Fresh Fava Bean Dip (with Garlic Scapes)

Today we found ourselves with both some beautiful fava beans and some garlic scapes in our CSA share. Last year when we got fava beans, we grilled them, which was awesome! Ever since we started getting them, though, I’ve been wanting to turn them into a scrumptious dip. I wanted something easy, simple, and delicious, so I did a quick google search. I found Fresh Fava Bean Dip with Rosemary on the blog What Julia Ate. It was a super simple, guesstimating quantities type of recipe, which was just what I wanted. I scooped up a bit on a cracker to try, and it’s yummy. The fava flavor is very accommodating, so feel free to sub in another herb.

I’m saving it for tomorrow since we’d already begun cooking rice & beans for our meal, but I’m really looking forward to this divine dip.

Slow-Cooker Seitan Pot Roast

I don’t have the best picture of this because of low lighting, but it did come out pretty nice looking! Photo is of a vegetarian roast with a few slices taken out, surrounded by veggies.

I’ve been wanting to make Vegan Planet’s Slow-Cooker Seitan Pot Roast since the moment I heard about it, and that was ages ago. Over a year ago, for certain. It just sounds so delightful – pretty much, the part of Thanksgiving that’s been missing for me the past 15 or 17 odd years, namely, the turkey, but more importantly, the ridiculous sandwiches of turkey and cranberry sauce and whatever else you could cram between two pieces of lovely bread the next day.

Finally, finally, Bo and I took on this project. It really wasn’t hard to put together at all. In fact, the wheat gluten worked in quite magical ways, as one minute it was this powdery dry stuff, and the next, when you poured the liquid in and stirred maybe two or three times, it had become a solid-ish, bouncy sort of object. SCIENCE!

Anyway, I’ll be totally honest here. This seitan roast was not the seitan roast of my dreams. It came out pretty darn rubbery, and I can’t say whether we overmixed it in trying to get it to look sort of like a roast (or at least one contiguous blob) or if we left it in for too long or not long enough. Slow cookers are a little wonky as you’re never quite sure if yours is the same as the person’s who wrote the recipe, and times can vary quite a bit. There’s even a note to that effect in the recipe.

But hey. This blog is subtitled “recipes and experimentations,” right? I’ll give this another chance, and if that still doesn’t work out, I might try it in the alternate/oven method, especially since our veggies that roasted in the oven came out far superior to the ones in the slow cooker. But you know, we had a veg*n Thanksgiving roast, and we had leftover sandwiches (albeit rubbery ones) and that was pretty cool.

Note: Since we were roasting a whole tray of veggies separately, we did not put the full amount of veggies in.

Ingredients

1 yellow onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 pound carrots
1 pound small red-skinned potatoes, halved or quartered
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup vegetable stock
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
2 cups wheat gluten flour
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 1/2 cup water or vegetable stock, or more as needed
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup or tomato sauce

Directions

Note: You may need to adjust your cooking time according to the quirks of your own crockpot. The one I used for this recipe cooks fast — if I had used one of my other slow cookers, it would have taken nearly twice as long.

Arrange the onion, carrots, and potatoes in the bottom of a lightly oiled slow cooker. Season the vegetables to taste with salt and pepper and add the stock, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon each of the thyme and marjoram.

In a large bowl, combine the wheat gluten flour, onion powder, garlic powder, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon each of thyme and marjoram, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper. Add the water or stock, soy sauce, and ketchup. Mix well, adding a little more water if the mixture is too dry, then knead for 2 minutes until smooth. Shape the gluten to fit inside your cooker and place on top of the vegetables. (You can place it on top of a piece of aluminum foil or wrap it in cheesecloth, if desired, to keep its shape). Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on LOW for 4 to 6 hours (or longer, depending on your slow cooker – we did about six), or until the seitan and vegetables are cooked.

To serve, remove the vegetables and seitan from the slow cooker. Cut the seitan into slices and arrange them on a serving platter. Surround with the vegetables and spoon the cooking liquid over all or transfer the cooking liquid to a saucepan and thicken into a gravy.

Serves 4, more when you’re making Thanksgiving dinner with lots of sides!

Sage & Butternut Squash Lasagna

This recipe was born for two reasons, the first one being that I love butternut squash (any squash, really!). The other is that one person in my family isn’t supposed to eat a lot of tomatoes, so I was trying to make a delicious lasagna dish that was tomato-less. This dish is great for the holidays, and although it’s got some rich ingredients, it’s also got a healthy balance with whole wheat pasta and some veggies (which you can always add more of).

Make sure you use fresh sage in this one – it’s such an important ingredient that it really needs to shine.

Ingredients

1 box of whole wheat lasagna noodles, prepared according to package directions
1/2 large butternut squash, peeled and sliced into circles (use the top part only and save the bottom part where the seeds are for another recipe)
2-3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
2-3 cups of fresh spinach
1 .75oz package of sage, divided (if you’ve grown your own, grab a big handful)
1 32oz tub of ricotta (I used part skim)
up to 3/4 teaspoon of nutmeg, depending on your taste

For the white sauce:
1 1/2 cups of milk
2 tablespoons flour (I used whole wheat)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons of your sage, chopped
a few cloves of garlic, minced (optional)
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Begin by making the white sauce. In a small saucepan on medium heat, melt the butter. If you are using garlic, cook it briefly in the butter (2-3 minutes). Next, add the flour to the butter and whisk it together until smooth. Cook for about 3 minutes, stirring regularly. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly, making sure that the flour/butter mixture incorporates with the milk. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to low and simmer for 5 minutes or until the sauce is thick and creamy. Don’t forget to stir frequently. Add the sage and the parmesan cheese about 1-2 minutes before removing the sauce from the heat. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Mix the nutmeg into the ricotta cheese.

