yummy summer foods
i'm not traveling at all this week (a miracle!), so i've been taking every opportunity to cook...
we rescued two over-ripe bananas from the beach, which motivated me to make banana bread. i'm not much of a baker, but that recipe is pretty much impossible to screw up, and i certainly tried; i only had about a half-cup sugar, so added some honey to make for it; decided i wanted a meatier bread, so used 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour and whole wheat for the rest; and the hunk of butter i had in the fridge was a very approximate half-stick.
also, i tried the convect bake setting on our oven; the manual says to set it for 25 degrees lower than the recipe specifies. at 325, it took about 35 minutes (in two little loaf pans, rather than one big one, which definitely baked very evenly) and made the house smell heavenly. best part is, it tastes even better than it smells! next time, i might put nuts in; thebroomecloset seems to miss them more than i do.
two weeks ago, the veggie box brought us a pint of cherry tomatoes; i wanted a quick lunch, and was too lazy to consult the internet, so i ended up making pomodoro fresca, which is basically a mash-up of giada's spaghettini with checca sauce with america's test kitchen's fresh tomato sauce recipes (membership required, unfortunately) plus whatever i happened to have in the fridge at the time. it was so tasty that when last week's box yielded more cherry tomatoes plus a couple of regular tomatoes, we made it again...
pomodoro fresca:
heat the olive oil in a 10" skillet or saute pan (preferably nonstick & with a lid) over medium heat; when it's hot, add the garlic. cook the garlic a minute or two, until the smallest pieces are just starting to brown.
add the tomatoes, wine / broth / tomato paste, herbs, and salt and stir to combine. bring to a simmer, turn the heat to medium-low, and cover the pan (lid or tinfoil). stir occasionally to make sure it's not sticking / burning on the bottom. before you add the pasta, season to taste with pepper and any additional salt needed.
when the water comes to a boil, salt it generously, and add your pasta. cook to just al dente (about 8min for the whole-wheat pasta above). scoop the pasta out with a skimmer and add it directly to the pan of sauce, or drain it in a colandar and then add to the pan; either way, add just enough that the sauce will coat all of it. (any extra can be tossed with a little olive oil and stored for later snacking.)
grate some parmesan, romano, or a mix over the top and enjoy!
also, we got an entire bunch of celery with our box last week. wtf do you do with a twenty stalks of celery? (other than bug-on-a-log, which i haven't been eaten since grade school...) epicurious to the rescue - last night, we made celery bisque with stilton toasts. conveniently, we had a couple leeks from the veggie box, half a leftover baguette, and some blue cheese in the freezer; i accidentally diced about twice as many potatoes as we needed, but we had big leeks and extra celery anyway. (we used the celery leaves in addition to the stalks; thebroomecloset said "mario batali says all the flavor is in the leaves, anyway!" after a moment of "why the hell do you know what mario batali thinks about celery?", i remembered that he's been reading heat...) also, low-fat sour cream makes a perfectly acceptable substitute for crème fraîche.
the resulting soup was delicious! thebroomecloset doesn't care much for celery, but even he pronounced it acceptable (with a little extra cayenne and sour cream added to his serving). and the blue cheese toasts were somehow the perfect accompaniment - don't skip them.
tonight, i'm planning to make a lentil-vegetable pottage, based roughly on this lentil and sweet red pepper soup recipe. (except that i have green peppers instead of red and will probably end up doubling the recipe to use up all my leftover veggies.) more yum! and i can't wait to see what new tidbits the veggie box brings tomorrow...
eta: the pottage was delicious. also, thebroomecloset brought home sugar (of which we were out) to go with the cachaça with which he surprised me the other day... so we had pre-dinner caipirinhas! much yum. next time, with key limes, even.
we rescued two over-ripe bananas from the beach, which motivated me to make banana bread. i'm not much of a baker, but that recipe is pretty much impossible to screw up, and i certainly tried; i only had about a half-cup sugar, so added some honey to make for it; decided i wanted a meatier bread, so used 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour and whole wheat for the rest; and the hunk of butter i had in the fridge was a very approximate half-stick.
