[Back to normality... a bit... after the madness of Hallowe'en sewing...] I was introduced to delicata squash by our CSA box this summer and hubby and I are a little in love with this gorgeous heirloom squash. The appeal to us? Sweet, but not overly sweet. Soft, edible skin. Wonderful texture - powdery and smooth like the inside of a double baked potato or a really well fried Yukon Gold french fry. And no pumpkin aftertaste.
I gave it a little roast with a generous amount of butter and salt along with a sprinkling of brown sugar and they turned into the yummiest squash bites ever... Even my sons enjoyed the "sweet and salty french fries" that mommy offered them. So what else could I do with this great squash?
Deep fried like a potato chip? Roasted and blended into gnocchi or ravioli? What about grated for rosti? The possibilities seems so endless. Will keep you updated if I can find some at the local supermarket when the craziness of the next few days dies down.
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 ;)
We've had some lovely late summer vegetables in our CSA boxes lately - sweet peppers (finally!), eggplants and squash (more on this later). We've also harvested the last of our tomatoes and what hasn't been frozen has been made into some delicious tomato sauce-based pasta dinners. So last night I decided to use some of our leftover pasta sauce and some deep fried goodness to make parmigiana sandwiches.
Our sandwiches consisted of eggplant parmigiana, chicken parmigiana, mozzarella, roasted peppers and homemade marinara.... plus some La Bomba sauce for a hot and delicious kick.
Saw this trick a while back on Bon Appetit and thought that I would try it since we get a decent amount of radishes with our farmshare. It's basically a spin on radishes with butter and salt. The radishes are dipped into tempered, salted butter and then left to harden - almost as if they were chocolate dipped.
One thing I always grow in my gardens is basil. It's easy to grow, so much better when it's fresh and a real cost-saver considering that you pay $3 or more for a small bunch at the store. This year I was lucky enough to find organic sweet basil and thai basil seeds, so I have a lot of both growing in the garden... Just ask anyone I know if I've been in the business of dealing zip-top baggies of herbs at every recent girls' night-out.
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've been learning the way of sourdough (more on that in a later post!) and having some beautiful grape tomatoes and leftover dried up oregano from past CSA boxes inspired me to make some focaccia. Of course, this focaccia does not have to be made with homemade sourdough ;) You could easily substitute store-bought pizza dough and have the same fresh-baked result.
So what do you serve at a small craft brewery's inaugural tasting party? Lots of great homemade food, of course! We had smoked brisket, bbq and jerk ribs, sprouted arugula salad, fennel and orange salad, quiche, homemade sourdough focaccia and this pearl couscous pilaf.
I absolutely love Israeli/pearl couscous - it is the perfect combination of silky smooth and al dente chew. It can take on a variety of flavours and goes from refrigerator to table with no problems whatsoever.
This particular dish has the added oomph of umami-laden roasted vegetables and comes together in a snap. I think everyone at the table loved this satisfying, vegetarian friendly dish.
More garlic scapes and some scallions in our CSA box and more stir-fry. This time I used the garlic scapes in a no-spice version of ma po tofu. (I'll be so happy when the kids get old enough to eat super spicy foods so that we can go back to food the way hubby and I like it... sigh.)
Usually I make this recipe with garlic, but the garlic scapes promised a much milder and more perfumed flavour...
Previously, I wrote about trying to get DH to like beets. Radishes are another veggie that he is not a fan of and I cannot fathom why. Adding to the mystery is the fact that he enjoys Chinese turnip/radish which (IMHO) has an even stronger taste than your common radish.
So I decided to try roasting the radishes because all vegetables taste great tossed with a bit of olive oil and sea salt and roasted until caramelized. I also mixed them with some zucchini because hubby likes zucchini.
Then I tossed the whole lot with some balsamic vinegar that I had reduced to a sweet deliciousness and served it alongside of a nice garden salad and stuffed chicken thighs. And what did he think?
We received some cute little fennel bulbs in our CSA box last week and although they were cute to look at, I wondered what I would use such small fennel bulbs for? Cooking them was out of the question since they reduce so much that these small bulbs would just disappear into nothingness. Sliced up raw in a salad was another possibility. But sorting the veggies that night made me look at the fennel and rhubarb together and think, "Why not?"
Fennel stalks are so fragrant that it seems a waste to trim and throw them into the compost. We got some very small fennel bulbs in our CSA box this week and after saving the tiny bulbs for a dessert (will post later) I wondered what I should do with the stalks. Quite a few voices on the internet seemed to agree that cooking fish over the fennel stalks was the way to go and since wild salmon season is on, it seemed the perfect combination for dinner.
My darling husband eats (and loves to eat!) many things - tendon, stinky tofu, chicken feet, strong blue cheeses... and the list goes on. How else would we have survived seven years together if we didn't share a mutual love of all things food? The funny thing is the foods that turn him off the most seem so innocuous - cauliflower, brussels sprouts, radishes, beets. (Doesn't it sound like someone wasn't taught to appreciate his veggies when he was young? ;)
So what to do when our CSA box contains so many of these goodies? Let's see, the cruciferous vegetables are generally mixed with bacon or pureed into soup. The radishes are mostly pickled and eaten with pho (still don't understand why he likes pickled daikon but is not into pickled radish?!?). But the beets, the beautiful beets, how do I get him to like those?
