Sigh. Folks, check the expiration date on your frozen fruits and veggies. Otherwise you might make the most delicious cobbler topping you've made in a long, long while (maybe ever!), only to lovingly sprinkle it and bake it atop old, tasteless, rubbery blueberries.
Kokai Cobbler Topping
Put the following in the mixer and stir together:
1/2 cup AP flour
1/2 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup splenda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon (I used my extra fancy, extra delicious cinnamon)
Add 1/3 cup egg beaters and mix until crumby
Sprinkle on top of glass baking dish of fruit (fresh fruit. Or recently frozen. Not the fruit I used)
sprinkle another tsp of cinnamon and 2 tbsp of sugar on top
cut up tbsp butter into small pieces and spread around
dribble 1/4 cup water over the whole thing
bake at 400 for 30 minutes.
Enjoy. Unless, you know, you don't.
Bummer.
Kokai Cobbler Topping
Put the following in the mixer and stir together:
1/2 cup AP flour
1/2 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup splenda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon (I used my extra fancy, extra delicious cinnamon)
Add 1/3 cup egg beaters and mix until crumby
Sprinkle on top of glass baking dish of fruit (fresh fruit. Or recently frozen. Not the fruit I used)
sprinkle another tsp of cinnamon and 2 tbsp of sugar on top
cut up tbsp butter into small pieces and spread around
dribble 1/4 cup water over the whole thing
bake at 400 for 30 minutes.
Enjoy. Unless, you know, you don't.
Bummer.
Lord, I get so behind on these things. I think I should aim for one big blog post a week that includes all the info and not keep telling myself to write a post every day and then feel dumb for not getting there.
Here are your foodie updates. Or what my Mama brain can remember of them.
So far our garden has produced for us three little strawberries and three little cherry tomatoes. I think it's a funny coincidence that the garden keeps producing toddler sized veggies in threes. One for Mama, Dada, and Ollie to try together. Both of them were delicious, particularly the strawberries, reminding me how much MORE flavor strawberries are capable of having. It's like the first time I had a homegrown tomato, as opposed to those sad mealy ones you get up north, and I realized that tomatoes are in fact, delicious. I still hate the sad pale ones though, I don't bother. Like in restaurant salads. As a side note: why can't a restaurant produce a decent salad? Even at the really fancy places charging you twenty bucks for truffled mac and cheese, your salad never has peppers in it, or more than two cucumber slices, or substantial carrots. It just baffles me. How hard is it to make a salad?
Our basket of late is mostly greens. Lots and lots of greens, and mostly salad ones at that. That is part of the lack or reporting. We had a salad is not that exciting. We have had lots of salads. With the above items, peppers, carrots, radishes, etc. I've had fancy salad, with pear slices, candied nuts, and blue cheese dressing. Taco salads. Anything we can put on lettuce. We've also gotten leeks, which we used to make Cauliflower leek tart. This recipe comes from The Garden-Fresh Vegetable Cookbook by Andrea Chesman, which we bought at Half Price and has quickly become one of our favorite cook books for CSA basketing.
CAULIFLOWER LEEK TART
(makes 2 tarts)
1 head of cauliflower broken into pieces
olive oil
2 large leeks or 4 little leeks
1/2 tsp dried thyme or 1 tsp fresh
salt and pepper
unbaked pastry for tart
8 oz gruyere cheese
1. steam the cauliflower florets until tender
2. saute the leeks and thyme in a bit of olive oil, also until tender. Season with salt and pepper
3. place half the pastry on a baking sheet (it works well if you roll it out like you were making a pizza and put it on a pizza tray).
4. grate 4 oz of cheese or so onto pastry.
5. place half the cauliflower on top of the cheese.
6. Place half the leeks on top of the cauliflower
7. fold up sides of pastry dough and pinch until it is forming a bowl.
8. repeat with other half
PASTRY DOUGH
2 cups unbleached flour (I use pastry flour, though it calls for AP)
2/3 cup really good quality butter
1 tsp salt (I used shallot salt last time, that was tasty)
6-7 tbsp cold water
1. Cut the butter into small pieces and cut or mush into flour
2. Sprinkle 6 or so tbsp of water over and finish mushing
3. roll into a ball and refrigerate
4. when you roll it out you will need a fair bit more flour to keep it from sticking
This recipe is really excellent. Of course, it's butter and gruyere cheese with leeks and stuff. How could it not be? Eric isn't a cauliflower fan and this really won him over. The pastry dough is delicious, all crumbling and yummy. And I'm very picky about dough.