also, i tried the convect bake setting on our oven; the manual says to set it for 25 degrees lower than the recipe specifies. at 325, it took about 35 minutes (in two little loaf pans, rather than one big one, which definitely baked very evenly) and made the house smell heavenly. best part is, it tastes even better than it smells! next time, i might put nuts in; thebroomecloset seems to miss them more than i do.
two weeks ago, the veggie box brought us a pint of cherry tomatoes; i wanted a quick lunch, and was too lazy to consult the internet, so i ended up making pomodoro fresca, which is basically a mash-up of giada's spaghettini with checca sauce with america's test kitchen's fresh tomato sauce recipes (membership required, unfortunately) plus whatever i happened to have in the fridge at the time. it was so tasty that when last week's box yielded more cherry tomatoes plus a couple of regular tomatoes, we made it again...
pomodoro fresca:
- some tomatoes
- (i realize that's not very specific! last week i used a pint of cherry tomatoes, and it made not-quite-enough for a half-pound of pasta. this week i used a pint of cherry tomatoes plus almost-two regular tomatoes, and it made not-quite-enough for a pound of pasta. ATK says 3 lbs of tomatoes makes enough for 1 lb of pasta.)
- some pasta
- (how much depends on your amount of tomatoes! i like chiocciole because the sauce gets into them, but gobbetti or fusilli are good too.)
- several cloves of garlic
- (i'm of the "garlic is a vegetable" school, so i use 4-5 big cloves. you may want to adjust for normal humans.)
- some olive oil
- (again, depends on how much tomato you have. if you're doing 3 lbs, use 3 Tbsp for a pint of cherry tomatoes, i used maybe 1 Tbsp - i don't measure, i just splash it in the pan.)
- a splash of white wine (optional)
- a splash of chicken broth (optional)
- a squirt of tomato paste (optional)
- herbs
- (i use dried basil & oregano. fresh would be better. rosemary is on the list for next time.)
- salt & pepper
heat the olive oil in a 10" skillet or saute pan (preferably nonstick & with a lid) over medium heat; when it's hot, add the garlic. cook the garlic a minute or two, until the smallest pieces are just starting to brown.
add the tomatoes, wine / broth / tomato paste, herbs, and salt and stir to combine. bring to a simmer, turn the heat to medium-low, and cover the pan (lid or tinfoil). stir occasionally to make sure it's not sticking / burning on the bottom. before you add the pasta, season to taste with pepper and any additional salt needed.
when the water comes to a boil, salt it generously, and add your pasta. cook to just al dente (about 8min for the whole-wheat pasta above). scoop the pasta out with a skimmer and add it directly to the pan of sauce, or drain it in a colandar and then add to the pan; either way, add just enough that the sauce will coat all of it. (any extra can be tossed with a little olive oil and stored for later snacking.)
grate some parmesan, romano, or a mix over the top and enjoy!
also, we got an entire bunch of celery with our box last week. wtf do you do with a twenty stalks of celery? (other than bug-on-a-log, which i haven't been eaten since grade school...) epicurious to the rescue - last night, we made celery bisque with stilton toasts. conveniently, we had a couple leeks from the veggie box, half a leftover baguette, and some blue cheese in the freezer; i accidentally diced about twice as many potatoes as we needed, but we had big leeks and extra celery anyway. (we used the celery leaves in addition to the stalks; thebroomecloset said "mario batali says all the flavor is in the leaves, anyway!" after a moment of "why the hell do you know what mario batali thinks about celery?", i remembered that he's been reading heat...) also, low-fat sour cream makes a perfectly acceptable substitute for crème fraîche.
the resulting soup was delicious! thebroomecloset doesn't care much for celery, but even he pronounced it acceptable (with a little extra cayenne and sour cream added to his serving). and the blue cheese toasts were somehow the perfect accompaniment - don't skip them.
tonight, i'm planning to make a lentil-vegetable pottage, based roughly on this lentil and sweet red pepper soup recipe. (except that i have green peppers instead of red and will probably end up doubling the recipe to use up all my leftover veggies.) more yum! and i can't wait to see what new tidbits the veggie box brings tomorrow...
eta: the pottage was delicious. also, thebroomecloset brought home sugar (of which we were out) to go with the cachaça with which he surprised me the other day... so we had pre-dinner caipirinhas! much yum. next time, with key limes, even.