get sautéed up (separately) with some bacon to go with something else later in the week.

I find that by making a game-plan to use everything, I actually use it. Or at least use most of it. When I just blindly stuff things into the refrigerator, hoping for inspiration later, I forget about it. And then I find mystery bags of brown slime later. Ew.