Summer Vegetable Chowder

This was supposed to be corn chowder because I'd been gifted a whole bunch of corn...but all but 2 of the ears were shriveled. Meh. Luckily I had plenty of other veggies on hand to fill it out (all CSA), including some cabbage and a lone pattypan squash that were almost ready to be tossed...almost.

Like any soup this is totally adaptable for what's on hand. Can easily be made vegetarian or vegan, or gluten free if you cut out the flour step (I really don't think that did much thickening anyway). 

- In a large pot, heat some oil or bacon fat and saute some chopped garlic (and onion if you have it; I didn't).

- Add a tablespoon of flour and cook briefly. Pour in a box of chicken or veggie broth (or you could use water) and mix/whisk well. 

- Add cubed potatoes, chopped cabbage and any other long-cooking veggies. If you're using fresh corn, add a couple of the corn cobs after you cut the kernels off. Cover & cook for 15 minutes or so, until potatoes are almost tender. Remove the corn cobs.

- Add quick-cooking vegetables. I used corn, chopped tomatillos, pattypan squash, green pepper and jalapeno pepper. Add more water if necessary & cook until tender.

- Add spices - I used chili powder - and taste for salt. Oh, I also added some turmeric as the color was looking a little blah.

- Optionally, puree some of the soup (if you do this, I don't think you need to bother with the flour step). I added a splash of half & half.

- Before serving, add fresh chopped tomato and chives or other herbs. Basil or cilantro would be great. Hot sauce? Probably. Garnish with bacon? Yes please.

Potato-Veggie Breakfast Hash

I have some variation of this at least once a week for breakfast (or brinner). There's always potatoes, but I'll mix in whatever veggies are on hand...baby spinach, bell peppers, etc. This one was all CSA stuff - red potatoes, zucchini & thinly sliced jalapenos. With the eggs, it's all one pan!

- Heat a frying pan (I use non-stick) on medium-high heat. Cube potatoes fairly small.
- Saute potatoes in olive oil or bacon fat (<--YUM) for...awhile, until browned. Let them sit for a few minutes on each side to cook properly. Season with salt & whatever seasonings you want (I use a garlic/onion blend and/or chili powder and/or smoked paprika).
- When potatoes are pretty much done, add whatever other veggies you want. If they are pretty quick-cooking, proceed to the next step:
- Lower the heat and crack a couple (or however many you want) eggs carefully over the mixture. Cover the pan and cook until the eggs are done to your liking. This always takes longer than I think, even for runny yolks - about 10 minutes. You could probably run it under the broiler to speed up the process...or just wait and drink some coffee. Watch carefully towards the end as there always seems to be a 30-second window where the eggs go from runny to hard. Runny is good.
- Slide (or dig) out of the pan, apply salt & perhaps some hot sauce to the eggs, and eat! I like some fancy black lava salt I got as a gift. And no hot sauce on this one as the jalapenos were plenty!

Tomatillo Cucumber What-Have-You

An exciting CSA haul today! Tomatillos, corn, jalapenos, onion, heirloom tomatoes...and we still had a bunch of cucumbers left. I was thinking...salsa? Gazpacho? Well, I don't have a blender, so this turned into more of a salad...I don't know, it's a what-have-you.

Here are the CSA players (plus a big heirloom tomato):

Everything got chopped small (garlic minced) - corn left raw 'cause it's so fresh. Raw tomatillos are pretty tart, but they get mellowed by the other stuff in the mix.

I added a can of black beans and a bunch of chopped cilantro. Then made a little bit of dressing from the juice of 1 lime, salt, chili powder and olive oil. 

Rob randomly bought some tostada shells and I was like "huh, what are you gonna do with that?" He didn't have a plan, but...ding! Threw some grated cheddar on a couple, warmed in the toaster oven and piled the what-have-you on top. Scooped out an avocado and dotted with some Meier Devil's Envy hot sauce (great folks we found at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival). 

No-cook and tasty! This would also probably be great if you roasted the corn, tomatillos & jalapenos, but no heat is good right now.

Red Cabbage Salad with Avocado

This week's CSA veggies included red/purple cabbage, cucumbers and carrots, which all went in this salad. I also found some romaine lettuce in the fridge that was at least a week old but was magically still good, so I threw that in. You could certainly add other veggies, and if I'd had green onions and cilantro they would have been great here.

Place in a large bowl:
- 1/2 a red cabbage, cored & shredded
- grated carrots
- cucumber, cubed or sliced
For the dressing, whisk together:
- dijon mustard
- lime juice
- honey/maple syrup (I have some fancy "ginger syrup" that I used)
- pomegranate molasses (you can leave out or use some balsamic vinegar)
- salt & pepper
- olive oil
Toss the vegetables with most of the dressing, then top with:
- 1 avocado, cubed
Optional but delicious:
- bacon
- crushed tortilla chips
Nuts would be good too. Put in all the things!
Drizzle with a little more dressing and dig in.

This was still good the next day but had lost some of the punch of the dressing. I used half the avocado the first time and the rest of it the next day.