Assembly!

Now you should be ready to assemble. Spread a layer of white sauce or ricotta in the bottom of your lasagna pan. Drop the circles of butternut squash down in the pan side by side – you should be able to get at least nine in there depending on the size of your squash and the size of your pan. Layer the noodles, spinach, mozzarella cheese, remaining sage, butternut squash, white sauce, and ricotta until you run out or fill the pan. Be sure to save some mozzarella cheese for the very top to lock in some of the moisture.

Bake in a 400˚ oven for 40-60 minutes or until the slices of squash are soft. You may want to cover the pan with aluminum foil until the last 10-15 minutes to prevent it from over browning.

Annnd lasagna is not the prettiest thing to photograph, especially during dinner rush with the family, but here’s a picture of the finished product.

Garlic Rosemary Croutons

I’ve always thought that homemade croutons sounded so elegant and delicious, but I never attempted to make them. There must be some secret to making them so delicious and impressive, right?

No! They are SO easy!

Since we’re getting into the time of year where we’ll be eating a lot of fresh salads, since our Community Supported Agriculture share usually gives us a ton of leafy greens during June, (now that I know the secret that making croutons is super simple), I’ll be making a bunch of variations on these. I’ve finally been cajoled into tweeting, so if you want to follow me at @measuringspoons you’ll be able to keep up with what I’m up to, including quick little tips and variations on a crouton recipe. :)

What prompted me to finally try making croutons was having a ton of extra bread lying around. Charlie had to organize a BBQ for his job a week or so ago, and we ended up with a whole lot of extra hamburger and hot dog buns. I have some in the freezer, but one bag had been left out in anticipation of grilling, but then we’d had lots and lots of rain. Instead, a crockpot full of soup with some croutons was in order, so I served these over my Crockpot Creamy Corn Potato Soup. I have some left over for some giant salads this week, too.

Ingredients

4 hamburger buns (or other bread)
1 tablespoon dried rosemary, finely ground with a mortar and pestle
olive oil (use the spray if you’ve got it)
garlic powder
coarse salt
fresh ground pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350*F. Using a bread knife, cut the hamburger buns (or bread) into small chunks. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Arrange the bread chunks in a single layer on the baking sheet. Spray them lightly with olive oil. Use a spatula to flip the bread chunks over and spray the other side of them with oil, then sprinkle garlic powder (a little if you like a little, a lot if you like things really garlicky) and the rosemary evenly over the bread chunks. Season with salt and pepper.

Alternatively, if you don’t have the spray oil, you can just toss the bread chunks in a bowl with oil, then lay them on the sheet and apply the spices as directed.

Bake for about 12-17 minutes at 350*F. Because oven times vary, yours may need a little more or less time. The croutons are done when they are crispy and browned. Be sure to store in an airtight container.

Filipino Garlic Fried Rice

Fried rice is a great dish when you’re running low on food, you want to clean out the vegetable drawer, you’re broke, or you don’t want to do a lot of dishes. It’s not complicated and has pretty basic ingredients, but it’s really delicious. Tonight we had a little bit of the first and the last happening. We didn’t want to make anything super laborious, but we wanted a homecooked meal since we’ve been getting a lot of takeout due to Charlie’s hectic work schedule. I even got those green onions that I showed you that are growing in the garden.

Charlie tells me that his mom always used to make this when there was leftover rice in the fridge. It was often a meal made for breakfast, but sometimes for dinner. Tita* often made it after making something like pork chops, where there were lots of drippings left in the pan. This version is vegan, but if you feel like it, you can fry an overeasy egg and throw it on top, letting the yolk get all gooey in the dish. It can stand alone as a meal, as we had it tonight, or be served as a side dish.

This dish is a little healthier than your standard fried rice because we used brown rice and a TON of vegetables. When we make fried rice or stir fry, the vegetables to protein & starch ratio is pretty ridiculous. We probably had about 6-7 cups of veggies, a scant 3 cups of rice, and I don’t know what you’d call a package of tofu, 2 cups? Anyway, the important thing to note about this is that fried rice is like stir fry and stone soup. Almost any vegetable you have will do. I’ve written down what we used in what quantities so that you have an idea, but certainly, if you have 4 cups of broccoli and 2 cups of snow peas and no carrot and you have no idea what a kohlrabi is, just go with it. My advice on this matter is to try to cut everything to roughly the same size, unless you know that it cooks drastically differently, and to separate your vegetables into two bowls: Stuff That Cooks Slowly, and Stuff that Cooks Really Fast. It will be awesome, I promise.

*That’s what I call Charlie’s mom – it’s the Tagalog word for “aunt,” but it’s used as an affectionate term for female family friends or other ladies who are around your parents’ age.

