This was, quite surprisingly, a hit in our house. With one of us (me) picky about meat, and another one low-carb, and another one with food "texture" issues, and another who would prefer to eat nothing but vanilla yogurt and icecream...  everyone ate this meal and liked it!  The trick was to season each element well and separately.  That way the kids could skip the "spicy" (by kid standards) gingery brown sauce and eat separately the noodles that could've stood on their own flavored with oil, garlic, and basil.

I've always had a soup fascination, and so I guess this is just the next logical permutation of that, but I was thinking:  I pretty much am permanently craving takeout chinese soup.  It's something I've never been able to replicate at home... so they must be using a stock base that I haven't tried out yet.  Lo and Behold:  The answer is pork.  PORK! 

I've started looking in a few new directions for inspiration. Admittedly, I know very little  about authentic Greek cooking but I'm glad I finally cracked open the book that's been sitting on my shelf, staring at me, for the last 10 years!  I'm learning plenty as I'm going though The Complete Book of Greek Cooking: The recipe club of saint paul's greek orthodox cathedral , but I think the biggest take away has been the joy of cooking for a crowd.  Filling a grocery cart with a TON of produce and using entire "family sized" packages of meat and fish has been fun and the leftovers have been amazing.

As with everything, I've modified certain parts of each original recipe to suit everyone's dietary needs and I'm beginning to see that it's  not only very easy to do this with Greek dishes, it's almost assumed that you're going to switch up ingredients to use what's on hand.  My kind of cooking! So, without further ado, here's my take on Greek Fish Plaki.

"Plaki" is a method of cooking that includes the use of onions, tomatoes, parsley, and olive oil and it usually uses fish or seafood as a protein. It is noted, however, that Plaki can also be made of beans or vegetables.

It's asparagus season and I wanted to really dig in to using a big amount of this ingredient.  This soup calls for 2 lbs of seasonally delicious asparagus and is pureed with creamy cashew milk.  The tips (the BEST PART) are left whole and serve to highlight the entire experience.  This is a really quick and relatively easy recipe that I was able to pull off on a weeknight.

This was a perfect addition along side grilled anything (burgers, hot dogs, ribs... anything picnic really) or it can go over a green salad.

Asian soups are great.  Lately I've been obsessed with creating super-flavorful/authentic-tasting bone broth based soups.  This will probably be the first in a series of similar soups I'll be trying out. This one was actually fairly quick and easy to make and went great with a side of brown rice.

So, I'm a little sad.  After getting used to the abundance of the end of the CSA season, the veggie/fruit selection around here has become a tad lackluster.  I'll be heading to the local cider mills and markets soon to see whether I can dig up some inspiration.

With that, I think that the last of the CSA produce and green tomatoes from the garden needs to be chronicled on this blog.  I made pickles and sauerkraut, of course. And they're fantastic.

I actually got this Kraut to self-brine!  For the first time ever!   I think it had to do with the addition of 2 whole (sliced and cored) apples.

It's apple time in Apple Country again.   So, we made our first trip of the season to our favorite Cider Mill. Our mill has actually partnered with a Hard Cider company, and we got to do a tasting of their latest combinations.  One of the combos was black cherry cider.  I loved it... and then I remembered that I had a TON of sour cherries left over in the freezer from earlier in the season.   I decided to make my own!   
These recipes are super-easy and don't call for any kind of finishing sugar.  They are dry, and tart, and delicious. My version of hard cider is very unlike a lot of the commercial stuff that's out there these days... which, in my opinion, tastes very much like my daughters' apple juice with carbonation and some alcohol in it. 

4 gallons of fresh pressed MacIntosh Apple cider.

2, 1 gallon batches of MacIntosh Sour Cherry cider.

Like I said.  These are so, SO easy to do.  All you need is cider, any fruit you want to enhance it with, cider yeast, carboys and airlocks.

