So now you know how much lettuce we've been lucky enough to receive in our farmshare due this nice cool summer. Not to mention that there's also chard, beets, kale, radish/beet/kohlrabi greens, zucchini, carrots, potatoes and so much more that comes with each weekly CSA box.
Veggies at every meal have become the order of the day and I have been pleasantly surprised at how relatively well my kids have received this. That's not to say that they sit down and eat the super-sized salads that mommy and daddy eat. Ha! But they do accept their daily side salad at dinner and have taken to having the rest of their daily allotment in some unexpected ways.
For instance, we all sat down and enjoyed eating a version of Cobb salad for dinner last week.
So once in a while, I have to pull out a trump card to get my kids reinvigorated about their Food Inc-wary, stainless steel container lunches. Some good ol' standbys are anything related to pasta, pizza and hamburgers. (Ever notice how kids' favourite foods slowly evolve into a take-out menu? Where has my three year-old, school-naive son whose favourite dessert was red bean buns gone? Apparently, he's been swallowed up by this new SK kid who talks with his friends about how they all loooove ice cream ;)
If your kids are anything like mine then they crave the food that comes wrapped in anything crinkly, plastic, foil and/or disposable. Never mind that they will sometimes get homemade mushroom risotto or sushi for lunch - they just want the Lunchables that their classmate is having. Once in a while though, I'll get one of my versions of a popular snack food just right and they'll gobble it up... even in its unattractive, reusable, non-plastic container packaging :)
Such is the case with our homemade Bits and Bites.
Success!!! I found the key to beet love... okay, maybe not love, but at least it's beet like.
Hubby thought beets were pretty good in this raw shredded slaw. I had long suspected that it was probably a bad batch of canned or processed beets in the past that had him so turned off beets. So I figured that raw beets would be my next attempt at changing his mind.
I love Japanese-style curry. It tasted especially good in Japan when ordered with a ticket from a vending machine and eaten at a cramped diner after a long day of traveling. You can easily duplicate these yummy plate lunches using some store-bought curry cubes, but I find that most of them contain MSG which doesn't sit well with my eczema.
I've searched high and low on the internet for a homemade version of this great curry, but have yet to find one that doesn't include bouillon cubes (i.e. more MSG). So I decided that it was time to create my own. The flavouring of my version is fragrant and slightly sweet (you can add some heat in too, but I've left mine heatless for now because of our young kids :P) The presentation of the dish (ground meat and julienned veggies) is taken from my good friend, whose thoughtfully frozen curries were greatly enjoyed by us during the sleepless weeks after the baby girl was born.
I'd never thought of using ground meat and finely julienned vegetables in my Japanese curry before, but it works great for kids because it mixes so well with rice and it is impossible for even the most skilled picky eater to select out only what they want. In fact you can use a lot of vegetables that the kids may not usually eat in this recipe, hence the "covert" label.
The sweetness of my version comes from fruit, which also conveniently thickens the sauce. I usually use one or two finely chopped pears and a banana, which dissolve during the cooking process and lends the sauce a subtle sweetness.
I grind the spice mix myself, because I find spices taste much fresher and better when not ground beforehand. Besides, cheap coffee grinders are easy to find, so it's not hard to keep an extra grinder for spices. You could probably also use some store-bought Chinese curry powder but the taste will likely be slightly different than mine and also probably not quite Japanese.
I cook the fruit down a bit first to get a slight caramelization which adds to the taste and thickness of the sauce. When the fruit has softened and become fragrant, I add the spices and fry them a short while to release their flavours.
Then I use some sake/stock/water to deglaze before stirring in your ground meat of choice... ground beef in this version.
Use only as much water as is needed because the vegetables will usually release a good amount of water. Of course you could always use some roux or a few cubed potatoes to thicken up the final product if you end up having a watery sauce... or if you've added more liquid to increase the sauciness factor.
In this particular pot, there's an entire large eggplant, four large carrot and five green/red bell peppers hidden in there. Hubby and I enjoy this curry with tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlets) and rice. My sons gobble this down without even a second glance to figure out what exactly has been mixed with their rice. They usually ask for second and third helpings as well!
The curry tastes great fresh and hot on the first day... but it gets even better on the second day when the flavours have had time to meld and it freezes well. It's also pretty easy to make in large batches provided you have a large enough pot :)
All in all, it's a good recipe to have in the pocket for busy people and picky kids.
