Good Friends Who Cook for You

My friend Melanie came over this week to watch my son while I was doing lab tests, and she not only watched the kiddo but cooked dinner for us too! She knew we had our farm share, and she asked what we had in the house, then brought over some stuff to supplement what we had. 

Now I might be biased from all of the hospital food, but what she made was quite likely the best thing I've eaten in ages. :-D

She posted her recipe here http://community.livejournal.com/everydaycooking/75121.html

I'm copying it here though, so I never lose the recipe! Here is her post, and I do hope some of you get to make this considering it *is* zucchini season! She used pork and lamb because it was on sale, and now I don't think I could eat it any other way. Though I could certainly try :) She also lists her alterations that she made for us based on our farm share. Make sure to add the bell pepper because it made it Extra Yummy. 

Pop's Zucchini Goulash (Crock pot...or not)
Since we're getting into that season when everyone foolish enough to plant zucchini now has it growing out their ears, I thought i'd post the recipe for tonight's supper. This is one of those "throw whatever you have in the pot" that I remember from my grandfather (the one my new son Robbie is named for). I think his had a bit less meat and a bit more tomato--and he always made it in a big electric frying pan rather than the crock pot, so do what you like-- it is very forgiving.

Ingredients:
2 lbs ground meat (beef, turkey, pork, lamb, or a mix)
1 large can of peeled tomatoes (cut them in half) - don't drain!
1 large can chopped tomatoes
"a whole lot" of zucchini, sliced to about 1/4 to 1/2 inch (I used 4 6 inchers and one 10 inch)
1 medium/large onion, chopped
1 TB chopped garlic
1 TB dried oregano
1 TB dried basil
1 TB paprika
salt & pepper to taste

Procedure:
Sautee the onion and ground meat. Drain and add to the crock pot. Add all remaining ingredients and cook on low 6-8 hours. If you don't want to use the crock, keep everything in one large pot and simmer until the zucchini is tender. Serve as is, or over rice or pasta.

Alterations:
Because I was fortunate enough to have access to a friend's coop farm share, I made some changes: I substituted two large chopped garlic curls for the garlic, I subbed three fresh tomatoes for one of the cans, I used about half a leftover bell pepper, and the basil was fresh--yum!

Hospital Food--it could kill you

First of all, I have no idea what's in our CSA share this week, as I'm on complete bedrest now. I think there is some bibb lettuce, some zucchini, more garlic curls, and potentially some lemon basil but I haven't seen for myself yet. I guess this week will be a big week of food surprises from my husband.

I spent 2 days in the hospital this week, and who would have thought that my awesome diet would be completely thwarted by hospital food. I mean, I understand that it's institutional food, but must it be so completely bad for you?  

While I was still laying in triage, heading into my fifth hour, I begged for some food, and the nurses brought me some snacks from the maternity snack fridge. A banana, some graham crackers, and a ginger ale. All but the banana were sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup, which I haven't had any of in months. Boy was that a shock to the system.

After they admitted me, most of the meals were mystery meat smothered in gravy, vegetables that had had the life cooked out of them, and desserts that undoubtedly were again made with HFCS. Even when I started requesting iced tea, what came was some kind of industrial blend of tea-like substance. Even the juices were sweetened with HFCS--as if fruit juice needs to be sweetened at all.

The most remarkable dinner that I had, and by remarkable I do not mean that in a good way, was the "chicken pot pie." I figured, ok, institutional food. TONS of frozen food companies make perfectly decent chicken pot pie. How bad could it be?

What came was what appeared to be semi-condensed cream of chicken soup with a biscuit thrown in the middle. It was mostly broth, about 4 small chunks of chicken, 5 peas, and 2 carrot slices. I kid you not. I had ordered spinach on the side as a choice that was not mashed potatoes, and it was, of course, cooked to death. 

It's a recipe for disaster. And constipation. If I'm going to eat this crap, I thought, I may as well let my husband bring me a whopper. 

I later remembered the advice a nurse had given to my dad when he was in the hospital ten years ago--always order the sandwich. Haha! It's apparently really hard to mess up a sandwich, and because of health regulations it has to be made much more freshly than, say, a "chicken pot pie." I'll keep this in mind when I am in the hospital next time (I'm not being pessimistic. This baby does in fact have to come out and I will be in the hospital for it!)

Meanwhile, some real food should be had tonight! Yesterday my husband had to go into work and he left me a cooler of food--veggies, fruit, yogurt, a yummy sandwich, and a pitcher of lemonade. Much better :)

CSA Week 3, plus some more CSA & Farm Recipes

Our share this week is lovely!