Ingredients

5 (or more) garlic cloves, minced
1 small onion, chopped

Veggie Prep Bowl 1:
2-2 1/2 cups of broccoli, finely chopped (about 1 large floret)
1 1/2 cups of carrots finely chopped
1 medium kohlrabi, peeled and finely chopped

Veggie Prep Bowl 2:
1 cup of snow peas, cut in half
1/2 cup yellow squash or zucchini, chopped a little bigger than the other stuff since it’s softer (you could do more, but Charlie likes it less than I do)

Total Vegetables: about 6-7 cups, chopped into small pieces

2-4 cups cooled white or brown rice (day old rice is perfect for this)
1 block of extra firm tofu, drained, pressed, and cubed
a generous handful of green onions, snippped into pieces with scissors
soy sauce
salt & pepper to taste
garlic powder (optional)

Directions

Heat a large pan (nonstick is best) for a few minutes until it is hot, then add a few tablespoons of vegetable oil. Place the tofu cubes into the pan. Flip and stir frequently. Cook until the outside texture is crispy and brown. Remove the tofu from the pan and drain on a paper towel.

Drain some of the oil from the pan, leaving just a coating. Saute the garlic and the onion for 2-3 minutes or until the onion is soft. Add the broccoli, carrots, and kohlrabi. Do not add the squash and snow peas yet or they will get soggy. Cook for about 5 minutes or until tender, depending on the size of your pieces, stirring occasionally. Add the squash and snow peas, cooking for 2 minutes or until the snow peas are bright green and the squash is soft. Add the rice and cook for 2 minutes or until it is heated through. Add pepper and soy sauce to taste. If necessary, add salt and garlic powder to taste.

Garnish with the green onions.

Winter BBQ for the win!

So, if I haven’t made it obvious by now, my partner Charlie loves grilling. And when he got a fancy grill for his birthday last May, there was joking talk of shoveling the snow off the deck in the dead of winter and grilling even then.

Well, I didn’t underestimate that sentiment, but I don’t think anyone expected that it would be this much snow, since we’ve had a metric ton. But, he had a hankering for grilled food, and he had the day off for the Lunar New Year, so today, I was treated to a winter BBQ!

Here’s Charlie out on the deck.

(“Smile for the camera, Charlie!” gets us a thumbs up with an oven mitt in lieu of gloves.)

And just to give you an idea of how much snow is on the deck, this is the vantage point of the photographer (me!) from the sliding glass door, trying to keep the cat inside (who for some reason thinks he wants to go out – he doesn’t).

(Charlie ultimately decided to just wade through the snow in his boots instead of shoveling off the deck. It was that kind of day. If we have company for the next winter BBQ, we’ll probably clear it off.)

Anyway, while Charlie was outside in thirty degree weather, I was inside marinating tempeh. Because of some fun (and thankfully temporary) medication switches, I’m really trying to watch my sodium this week, so I decided to step in and make my own marinade. Charlie does an amazing job at this and is usually in charge, but is occasionally a bit more heavy handed with the soy sauce than I’d choose to be.

I pulled out my balsamic vinegar for most of the flavor, then brought in just a bit of soy sauce for balance. And, I was sure to measure so that I knew what I was getting in to (whereas our normal marinade making experiments are usually… “a little of this and a little of that”).

Ingredients

1 brick o’ tempeh (ok, an 8oz package), sliced into 4 “cutlets”
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
a squeeze of fresh lemon – perhaps a teaspoon
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 sprigs fresh rosemary

Directions

Mix the vinegar, soy sauce, oil, lemon, and garlic powder thoroughly in a shallow dish wide enough for all of the tempeh to lie flat in. Let the rosemary, however sad and leggy it may be from lack of adequate sunshine at this point, sit in the bowl for a few minutes to release some flavor. Get the tempeh good and soggy in the marinade, let sit in the fridge for five or ten minutes (or longer, but that’s all I had since the grill was already going) and then flip over, ensuring an even coating. Refrigerate for a few more minutes, then grill until warm through and the edges begin to blacken.

Black Bean Bonanza

In this recipe, you’ll get a night of black bean tacos, plus a night of delicious black bean burgers, all out of the same pot of beans!

Charlie and I have been trying to live more frugally and more healthily, and one of the things that means for us is trying to use less processed fake meats.

Why less processed fake meats?

• They’re more expensive than some proteins. Even at the most expensive store I can think of in the area, organic black beans are $1.99 for a pound, and there are places that you can get them for half of that, at least. The Gardein Crispy Tender Strips that I love so much are $3.99 for 9oz (and are much less filling).

• Fake meats are less sustainable than legumes since they’re more processed, so more fuel, electricity, etc, has to be used to produce them.

• Dried beans & legumes can often be purchased in bulk, which eliminates the need for wasteful packaging. If you’re cool like me & Charlie, you might even bring your own bulk and produce bags made out of old teeshirts.

• Fake meats may be healthier than real meats, but they’re definitely not whole foods, and we want to eat as healthy foods as we can.

Now, one of the problems that I face in terms of using dried beans is that a lot of them have to be soaked overnight, especially my favorite, black beans. (Soak overnight if you’re planning to slow cook in the morning. Soak all day if you’re planning to cook on the stove at night.) Between typical human forgetfulness and fibro fog+lyme brain, I almost never remember to do this. On Sunday, I even woke up early and said to Charlie, “Hey, I’m going to go soak the beans! I’ll cook them on the stovetop instead of the slow cooker, and we can eat them for dinner tonight!” I then promptly forgot for at least three hours.