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Japanese Curry (from scratch, no MSG, Jane-style :) Yield: 4 adult servings or enough for a young family of 4 plus a leftovers lunch
1-inch piece cinnamon stick 2 tbsp coriander seeds 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 tsp Szechuan peppercorns 1 tsp fennel seeds 1 tbsp garlic powder 2 tsps onion powder 1-inch piece ginger, grated 1 - 2 pears, finely chopped 1/2 - 1 banana, chopped 1 - 2 tbsp miso paste (any colour) 1 lb ground meat of your choice 1 eggplant, julienned 3 - 4 carrots, grated/julienned 3 - 4 bell peppers, julienned or other veggies of your choice in the amounts you like! 2 - 3 tsps salt, or to taste (strongly dependent on how much water/veggies you add)
Grind the cinnamon, coriander, cumin, peppercorns and fennel in a coffee/spice grinder until fine. Mix with garlic and onion powder and set aside.
In a large saucepan, heat a small amount of oil over medium-high heat and saute pears and bananas until soft and beginning to caramelize.
Add in spice mixture and grater ginger and stir until fragrant, approximately one minute.
Deglaze with water (or stock or sake if you wish). Stir in miso paste.
Add in ground meat and enough water to barely cover the meat. Saute while stirring to break up all the meat lumps.
Add your chopped vegetables. Season with salt if necessary. Top up with some liquid if necessary. Cover and simmer for approximately 15-20 minutes.
I had just over a cup of leftover pumpkin pie filling the other day. There are many different ways to use up this extra filling, really depends how much you have left. If I had more filling then I would probably have mixed it with some cream cheese and swirled it into some brownies or made little chocolate cupcakes with a surprise middle. Or I could have also coated some small ramekins with butter and sprinkled the insides with cookie/graham crumbs and made a pumpkin pie "souffle". Or there's always pumpkin pancakes... anything with eggs, liquid and a little more flour can be turned into a pancake on the griddle!
Having only a small bit left, I decided that I would add it to one of my favourite covert recipes. It's basically Martha's One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes made with whole wheat flour and wheat germ instead of white flour.
The pumpkin pie filling mixed into the batter beautifully and made the cupcakes even more moist than they are usually. Actually they may have been too moist... they were delicious but very delicate to hold! So if you are stuck with a little extra filling just toss it into your favourite recipe that contains more or less the same ingredients.
We've been receiving some winter squash in our farm share box - kinda sad because it means that our CSA season is almost over. I've learned a lot this past summer and will be even better equipped next year to freeze and preserve our summer bounty.
So back to the squash. So far, we've received a spaghetti squash that I have yet to use (just bought some ricotta for it though... I'm thinking of a layered gratin of sorts). We had a previous butternut squash that I cut up for some butternut squash risotto. The sugar pumpkin was made into pie. I bought a kabocha squash for some Korean-style roasted squash. (Can you grow kabocha squash, Zephyr Organics? hint hint).
And here's the meal that came from our recent butternut squash:
I've never had store bought gnocchi that has tasted as good as homemade. Something is always off about the texture of the store stuff. It's usually kind of starchy and not very toothsome. It must have something to do with the process of mixing and forming the gnocchi - since the ingredients should be the same. I'm sure that commercially made gnocchi must be over-mixed and extruded, that would explain their gummy and heavy texture.
That being said, making gnocchi is definitely a labour of love. It's not that it is difficult to make, because it can be as simple or as fancy as you like it to be. It's just that it's the type of dish that you lovingly shape by hand for those that you love, or make it together with the ones you love. For me, it's like making large batches of Chinese dumplings, Vietnamese spring rolls or banana leaf-wrapped rice - you wouldn't go to the trouble of homemaking it for a bunch of strangers who would devour your efforts without so much as an "mmm - that's good!" On the other hand, when your audience is appreciative or even better, helping out, then the whole process becomes part of the enjoyment.
Here are some tips I've picked up over time in my quest for the perfect homemade gnocchi:
Don't overwork the dough. I usually mix it like pasta dough - on my countertop, with a well in the centre of the flour, gradually incorporating the flour into my wet mixture. I'll usually switch over to a bench scraper once the wet and dry are starting to hold together and gently fold the contents over and over again until it forms a soft ball.
Don't add too much flour at the beginning. You will probably eventually add all or even more flour than you originally anticipated, just don't add it all at the beginning. Always dust just enough flour over the piece of dough that you're working with to keep it from getting super sticky, this way you'll only incorporate as much flour as is needed and not any more.