Bring the cider to room temperature by letting it sit out on the counter for a few hours.  Dump it into a carboy.  Add any extra fruit you may want to add (each of these cherry gallons has about 1 cup of frozen (thawed) sour cherries in it).  Pitch 1 package of yeast per carboy.  Seal with an airlock and let ferment for 7-10 days at room temp.  Then remove any leftover fruit and bottle the cider in beer bottles or swingtop bottles.  Store at a cool temperature (I keep ours in the basement) for about 2 weeks and the result will be dry, carbonated apple-y goodness.  The longer you let it sit in the bottles, the dryer it will become.


Enjoy!!

They say that this Winter is looking like it's going to be a rough one.  So, while we're still here in Indian Summer, I thought I'd share some shots of the PLETHORA of sun-loving tomatoes that have graced our tabletop (and dehydrator, and blender, and sandwiches, and sauces aaand... you get the picture). This has definitely been our bumper crop this season!












The kids are finally both back in school.  That gives me a little more time to play.
Here's a recipe for a new pickle that I tried out.  It's a new personal favorite, combining the sweetness of grape tomatoes with a sparkling, crunchy explosion of flavor.  Oh, and it's probiotic!

Ok.  I've been slacking in writing about this stuff.  We've also been traveling a bit and it's been fantastic.

Full CSA Share Week 8

Full CSA Share Week 9

The last 2 weeks have been populated by peaches, plums, apples, melon, and blueberries.  All of which we ate raw and at once.   I actually supplemented our fruit supply with storebought fruit as well.   Just leave it on the table and it disappears.


We made raw salads out of the lettuce, and cucumbers and green beans during week 8.

The leeks (3) and red potatoes and onion were used in a version of Manhattan Clam Chowder.
I modified the recipe to contain Leeks, canned clams and juice (I KNOW!   it was a weeknight!) and 3 or 4 HUGE heirloom tomatoes (more about those in a moment).
 

I also made another batch of Borscht out of the beets and grilled up the japanese eggplants and broccoli.

So guys.  Here's the thing:  I'm finding that I'm happiest when I supplement my CSA share!  "Using it up" as a family of 4 has never once proven to be the challenge that I was hoping for.   Don't get me wrong.  I LOVE the idea behind a CSA membership and being surprised each week with a variety of produce, but it just isn't enough to keep me inspired.   I'll keep updating with photos of the CSA hauls for the rest of the season, but I'm thinking most of my inspiration will be coming from elsewhere...


And with that:  I was feeling uninspired.  Didn't want to cook the same old stuff.  Didn't want to write about it. 

Then Mom went on vacation and let me loose in her garden...  I came home with this:


HEIRLOOM TOMATO GLUT!!  And fresh herbs and carrots and onions and cucumbers and flowers.

THIS is what I'm talking about.

I immediately responded with a tomato/basil/cucumber salad with a simple balsamic vinaigrette.  It was amazing in a way that only fresh heirloom tomatoes can be:

 To go along with the clam chowder (or so I told myself, Actually this could be a meal unto itself) I made a Crostata out of heirloom tomatoes, fresh sage, parsley and basil, and fresh picked caramalized onions.

These ingredients were actually enough for 2 Crostata!

This week we got 2 pints of blueberries, 2 quarts of plums (purple and yellow), 1 quart of peaches, 3 cucumbers, 1 small head of lettuce, 1 bunch of beets, 1 large basil plant, and 1 bunch of radishes. 

We also got about 3 quarts of green beans and 3 LARGE cucumbers from our neighbor!  And even more cukes from my Mom's garden.

I'll start by saying that ALL of these cukes  have disappeared. Mark eats them whole as snacks and the kids like them sliced up. 

I also made a shredded radish/cucumber salad  (sub 2 cukes for 1 bunch radishes) with cucumber and the bunch of radishes.

The blueberries and ALL of the fruit were just set out on the table and have since disappeared.  The lettuce was quickly eaten as dinner salads.

The green beans were eaten raw (by the kids), and a bunch were stirfried with Tamari, Garlic, and a little sesame oil and served with baked tofu and brown rice.