After that fail and some googling, I learned that if you find yourself in this situation, you can boil the black beans for two minutes, then let them soak in the hot water for two hours instead of all day. I’d say that the cook time was a bit longer than usual, but it definitely worked out well.

Anyway, my plan for our Sunday night dinner was black bean tacos. We eat tacos fairly often, but usually with refried beans from a can. We made a big pot of black beans and used about a third of it for tacos. The next night, I made black bean burgers, which were pretty incredible. We still have four patties left to freeze. Charlie, though he is a tofu-loving meat eater, is not a big veggie burger fan, but he ate the whole thing. He said that it wasn’t quite a burger, but it was definitely a good sandwich.

I served the burgers with cheese and avocado on top, and with carrot sticks, orange slices, and kale chips. It was an easy meal that was really healthy. If you want to make things really easy on yourself, keep a few burger buns in the freezer along with your burgers so you’ll be ready to go.

Ingredients – Black Bean Mixture Base

2 cups dried black beans
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 large roma tomato, chopped
4 oz mushrooms, finely chopped
1/2 packet natural taco seasoning
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon cumin

Directions

In a medium to large pot of water, bring the black beans to a boil for two minutes, then let them soak for a minimum of two hours. (If you have the time, soak in cold water overnight as this retains more nutrients.)

At the end of the soaking time, drain off the water and replace with about 4 cups of water. Simmer on medium-low heat for about an hour, then add the onion, tomato, and mushrooms. Simmer for another 30 minutes or until the beans are soft enough to eat and the water has reduced. If you prefer your burgers to have a plainer taste or a different spice, you can remove a portion of black beans (probably 1/3) for tacos and leave the rest for burgers, but keep in mind that the seasoning amounts here are for the entire batch.

Use what you will for tacos. Store the extra black beans in a container in the fridge until the next night, when you’ll make the black bean burgers (unless you’re feeling super ambitious and want to do it immediately). When transferring the bean mixture to a container, use a slotted spoon so that any excess liquid does not transfer to the container.

Yield: Enough for tacos for two hungry people who really like tacos, and six large black bean burgers.

Ingredients – Homemade Black Bean Burgers

3 cups seasoned black bean mixture
1 large egg
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon dried cilantro (use 1 tablespoon fresh if possible)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
3/4 cup fresh or frozen corn

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375*F. Using a potato masher or a pastry blender, smash the black bean mixture in a medium bowl until it is the desired consistency (I prefer to leave some beans whole). Add the egg and mix well. Add breadcrumbs, cilantro, and parsley and stir, ensuring the they are evenly distributed. Finally, add the corn. Shape the mixture into patties (we got six large patties out of it) with your hands.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Fry briefly in a pan with olive oil until browned on both sides if desired.

To store in the freezer, place a sheet of wax paper in between the burgers so that they don’t stick together. To reheat from frozen, let sit on the counter for about 5 minutes (ok, this just happened because I was prepping other things last night). Bake at 375*F for 10 minutes on each side, then fry in a pan with a bit of olive oil until browned on both sides.

It didn’t occur to me at the time, but I bet adding some nutritional yeast (perhaps 2 tablespoons) would be a great addition when the breadcrumbs go in. Next batch, I’ll experiment!

Dahl with Spinach Rice

When I was growing up, we never ate Indian food. We actually hardly ever ate any regional foods except for Italian (part of my heritage) and Chinese takeout (when we were sick of pizza). I didn’t try sushi until high school, hadn’t had Korean food until college, and even many European specialties never crossed my plate until I traveled there.

One type of food I was really hesitant about was Indian food. I’d figured out at some point during my life that I don’t like what we traditionally think of when we say “curry,” and for a while, I was one of the folks that thought Indian food=curry, which is totally incorrect. The great thing about Indian food is that there’s often a ton of vegetarian options, so really, once I figured out what I liked, I was golden. (I just have to watch out for the super spicy stuff! I absolutely can’t do really spicy things – I think it has to do with sensory overload in relation to my fibromyalgia.)

My favorite Indian dish is dahl, which is a spiced (but not too spicy) lentil dish, usually served over rice. Sometimes it’s got some veggies like cauliflower or spinach in it, though it comes plain, too. Where we live, there aren’t many Indian restaurants, and the ones here are kind of pricey, so it’s a rare treat to be able to go out for Indian food. Funny enough, we’re actually kind of broke this month since we just bought a used car from a friend, so we turned to our bulk foods like lentils and rice instead of expensive fake meats. And then… our attempt at dahl was born.

Since I was busy baking cookies for a cookie contest, Charlie took the helm on this recipe. And, as usual when Charlie cooks, he estimates a bit more than I do (since he’s not used to writing down exact quantities for a blog, haha), so you might need to adjust these all a tiny bit to taste.