When shaping the dough into logs/snakes, don't hesitate. This is a weird one to explain. When you make your snake, roll it quickly and efficiently, pretending like your a pro. I've found that when I try to stretch the dough out slowly or cautiously, it always ends up like some kind of flattened, irregularly shaped tapeworm. Whereas, if I stretch the dough out with fewer than five or six quick backward and forward rolls, it always works out. (Remember to add some flour before rolling if your dough is super sticky).
Size matters. There's a perfect size - where the gnocchi cook quickly enough to avoid being over-watery dumplings, but are large enough to give you a perfect bite. For me, that's when the snake is about the diameter of my thumb and cut into inch long pieces.
Those little ridges you get from a fork or gnocchi board make a difference. I used to think that shaping the gnocchi was just a decorative step. I would sometimes even just pinch the dough into pieces and try boiling them without rolling and cutting first. The resulting gnocchi never had the right toothsomeness. They always ended up tasting and feeling like over-boiled dumplings or soggy matzoh balls.
Their ostensible shape is deceiving. They look like solid footballs, but are in reality they are more like a ridged, thick shell. Shaping them makes them less dense (since the round shape comes from the dough curling up, as opposed to being a solid ball) and the ridges add little places for your sauce to stick. (Remember again to flour the snake/log before you cut and shape if they are getting sticky). Here are two good videos on how to shape gnocchi using a fork:
Have I inundated you with enough info yet? Still wanna give them a try? Here's how I made mine...
Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Mushrooms and Sage Brown Butter
For the gnocchi:
1 butternut squash, roasted and pureed (1-1/2 lb squash, yielded about 3 cups puree)
3 cups flour, plus more for dusting *you need to have approximately equal amounts of puree and flour
1/2 cup grated parmigiano reggiano (or similar)
1 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 egg *you may need an additional egg if you have 4+ cups squash and 4 cups+ flour
For the sauce (yield: 4 servings):
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
1 onion, minced
2 tbsp butter
fresh or dried sage to taste
pecorino romano (or similar) for serving
For the gnocchi:
Roast the squash, scoop out flesh, puree and cool.
Place flour on a clean countertop (generally I start with as much flour as I have squash). Season flour with nutmeg and salt.
Make a well in the centre and place squash, grated cheese and egg in the well. Mix the wet ingredients together with a fork.
Gradually incorporate the flour into the wet ingredients. If you're squash was really wet, this step may be messy and you'll need to add more flour. Your dough is ready once it forms a nice ball. You may need to periodically dust the dough with flour to keep it from sticking to the counter as you keep on working.
Cut a thin chunk off the edge of the dough, dust very lightly with flour, and roll quickly into a log that is about the thickness of your thumb.
Roll the log lightly in flour and cut the log/snake into inch long pieces.
Shape each of your dough bits by rolling it over the tines of a fork.
Place onto a lined/floured baking sheet while you work on the rest. You an either cook or freeze them at this point. I cooked about 1/3 of my gnocchi for my young family of four and froze the rest.
March, my little gnocchi soliders, march.
For the pasta and sauce:
Boil the gnocchi until they float to the top, continue boiling for an additional 1-2 minutes.
Drain and reserve some pasta water (if you like your gnocchi saucy).
Heat some olive oil over medium heat and saute your onions and mushrooms. Salt and pepper as desired.
Once the veggies are ready and the liquid has started to evaporate, add the butter and sage. Cook until butter starts to brown.
Add in your drained gnocchi. Toss. Add some reserved pasta water if you want a saucier dish. Or skip the water and fry a bit longer if you like your gnocchi crisp.
Top with some grated cheese and enjoy.
My kids love gnocchi. To them, it's a super yummy, chewy form of pasta. For mommy, it's a way to incorporate a larger variety of veggies into their diet (i.e. squash gnocchi, pumpkin gnocchi, spinach gnocchi, chard gnocchi, etc.) I love gnocchi - it's the ultimate carb loader before any long run! And hubby, wisely, loves to eat anything I make ;) A winner on all counts.
A new and fun vegetable in our CSA box this week - kohlrabi! I know this veggie but never buy it since I didn't know what to do with it other than stir-frying it like broccoli stems. We received two medium-small, tender kohlrabi bulbs this week and I figured that this would be a good chance to find out all about them.