Tonight we made another Garden Fresh recipe (with a few changes) to use up our Broccoli Rabe, which despite it's name is a green leafy vegetable, and is not pronounced like rabe.
Broccoli Rabe Calzone
pizza dough
2 cups fat free cottage cheese
olive oil
4 cups chopped broccoli rabe
4 cloves garlic minced (we got green garlic in our basket, which is a bit different than the big white kind you get at the store, so adjust accordingly)
1 cup grated mozzerella
1/2 cup parmesean
1. saute rabe in olive oil until wilted. stir in garlic, cover, and let steam until tender. Then remove cover and saute until all the liquid is gone.
2. Drain the cottage cheese, add it, and the other cheeses to the rabe and mix. Add salt and pepper as needed.
3. Preheat oven to 350, divide dough into half (or thirds, or whatever), make into calzones.
4. bake for 30 to 40 minutes rotating as needed. Make yummy tomato sauce to go with it.
5. Eat.
Photos will come later, but right now I need to go check on the status of my blueberry cobbler.
Here are your foodie updates. Or what my Mama brain can remember of them.
So far our garden has produced for us three little strawberries and three little cherry tomatoes. I think it's a funny coincidence that the garden keeps producing toddler sized veggies in threes. One for Mama, Dada, and Ollie to try together. Both of them were delicious, particularly the strawberries, reminding me how much MORE flavor strawberries are capable of having. It's like the first time I had a homegrown tomato, as opposed to those sad mealy ones you get up north, and I realized that tomatoes are in fact, delicious. I still hate the sad pale ones though, I don't bother. Like in restaurant salads. As a side note: why can't a restaurant produce a decent salad? Even at the really fancy places charging you twenty bucks for truffled mac and cheese, your salad never has peppers in it, or more than two cucumber slices, or substantial carrots. It just baffles me. How hard is it to make a salad?
Our basket of late is mostly greens. Lots and lots of greens, and mostly salad ones at that. That is part of the lack or reporting. We had a salad is not that exciting. We have had lots of salads. With the above items, peppers, carrots, radishes, etc. I've had fancy salad, with pear slices, candied nuts, and blue cheese dressing. Taco salads. Anything we can put on lettuce. We've also gotten leeks, which we used to make Cauliflower leek tart. This recipe comes from The Garden-Fresh Vegetable Cookbook by Andrea Chesman, which we bought at Half Price and has quickly become one of our favorite cook books for CSA basketing.
CAULIFLOWER LEEK TART
(makes 2 tarts)
1 head of cauliflower broken into pieces
olive oil
2 large leeks or 4 little leeks
1/2 tsp dried thyme or 1 tsp fresh
salt and pepper
unbaked pastry for tart
8 oz gruyere cheese
1. steam the cauliflower florets until tender
2. saute the leeks and thyme in a bit of olive oil, also until tender. Season with salt and pepper
3. place half the pastry on a baking sheet (it works well if you roll it out like you were making a pizza and put it on a pizza tray).
4. grate 4 oz of cheese or so onto pastry.
5. place half the cauliflower on top of the cheese.
6. Place half the leeks on top of the cauliflower
7. fold up sides of pastry dough and pinch until it is forming a bowl.
8. repeat with other half
PASTRY DOUGH
2 cups unbleached flour (I use pastry flour, though it calls for AP)
2/3 cup really good quality butter
1 tsp salt (I used shallot salt last time, that was tasty)
6-7 tbsp cold water
1. Cut the butter into small pieces and cut or mush into flour
2. Sprinkle 6 or so tbsp of water over and finish mushing
3. roll into a ball and refrigerate
4. when you roll it out you will need a fair bit more flour to keep it from sticking
This recipe is really excellent. Of course, it's butter and gruyere cheese with leeks and stuff. How could it not be? Eric isn't a cauliflower fan and this really won him over. The pastry dough is delicious, all crumbling and yummy. And I'm very picky about dough.