Ingredients: (Dahl)

sesame oil to coat pan
1/2 onion, chopped finely
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ginger, minced
4 cups vegetable stock
1 cup lentils, soaked in water for 45 minutes
1 1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon corriander
1 teaspoon tumeric
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cayanne
2 small tomatoes, chopped
2 tablespoons lime juice
dash cilantro
salt and black pepper to taste

Directions: (Dahl)

In a medium stock pot, saute the onion, ginger, and garlic in sesame oil until the onions are translucent. Add tomatoes and cook for one minute. While stirring, add the stock and lentils. Add the spices, including the salt and pepper. Cook covered for 20 minutes. Cook uncovered until it reaches desired consistency (we like it less runny). Stir in lime juice. Serve over over spinach rice and/or with naan.

Ingredients: Spinach Rice

4 cups of cooked white or basmati rice
1/2 onion, chopped finely
4 cloves of garlic, microplaned to create a paste
1 tablespoon ginger, microplaned to create a paste
2 tablespoons lemon
2 cups of spinach, finely chiffonaded
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground corriander seed
salt to taste

Directions: (Spinach Rice)

Saute the onion in a bit of oil in a large pan. When the onion is translucent, add the garlic and ginger pastes and cook very briefly. Add the spinach, lemon, cumin, and corriander seed, and cook for about a minute. Add the rice and stir. Salt to taste.

Herbed Garlic Squash Fries

The credit for the concept of squash fries totally goes to my beautiful friend Clara, who is very clever in the kitchen and also good at the “use up what’s left from the CSA” game. She mentioned the idea in a facebook status, and since Charlie is not the biggest fan of squash (but I am), and we both like oven fries, and since we have a ton of squash from our CSA, it had to be done.

Clara gave me some basic directions, but I promptly forgot them and may have even deleted them. I did not go on an internet hunt for them. Instead, I ran with Clara’s concept and made up my own lovely little side dish. I had a delicata squash that looked like it would be a perfect size for Charlie and I to share. Since I love thyme and squash together, I went out to the back deck, in my slippers, in the cold, in the dark, with my pair of kitchen scissors, and stabbed at my herb garden, hoping that some of the thyme was still alive. Some of it was… but not a lot. Thyme is a pain in the ass to deal with when all of it is in good condition, so when some of it is sad, it is a frustrating time indeed.

The next roadblock was the cheese. My dream of these fries included them being crusty with garlic and parmesan cheese, but when I looked in the fridge, the familiar canister was not in its home. I then remembered the wonderful spinach fettucini with homemade alfredo, served with a breadcrumb stuffed portabella mushroom that Charlie had made for me the other night. It was awesome. What was not awesome was that he forgot to tell me that we were out of both parmesan cheese and parchment paper. (I can easily forgive him after a dinner like the one I just described.)

Time to go to Plan B. I really wanted that coated, crispy brown edge that the cheese would have given. I looked in the cabinets. Nutritional yeast to the rescue! If you’ve never used nutritional yeast before, you can get it in the bulk section of most natural foods stores, or in a shaky container just like parmesan cheese! It’s actually a great vegan substitute for parmesan cheese, so I liberally sprinkled that into my mix instead. Most nutritional yeast is also fortified with Vitamin B12, which is difficult for veg*ns to get enough of, so sprinkle some on your garlic bread and mix it in your mac & cheese. Or… make these fries! We served this meal with Milo’s Kale Chips (currently in season in the tri-state area!) and Gardein Veg*n “Chicken” Tenders.

P.S. I’m still looking for awesome apple suggestions! What would you do with a half bushel of apples?

Ingredients

1 medium delicata squash (butternut or other similar variety would be fine, too)
extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (or parmesan cheese)
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
3-5 cloves garlic, minced
coarse salt to taste

Directions

Peel the squash, cut lengthwise, and remove all the seeds and stringy bits. Slice into small strips. Try to cut them evenly so they’ll cook evenly.

Dump the squash into an appropriately sized bowl. Add just enough olive oil to coat them. Toss them with your preferred utensil to make sure they’re evenly coated. Add the garlic and thyme and toss again. Add nutritional yeast and mix it up a bit more to ensure that the nutritional yeast evenly coats the pieces.

Spread the fries in a single layer on a nonstick baking sheet coated with a quick spray of oil, or, if your partner didn’t use up the rest of the parchment paper without telling you, you could use that if it’s more convenient.

Bake at 400*F for 20 minutes or until the fries are soft in the middle and browning on the outside. Don’t forget to give them a good shuffle once in a while when they’re in there. If you feel like it, put them on broil for about two minutes at the end to get them a bit more crispy.

Lentil Leftovers Hand Pies

Usually I try to post things that are my own brilliant ideas, creative creations, or invented recipes, but this week, I saw something someone else had made and I just had to make it and share it with everyone.

First, a confession: I am the worst person at making the most ridiculous, giant pots of soup on the planet. They come out delicious and wonderful, but… in obscene quantities. I put on some stock simmering, then chop up some of this vegetable, then decide that some of that vegetable could go in, then, OOH, I didn’t realize we had some of this left! and so on and so forth. And then the beans and the grains expand more than you thought they would, you have to transfer to a bigger pot, et cetera, et cetera. Even when I try to make a small batch of soup, we have leftovers for days.

And that’s what happened this week. It had been raining for days and the forecast said more rain. It was cold in our house. So I made a thick lentil stew with veggies from the farm share. (This is your recipe, if you’re wanting one…) An onion. Some garlic. A potato. A couple of carrots. Some miscellaneous greens (beet greens and something else that I’ve never been able to identify but tastes mildly cabbagey). Some barley. A giant, ripe heirloom tomato. Most of a cup of lentils. I threw it together with some bullion cubes and a few bay leaves, some parsley and thyme from the garden, and let it all cook down for a long while.