Mixed Vegetable Coconut Curry

This is not authentic! Nor is it particularly stunning to look at! But it's easy and tasty. And it's vegan + gluten-free if that floats your boat. This used up our remaining CSA haul of 1/2 a cabbage, 1/2 a cauliflower, yellow squash, onion and potatoes. You can really use any vegetables, and play around with the spices. Start a pot of brown rice when you start cooking this and it'll be done at the same time.

- In a large pot, put some vegetable oil and some mustard seeds & cumin seeds (if you're only using ground spices, start with the next step). Turn on the heat to medium and wait for the seeds to start popping.

- Add some chopped onion & saute until soft. Add minced garlic, and after a minute, add ground spices. I used hot curry powder, garam masala, turmeric & ground ginger. Ending up adding ground cumin at the end, so probably add that too! If you have fresh ginger, use that.

- Add a couple cups of water (or veg. broth would be good), and whatever vegetables you're using. Will summer squash be done before cubed potatoes? Yeah. But I just threw it all in together. It's fine. Though if you're using leafy greens, add them later. 

- If needed, add more water to almost-cover (cabbage wilts down a lot, so keep that in mind) and simmer until vegetables are almost done. Taste for salt (if you used water & not broth, it will probably need a good amount). 

- Add 1 can of chickpeas (drained & rinsed) and 1 can of coconut milk and simmer a few minutes more. I thickened with a little cornstarch, but that probably wasn't necessary as it gets thicker when it sits.

- Before serving, add some lime juice and chopped cilantro. Hot sauce? Probably.

Less Fussy/Less Fatty Eggplant Parm

Heh - after I wrote this I realized I made pretty much the same thing back in 2012...

Today's CSA pickup included one ginormous eggplant that I had to cut in half to give to our share-sharers...so I figured I'd better use it up quick. Eggplant parmesan sounded good, but I have no patience for the fussy multi-step casserole versions where you have to salt it, fry it, layer it, bake it, etc. Came up with my own version that was fairly easy and hopefully not as fatty as traditional versions. Exact quantities? Meh! Ain't got time for that! This made two large servings with some extra sauce.

Tomato Sauce:

- In a pot, saute 2-3 cloves chopped garlic in olive oil briefly. Add one large can of whole tomatoes, mash up with a potato masher, and simmer while you prepare the eggplant. Add salt, pepper, hot pepper flakes to taste, maybe some sugar. Fresh basil at the end if you have it.

Eggplant:

- Preheat oven to 400. Coat a baking sheet with olive oil & stick it in the oven to heat up. I line mine with foil first.

- Slice eggplant about 1/2 inch thick. Beat 1 egg with a little water in a bowl. In another bowl, mix together some panko breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese and whatever seasonings you want. Dip the eggplant in the egg and then coat with crumbs. Lay on the baking sheet, drizzle with a little more oil & bake for about 25 mins. Broil if you want to really crisp up the top.

Now cook some pasta, toss with about 2/3 of the sauce and some shredded mozzarella or Italian blend cheese. I put the pasta in a small casserole dish, topped with eggplant, more sauce & more cheese and stuck it in the oven for a couple minutes. Or you could put it on a plate & nuke it briefly to melt the cheese.

Food Fails & Fridge Finds

Got home from a 10-day tour yesterday - we did make a stop at the grocery store at the end of our 6-hour drive, but only for eggs, bread and potatoes, as we were too brain-dead to intelligently shop for other things. This afternoon I assessed the contents of the fridge - which included the remains of last week's CSA veggies - and found Chioggia beets, summer squash, some mostly wilted/brown basil, and some old but still firm celery. The freezer revealed some frozen cod fillets I'd forgotten about. Though another trip to the store was definitely in order, I didn't feel like it, and figured I could wrangle some dinner from what was there.

However I definitely had some food fails for this meal. Don't know if it's because I haven't cooked for myself in almost two weeks, but...ugh. I decided to make potato salad first and started with some hard-boiled eggs. For some reason I thought I needed to look up how long to boil them for (yeah, that brain-dead thing). I turned to the usually-trusty app for Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything," which said to put them in water, then bring to a boil, then turn off and leave them in there for 9 minutes. Sounded about right. Nope - underdone, impossible to peel, not salvageable for other egg eating. However the potato salad turned out fine without eggs (standard mayo-mustard dressing with celery and some chives still hanging around in the garden).

I decided to roast the summer squash and beets in the oven, and though a little voice was saying to me "the beets are gonna take longer than the squash," I cut the beets small and the squash large, and tossed them all in together with oil/salt/pepper. Nope. Had to extricate the squash and put the beets in for another 10 minutes.

Our host in IL sent us home with a baggie of shelled pistachios, so I decided to make pistachio-crusted cod: pulverized the nuts with a rolling pin, combined with panko breadcrums, spices & olive oil (note...use more oil), spread a thin layer of dijon mustard on the fish and pressed the mixture onto it. Baked at 400 for about 20 minutes.

It all came out alright, but the brain was not firing on all cylinders. And I gotta go to the store again.