Hello, springtime!

I guess I’ve sort of had an unintentional hiatus here! I’ve still been baking and cooking, but more cooking than baking, and lots of old favorites instead of getting really experimental. There’s always a certain point of the winter (even a non-winter like the one we just had) that I get a bit stagnant, but now, with the arrival of spring, I am rejuvenated! 

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I tried out one of those “artisan bread in five minutes a day” recipes. It was amazing, and probably one of the most successful bread attempts I’ve ever had. Posting about that is on my to-do list, and I bought a big jar of fresh yeast and I’ll hopefully come up with some great variations. 

I also am happy to report that I planted some vegetables today! I was considering not gardening at all this year because I’m scheduled for shoulder surgery next month. I’m going to be in a sling for quite a while, and I won’t be able to haul around my containers or sacks of soil or do anything really strenuous. But, I planted some small, manageable containers that I’ll be able to water with a watering can instead of a hose that I need to coil. 

I almost exclusively used seeds from the Hudson Valley Seed Library. I planted kale, a couple kinds of lettuce, the same peas & carrots as last year, spinach, green onions, and I started my sugar baby watermelons indoors. My littlest brother also told me that he suspects that the place he’s been growing pumpkins for the last few years is depleted in nutrients because they haven’t done crop rotation (they only grow pumpkins, and this revelation is undoubtedly because I bought him a copy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Kids), so we’re talking about planting some stuff over there to replenish the soil. 

I’ll be sure to post some pictures when my seedlings are up! 

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.

Gorgeous weather for gardening.

The weather in the tri-state area has been just gorgeous lately. We spent most of the weekend sitting outside on the back deck, enjoying the greenery that has finally decided to appear on the trees (as well as getting a nosefull of pollen!).

The container garden that I’ve started is mostly doing quite well. The kohlrabi can’t decide whether it wants to live or die. The lettuce and spinach did die while I was in New Orleans, but I resowed it and hopefully we’ll have that come up. All of the tiny tiny seedlings that were in the trays inside didn’t make it (due, it would seem, to someone in the house, I won’t name names, wanting to be helpful and watering a bit too much). But, just about everything did ok outside, so I haven’t had to replace much. The only thing I really had a hard time with was the peppers, and I’ve started them outside again this week.

The carrots are doing wonderfully. And take a look at the broccoli and peas! Can you believe it?

Also, in the short week that I was in New Orleans, my apple tree (that looked little more than a skinny stick in a bucket of dirt when I left) grew a whole bunch of leaves! Check it out!

It’s warming up enough here to start sowing some stuff directly into the ground. We’re still not sure what our plans are for moving, but since we live with my partner’s mom, who also likes gardening, we can always just leave her a yummy harvest if we find a great apartment mid-summer. So, Sunday, I put in a short row of soy beans and a short row of royal burgundy bush beans.

We started talking about plans for a triangular trellis for the sugar baby watermelons, which I started inside today. Another summer treat we’ll have is corn. Today, I sowed about a 3.5′x3.5′ patch (I know that Charlie is going to tell me that I’m way off in my estimate, since I’m terrible at them) of corn. I have space on either side of the patch to do more corn, too. One of the sections needs to be cleared of forget-me-nots and weeds, and the other is ready to go. I’m planning to plant the corn in succession so that we don’t have a glut all at once. So, in two or three weeks, I should be ready to plant the next patch of corn. I may also plant my pumpkins over there, both because there would be room for them to vine and because they give important nutrients to the corn. We’ll see – it’s early for that.

I actually planted a handful of flowers, too. Usually I stick to veggies, but I had a wildflower mix that I decided to toss in a window box, and I’d gotten some painted daisy seeds from the seed library. I was planning to plant them in a pair of old polka-dotted rain boots, but they’re MIA at the moment, so I started them in pots that would set just about properly in the boots, and I’ll look a little harder for the boots in the next few weeks.

One last funny note about the garden. As you might have read, we had some hoop houses to keep the kale warm when it was very chilly. Well, I uncovered the hoops when I got home from NOLA, and the kale was doing ok, but I had some really healthy looking tomato plants, perfectly spaced out! It was pretty funny. I used compost to get that area going, so there must have been a few seeds that snuck in that our wormies didn’t process. They look so healthy that I think I’ll let them grow! With any luck, they’re seeds from the heirloom tomatoes we get in our CSA share.