The soup was great, and incredibly filling, which is why there was way too much soup. Another contributing factor was that Charlie stopped by our favorite local bakery to pick up some hearty marbled rye bread to go with it. So, in our fridge there was a big container of leftovers.

And that day, The Cast-Iron Darling posted a recipe for Chili Hand Pies made with leftover chili.

Brilliant! Perfect! It’s a rare treat to find empanadas that are vegetarian, let alone hand pies. I thought about mixing in some cumin and making the lentils more like a taco filling, and I thought about putting some cheese in there, but in the end, I just left them alone. I made a pie crust from scratch using (you guessed it) Charlie’s Consistent Win Pie Crust, except I used half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. I would have tried out The Cast Iron Darling’s recipe, but it required eggs and we had zero, which is also why there is no eggwash on my hand pie.

I got about six out of Charlie’s recipe, though I still have lentil stew left and am thinking of making another round.

Charlie and I had them for dinner one night, and I also had one for a snack after I’d frozen them. I put it in the microwave for two minutes and it came out perfectly. The crust stayed crusty and everything.

Thanks, Cast-Iron Darling, for this awesome idea!

Slow Cooker Heirloom Tomato Sauce

No, I still haven’t learned how to can.

Yes, I am seriously considering buying stuff to can with, especially since I love apple picking and Charlie can’t really eat raw apples, which leaves us with dozens and dozens of apples for hahas.

But, that has not stopped me from making tomato sauce! Two or three times now, actually. It’s even more worth it since we have a slow cooker that does the majority of the work for me.

You see, we’ve been getting a ton of tomatoes in our farm share nearly every week. Sometimes they’re in beautiful condition, and sometimes they’re a bit soft. We’ve been averaging at least two pounds a week, and sometimes we’ve been getting as many as four pounds a week, and that is a lot of tomatoes for two people to go through. Seeing as the strongest cultural background that I have is Italian (I have other roots, too, but none of those relatives are really around or celebrate their backgrounds), I figured that I should really learn to make an awesome tomato sauce.

This tomato sauce is pretty awesome.

Starting with really flavorful tomatoes is key. The heirloom tomatoes we’ve been getting from the farm are beautiful, in all different colors – yellow, orange, green zebra, deep reds. All of them have deep flavors. If you don’t want to go through the trouble, you can start with tomatoes from a can, but whatever you do, don’t pick sad, pale tomatoes from the store. Pick ones that are vibrant, like romas or on-the-vine tomatoes.

Now, the part that’s the biggest pain in the ass is peeling the tomatoes. Most of you probably know the trick of boiling a pot of water, dunking the tomatoes in for about a minute, and then fishing them out. The skins come right off after that. It works even better if you slice an X into the bottom before you stick them in the pot.

If you’ve got a decent food processor or immersion blender, though, and you’re low on spoons, time, or energy, you can make a more rustic sauce by just throwing the tomatoes in with the skins on. Yeah, skins, seeds, whatever. I had Bo’s immersion blender that he forgot at my house and decided to go for it, and it turned out just as awesome. Make sure you wash the tomatoes first if you’re going to go this route, cut out the stem, and this would be a good time to choose organic, since you’ll be eating the skin (tomatoes are a good time to choose organic, anyway, since the skin is so thin that the chemicals are said to leech through, as opposed to something like an orange or a banana that has a tougher skin that we usually don’t eat).

Here’s what my tomatoes looked like one of the times that I decided to peel them…

Ingredients

3-4 pounds fresh heirloom tomatoes, chopped (skins removed/seeded if you’d like)
1 stalk celery, minced
1 whole onion, finely chopped
4 mushrooms, chopped
1/2 small pepper, finely chopped
3 large cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh basil
3 tablespoons fresh oregano
1/4 cup fresh parsley
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
black pepper
1 tablespoon earth balance (you can use butter, too)
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup wine
1/2 can of organic tomato paste (optional)

Directions

As always, slow cookers have vastly different times, so take this with a grain of salt and do what you think will be best for your slow cooker. Usually when I try a new slow cooker recipe, I stay at home for the first time making it, and then I’ll “set it and forget it” for future excursions.

Sautee the garlic in a pan in a bit of oil on medium heat for about one minute. Add the onions and cook for 2-3 minutes or until translucent. Remove from heat.

Dump the tomatoes, celery, onions, garlic, mushrooms, pepper, olive oil, wine, and bay leaves into the slow cooker. Wait until later on to decide if you want the tomato paste.

Cook on low for about 6 hours. If your sauce is looking pretty soupy (mine usually does), remove the lid and cook on high for about an hour, stirring occasionally.

I keep telling myself that I’m going to put in some tomato paste, and I have a can stashed in the cupboard, but the tomatoes have been so flavorful and rich that I haven’t had to. If yours come out a bit bland, though, it’s a good way to give it a bit of a concentrated punch.

Once it’s cooked down, you can salt and pepper to taste, add the tomato paste if you need it, toss that little pat of butter or earth balance in, and add in all your fresh herbs. You can let it simmer for a bit longer, but not too long, as you don’t want to degrade the herbs too much. Use it immediately, freeze it, or put it in a jar in the fridge and use it in a couple of days.

