Summer Squash: One Way

I love how on Top Chef the contestants are always preparing things two ways.  Chicken, roasted and stuffed with figs and cheese on one side of the plate, and chicken liver with fig sauce and chestnuts on the other. (In case you're wondering, I just made that up.) It's always done with serious technique and plated in a fancy way, both things on the same plate, and topped with foam or a complicated reduction. Things I don't do in my humble little kitchen.

Summer squash has been in our box for the past couple of weeks. I've been feeling relief that we don't grow our own squash in our tiny garden. I've heard rumors of people with overwhelming amounts. You can't give the stuff away this time of year.

But we get just the right amount; enough to prepare squash one way this week, and a different way the next. Unlike gardeners and Top Chef contestants, there's no pressure on us to get it all on the plate at once.

Here's squash one way:

Josh made fried squash sticks that were pretty amazing. He cut the long yellow squash into sticks battered and deep fried them. He loves to do two things: grill (charcoal only, please) and fry. He does a lot of other cooking, but I suspect these are his two favorites. It balances out, because I don't like to do either.

I had him give me the recipe. True to form for us both, the quantities are vague. We really must get more disciplined about these things! Here's a run-down:

After cutting the squash into these nice little sticks, he dipped it in flour. He mixed one egg into a cup of milk, then soaked the squash in this egg wash for one hour. When the hour was up, he dredged the squash in a mixture of flour, corn meal, garlic powder, and salt and pepper, then deep fried them in hot oil until they turned golden brown. Drain on paper towels and enjoy. 

Not now kids, I'm photographing the beets

Yesterday I made a layer cake. You may be thinking, wow, who bakes when it's 90 degrees out? And that's exactly what I was thinking. Especially while I was icing the cake, and my cream cheese frosting was sliding down the side.

The farm boxes are getting more colorful. And finally: beets.

I had never tasted a fresh beet until a couple of years ago. I fell in love. Usually I roast the beets, then slice them and toss them with a vinaigrette and serve over salad greens with goat cheese. Last year I made up a hot/cold salad which used all of the above, plus sauteed beet greens and some toasted walnuts. Delicious.

But I wondered. What else can be done with beets? Are there new beet frontiers? My Internet search turned up loads of recipes, including lots of cakes. Red velvet and chocolate seem to be the most popular, but I wanted something a bit less heavy. I found this Beet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting recipe from Cooking Light.

I considered following in the footsteps of Southern church ladies everywhere and making this a sheet cake, but decided I should try the recipe as written before making any changes. So I followed it to the letter. Even the part where they said to use wax paper in the bottom of the pan; normally a step I would ignore. The batter was this amazing (or amazingly weird, depending on your feelings about beets) pink.

It came out of the oven looking like a regular cake though. Golden with red beet flecks. Very moist, and not too sweet. Me and layer cakes are not on such great terms. Mine are always lopsided, and I never get enough frosting in between the layers. But the idea of a layer cake appeals to me, so I'll keep trying.

I think next time I'll make cupcakes instead, and maybe add a little goat cheese to the cream cheese frosting.

Strawberry Swan Song

Well, strawberries, I had big plans to pick lots and lots of you, and turn you into all kinds of things: ice cream, strawberry shortcakes, jam. Oh, the jam. My friend Amber and I made some last year, and it was heavenly. But time got away from us, and I never got to a farm to do any picking. We did get a couple of pints in our CSA box. And maybe a couple from the grocery store. These were eaten straight up, and also with ice cream and Nutella. And I froze the rest. The boys finished the last few frozen strawberries in this smoothie.

Three cups. Miles had a buddy over. The boys adore smoothies in the summer, and I try to have different types of frozen fruit on hand. This one had the strawberries, of course. Also, frozen blueberries and bananas, organic strawberry yogurt, and vanilla soy milk.

So, goodbye little red fruit. See you next year. Good thing there are still blueberries and raspberries to look forward to.

Brazilian Collard Greens

Thank goodness for the Internet, for teaching me about Brazilian Collard Greens. I had no idea that collards were a big deal in Brazil. According to Wikipedia:

In Portuguese and Brazilian cuisine, collard greens (or couve) are common accompaniments of fish and meat dishes. They are a standard side dish for feijoada, a popular pork and beans-style stew. The leaves are sliced into strips, 1 to 3 mm wide (sometimes by the grocer or market vendor, with a special hand-cranked slicer) and sautéed with oil or butter, flavored with garlic,onion, and salt. Sometimes, it is also eaten fresh.   