Container Garden: Go!

I am completely exhausted, but my container garden is officially in action!

Today Charlie helped me drill holes in the bottoms of my rubbermaid-type bins for my container gardens (the vibrations from the drill made my sensory issues from fibromyalgia go a little wonky!). I know a lot of people go with the dollar store type of container, or whatever they have lying around the house or can find on freecycle, but I bought new ones for two reasons: 1.) folks who use the kind that the dollar store has report that they have to buy new ones each year because they don’t last, and I don’t want to throw away plastic every year, and 2.) I don’t want to grow organic veggies in bins that maybe had not-foodsafe stuff in them. Since I’ll probably have some kind of container garden going for many years, whether I have a backyard garden or not, I considered it an investment. I was able to get “value packs” of Lowe’s brand rubbermaid bins for reasonable prices, and I picked up (if I recall) four 14-gallon and three 18-gallon.

Last year, I used a Jiffy brand of organic soil, but I couldn’t get that this year, and I was stuck with the MiracleGro Container Organic stuff, so we’ll see how that goes. It was a lot mulchier than the Jiffy mix, so I added some vermiculite to lighten it up.

We made a trellis for one of the containers like I’d said I would in this earlier post about my containers. It’s made out of old chicken wire and some scrap wood. The variety of peas that I’m growing don’t really need a trellis, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. Also, it will help me see how it works and make any modifications before I get my soybeans and burgundy beans going in a few weeks.

So, the peas are started, as well as an entire 14 gallon container dedicated entirely to carrots. Last year, all of my seeds were bought at a Cost Cutters that was closing, and they were 20 packets of seeds for $1. This year, I got just about all of them from the Hudson Valley Seed Library, and I made really careful decisions about which varieties would be best for me. For example, when I chose my carrots, I got the Parisian Carrots that are shorter, fast growing, and well suited for containers. I made sure to add a little extra vermiculite to the bin, since carrots need a very loose soil.

I started some Broccoli in a bin as well as indoors in a tray. I also did this with my Purple Kohlrabi, Lettuce, and Spinach. I’m hoping that by starting some outside immediately and some indoors, I’ll be able to stagger things a bit. I’ll also be re-planting the veggies that can tolerate the heat ok, so that we have them as the summer continues. (Remind me to hold off on the lettuce, though! We have an overabundance of that once June hits.)

I also got a Radish mix for being a member of the seed library, but we don’t eat many radishes in our house, at least not so many that I need to plant them, since we get plenty from our CSA. My mom loves them, though, so I started a small container of them to bring over to her house.

I ended up planting one veggie in the ground and that was the Blue Curly Kale. We had a bunch of compost that we’d dumped into the main garden bed, and the soil just looked so awesome… As I mentioned in my other post, one of the reasons I’m doing a container garden is because we might be moving, but kale is a pretty fast growing plant, and I don’t think we’ll be moving by the time it’s harvestable, so I just went for it and planted that in the ground. Well, although the actual compost looked soft and workable, the ground was still pretty thick and heavy from the cold and the rain, so my muscles are going to be reeeeallly sore tomorrow. I did get two short rows of kale planted, though, and I can’t wait to see how it does. It’s still going to get pretty chilly at night for a while longer, so I might try to set up some sort of ground cover situation tomorrow for the kale. If I need to, the bins are manageable enough that they can be moved into the garage for a bit of extra protection.

That’s all for now… I’ll post more once the little buggers start to come up.

Getting excited for gardening.

I know that there’s approximately two feet of snow on the ground, but I’m getting excited for gardening already. And, quite honestly, if you’re in my area (zone 6) and you’re planning to grow some veggies that enjoy cooler weather, like kale, cabbage, broccoli, and brussels sprouts, it’s time to start ordering seeds! If you’ll be doing indoor starts like I am, it’s actually going to be time to begin those for the cool weather veggies very soon.