Refrigerator Half-Sour Pickles

I love pickles.

When we go to the farmers market, I’ll let the pushy pickle seller feed me sample after sample, and though sometimes I’ll put my foot down, I often allow him to send me home with a few more than I really need for my upcoming BBQ. When we go to the Renaissance Faire, my day is not complete until I have accosted a Pickle Pirate and grabbed a giant pickle, bare fisted, to chomp away at as innuendos swarm around. (If you’re heading up there for the final weekend, this weekend, or find yourself at one of the other faires across the country, I strongly recommend having a pickle in one hand and some popcorn in the other… the combination is wonderful.)

Making my own pickles has been on my mind for several months, if not a year, so when my friend recently posted on her Facebook status that she’d made pickles, I turned green with pickle envy. I think the idea of making my own pickles began last year when our farm share started sending home ridiculous amounts of dill, and occasionally some little ol’ kirby pickles, though it rarely occurred on the same week. When I saw my friend’s status about it, I commented that I was jealous, and she told me that it was so easy! I swore then and there that the next time we got dill or kirby cucumbers either in our CSA, or ran into them at the farmers market, I would make some darn pickles!

Now, mind you, I still haven’t learned how to can. I know, I know. It’s on my to-do list. I don’t have the equipment right now. But, fear not! You can make refrigerator pickles, with no canning required, and they’ll be ready to eat in as few as three days. Since my favorite kind of pickles are half-sour (boy, was I mad the year that the Renaissance Faire only had dill pickles…), I made half-sour, and since I’ve never attempted anything like this before, I decided to do myself a favor and actually mostly follow someone else’s recipe. Y’all know how I like to make up my own recipes, but I figured that this was not the time for that. Tommy J seemed to have a pretty flavorful recipe, so I went with that, give or take.

The pickles were pretty awesome! They were a mite salty, but I also opened a jar that I’d cut into spears, so it really gave the salt an opportunity to soak in. I think next time, I’ll either reduce the salt a bit, or leave them whole (they just didn’t want to fit in the jar that way, fat cucumbers that they were!).

Ingredients (for two quarts of pickles)

1/2 tsp. whole coriander seeds, plus a few more
a bit less than 1/2 tsp. brown mustard seeds
1/2 tsp. black pepper corns, plus a few more
1/2 teaspoon dill seeds
a few pieces of fresh dill
2 or 3 pieces broken dried bay leaf, plus two whole ones
5-6 cloves garlic, minced (I used two giant ones and two little ones)
1/2 cup salt
8 cups water, +/- (I say +/- because this is what the recipe called for, but I had LOTS extra)
8-9 kirby cucumbers
two clean quart jars, lids, and rings

Directions

As Tommy J says, this is a cold pack version of pickles, meaning, there isn’t any boiling or sterilizing involved… so make sure your jars are clean and you scrub down your pickles well before you start, and you don’t do any gross cross contamination during your process! When your pickles are done processing, the liquid should be fairly clear. If it’s really murky or cloudy… well, you might not want to eat those.

So, dissolve the salt in the water. Grind up most of the dry ingredients using a mortar and pestle, but leave a couple of whole seeds of each, just so your jar looks pretty. Wash the cucumbers (no, really) and put them in the jar. Put the garlic in, then the dried spices, and then pour the saltwater on top. Stuff a piece or two of dill in there, and dump in whatever whole seeds and bay leaf you have left. Make sure that the cucumbers are all the way covered by the saltwater.

Pop them in the fridge and wait a few days… it’s really that easy!

Vegetarian Filipino Tempeh Adobo

One of the dishes that is fundamental to Filipino cooking is a dish called adobo. It varies depending on the chef, and on what’s in the house, but it generally consists of some kind of meat, soy sauce, onions, vinegar, bay leaf, and a potato “if you’re poor and don’t have much meat,” Charlie explains. I think the potatoes drenched in the salty, vinegary sauce are crucial to the delicious factor, so they are going in our version no matter what! The meat used is generally chicken or pork, or sometimes both used at the same time, and it’s served over rice. When we searched for vegetarian versions, we found an eggplant adobo, but I was looking for something closer to the real thing, so we planned a tempeh version. We were a bit concerned about the tempeh breaking down in the liquidy sauce, so we fried it first to help solidify it.

As with any time Charlie is supplying the recipe for me, it’s a little less specific than when I do things. He does say, for this recipe, that “the amount of ‘soup’ you put in depends on your preference,” so it’s really more of a ratio than a measurement.

Ingredients

1 block of tempeh
1 medium onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
2 large potatoes, peeled and chopped
3 cups of water
1/2 a bullion cube
60%/40% vinegar to soy sauce ratio – in this case, probably about 6 tablespoons vinegar, 4 tablespoons soy sauce, but that’s from my glancing at what he was doing not any actual measuring!
2 teaspoons oyster sauce (yes, they make a vegetarian version)
1-2 bay leaves
black pepper to taste (Charlie’s taste is about 2 teaspoons)

Directions

Cut the tempeh into six pieces and fry until golden brown on both sides.