I read up a bit on the preparation of these greens, and the cigar-rolling and slicing into thin strips intrigued me. We've had greens galore these days, and it's been a challenge to find new ways to prepare them. This was a much-needed bit of inspiration. There are various recipes, some using pork fat. For my Brazilian collards, I decided to go simple vegetarian style, using this recipe. I loved that it had only four ingredients: collards, garlic, olive oil. Oh, and salt and pepper. 

To begin, I washed the greens, then cut off the stems and the spiny middles. Then I stacked them up into little piles, rolled and sliced them.  Making the garlic paste was fun too; the mortar and pestle just don't get used often enough. 

Since I had just come home from a yoga class where we did about a thousand down-dogs and my arms were tired, I let Josh help me pulverize the garlic.

The garlic paste went into the hot oil, then I threw in the greens and sauteed them quickly. The result was strands of crispy and garlicky collards. So new! Well, new to me.

More Sandwich Love

So I'm thinking maybe I ought to change this to a sandwich blog; sandwiches seem to be the only thing on the menu these days. Monday night: cheese and pickle sandwiches. Wednesday: sausage egg biscuits. Thursday: tuna sandwiches.

It's so hot today. I picked up the boys (Miles, school; Willem, friend's house), and I needed something for dinner. Since Green Life was right there, I guessed I'd better stop there. In the car on the way over, we all agreed on sandwiches. As soon as we got in the store, the kids started arguing. I headed for the wine department. Where I had this wonderful interaction:

Me: harried and sweaty, frowning at the shelves of wine, attempting to make sense of the labels. Pinot Noir? Sauvignon Blanc? Reds next to whites. What does it all mean? Also, calculating how long it will take to chill a bottle.

Green Life wine department employee: Can I help you find something?

Me: Um. Cold and refreshing?

GLWDE: Have you ever had Vinho Verde?

Me: Yes! Vinho Verde! I love Vinho Verde!

GLWDE: We have some chilled right here. And it's $7.99.

Wow, that guy made my day. And I think he knew he'd done his good deed.

Then I found two cans of tuna and a loaf of City Bakery"Traditional French" bread and headed home to make what will now be referred to as the "Most Expensive Tuna Sandwiches of All Time"(Green Life being too prohibitively pricey for regular shopping, at least for this family).

Confetti Tuna Salad

2 cans albacore tuna
1 celery stalk, chopped
1/4 of a red onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, shredded
fresh dill and chives, chopped
mayonnaise, to taste

You could also add cucumbers, olives, capers, pickles, eggs, whatever. I played it safe for the kids' sake. I've also found that Miles loves these lettuce tuna roll-ups. It's basically a lettuce leaf with a scoop of tuna, then fold up the sides. For a kid who resists salads, this is a win.

Meal Mishaps

Sometimes a meal gets away from you, and things go wrong.  You'd expect this to happen while cooking something fancy, like risotto. But a meal as simple as Brinner (breakfast for dinner) can just as easily go awry.

Case in point; tonight's meal. Store bought biscuits and frozen hash browns, breakfast sausage, eggs, fruit. The boys' sausage biscuits and eggs were simple. But I had to go for something fancier for myself; a food-lover's downfall. Plus, I have a fridge full of greens of all kinds that have to be eaten. So I sauteed some spinach and shallot. Good so far.  I read the directions on the hash browns and I swear they said to put them in an ungreased pan. So I did. They stuck all over that pan. That burning rubber you smell? My oven mitt pressed against the burner while I try in vain to unstick the hash browns. Okay, eggs. A different pan. More sticking. I tried to photograph my mess, but of course the camera batteries were dead.

I did manage to sit down to a nice meal: I mixed up the hash browns (I was able to unstick about 30% of them) with the spinach, and laid the scrambled egg and cheddar cheese on top. On the side: sausage and a biscuit with butter and orange marmalade. Not too shabby. But very messy.