One thing that’s going to be different about the way I garden this year is that I’ll primarily be doing container gardening instead of planting things directly in the ground. This is because we’ll likely be moving sometime during the growing season, and I don’t want to give up gardening entirely. I’m not sure when we’ll be moving, or if the space we’ll be moving to will have a garden, or access to a community garden, or if I’ll just be able to have some containers, but having containers will be my bare minimum, so I figure I’ll be able to take them along.

Last year some of my big problems with my garden were timing (I started much too late) and pests, particularly a groundhog, and I think that will be alleviated a bit by planting in containers and keeping them in areas where he’s not comfortable going, like our deck. I need to get my hands on some containers, so if any of my buddies who read this have some that they’re not planning to use, I’d love it!

Here’s the design I came up with for my containers. (Yeah, I made a cute little sketch… sometimes I miss art school, ok?)

In case that’s illegible, or you’re a person with a visual impairment, it’s a picture of a rubbermaid container. I’ll be drilling holes in the bottom (or taking someone’s that they don’t want anymore because it has a crack in the bottom) so that it has drainage. The back side of it has chickenwire that is supported with simple wood poles on either end, and that will be my trellis for things like peas and beans! I’ll also have a thin pipe that will go to the bottom of the container that I’ll water the plants through, since from what I’ve read, if you water from the bottom, the roots are more likely to grow down instead of spreading out, which is really ideal for small spaces like container plants. Pretty neat, right? Is there anything I’m forgetting or that you can think of to improve about it?

I got my seeds this year from a really incredible local source. I joined the Hudson Valley Seed Library, and when you join, you get 10 free packs of seeds. I chose almost all things that can go in containers in case we move (one or two things can’t really, but I couldn’t resist).

Here’s a picture of all my seed packets laid out. Some of them are “garden packs” from responsible wholesalers, “art packs” that have beautiful designs by New York artists, and “library packs,” which have seeds grown right here in the Hudson Valley by small, sustainable farms. I can even send some seeds back that I’ve saved after my harvest this year!

Here’s what I got:

• Royal Burgandy Bush Beans

• Shirofumi Edamame Soybeans

• Di Ciccio Broccoli

• Parisian Carrots

• Forest Green Parsley

• Vates Blue Curled Kale

• Dinokale

• Tom Thumb Lettuce

• Sugar Ann Snap Pea

• Doe Hill Peppers

• Sugar Baby Watermelon

• Long Island Cheese Pumpkin (Google a picture of these, they’re cute)

I also have Bloomsdale Spinach and Purple Vienna Kohlrabi, and a Painted Daisy Art Pack that I already ordered from them, as well as the a beautiful variety Radish Art Pack that they sent to people who signed up for membership. :)

Cool weather growing starts sooner than you’d think! I’m also thinking of buying a fruit tree, like an apple tree, to keep in a container, but I’m working on finding the right orchard and the right variety (dwarf, self-pollinating, with apples that are versatile and/or store well). So, lots of research is going into that. I know that I won’t get fruit from it right away, but it’s a long-term investment that I’m happy to make. And if, for some reason, I were to move someplace that apples didn’t do well, or I absolutely couldn’t live someplace where I had space for a dwarf container tree on a balcony, it’s the type of thing that I’d be happy giving to a good home… I mean, wouldn’t you be delighted to get a tiny apple tree in a pot as a gift?

Anyone else thinking about gardening yet? What zone are you in? What are you going to grow?

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.

Winter CSA Day Vegetable Tart

As you all know, I’m extremely dedicated to the idea of Community Supported Agriculture, or CSAs, a way of supporting local farms and getting local, (usually) organic food that’s in season. When our farm share is delivering from June until the end of October, we eat healthier meals with more vegetables, and we cook more instead of going out to eat or getting takeout, since our fridge is already stocked with great veggies to eat.

Our second year with our summer/fall CSA was coming to a close, and we were getting pretty sad about having the other half of the year without our farm-fresh food. I decided to research winter CSAs, and I managed to find one in the city with once-a-month pickups that was reasonably priced and would deliver December through May, meaning we would have nearly year-round CSAs. Although our new pickup for the winter share isn’t quite as convenient, since it’s only once a month, it’s still pretty great.