Fry the onion and garlic in a large stock pot until the onion is translucent. Pour the water, soy sauce, vinegar, and oyster sauce on top and stir. Add the bullion and the bay leaf. Add the potatoes. Season with the black pepper. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and let simmer for at least 30 minutes. Add the tempeh somewhere along the way, depending on how soft you want it – make sure it gets at least 10-15 minutes in there so it can soak up the juices. We put it in for the whole time and it was only a little crumbly.

Serve over rice. Lots of rice.

Stuffed Shells with Mushrooms & Spinach

I’ve never made stuffed shells before. I make a killer Vegetarian Lasagna of Doom, but I have never attempted stuffed shells before. These were pretty awesome.

I recently started ordering my groceries online because some days, I just don’t have the spoons to go to the store, and when several of those days happen in a row, we end up eating, say, a lot of peanut butter sandwiches. Being the frugal shopper that I am, I begin my meal planning by perusing the “specials” section, and last week, both ricotta and jumbo shells were on sale.

Well! That was simply an invitation to create a dish that I have loved in restaurants but never made at home. I bought the ingredients about 10 days ago but hadn’t had the energy until last night to make the meal. Yesterday, I ran around on sleep deprivation and did all kinds of crazy things like ran errands, replanted my seeds, and made this delicious meal.

Since we’re big on having a spare meal in the freezer, I made this in pie tins (I made three, but probably could have stretched it to four with the quantities that I’ve adjusted a bit below… the ratios didn’t come out quite right! I had a few extra shells and such). We ate one pie tin, and the others were wrapped in heavy foil before baking and put in the freezer for another day.

Here’s a tip if you’re going to do freezer meals: Use a lot of sauce! There’s nothing worse than pasta that gets all hard when reheated because it didn’t have enough sauce on it. (This is also the key to a great lasagna!)

Ingredients

8 oz of mushrooms, chopped into small pieces
two huge handfuls baby spinach
15 oz ricotta cheese
1/4 cup red wine
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons (ish?) extra virgin olive oil
freshly ground black pepper to taste
a few good shakes of parmesan & romano cheeses
8 oz shredded mozzarella
1 large jar of tomato sauce
1 box jumbo shells

Directions

Cook jumbo shells according to package directions (but watch it – they always say to overcook that stuff!). Drain and run under cold water to cool. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Saute garlic for about 2 minutes in the olive oil. Add mushrooms and red wine and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Do not overcook the mushrooms. Let cool slightly.

In a medium bowl, combine the mushrooms mixture with the ricotta. Add the parmesan cheese and about 1/4 of the mozzarella cheese. Add some fresh ground pepper.

Put a thin layer of sauce in each pie tin (or whatever pan you happen to be using).

Fill each shell with a rounded spoonful and put the open side down into the pan. I tried to close them up a bit before putting them down to avoid leakage. Assemble the shells closely, but not too crowded, in the pan. Spoon sauce over each shell and around the edges, making sure that all of the pasta is covered. Sprinkle with more mozzarella cheese.

Bake at 400 degrees F for about 12 minutes (fresh) or until the cheese is melty and the shells are warmed through (stick yo’ finger in there!). If reheating from frozen, let it defrost on the counter for about 20 minutes (I’m guessing, I’ll update when I do this) and it will take a bit longer in the oven.

Serve with a green salad and garlic bread if desired.

Lactose Overdose: Spinach Cheddar Muffins

Now, sometimes, frequently, even, I do vegan cooking. When I go to an event, I like to make sure that I bring at least one vegan thing because there have certainly been times when I have arrived places and there was nothing for me to eat but perhaps salad and bread.

When we’re cooking at home, though, just me and my flexitarian partner, we eat a variety of things. Sometimes it’s vegan, like a stirfry with tempeh, or rice and beans. Sometimes it’s vegetarian, like an eggplant parm. And sometimes, I make a meal and he’ll throw some meat in with his part of it.

Last night was one of our vegetarian meals, and you’d be hard pressed to convert this one to be vegan. It’s a dinner night I like to call Lactose Overdose. It started with a big pot of Cream of Broccoli Soup and ended with spinach cheddar muffins. We’ve had the exact same meal at least three times since it’s conception a year or so ago, so it’s definitely a delicious combination. The spinach cheddar muffins are also a tasty bit to bring to a bake sale or a potluck or anything else if you’re really a baker, not a cook, but wanted to bring something savory.

Edit: Recipe updated 12/14/10!

Ingredients

1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 egg
1 cup milk (I used 2% this time, but I usually use 1%)
3 cups shredded fresh spinach, stems removed (this time I just dumped in baby spinach as-is)
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (I used extra sharp. I imagine that other cheeses, or a blend, would be ridiculously good)
About 1 tablespoon miscellaneous Italian herbs
Several shakes of garlic powder (let’s call it 1-2 teaspoons)
parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 12 cup muffin cups.

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a mixing bowl.

Stir the melted butter, egg, and milk together in a large mixing bowl until evenly blended. Slowly stir in the flour mixture to form a batter. Make sure the mixture is liquidy enough, or the muffins will be very dense.

(I’m going to be totally honest, last night I was in a hurry and I just dumped in all the ingredients before this point in the stand mixer and put it on stir, and they came out just fine!)

Fold in the cheddar cheese, then the spinach. Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full. Top with parmesan cheese before putting in the oven (optional).

Bake in preheated oven for 18-24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.