The overwhelming net-census on the best way to enjoy them was eating them raw in salads/slaws. I saved the smaller bulb for future use in a colourful salad that I have envisioned using some of our other gorgeous Zephyr Organics produce. The larger bulb I decided to use with some of the organic zucchini we've been receiving to make a kind of pakora or fritter.
Fritters are a great covert way to introduce a lot of vegetable to your child's diet. I know they can be a little on the fatty side, but you could always fry them with minimal oil in a non-stick pan if you were concerned about the amount of fat in your child's diet.
I don't think these are technically pakoras since I used some egg in the batter and I think pakoras are usually just besan (chickpea) flour and water. They are not as crisp as ones made with just flour and water but I wanted the fluffiness that you get with added egg. I find the softer, fluffy fritters are easier for my kids to eat than the crispy ones (more like a doughnut and less like a chip).
The method is pretty simple. Grate or finely chop the vegetables you want to use (onions, peppers, spinach, zucchini, etc) and squeeze out as much excess water as you can for the wet vegetables, like my kohlrabi and zucchini. I like to grate half of my veggies finely and the other half coarsely. That way my finished fritter has some recognizable vegetable bits but most of the veggies are hidden from a child's prying eyes and fingers.
You could be really diligent and squeeze out the water using a cheesecloth or dishtowel, but I just squeeze the grated stuff with my hands over a colander in the sink. If I feel I've been really unsuccessful getting all the water out, I just make my batter a little thicker to compensate. The batter is made with besan (chickpea flour), an egg, spices (coriander, cumin, green cardamom, turmeric - today), salt and water. Usually, I start with a little less flour than the volume of my veggies and mix it with my liquid until I get a thick paste.
Stir in your vegetables. (Notice that my mixture looks pretty thick right now... don't worry... the water I couldn't squeeze out will soon thin the batter down to a sloppy pancake batter consistency).
Heat up a good bit of oil to deep fry (if you want them pakora style) or a little oil in a skillet if you want to press them a little flatter and fry them like a pancake (fritter style). In my case, these were pakora style and I just dropped the batter into the hot oil in big forkfuls.
Fry them until they are golden and cooked through, flipping once. If you find they are getting too brown for your liking, either lower the heat or reduce the size of your fritters so that they will get a chance to cook through before overly browning. Remove them to a draining rack or paper towel-covered plate with a slotted spoon.
Enjoy them warm - crisp on the outside, soft on the inside and oh-so-good with some chutney!
Kohlrabi and Zucchini Pakora-style Fritters Yield: 16-20 medium sized fritters (measurements are totally approximate, depending on the amount of veggie you end up with)
1 medium kohlrabi, peeled and grated 1 medium yellow zucchini, grated 2 small green zucchini, grated 1-1/4 cups besan (chickpea flour) 1/2 tsp coriander seeds, ground 1/4 tsp cumin seeds, ground 1 green cardamom pod, seeds removed and ground 1/4 tsp turmeric 1/2 tsp salt 1 egg
water, to thin batter
Prepare, grate and squeeze excess moisture from kohlrabi and zucchini. Set aside.
Combine all remaining ingredients to make the batter. Fold in the vegetables. Add water as needed until the batter is thick pancake or muffin batter consistency.
Drop by the spoonful into hot oil and fry until golden, flipping once.
Drain over a rack or paper towels and enjoy.
p.s. As a sidebar, we enjoyed our pakoras with a tomato and yogurt based chicken curry. Check out the mise en place for the curry ---->
So colourful and fresh looking! No wonder I love making curries and the Indian ones are the best for richness and depth of ingredients :)
p.p.s. Love that tomato season is starting. I cannot stand tomatoes from the grocery store, so bland and sour. These ones were super meaty and sweet. Also managed to use one of the Anaheim chilis we received in our CSA box last week. Perfect for adding a little heat (but not too much for the kiddies).
As a follow-up to my lasagna drying fail, here is the recipe for the pasta dough that tasted good even though it was in a million pieces. I use these basic proportions for most of my homemade pasta and it passes the hubby and kid test for undetectability of whole-wheatness.