Our winter farm is Norwich Meadows Farm, and our winter share varies a bit from our summer share. Our summer share includes fresh vegetables, fruit, garlic, and herbs. Obviously, we don’t live in a climate that’s great for growing veggies all year round, so the vegetables we’ll be getting will be greens that are hearty to the cold at the beginning and the end deliveries, as well as storage vegetables like winter squash, onions, and potatoes. This week we also got brussels sprouts, sunchokes, carrots, leeks, and shallots in addition to the aforementioned storage veggies. And perhaps the neatest thing about this farm is that it offers lots of extras like yogurt and canned goods like pickles and heirloom tomato sauce and dilly beans (all made on their farm), and eggs and, if you choose, meat.

We decided to get a meat share since Charlie is omni. The meat raised on the farm is eco-halal. After spending the last 16 or so years of my life primarily as a lacto-ovo vegetarian [originally for animal reasons, now for broader reasons including sustainability], the meat will be just for him, but I’m glad that if he is eating meat, it was slaughtered in a dignified way, and that it was raised in a more sustainable way. There’s a little bit on the farm’s practices here if you’re interested in reading more. I’m also really glad to be getting eggs from a pasture-raised source, since I’ve been really unhappy with the ethics of many eggs that claim to be “cage free.” I’ve pretty much decided that the only real way to know if I’m getting eggs that are ethical is to develop a relationship with the farmer, and I have done that (if you’re in the Bergen County, NJ area, I know a great place to pick up from for a reasonable price!). Meanwhile, I’ve drastically cut down my egg consumption, but when our eggs arrived in our first winter delivery, I decided that a quiche was in order.

When I was in college, quiche was something that my mom always sent with me to keep in the freezer, along with little containers of soup. I ate soup and quiche for lunch many, many times a week, from freezer to microwave. Quiche freezes so well and is filling and delicious, so I like to keep some in the freezer for when I’m not feeling well and Charlie is too tired to cook. To make things a little larger, I made this in my tart pan, so technically, I suppose it’s a tart… but it’s really just a quiche recipe.

The thing I love about quiche is that you can put pretty much anything into it. I like to put potatoes in so that it’s a little more filling, and something green so it’s a bit more healthy. Other than that… whatever happens to be in the fridge goes in there!

Ingredients

1 1/2 broccoli florets, chopped
1 small zucchini, chopped
1 big handful of spinach
1 small sunchoke, peeled and chopped
2 green onions, chopped
4 oz edam cheese, shredded or cut into strips
4 oz shredded jack/cheddar mix
3 eggs
1 cup whole milk
salt
pepper
herbs (I tossed in some fresh parsley from our now-indoor herb garden)
pie crust (I cheated and used a store bought one since I was doing a lot that day)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350*F.

Press the pie crust into the tart pan.

Arrange the vegetables, herbs, and edam cheese in the crust. Try to make sure that they are evenly distributed.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs and milk together. Add salt and pepper.

Pour the egg mixture into the crust over the vegetables. Top with the remaining shredded cheese.

Bake on a baking sheet in case of any drips or leaks! Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until it is no longer wobbly in the center.

Fruiting summer crops while planning for fall.

Let me start this post by saying that it was recently my birthday, and my awesome partner bought me a new set of bamboo gardening gloves. They’re so great. I love them because the arthritis in my hands makes a lot of gloves feel uncomfortable, and I already have limited dexterity at times, so really bulky gloves make movement very difficult. These gloves are thin and the fabric is soft, which makes my fibromyalgia happy, since my overactive nervous system is very sensitive to rough things.

These are the nifty gloves…

Now, onto the garden. My knee is definitely not healed, and while I’m off crutches, I’m still hobbling around on a cane most of the time unless it’s a really short distance. I just couldn’t stand to not plant my sugar pumpkins, though, so I decided that I’d go outside today to get them in the ground. I can’t bend my knee very well and I definitely can’t kneel, so I brought a beach blanket type thing outside and set it up next to the area where I was going to work. Then, even more slowly than usual, I dragged all my supplies over to where I’d be working. Instead of standing to till the soil like I usually do, I used a short cultivator and was able to still get the work done fairly quickly. There were awkward moments, sure, and I definitely was in a bit more pain than I would have liked, but I’m thrilled that I got some planting done.

Here’s a tour around the garden. Nearly everything is either flowering or fruiting, and it’s pretty awesome.