1 bag of basil

1 head of lettuce

1 napa cabbage

1 regular cabbage

2 zucchini (one big, one little)

more garlic curls

1 bunch of swiss chard

1/2 dozen eggs

So as it turns out, according to the newsletter, all this rain is playing havoc on the farms around here. Stuff that's already growing seems to be doing well, but stuff that is waiting in the greenhouses can't be planted. It's really sad.  But as it is, at least we know that we'll be getting more lettuce, greens, and garlic products for a while!

I'm glad we have basil this week. I want to get some tomatoes at the market (there is  place that has good hydroponic ones) so that we can have a fabulous salad of tomatoes, onions, and basil. YUM.

Meanwhile, we had some veggies from the previous 2 weeks to use! Since I am actually on bedrest now, I am not so much cooking as directing. Tonight, my awesome husband was going to make hamburgers and mashed potatoes. He suggested using garlic curls and onion tops in the potatoes, and I suggested adding kale, since we had it. Kale is one of those greens that just keeps growing and growing, and if you have a CSA share around here, you are sure to get a lot of it, so it's good to have some recipes! So here is my recipe for Mashed Potatoes with Greens

Mashed Potatoes with Greens

5 medium potatoes, cut up with skins on

1 bunch of kale, stripped of the hard stems and torn into smallish pieces

3-4 garlic curls, chopped

4 onion or scallion tops, chopped

2 T smart balance

1/4-1/3 cup milk

salt & pepper to taste

Boil potatoes, and at the same time steam the kale with garlic curls and onion tops. When the potatoes are done, remove everything from heat. Chop the kale mixture and mash the potatoes. Add the kale mix to the potatoes, add smart balance and milk (start with less and add more if needed), salt and pepper. Continue mashing until milk is mixed in well, and serve.

We made it without salt because my husband is all about salt but I am on bedrest with high blood pressure. I did end up adding a tiny bit of salt to mine, but it was very little. It was yummy.

For one final recipe, I leave you with the idea that I have to drink a LOT of water these days. Well, water can be boring. But I had some leftover mint from the cold cucumber soup, and so I decided to make Sekanjabin syrup. This is an old old old middle eastern recipe. You make the syrup and it stores for ages, not that it will last that long. Slightly diluted, it makes a fantastic salad dressing. Extra diluted, it makes water taste much more refreshing and  minty! Here's the recipe:

Sekanjabin

2 cups sugar

1 and 1/4 cup water

1/2 cup wine vinegar

handful of fresh mint

Bring sugar and water to a boil. When it comes to a boil, add vinegar and reduce heat. Simmer for 1/2 hour. Make sure you are simmering and not boiling or you will get sekanjabin candy! Add mint and cool. Remove mint and transfer to a container to store. It will store well unrefrigerated, but I like to keep mine cold. For a drink, use one part syrup to 10 parts water. 

Enjoy!

Time for: Cold Cucumber Soup!

This is definitively a Farmer's Market recipe!! Just about everything in the recipe was gotten from our CSA share or our local farmer's market! When Dill arrived in our share this week, this is what I thought of.

I have made this recipe before, but I changed it around this time, both to use more local ingredients and because my knowledge has changed somewhat since I first made the recipe. The original is here on my old web site. It is good but came out thin. Since then I have learned about greek style yogurt. The new version is below.

Note that I use Persian Cucumbers. This is because I can get them. If you can't find any, use kirby or any small cucumber with small seeds. I also used garlic curls (also known as scapes), because they are milder than garlic. But if you can't find any, 2 garlic cloves will work just as well)

Cold Cucumber Soup
3 cups Greek Style Yogurt (I get mine at Trader Joe's)
2 cups milk (I use 2%)
4 Persian Cucumbers
2 garlic curls, chopped very finely
2 T finely chopped fresh dill
1T finely chopped fresh mint
2T fresh lemon juice
1/2t salt
fresh ground pepper to taste

Leave the skins on the cucumbers. Finely grate two of the cucumbers, and finely slice the other two (cut the ones you are slicing lengthwise first and then finely slice them. If you are using Persian or kirby cucumbers there is no need to remove the seeds. If you are using a larger cucumber, peel and seed them first)

Whisk the milk into the yogurt until well blended. Add in the cucumbers, garlic curls, dill, mint, lemon, salt, and pepper. Stir well. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and serve ice cold.

Goodbye Strawberries, Hello Cherries and Blueberries!!

I was sitting with a quart of strawberries left from the Strawberry Madness, and my friend Ozma sent me this recipe from another blog. I gave it a whirl.

