Zucchini Pancakes

Faced with several upcoming days of mostly dinners out, I needed to tackle our remaining veggies. These zucchini pancakes were awesome, but only used one of our large zucchini. Was hoping to use both of them, but when I'd shredded one, it was a huge pile. I mostly used Ina Garten's recipe, throwing in a little feta cheese that was hanging around. Though Ina didn't say to salt & drain the shredded zucchini, some other recipes did, so I tried that. The cast iron skillet was great for these (thanks again, mom!).

Served with a simple tomato-basil relish (with some olive oil & balsamic vinegar), and a variation on the chickpeas I made last week: sauteed with onion, garlic, smoked paprika, a little balsamic, and cilantro. Nice meatless meal!

Week 8: Corn!

I'd read something a couple weeks ago on One Straw's blog that a deluge of rain devastated their current corn crop. But I guess they found something to harvest! This week we got:

White corn, yellow squash, cucumber, small purple onions, tomatoes, zucchini, bell pepper, and lettuce.

rob made an egg dish for his Thursday night casserole dinner, which we actually enjoyed for breakfast on Friday since I got home at 2am. He used some squash, bell pepper & onion, plus mushrooms, bacon & cheddar. Yum! Amy snuck a piece before we got up and declared it nom:

For dinner tonight I thought I'd make a corn salad, and when I cut the kernals off the cobs they were so sweet and crunchy I decided to leave everything raw. I also used the cucumber, tomato & onion from our box. Added a minced jalepeno, cilantro, juice of half a lime, some olive oil, salt & pepper.

I decided that burgers needed to happen with this. Namely, bacon cheeseburgers with smoked paprika mayo!

Pasta with Peas & Bacon

I think there may still be a green pepper and a cucumber floating around in the fridge, but other than that I've now used all our veggies before the next round comes tomorrow!

Tonight I tackled the peas. We got a very small handful of regular (shell) peas (I hope we get more; they were really tasty), and I guess some variety of snow peas. We got these the previous week also and I hadn't used them. I've never been a big snow pea consumer, but these looked different from what I've seen. Anyway, I figured I'd just slice up both batches and use them in pasta.

Cooked 3 slices of diced bacon, then sauteed the snow peas for a few minutes in the drippings. Added minced garlic, hot pepper flakes, salt & pepper. Added the regular peas to the boiling pasta in the last minute of cooking. Drained that, then added a blob of cream cheese to the pan with some pasta water to thin. Tossed everything together and added the bacon bits, fresh basil, a little bit of feta and a splash of lime juice. Would have preferred to have some ricotta & parmesan instead of the cream cheese & feta, but what was on hand was still pretty darn good.

The snow peas turned out well. Hard to screw anything up when there's bacon involved!

Week 7: How to use your veggies in record time

As per the last post, I was away almost all of the past week at Falcon Ridge Folk Fest. Sharif and Joanna hung onto our share and I just picked it up tonight, 2 days before the next batch comes. Some good stuff, but I needed to use up as much as possible at once:

Potatoes, shallot, some purple spring onions, two different kinds of bell peppers, zucchini, and [not pictured] cucumbers plus two different kinds of peas.

I decided that some kind of roasted vegetable melange was probably the best way to go about it--despite the fact that I really shouldn't be using the oven in the dog days of summer. But I get to use the word melange!

So, first I put the potatoes and the candy-striped beet from last week in a big roasting pan with some olive oil...

...and roasted those at 425 for about 15 min. Then I chopped up the peppers, zucchini, shallot, & onions, and tossed with more olive oil, salt & pepper, red pepper flakes and some fresh rosemary:

Added those to the mix and roasted for another 20 minutes.

While that was cooking, I sauteed a can of chickpeas with some minced garlic and smoked paprika with more olive oil (there was sort of an obscene amount of olive oil involved in this dish):

And tossed that with the vegetables, finishing with a bunch of chopped basil from our garden and a bit of balsamic vinegar. Also added some feta cheese on the plate.

Wow, this was a win! Super easy too, just a bit of chopping--everything took about an hour. I also made a cucumber yogurt salad, adding the rest of those purple spring onions, some fresh mint and a splash of lime juice.

Unfortunately, rob did not get my message that food was made and came home from his open mic with a burger from Checkers. He missed out:

...but there's plenty for lunch tomorrow!