The eggplants, as I’ve mentioned before, were seedlings from our CSA. They’ve been doing wonderfully and at least six eggplants have started to take shape, with more flowers closing and looking like they’re going to be eggplants. I’m hoping to serve grilled eggplant at a BBQ this weekend and impress our guests!

This kohlrabi might be one of our most successful plants so far. It’s just about ready to harvest, and we started it from seed!

I really thought my shelling peas were a lost cause. They weren’t doing well, they weren’t climbing up in the three sisters plot, and they just looked kind of ratty. Lo and behold, however, I straightened this guy out and tried to help him back onto a stake, and he was flowering! I may try peas again for the fall, but in containers so that I have a bit more control over them.

These crazy vines are all are all a result of only two honeydew plants. (They end about halfway down the row, and that’s where the kohlrabi begins.)

It looks like this flower has closed up and is trying to start a honeydew!

This next one I just can’t get over. Our watermelon vines are growing all over, though they don’t have nearly as many flowers as the honeydews. This is so freakin’ adorable, though, and you can totally tell that it is a tiny, tiny watermelon!

And finally, my pride and joy: my corn. It got pretty trashed in a terrible thunderstorm we had the other night with winds up to 60mph, and I didn’t think any of it was going to survive. We watched out the window as stalks just got smashed down. We picked the stalks back up a few days ago, though, and a few of them didn’t get wrecked to begin with… and it’s starting to get somewhere! I believe “tassling” is the correct term.

It is so incredible watching all this stuff grow.

I got started on my plans for my fall garden today, too. Sugar pumpkins have been a high priority, since, well… they were the first thing I tried to grow, and that was a year ago! I planted late last year, though, and we had an early frost, so I wasn’t successful. I’m actually a bit late again this year with them because of my knee injury, but our vining plants have been growing like crazy because of the heat, so with any luck, they’ll catch up just fine.

I got the sugar pumpkins in the ground today, and I evaluated the seeds that I had available for what would be good to plant for a fall harvest. Some crops, like kale, are even more delicious in the fall, since the cold weather makes them a bit sweeter.

Kale is definitely on my list of things to plant, and I’ve been looking forward to planting it (and Charlie’s been looking forward to eating it!). I think I’ll also try to do some lettuce, though I don’t remember exactly what variety I have seeds for. I’m going to put that in where the kohlrabi is now, as that is just about ready to be harvested. I have plans for a small area of cabbage (maybe 3 plants) and a small area of winter squash.

The winter squash that I have is a bit of an experiment, really. It’s called Butterbush, and it’s a space-saving variety. It’s a vining plant, but it’s compact and will take up about a quarter of the space of regular vining squash. I’m particularly interested to see how this goes because, as you can see, our vining plants got really out of control this year, so I might be interested to try some of the compact varieties of melons next year. As I may have mentioned, though, the seeds that I have were seeds that I bought when a Cost Cutters was going out of business, and the seed packets were 20 packs for $1! I just bought whatever varieties they had that I knew we would eat, and that’s what I’ve been growing.

Spinach! It just occurred to me. Spinach is what I’m missing. I don’t think I have any seeds. Perhaps I’ll go out and buy some. I have one row of unplanned space (plus whatever frees up when these monstrous melons finish), so I’ll be able to stick some in there.

Next on my list? Figuring out how to get that pesky groundhog that’s been eating everything to leave my veggies alone!

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.

Jazz Pizza

My friend AJ makes jazz pancakes. Jazz is often about improvisation, and so are jazz pancakes. They started, I believe, when AJ was out of some ingredient or other, and began doing wild substitutions. No baking powder? Beer will have the same sort of effect! The pancakes are now different each time, sometimes including traditional items like chocolate chips or bits of fruit, but sometimes venturing into much more dangerous territory with whatever leftovers AJ can find in the fridge. When we were visiting AJ and Felicia at their house, I got into the spirit of jazz pancakes.

A few weeks later, at our house, I was exhausted and in spoon debt from the day before, and Charlie had a huge research paper to finish up on. We decided to eat a frozen pizza we had, but I wanted to make sure Charlie had enough of a meal to fuel him for what would undoubtedly be a late night.

We knew we’d put some mushrooms on the pizza, and probably spinach, too.