Kohlrabi: The Ugly Cute Vegetable

Kohlrabi is one of those vegetables that I had never heard of (and most likely would still have never tried) until we started getting our weekly CSA box a couple of years ago. If kohlrabi were anything else, it would be one of those, "ugly in a cute kind of way" dogs.  I've seen it described as looking like a spaceship or "sputnik" or a hot air balloon.  It's such an interesting and healthy veggie, and I'm glad I've gotten acquainted with it.

A member of the cabbage family, kohlrabi has a mild broccoli- or radish-like flavor. We've eaten it raw, sliced up in a slaw with onions and cabbage and apple. We've had it cooked in kohlrabi cakes. These were quite good, and if I make them again soon I'll share the experience here.

This week we got one small red kohlrabi in our box. Very manageable for a salad. The small ones are great for eating raw. I looked up some recipes for inspiration. At least two of the recipes I found said to "slice thinly with adjustable blade slicer"-- making the assumption that I have one. (Hmmm, maybe it's time to get one of those Mandolin thingies.) My knife skills are not the best, but I peeled and sliced the kohlrabi as thinly as possibly.

Then I mixed up a little olive oil and lemon juice, salt and pepper and capers. That jar of capers has been sitting in my pantry waiting for its debut. I thinly sliced some red onion, and mixed everything together in a bowl. This little salad was tasty served over lettuce greens, which we have in abundance. I'm not sure if I should continue the dog analogy here, but I can't resist: the salad was way more French Poodle than Pug.

Here's our little fellow:

What do you think it looks like?

Potato Salad Secrets (finally) Revealed

Oh, dear. I promised potato salad secrets. Then was laid out flat all weekend with a headache. It took me three days to write this post, because I had to keep going to lie down. Much better today though.

So, what's better on a holiday weekend than a cookout? With potato salad? Nothing, in my estimation. I love potato salad, but I could never quite get it "right". It's one recipe that I've worked on for years, trying this and that. I think I finally have it, though there's always room for improvement. Sadly, I'm undisciplined and so I don't have the official amounts of things. It's all in my head, and I make it by taste. Helpful? Not really, but at least I can share some of my methods.

The flavor I like: vinegary, a bit sweet, a little crunchy. I like a lot of different flavors working together. Mine was never quite vinegary enough. Until one day I tried a friend's potato salad, and there it was. I had to know her secret. Turns out it was her grandmother's method, and when someone tells me something is her grandmother's method, I pay attention.

Secret #1: 
Sweetly engage friends in conversation. Then steal their grandmother's recipes. In this case, I found out about vinegar.

After you boil the potatoes, drain them and put them back into the pot. Then sprinkle them with a couple of tablespoons of cider vinegar. As the potatoes cool, the flavor seeps in. I should mention that any type of potato will work, russets are great, or red potatoes, or a combination of different types of potatoes. Cut them into bite-sized pieces. Also, that water that you boil the potatoes in? Salt it liberally.

Secret #2:
Don't just glop mayonnaise on top of your potatoes and call it a day.

Make a dressing. The one I like has about 11/2 cups mayo, 1/4 cup red wine vinegar and 1/4 cup sugar with salt and pepper to taste. Something like that. It's pleasantly pink and a little sweet. It also mixes in way better than just glopping in mayo. I get all the ingredients chopped up and in the bowl, then mix in the dressing.

Let's talk hard boiled eggs for a minute. I think they're a vital ingredient. I love these Appalachian Harvest eggs. They're from free range chickens raised by former tobacco farmers.

But here's the problem: when hard boiled, these fabulous, healthy, good cause brown eggs are a bitch to peel. Not sure why, and I'd love to know. Is it because they're super fresh and awesome? I'd love some ideas on this.

Secret #3:
Use regular old supermarket white eggs. Boil, cool, peel and chop.

Secret #4:
Is not really a secret at all. Just a list of other ingredients that I like.

Red onion
Celery
Fresh herbs: chives, dill, parsley
Bell peppers (red or yellow for sweetness and crunch)
Paprika, sprinkled liberally on top

So there you have it. Most of this is not really secret at all; anyone with Google and a couple of cookbooks could figure it out. But my salad has gotten the thumbs up from friends, and it got rave reviews from my mom and aunts last summer (they said it was "awesome").  Feel free to share any of your secrets with me. And if I ever get the actual recipe amounts straight, I promise to share.