Sweet Sassy Molassy

We had leftover ground beef and pork sausage from making stuffed peppers, so we decided to make some Italian wedding soup and made some small meatballs for it. The soup was incredibly easy to make. We sauteed some garlic, onion, celery and carrots, then added chicken stock, some orzo and the meatballs and then added in some greens at the end and garnished with some asiago cheese. The greens were all leftovers from the weekly CSA: spinach, arugula and salad greens. It made for even better leftovers the next day. It was one of the best soups I have ever had, and I ate it for dinner and lunch the next day!  And I don't particularly even like soup as a meal all that much!

Maybe one of the reasons the soup was so good was because of the crostini with onion marmalade that we added to it. Leah made some onion marmalade out of a few big yellow onions, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar and salt and pepper cooked slowly over low heat. We made some crostini from toasting some baguette slices, rubbing with garlic and then topping with the marmalade. This was awesome in the soup! We also used the marmalade as a spread on ham and roast beef sandwiches throughout the week.

I haven't had a lot of time for updating recently because work is so busy. However, I was thinking about making some tomato sauce this morning and remembered that I hadn't even updated about the first sauce I made a few weeks ago. One of the main reasons we grew our own roma tomatoes this summer was to have some to make really good pasta sauce on the cheap. So, after our first harvest, I decided to give it a try and see how it turned out. I cheated a bit and used a few farmer's market tomatoes in the first batch, since I only had 4 ripe tomatoes at the time, but the 2nd batch is all from our own tomatoes from the garden :)

First, I sliced all the tomatoes in half and laid them in a single layer in a roasting pan. I drizzled olive oil over them and sprinkled liberally with salt and pepper. Then I chopped up some onions, garlic, and oregano and flat leaf parsley and spread them all on the tomatoes as evenly as I could. Then I baked them in the oven at 450F for about 30 mins.

After they had cooled a bit from the oven, I peeled the skins off (we ate them later because they are yummy, but I don't like them in the sauce) and scooped out all the good stuff into a deep bowl so I could use a stick blender to make the sauce. A regular blender would work fine too, or you could just mash it up if you like a chunkier sauce. We ended up using this sauce to cook with some stuffed peppers, which turned out great!

To make the stuffed bell peppers (which we had gotten in our CSA basket), I first made the stuffing and then cleaned and steamed the peppers to soften them, then stuffed them and baked them for about 20-30 mins til they were hot inside. Because I pre-cooked the stuffing mixture and the peppers, they took a lot less time to cook in the oven. I was inspired by this recipe, which I doctored up a bit: http://www.singforyoursupperblog.com/2009/08/20/delicious-stuffed-peppers/

For the stuffing, I pre-cooked some rice and then made a mixture of 1/2 lb of hamburger and 1/2 lb of pork sausage, which I cooked with some spices and onion and garlic and a touch of  tomato paste. Then I mixed in some rice (I think about a cup, but maybe more) and half the sauce and proceeded to stuff the peppers with the mixture. The rest of the sauce went into the bottom of a baking dish. I placed the peppers on top of the sauce, grated some cheddar cheese on top and baked it at 350F for about 20 mins. We served it over the rest of the rice and spooned some of the sauce on top, along with a nice big salad!

I started by scrubbing the cucumbers and soaking them in ice water for a few hours. Then I made a brine with 6 cups water, 2 cup white vinegar and 1/2 cup kosher salt, with some mustard seeds and a few hot pepper flakes, and brought it to a boil. While that was getting going, I boiled my canning jars and lids to sterilize them and bring them up to temp.
 

For the refrigerator dills:
I picked out some fresh dill heads and peeled some garlic and placed a few dill heads and a sliced clove of garlic in the bottom of 3 jars. I sliced about half the cucumbers into spears (the largest ones, and cut off the ends so they would fit into the jars) and stuffed them into the jars. Then I poured in the brine to about 1/2 inch from the top of the jar and put a few more dill heads on top before sealing the jars. These I turned upside down (per the recipe I had seen) to settle overnight and make sure they weren't leaking before putting them in the fridge.


For the canned dills:
Again, I picked out some more dill heads and peeled and halved some garlic cloves, but also sliced an onion into 1/2 inch thick slices and put a slice of onion, 2 garlic cloves and some fresh dill into the bottom of the jars. I packed the jars with whole cucumbers and then poured in the brine, added some more dill on top, and then sealed the lids. I boiled the jars for 10 minutes, then removed them, let them cool a bit and checked the seals of the jars. I allowed them to cool overnight and put them in the fridge after about 3 days.

Results:
I tried the refrigerator dills after about 4 days and they were awesome! They turned out so good and they tasted like real dill pickles! I was so excited, because it just didn't seem possible that after only a couple of days that they would have any flavor, but they do! I have been snacking on them after work and they are crunchy and delicious. I am going to wait for 2 weeks to try the canned dills, and I have no doubt that they will be good, but I am curious if they will taste much different and if the extra effort of canning is even worth it, especially since I burned my hand when some of the boiling water splashed up on me when I was removing the jars.