So I left my garlic scapes in the fridge a bit too long because I really wanted to stir fry them with dried tofu and I didn't get a chance to buy some until just recently. So unfortunately some of the scapes withered and dried, but fortunately the enjoyment my kids got out of this dish more than made up for the wait and wastage.
Garlic scapes are both the hardest and the easiest CSA item to use. Easiest because they can basically be used anywhere you would use garlic. Hardest because I don't want to waste them in a dish where their delicate flavour, milder than garlic bulbs and similar to garlic chives, is lost.
We were lucky to receive some red currants in our farmshare last week, but due to the tiny quantity, I left them in the fridge for more than a week pondering the best way to use them.
But since I've been on a bit of a run exploring ice pop flavours, I figured there was a good chance that they would end up reduced into syrup and incorporated into a popsicle of some sort. The answer occurred to me as I was grating some lemon zest for a quinoa salad... lemon and currant popsicles!
First, I reduced the currants into a sauce with some water and sugar and pureed them in the magic bullet.
Currants, like raspberries, have tons of seeds and little stems that are tough to remove. So I strained out the seeds/stems and ended up with a thick red currant coulis of sorts. This already tasted so good that I had a hard time resisting eating it as a red currant fool.
I'm glad I waited though because the ice pops turned out even better than I expected. I was a little unsure what the texture or taste would be like since I was a bit like a mad scientist in the kitchen while I was concocting them... but they were everything I wanted them to be.
Light, lemony, a little bit icy, and very refreshing with bursts of tangy, sweet red currant jelly. The adults enjoyed them and the kids loved them. They definitely give me encouragement to experiment a bit more with my popsicle mold. Don't be surprised to see a whole lot of ice pop recipes through the summer.
Lemon Pudding and Red Currant Jelly Ice Pops Yield: 300ml (=9 Onyx pops or 6 full-size and 6 kid-sized pops)
Red Currant Jelly 150g red currants, washed 1/8 - 1/4 cup sugar, (sweeten according to your taste) 1 - 2 tablespoons water
Add currants and sugar to a small saucepan. Add enough water to get the mixture bubbling and prevent burning. Heat gently over medium heat until mixture is bubbling and the currants have mostly broken down.
Let cool. Strain to remove seeds and pulp.
Lemon Pudding 3 teaspoons cornstarch 1 egg yolk 1-1/2 cups milk (I used 2% but I think whole milk would have been heavenly) 1-1/2 cups half and half cream (what I had on hand, but I'm sure 35% cream would be richer and delish too) 1/4 cup sugar
zest of 1/2 lemon
In a medium saucepan, whisk together cornstarch, egg yolk and a small amount of the milk until smooth. Add the rest of the ingredients and heat over medium-high heat until mixture begins to boil.
Continue heating until mixture is boiling fairly uniformly (i.e. bubbles are appearing on the edges and in the centre).
Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
Pour lemon pudding into molds. Reserve leftover mixture by covering with cellophane (let the plastic wrap touch the surface of the liquid) and refrigerate until you're ready to freeze a second batch* (1-2 days).
Add a heaping teaspoonful of red currant jelly to each ice pop, and using a chopstick/skewer swirl the jelly into the pudding.
Freeze 5 hours or until frozen. Enjoy!
*I always unmold my ice pops and wrap them in parchment paper as soon as they are frozen. This way I can use the mold again to make more ice pops to create a freezer stockpile of hot weather treats.
For anyone who has asked me about it in the past or who is curious about the whole farmshare/CSA thing... This is our second year supporting Zephyr Organics and we've loved receiving wholesome, fresh produce straight from our local grower. Earlier this summer, we even managed to visit the farm before the season started and got a sneak peak at the farm's operations.
This year, we've opted to receive a larger order on a bi-weekly basis (versus last year's half-order that came every week). So far this has worked out great since "farmshare day" is a bit of a production around here and I find it easier to do twice the work at half the frequency.
So what happens on farmshare day/night? A lot of washing, sorting, prepping, cutting, shelling, blanching, freezing and meal planning. For instance, last night's duties included:
This is all that is left of the beautiful bean plants that my sons planted while we were at the Zephyr Organics open house. They were all growing beautifully in and were beginning to outgrow the pots my sons had decorated while at the open house, so I moved them outside hoping that the boys would be able to harvest beans from their own plants in a few weeks.
All I can say is that I am very angry and annoyed at the bunnies and beginning to think that it's been a while since I've enjoyed braised rabbit.
Okay... [deep breath]... Here are some nicer pictures of our gardens.
The CSA season is beginning here and you are now being forewarned that my blog will very soon become almost completely food oriented.
Here's the first box. And yes! There's finally enough bok choy in my share to make a whole vegetable dish. (I always wondered what I was supposed to do with the measly two heads of bok choy that I used to get in my half-share last year?)
So hopefully, I'll be able provide some seasonal, gastronomical inspiration as I try to keep up with the deluge of produce.
In case you were wondering, here's the planned itinerary for the above:
Leaf and Romaine lettuces: salads.
Rutabagas: mashed (to go with red-braised pork belly)
Bok choy: stir-fried (to go with pork belly)
Rhubarb: jelly or tart... undecided as of this moment
Spinach, kale, chard: blanching and freezing
Asparagus: grilled (mmm!)
Scapes: Maybe a stir fry with tofu, mushrooms, carrots...
Radishes: leaves have already been made into pesto. Radishes may (attempt to) be butter dipped.
Sage: a friend suggested sage tea which sounds intriguing and soothing
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.