Tonight we made another Garden Fresh recipe (with a few changes) to use up our Broccoli Rabe, which despite it's name is a green leafy vegetable, and is not pronounced like rabe.
Broccoli Rabe Calzone
pizza dough
2 cups fat free cottage cheese
olive oil
4 cups chopped broccoli rabe
4 cloves garlic minced (we got green garlic in our basket, which is a bit different than the big white kind you get at the store, so adjust accordingly)
1 cup grated mozzerella
1/2 cup parmesean
1. saute rabe in olive oil until wilted. stir in garlic, cover, and let steam until tender. Then remove cover and saute until all the liquid is gone.
2. Drain the cottage cheese, add it, and the other cheeses to the rabe and mix. Add salt and pepper as needed.
3. Preheat oven to 350, divide dough into half (or thirds, or whatever), make into calzones.
4. bake for 30 to 40 minutes rotating as needed. Make yummy tomato sauce to go with it.
5. Eat.
Photos will come later, but right now I need to go check on the status of my blueberry cobbler.
In the past if you would have told me the first thing we'd polish off was the collard greens, I would have laughed and laughed at you.
I would have sworn this recipe was on the last blog, because we've made it a bunch of times, but I couldn't find it. So I'll retype it here.
Stir Fried "Beef" and Mustard Greens (adapted from cooks.com)
1 bag morningstar farms steak strips
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 lb greens (mustard or collard, or any kind really)
2 tbsp finely chopped green onion (or just, you know, some onion)
2 cloves garlic slivered
1 cup veggie broth
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
2-3 cup cooked brown rice
1. Heat 1 tbsp oil, add seeds and wait until seeds pop, add greens and stirfry until they are tender, move to bowl
2. heat remaining oil, add steak strips, onion, and garlic, stir fry. Add to bowl with greens
3. in small bowl combine everything else (but rice), put in wok and cook until thickened. Add strips and greens back to wok and cook all until boiling.
4. Pour over rice.
This is a really quick, very little mess dinner and probably our favorite way to use up greens. As we thought we'd blogged about this before, there are no before pictures. Maybe next time.
Also on the menu for the week: lots of salads, cheese and spinach tart, turnip and carrot casserole, barbecue seitan, and curry with naan.
I would have sworn this recipe was on the last blog, because we've made it a bunch of times, but I couldn't find it. So I'll retype it here.
Stir Fried "Beef" and Mustard Greens (adapted from cooks.com)
1 bag morningstar farms steak strips
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 lb greens (mustard or collard, or any kind really)
2 tbsp finely chopped green onion (or just, you know, some onion)
2 cloves garlic slivered
1 cup veggie broth
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
2-3 cup cooked brown rice
1. Heat 1 tbsp oil, add seeds and wait until seeds pop, add greens and stirfry until they are tender, move to bowl
2. heat remaining oil, add steak strips, onion, and garlic, stir fry. Add to bowl with greens
3. in small bowl combine everything else (but rice), put in wok and cook until thickened. Add strips and greens back to wok and cook all until boiling.
4. Pour over rice.
This is a really quick, very little mess dinner and probably our favorite way to use up greens. As we thought we'd blogged about this before, there are no before pictures. Maybe next time.
Also on the menu for the week: lots of salads, cheese and spinach tart, turnip and carrot casserole, barbecue seitan, and curry with naan.
So this blog has been fairly dormant. I guess it flourishes when the garden does and when the CSA basket is arriving, and then I lose interest.
Anyway. Our first CSA basket is due to arrive tomorrow, so I thought I'd post our first update of the year. As you can see we did a little redesign. The template we used before was intended for Word Press and just never quite worked for me on Movable Type. The words came out different sizes and it was crowded. I like this better. The picture is the one strawberry we managed to successfully grow last year. Here's hoping this years garden is more successful.
This year we've built quite the elaborate garden. We're doing Square Foot Gardening with a lasagna gardening method we got from Renee's Roots blog in the Statesman.
I started some of the baby plants as seeds in our little greenhouse indoors, and some of them as seeds outdoors. We built five 4x4 garden beds, two with trellises, so in theory we should get a lot of veggies. It being us though, it seems not likely. So far we've planted beets, cauliflower, spinach, and asparagus seeds (or roots) that have come to nothing. The first three are out for the season now because it's getting too hot already.