The beet greens were made into a delicious Greens and Beans with Smoked Pork.  

I will be making the beet roots into this AMAZING recipe for pickled beets.  Alton Brown is one of my favorites and always knows what he's talking about!!

And the basil I pinched back some leaves and planted the rest of the plant in the garden next to our renegade tomatoes.  With any luck, by the time the tomatoes ripen, we'll have some extra basil to go with them. 

This week we actually went on a short (MUCH NEEDED) trip out of town.  We still didn't have any problem finishing up all of our fruit/veggie share for the week.  We'll be leaving for a long weekend at Grandma's house again in a couple of days, but I feel confident that next week will be equally easy for us to keep up with. 

I wrote about how we had gotten some beets with our CSA share last week.  Well, I cooked the greens a while back but the roots still remained.  I have a recipe for  Refrigerator Pickled Beets that I really LOVE which involves cooking the beets first and then pickling them in vinegar.

This time I decided to try getting a little probiotic goodness in there as well.

So!   I was presented with this lovely head of Nappa cabbage.  The only answer I could think of was Kimchi.  As a matter of fact, I couldn't help myself.  This particular cabbage was SCREAMING Kimchi!

I've made Kimchi in the past.  Both Classic Kimchi and Baek (White, or Vegan) Kimchi.   I personally LOVED the Vegan Kimchi.  It has a great light pickle flavor, and was super-fast to make.  I wasn't such a big fan of how the Classic Kimchi practically burned my face off when I tried it!  My husband, however, loved it.  Especially on hotdogs!

This time around I'm going for less heat, but the added classic flavors of chili, garlic, and fish sauce... along with the probiotic "pickle" tang that I love so much.

I also went ahead and substituted in easily-found (read, in my cupboard) ingredients along the way.  

This week is highlighted with the appearance of a HUGE nappa cabbage.  Perfect, I'll be making kimchi!  I plan to tweak the recipe I used last time so as to make it spicy, but not SUPER spicy like it was last time.

We pitted and froze the sour cherries, and the apricots and blueberries were eaten within the first day.

The swiss chard was combined with the beet greens from last week.  It was chopped, and sauted with bacon, onion, salt and pepper and made a great light dinner along with a crusty loaf a bread.

The we got 2 small zucchini and put them together with a couple more we had laying around and made a batch of Ur Oma's Zucchini Soup! 

The green beans were used in a 3 bean salad and the head of leaf lettuce was made into side salads during the week.

I see now that I wrote about my projects last week, but failed to explain what was in our CSA box.   Well, we got 1 bunch beets, 1 bunch radishes, 2 quarts sour cherries, 1 pint blueberries, 1 pint wax beans, 3 cucumbers, 3 small zucchini, and  a head of red leaf lettuce.

We'll start with the beets.  I separated the greens from the roots and will be making roasted pickled beets ala Alton Brown's recipe . I usually fiddle with recipes and make them my own, but this one is SO GOOD that you'll eat the whole jar in one sitting.  Trust me.

The beet greens were stored in the refrigerator and later chopped and sauteed along with chopped swiss chard, bacon, salt and pepper, and a sweet onion.  We ate this with a loaf of crusty bread and it was a perfect light dinner on a 90 degree day!



At this point, I actually had 2 bunches of radishes waiting to be eaten.  I did a separate post dedicated to this because I came up with a radish salad idea that takes the bite out of radishes. And I was PROUD of it!




The blueberries were eaten before the day was out.

The sour cherries were pitted and made into Blackcap/Sour cherry wine (it's still bubbling on the counter!).  

I made the wax beans plus about a quart of green beans from my Mom's garden into Dilly Beans!   I wait all year to make these!

The cucumbers were eaten whole by my husband and kids.

The lettuce was washed, chopped and kept in a bag in the refrigerator for easy green salad making.

AND the zucchini will be grilled tonight in oil and garlic to go alongside some BBQ chicken.

ENJOY!!