“What about… black beans?” I asked tentatively.

“I don’t know about that,” Charlie said.

“Jaaaazzzzz pizzzzza!” I suggested, drawing out the words.

“I could be into it,” Charlie said, now nodding his head.

We rummaged in the vegetable drawer and cabinets, and even came up with a lone strip of tempeh bacon leftover from the weekend’s most recent brunch extravaganza, with, ironically, Felicia and AJ. A little while later, we had quite a substantial jazz pizza.

Try this one, or rummage for random ingredients and come up with your own improv pizza.

Ingredients (besides whatever you want):

1 12″ frozen cheese pizza
1 strip crumbled tempeh bacon
a handful of spinach
a quarter of an onion, diced
a couple of mushrooms, sliced
a few strips of yellow peppers, finely chopped
1/4 cup or so grated cheddar cheese
1 can black beans
avocado

Directions

Preheat oven according to package directions (ours recommended 400 degrees). Arrange mushrooms, spinach, peppers, and onion on top of frozen pizza. Spoon thoroughly drained black beans over veggies. Sprinkle grated cheddar on top.

Bake according to package directions (you may need a bit more additional time). Ours took about 20 minutes. Let cool slightly, and garnish with slices of avocado directly before serving.

Eggplant Caprese Sandwich

Charlie’s school semester just started up again, and his courses are not only a bit more serious (he’s loading up on sociology and social work classes in anticipation of getting an MSW after his undergrad), but he’s got more evening classes than usual and he’s getting home a lot later at night. Our epic dinner preparations are one thing when we’re getting started early in the evening, but it’s another thing when he doesn’t get home until 9, 10, or even 11 o’clock at night because of the bus schedules.

Wednesday night, I wanted to prepare something yummy, filling, and relatively healthy for dinner, but I also didn’t want a lot of fuss. Our farm share for the week had included some fresh basil, garlic, and some gorgeous tomatoes. Add in an eggplant, some mozzarella, and a multigrain baguette, and I was ready to call it dinner.

This actually made way more food than we could handle and we ended up eating it for lunch today, too, so you’re looking at this serving about 3-4 people.

We decided that this would be a great item to serve to vegetarians at a BBQ, so feel free to toss the eggplants on the grill instead of in the oven.

Ingredients

1 medium eggplant
6-8 oz fresh mozzarella
1 large tomato
1/2-3/4 multigrain baguette
a large handful of fresh basil leaves
1/2 head of garlic, still assembled (for roasting)
balsamic vinaigrette (optional)
baby spinach (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375.

Put down a piece of tin foil or parchment paper on a baking sheet. Slice the eggplant into thick slices, discarding the top.

Brush a bit of olive oil over both sides of the eggplant, and sprinkle with a bit of salt and fresh ground pepper.

Meanwhile, cut the top off the bulb of garlic, exposing about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch. Drizzle more olive oil on this, then cover it in tin foil. Find space for it on the tray of eggplant.

Bake the eggplant the oven for about 25 minutes, turning once. The garlic will need to stay in for another ten minutes.

Let that cool. Slice your tomatoes, slice and toast your bread if you want to, and slice your mozzarella.

(Charlie did the actual assembly as I was busy making Nectarine Mini Muffins, but I’ll take a gander at what he did…)

Scoop the roasted garlic out of the head. Spread it on the bread. Lay down, in whatever order you like, the eggplant, tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, spinach (optional), and balsamic vinaigrette (optional). Eat a bunch, and save a big hunk in the fridge for tomorrow. The flavors all meld together and it’s even better the next day.

Bibs and Bobs Vegetable Stock

My partner Charlie and I are the type of people who are modern hippies, I suppose. As I mentioned a few days ago, we almost never use paper plates or plastic forks. We recycle and we reuse a pretty dramatic amount. We joined a farm share, or community supported agriculture community this year. Hell, our next major big dream purchase after my KitchenAid Mixer is a composter.

In the meantime, though, we are composter-less. We’ve thought about getting one of those little guys that sits on the countertop and thought about saving up for one of the totally sealed units that sits inconspicuously under a cupboard. For now, though, we save our eggshells to put in flowerpots (it’s good natural fertilizer), and we sneak into the backyard with our veggie scraps and toss them into the bushes.