Off-topic: Falcon Ridge Folk Fest

I took a break from veggies last week to attend the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival with ilyAIMY, who got a slot in the Emerging Artist Showcase. I swear I'll tie this post in with food at the end, but...I sort of wanted to have a place to collect all the great music I discovered. Please check these folks out--some really wonderful stuff. In no particular order:

Here's two videos I took myself at the Thursday night "Lounge Stage," hosted by Pesky J. Nixon on the campgrounds. The first one is We're About 9 with Pesky & Anthony da Costa sitting in; the next is Pesky with the others sitting in:

I don't have any video of ilyAIMY's set at the main stage (yet...maybe it's out there), but on Saturday we were invited to play at the Lost & Found for the volunteers there, and someone grabbed this video. There was no amplification so I couldn't play my electric cello, but I did some harmony vocals:

The performer before us on the main stage was Bulat Gafarov, all the way from Moscow! Amazing and impossible to describe, so just watch the video:

One of my other favorite performers in the showcase was Brittany Ann, a young singer-songwriter from Philly (and though you can't really tell from this video, she bears a remarkable resemblance to my friend Karen!). Anthony da Costa was another great performer who frequently popped up in the Lounge crew and after-hours song circles. Really liked his stuff...and he's not old enough to legally drink! Gah!! Managed to find a video of Brittany performing with Anthony:

Back on the Main Stage, I really liked Brother Sun, a trio made up of Pat Wictor, Joe Jencks & Greg Greenway. Wonderful harmonies. One of the tunes they did was a doo-wop number about Fox News, which went over like gangbusters with the crowd:

Greg Brown is not someone I was really familiar with, and it took the first couple of numbers to catch my attention...but then I was entranced for the rest of the set. What an unreal bass voice and some fine writing. One of my favorite tunes was "Fat Boy Blues." There's actually a video of the festival performance up but the quality isn't great, so I picked this one instead:

Closing out the main stage Saturday night was Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams. With a name like that, I knew I was in for...something! They were playing Friday night in the dance tent while we were watching a quiet, folksy song swap with Red Horse on the main stage, and the music and crowd cheering was overpowering the main stage! So I was looking forward to seeing them, but unfortunately I couldn't stay for all of it as we had to head back to the campground for a rehearsal. This tune opened their set:

I heard that they used to be a punk band but got disillusioned with that scene, and then got in with some folky folks and realized they were much happier, so they revamped the band for that scene! Ha!

Possibly my favorite act of the whole festival was one of the last ones I caught, Saturday night at the Budgiedome (one of the after-hours campground things). Barnaby Bright was one of the emerging artists from last year and got to play the "Most Wanted Song Swap" on the main stage this year. I missed that performance, which I think was when rob and I were collapsed from the heat. This is one of the songs the duo played at the Budgiedome. They've got some other videos up with a full band which are also great, but the duo is really something special:

There were lots of others, but those were probably my favorite. OK, I've gotta tie this in with food, so...Pesky J Nixon and the folks from the Lounge went all-out with the camping food, and fed a whole bunch of people incredibly well multiple times a day. I don't know how they brought it all with them, but this was Saturday night dinner:

Beef tenderloin, smoked brisket, and some of the best grits I've ever had. Wow! Way to make the new guys feel at home. I just brought granola bars & Ritz Bitz with me...

Anyway, Falcon Ridge was an incredible experience, and we're contemplating going back next year even if we don't get invited in a performance capacity.

Chard & Sausage for Dinner & Breakfast

Finally getting around to using the chard from last week. First up was a pasta dish:

Browned some Italian sausage, added onion (also from last week), garlic, red bell pepper, some hot pepper flakes, and the chopped chard (including stems). Saved some of this mixture for tomorrow's breakfast. Then added a splash of half & half and tossed with linguine. Parmesan would have been nice but I didn't have any, so I used a little bit of sharp cheddar.

For breakfast the next day I used our red potatoes for home fries, with shallot, parsley, a little bit of rosemary from our garden, and smoked paprika. Also got to break in my new iron skillet (thanks Mom!):

Used the sausage-chard mixture to fill an omelet, and hel-LO Saturday breakfast!

New Things! And a rob casserole!

Week 6 brings lots of new veggies and zero leafy greens!

Green pepper, cucumber, zucchini, parsley, shallots, peas, beets and potatoes.

And since this incorporated onion from last week, it counts for the blog...rob made a casserole! I was presented with a cookbook for my birthday and instructions to pick out a recipe each week that rob will make for Thursday dinner. He's willing but trepidatious...but this was delicious! Ground beef, beans, onions, tomatoes & spices, with a corn muffin + corn + cheese topping:

Go rob!! Susan, you would be proud....