Part way through prepping, I noticed I had no milk!! But I did have sour cream. So I replaced milk with equal parts sour cream, and ended up with the most delicious muffins, maybe ever. WOW. I'm going to reprint the recipe here in case the other blog eventually goes away. Only with my changes :)

1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups chopped strawberries (I measured out 2 cups and then chopped them. I would use more next time)
3 tsps sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and mix well.
Sift flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Add flour mixture and milk alternately to butter mixture. Add vanilla. Gently stir in strawberries.
Spoon batter into greased muffin pans.
Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over muffins
Bake at 400º for 20-25 minutes.
Makes one dozen muffins.

I was kind of hoping for one more quart of strawberries this week, just to taper myself off, but we got to the market -- not late but not early either -- and there were none left. However, Mt. Olympus Berry Farm had Blueberries! And Glassock's had Cherries! I am in heaven. The first week of any new fruit I usually don't make recipes*, but just eat them fresh and new and YUMMY. Oh my gosh, I am so happy right now.

Enjoy berry season!

*That said, the husband and kiddo made blueberry pancakes today and how can I say no to that?

Eating Beets!

Short entry today. I had quite a long day and was supposed to show houses tonight, which would have left the husband and the boy eating fish sticks.

Instead, I made the fish sticks for all of us :)

Let's face it, I may have a toddler who will eat nearly everything, but it's not nice to challenge his taste buds every night. Sometimes, you just want fish sticks!

That said, when we have something as unhealthy as fish sticks, I like to have something really healthful on the side! Since our CSA Share contained sweet little beets, I decided to make my favorite beet dish ever!

Beets With Beet Greens

Buy beets that are small and still have their greens. Cut off the greens and stems and soak in water to remove the dirt. Meanwhile, spray a baking pan with cooking spray and add the beets, skins still on. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour, turning 1/2 way.

While the beets are cooking, swish around the greens and drain, then repeat to remove any extra dirt. During the last 10 minutes of cooking your beets, steam the greens.

Remove beets from the oven and run under cold water. You should be able to peel them quite easily--the skins just slip right off. Slice beets and add them to the steamed greens. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. YUM!

The kiddo doesn't eat greens at this point in his toddlerhood, but he ate the beets and exclaimed, "I LOVE BEETS!!" He probably ate more beets than fish sticks, which is really just amazing.

So enjoy beets while they are in season! And don't forget to eat the greens!

Making Collards Taste Great! Plus, a link

A friend of mine linked to this article about making your brown-bag lunches more appealing. Great ideas. 

Last night, we were supposed to go to a baseball game in DC. But we found out that traffic would be appalling in the aftermath of the shootings downtown, plus we assumed that the Metro would be awful due to people avoiding the traffic, and it was also supposed to rain. So we stayed home. 

Unfortunately, this meant that I did not have anything ready to cook for dinner, as most frozen meals need at least some thaw time before you can eat them. I quickly rummaged through what I had and found that the Firecracker Chicken Quesadillas could be cooked from frozen, so score! I also decided that it might be a nice chance to make up some collards since we got a bunch from our CSA.

Two Quesadillas, as expected, fed the three of us quite well, especially with the greens on the side. And everyone loved them. There was just nothing bad about them at all--a clear winner yet again from Dinner Zen.

As for the greens, my friend Liz had given me a recipe that I love. Actually, I completely left out the vinegar and they were still awesome, though I do recall them being better according to the original recipe. This does contain bacon, though you can replace with veggie bacon if you want, or turkey bacon, or, I suppose, Bacon Salt. 

1 bunch of collard greens, stripped of their hard stems, washed, and chopped coarsely

4 slices of cooked bacon

1 medium onion (I actually used spring onions with their tops because I had them)

1 T wine vinegar (red or white or raspberry or whatever you have)

2 T maple syrup

Spray bottom of a fairly large pot with cooking spray, and cook onions on medium until they are soft. Add greens and about 1/2 to 1 cup of water, and bacon. Cover tightly and cook on medium for about 1/2 hour.  Taste greens to make sure they are soft enough, if not continue cooking for another 10 minutes. Remove from pot, draining any remaining water. Stir in vinegar and maple syrup and serve.

The thing about collards is that they really need a long time to cook in order to taste really yummy. But you can slightly undercook them (as we have done here) and add some yum to them by adding in the syrup and vinegar. I think that, with the bacon and the vinegar and sugar mixed in, you get a really cool blend of different tastes that hit all of your taste buds. The greens are a bit bitter, plus you get sweet, sour, and salty too. They were a big hit. My son didn't eat them, but hey, they are new to him so we'll give him a few more tries. 

Oh and we're down to a quart and a half of strawberries. I forsee the 1/2 quart disappearing by the time we go to sleep tonight, and I double forsee a strawberry smoothie in my future.