There’s a lot of vegetable waste that’s quite… well, I wouldn’t say edible, since you’re not going to throw it in your stir-fry or plop it in your next quiche, but I would say usable. My friends Anne and Neil of the Beet Risotto, who I get many of my hippie inspired ideas from, such as joining the farm share, gave me this idea for using up all the bits of vegetables that you usually would toss in the trash.

Make your own vegetable stock.

Not only is homemade vegetable stock one of the most delicious things on the planet, it’s also a way to cut down on waste. It’s very simple. Grab a gallon size ziplock bag or other airtight container. If you live with other people, label it, “SAVE FOR STOCK,” as they’ll be wondering what these bits of vegetable trash are doing in the freezer.

Then, whenever you chop up vegetables, evaluate what’s left.

Onion papers? Toss them in.

Ends of celery and carrots? Definitely.

Fresh herbs that are a little… not so fresh, but weren’t put through a proper drying process? Yes ma’am.

I’ve collected up beet stalks, the ends of asparagus, limp parsley, that little hard nub on garlic, and whatever else I’ve come across. I stuff all the bibs and bobs into my baggie and keep it in the freezer. When the bag is full, you’re ready to make stock. The only vegetables you’ll want to avoid are the really watery ones, like lettuce. Those aren’t going to contribute much.

Ingredients

1 gallon sized bag of vegetable parts, including at least about 1 onion, 1 carrot, 2 stalks of celery, some parsley – the rest is fair game
about 10-12 cups of water (you can make your stock more or less concentrated depending on how much storage space you have – just add more water upon using it later)
3 bay leaves (since everything will be strained, this is a good time to use those broken in half ones that are hard to fish out of other recipes)
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons soy sauce
salt to taste
freshly ground pepper

Directions

Toss everything except the salt and pepper into a big stock pot. Bring to a boil (this may take a while if your veggies are still frozen) and then reduce to a simmer. Cover.

Let your stock simmer for at least 40 minutes to an hour, but more is definitely better. Stir occasionally. You’ll be able to see the color drain out of the vegetables, so once they’re totally useless looking and your stock is a rich color, you’ll have gotten most of the flavor into your broth. Fair warning: your kitchen will smell wonderful for the afternoon, and people will be begging you to have some.

Storage

Some people recommend freezing stock into ice cube trays that you can have it prepped in smaller amounts. You can also put it into small tupperwares in the freezer, but think carefully before freezing the entire pot into one large container… I also like to make little batches of simple noodle soups for nights when I’m not feeling well. I’ll try to update with that simple recipe soon.

Vegetarian Lasagna of Doom

This has got to be one of the best vegetarian lasagnas I’ve ever made (or even tasted). It’s got to be one that’s recorded in blog history.

One of the key things about making lasagna is having enough sauce. Don’t be shy with it! It helps keep everything moist, and if you’ve ever had a dried out lasagna, you know how important that is. I like to use two kinds, a red sauce and a white sauce. The white sauce is easy to whip up from scratch, but if you’re in a pinch or extremely lazy, you can use alfredo sauce in a jar, though they’re not exactly the same thing.

The other thing I prefer about making lasagna… I hate those no-cook noodles, the ones that you put in still hard. It’s weird to me. I grew up watching the biggest pot we had boiling with lasagna noodles, and getting to eat the curly edges that were leftover. What fun is making a lasagna if you don’t get to eat the curly edges first? So, I recommend the noodles that you have to cook before you layer them in… I think they taste better, too.

Ingredients

1 medium zucchini, sliced
1 cup mushrooms, sliced (we prefer baby bella mushrooms, but tend to go with whatever looks the freshest)
perhaps 2 cups? of spinach trimmed
1 onion, thinly sliced
2-3 sprigs of fresh oregano, chopped
1 jar of vegetarian tomato sauce of your choice, preferably something with lots of vegetable chunks in it
lasagna noodles (you probably only need a half box because of all the veggies, unless you have a super deep lasagna pan)
16 oz ricotta cheese
16 oz brick of mozzarella cheese (whole milk or part-skim, not fat-free)
parmesan cheese (optional)

Eggplant:
1 small to medium eggplant, sliced lengthwise
1 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
salt, pepper, dried parsley, dried oregano to taste
1-2 eggs
Oil for frying

White Sauce:

1/2 cup butter
4 tbsp flour
1 cup milk or light cream
1 cup vegetable stock
1/8 tsp salt
about 5 sprigs parsley (optional)
one huge piece of green garlic (optional)
parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions

White Sauce:

Melt butter, add flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly with a whisk. Slowly add milk or cream and vegetable stock; stir until smooth. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Add salt.