We've also planted cucumbers, corn, cantelope, tomatoes, beans (pole and bush), peppers (cali wonder, carnival, poblano, and jalapeno), eggplant, broccoli, herbs, strawberries,carrots, onions (green, white, and yellow). These things we have not given up on yet. I had to plant the bean seeds twice though, as the first batch never made it out of seed form into seedlings. So far there are little green tomatoes on the tomato bushes, broccoli flowers on the broccoli plants, and strawberries waiting to turn red (if they don't get eaten first).
Which brings me to my challenges. First, I am at war with the roly polies. The damned things eat up seeds and plants like nobodies' business. I have tried various methods of killing them, yeast water traps, wet newspaper traps, coffee grounds (that one doesn't work at all), and drowning them by hand. I need to make a chili spray to try on them next. There are too many of them. I don't know why they just don't go eat the decaying plant matter in the compost heap, which is their preferred meal. Oh yes, we are also composting now, and I've got little sunflower seedlings coming up to disguise the compost heap soon.
So in tomorrow's CSA basket we are expecting spinach, lettuce mix, mache, green garlic, turnips, and collard greens. Of these things, only turnips are tricky, but I have a few new recipes to try with them I will let you know about.
To kick things off, I offer a recipe for "Bacon" Asparagus Pizza:
Saute asparagus pieces and halved cherry tomatoes in 5 "bacons" (equal parts olive oil and liquid smoke or vegetarian Worcestershire sauce with liquid smoke in it- 1 tsp per slice of bacon)
top pizza crust with this mixture, mozzarella cheese, some goat cheese, season with red pepper flakes and black pepper.
bake 15-20 minutes
It was delicious.
Anyway. Our first CSA basket is due to arrive tomorrow, so I thought I'd post our first update of the year. As you can see we did a little redesign. The template we used before was intended for Word Press and just never quite worked for me on Movable Type. The words came out different sizes and it was crowded. I like this better. The picture is the one strawberry we managed to successfully grow last year. Here's hoping this years garden is more successful.
This year we've built quite the elaborate garden. We're doing Square Foot Gardening with a lasagna gardening method we got from Renee's Roots blog in the Statesman.
I started some of the baby plants as seeds in our little greenhouse indoors, and some of them as seeds outdoors. We built five 4x4 garden beds, two with trellises, so in theory we should get a lot of veggies. It being us though, it seems not likely. So far we've planted beets, cauliflower, spinach, and asparagus seeds (or roots) that have come to nothing. The first three are out for the season now because it's getting too hot already.
We've also planted cucumbers, corn, cantelope, tomatoes, beans (pole and bush), peppers (cali wonder, carnival, poblano, and jalapeno), eggplant, broccoli, herbs, strawberries,carrots, onions (green, white, and yellow). These things we have not given up on yet. I had to plant the bean seeds twice though, as the first batch never made it out of seed form into seedlings. So far there are little green tomatoes on the tomato bushes, broccoli flowers on the broccoli plants, and strawberries waiting to turn red (if they don't get eaten first).
Which brings me to my challenges. First, I am at war with the roly polies. The damned things eat up seeds and plants like nobodies' business. I have tried various methods of killing them, yeast water traps, wet newspaper traps, coffee grounds (that one doesn't work at all), and drowning them by hand. I need to make a chili spray to try on them next. There are too many of them. I don't know why they just don't go eat the decaying plant matter in the compost heap, which is their preferred meal. Oh yes, we are also composting now, and I've got little sunflower seedlings coming up to disguise the compost heap soon.
So in tomorrow's CSA basket we are expecting spinach, lettuce mix, mache, green garlic, turnips, and collard greens. Of these things, only turnips are tricky, but I have a few new recipes to try with them I will let you know about.
To kick things off, I offer a recipe for "Bacon" Asparagus Pizza:
Saute asparagus pieces and halved cherry tomatoes in 5 "bacons" (equal parts olive oil and liquid smoke or vegetarian Worcestershire sauce with liquid smoke in it- 1 tsp per slice of bacon)top pizza crust with this mixture, mozzarella cheese, some goat cheese, season with red pepper flakes and black pepper.
bake 15-20 minutes
It was delicious.