Whole Wheat Pasta Dough For 4-6 servings of pasta
4 eggs
1/2 cup durum semolina
1-1/2 cup white flour*
1 cup whole wheat flour
Mix the dry ingredients together on a clean countertop and form into a shallow mound. Make a wide well in the middle (don't worry if countertop is showing through) and crack your eggs into the middle. Using a fork, break up the eggs yolks and beat the eggs. Once the eggs are more or less beaten, start incorporating small amounts of flour into the egg by scraping the sides of your well with the fork. Do this slowly and try to keep the egg inside your well since it minimizes your mess. When enough flour is incorporated into the egg and it no longer runs all over the countertop, you can switch to a bench scraper or your hands to knead in the rest of the flour mixture. Knead the dough until it is smooth (keeping in mind that the more you knead, the chewier your pasta will get :) Wrap it up and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour before shaping it.** You could also skip the resting period and store it in the fridge for a few days or freeze the whole ball and defrost it in the fridge overnight when needed.
*You may want to reserve some of the flour and add it at the end when it's easier tell if your pasta dough is too dry or too wet. I find different brands of flour (especially whole wheat flour) really have different moisture and gluten contents. Not to mention your ambient or storage conditions :) **You can use it immediately but it tends to be very elastic when first kneaded, waiting a bit makes it a lot easier to roll and shape.
Enjoy!
Another look at the lasagna noodles before the fall/fail.
To be up front, I don't really agree with hiding food in order to trick or connive children into eating stuff. I do believe in squeezing as much nutritional value into a given food/meal as possible. You could argue that it's semantics or a sliding scale of trickiness, but I just want to be honest with my children about what they're eating. So although I will chop up my veggies extra small to make removing them from fried rice that much harder (and would you believe that my three year old can sometimes still eat all the rice out of fried rice?!?) I probably wouldn't make a habit of pureeing food to sneak it into other foods.
That being said, here is a super tasty recipe for banana bread that I've been tweaking over the years. It evolves all the time to include ever more healthful ingredients, but it always has to meet the hubby taste test - he still doesn't want to believe that wifey is no longer using white flour most of the time. Note: I said healthful, not low fat or sugar free. My kids are pretty skinny and my pediatrician has given me the go ahead to feed them as much butter and cream as I want:)
And yes, the blacker the better! In fact, the top banana is a little too yellow for my taste... it's just that someone keeps eating my banana bread bananas before they can get black and mushy.
Even Better Than Regular Banana Bread Makes: 24 muffins or 2 small loaves
2 cups whole wheat flour 1/2 cup quinoa flour* 1/4 cup (or more) wheat germ 1/4 cup ground flax seed 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter, melted (or vegetable oil) 3/4 cup honey (may add additional 1/4 cup sugar if you like your bread sweet) 3 eggs 1-2 tablespoonsvanilla extract
2 large overripe bananas
1/2 cup yogurt
Preheat your oven to 350F. Grease or spray your baking pans.
In a medium bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients (whole wheat flour, quinoa flour, wheat germ, flax seeds, baking soda, salt). Set aside. Sometimes I have fun adding cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cardamom, ground ginger, or other spices. Usually I just make the basic, and let the bananas shine through.
In your mixing bowl, beat together the butter/oil, honey and additional sugar (if desired). Once mixed, add your eggs one at a time and throw in a big splash of vanilla.
If you're using a stand mixer or hand mixer, you can add your bananas in whole. On the other hand, if you're mixing by hand or if you prefer a really uniformly textured bread, then mash your bananas first before adding them to the mixer bowl. Mix until everything is uniformly incorporated.
Slowly stir in your reserved dry ingredients alternately with the yogurt (i.e. half your dry stuff, the yogurt, then the rest of the dry stuff). You don't need to mix much, just so that there are no more dry flour chunks. You could definitely fold in some nuts or raisins or sunflower seeds or blueberries or coconut or whatever at this point. Sadly, we no longer eat banana walnut bread anymore because of the constant threat of food taxation by a baby who is still nut-free.
Divide up the batter into your prepared pans. And bake for about an hour if making loaves or 20-30 minutes depending on the size of your muffins.
They're ready when your kitchen smells wonderful and the tops look gorgeous and brown like so. (You could also stick a toothpick in and see if it comes out: Dry with some crumbs = done. Or wet with batter = not done.)
You can see that I do not even try to scoop uniform amounts of batter. I'm just not that kind of baker :P
Let them cool for a bit in the pan for a bit. A loaf can be tipped out of the pan and cooled on a cooling rack fairly quickly. I find muffins always need a little bit more time in the pan before they can be moved without losing their tops.
Enjoy the tasty goodness. Immediately with some melting butter. Tomorrow, after the flavours have melded. Or reheated from frozen, when you want some baked goodness without the fuss at a later date.
*Found organic quinoa flour for a very good price at my local bulk food store