If you’ve got some fresh parsley handy, you should grab maybe five sprigs of that and the tops of some green garlic. Don’t chop it in any way. Leave it whole and just toss it into the sauce. Let it cook for a few more minutes on low heat, stirring constantly, then strain off the parsley and garlic. Add a bit of parmesan cheese to the sauce if desired.

Eggplant Preparation:

Before you can start layering, you’ve got to fry the eggplant because in this recipe, it’s almost like a eggplant parm/lasagna combo.

Mix breadcrumb ingredients of breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, flour, oregano, salt, pepper, and parsley in a flat tray or plate. In a separate tray, scramble the eggs. Take your eggplant slices and coat them one at a time in egg, then dredge them in the breadcrumb mixture.

Pan fry them in a generous amount of oil at medium-high heat until golden brown, about 4 minutes each side. Remove from pan and let them drain on a mesh spatter shield or a paper towel.

Lasagna:

Prepare pasta according to package directions. If you’re not using a disposable pan, I recommend that you put down a layer of aluminum foil before you begin for easier cleanup later.

Coat the bottom of the pan with a layer of red sauce, then alternate between vegetables, cheeses, fried eggplant, sauces, and noodles until you run out of ingredients or reach the top of the pan. Toss in the fresh oregano and some parmesan cheese along the way, if you feel so inclined. Be sure to reserve enough sauce and mozzarella cheese to cover the entire top of the pan, otherwise your noodles will be hard and your veggies will dry out.

Cover pan with aluminum foil and bake for about 25 minutes at 400 degrees. After 25 minutes, remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes or until cheese begins to brown. (The foil on top prevents the cheese from browning too much too quickly.)

Let the lasagna cool for at least 15-20 minutes once it’s out of the oven, or it will be a soupy mess!

If you’re not serving a crowd, I recommend putting a few slices in the fridge for consumption soon, and the rest in the freezer. When freezing the lasagna, make sure that you freeze it in the portion size you’d want to eat it in, since sawing through a frozen casserole is never any fun. Cut slices and put them into little gladware containers, let them cool (until they’re no longer steaming) and then pop them in the freezer for a great meal in a week or a month.

Crisis Management Soup (Reenacted)

I made a round of something similar to Crisis Management Soup the other day and it is so epically awesome that I figured I should write down what I did.

Ingredients

1 zucchini
1 yellow squash
1 bunch spinach
1 large handful of green beans
2 carrots
3 stalks of celery
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 pt cherry tomatoes, halved
1 vegetarian bullion cube
1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 parsnips
1 can of small white beans

Directions

I would have put in potatoes, but we ran out when I thought we had more.

Chop up your veggies. Divide your zucchini, squash, carrots, celery, and parsnips, plus potatoes if you’ve got them, into two piles. One is going to simmer for a long time and turn to mush, the rest will cook for a shorter time to be a little firmer.

Saute your garlic in the pot for a couple minutes in a bit of oil. Add the onion, saute until soft.

Add the 28oz can of crushed tomatoes, then fill the can up 2x with water and add to the pot. Add tomato paste and vegetable bullion.

Toss in half of the veggies indicated above. Reserve the other half.

Bring to a boil, then simmer for a long ass time, covered. When you feel that you’ve got adequate simmerage, use a potato masher to squish up the veggies that are in the pot. Give it a good stir. Now, toss the remaining zucchini, squash, carrots, celery, and parsnips, plus potatoes if you’ve got them, and now is the time for green beans as well. Add the small white beans. Simmer for about 10 minutes or until tender (depending on how big you chopped them).

Save the tomatoes and the spinach for the last few minutes of your cooking. Toss them in, and your soup will be ready when the spinach wilts.