This meal didn't actually use anything from the CSA, but that's ok, because it was so darn good! Friday and Saturday, there was entirely too much BBQ stuff on Food Network making us hungry, and Seattle has a lack of "good" BBQ joints, so Leah decided to "make her own damn ribs!"  She got recipes and tips from amazingribs.com and she spent parts of Saturday and Sunday making the ribs. She used the Memphis Dust rub for overnight and a Lexington Dip for the sauce. It was a perfectly balanced sauce of spicy, sweet and vinegary. The ribs themselves took about 5 hours to cook in the oven, basting every 30 minutes. While they were cooking, I spent the day cleaning off the deck so we could eat outside and converting the old rusted-out gas grill to a charcoal grill and she made potato salad. It turned out so good, we are planning to try some more recipes soon!

On Sunday, we picked up some King salmon at the farmer's market, so we used some of the leftover Memphis Dust rub on it and grilled it with some CSA zucchini. Leah made a mash from some CSA potatoes and about half a head of cauliflower, with a little cream cheese in it, since we were inexplicably out of butter! The salmon turned out perfect! The seasonings from the rub wasn't overpowering at all, it was just the right amount and sweet and salty to go with the fish.

Ah green beans, we can never get enough of them! I am sure someday they will become like broccoli to me (which I am just tired of eating for the most part), but for now, I still love em and order them in the CSA every week. My favorite way to prepare them is to toss them with olive oil and S&P and garlic, roast them in the oven on really high heat on a pre-heated pan for about 15 mins, so they get browned on both sides at the same time, then squeeze lemon juice over them at the end. It's super easy and so delicious. This time, Leah added a little hot pepper flakes, to make it more like szechuan green beans, since she made another chinese dish: white peppered pork slices.

We got tomatillos in our basket last week, so of course we had to make another easy sauce. First, boil 6-8 tomatillos, 1 jalapeno, 3-4 garlic cloves and a small onion. Remove the seeds from the jalapeno (leave a few if you like it spicier) and rough chop the tomatillos. Blend them all together with a little bit of the cooking water, cumin, salt, pepper, lime juice, a whole bunch of cilantro and an avocado. The avocado cuts a bit of the spiciness and adds some creaminess. We cooked the shrimp in the sauce and served with tortillas, rice, beans and avocados. Leah aslo made a dill sour cream sauce that was great too.

Grilling is the best! I love it, it even makes summer squash somewhat appetizing! There's nothing fancy here, just grilled the steaks and the squash with simple seasonings and roasted the green beans in the oven with oil, S&P and lemon and made a quickie salad from the mizuna and HUGE head of butter lettuce, tossed with a vinaigrette and some cherry tomatoes. The butter lettuce has made 3 salads so far!

What can I say? We love to grill, it's so easy and everything tastes great. We made another pizza with some CSA veggies (squash, tomatoes) and added some roasted red peppers, mushrooms and chicken sausage from Trader Joes. Note to self though: let the coals burn down a bit more next time so the crust doesn't cook so fast!

I don't know how I found out about these dumplings, but I do know they are good! And I know we had a ton of apricots from 2 weeks worth of CSA fruit. We made them a few years ago, but this time they turned out way better. It helps to make them when the fruit is actually in season. We used a Tyler Florence recipe both times. It looks like a lot of work, but it's actually quite easy.

First, you make the dough, with some kind of fresh cheese. We used Quark, which is available in grocery stores, usually with the yogurt. I drained it in a fine mesh colander lined with paper towels, over a large bowl, for a few hours around dinnertime. I was going to make the dough that night and chill it overnight, but I got lazy and waited til the next day (Saturday) to do it. Once the dough has chilled in the fridge for a few hours, you roll it out and cut out 4-inch circles. While the dough is chilling, you can get your pot of water going and start on the apricots, by removing the pit and replacing with a sugar cube (or some brown sugar if you don't have cubes). Wrap each sugar-stuffed apricot with a circle of dough and stretch it to cover and seal the ends. Then drop a few at a time it into the simmering water to cook for 10-15 minutes. You know they are done when they float to the top.

While the dumplings are cooking, you can toast your breadcrumbs with butter and sugar and cinnamon and make your sour cream sauce. I used panko breadcrumbs this time, because I like them a little crunchy. Once they are done cooking, immediately roll them in the breadcrumb mixture to evenly coat all over.

When they are all done, serve them with a generous spoonful of the sour cream sauce. They will be crunchy on the outside and soft and melty on the inside! The sugar melts inside the apricots and mixes with the juice when you cut them open....

I think we did a good job of using up our CSA veggies this week. After a week-plus off from having sauteed greens, we ended up making sauteed chard, which turned out really good. I don't know what it was about this time as compared to the last few times, but it was much tastier and more tender. Leah sauteed some onions and garlic and then added in the chard and we squeezed some lemon juice and added some lemon zest to it. maybe it was the zest that did the trick. We also had our yukon gold potatoes with lemon and parsley, which made them seem lighter.

For dessert, we just had some vanilla ice cream with CSA strawberries, chopped banana and chocolate sauce. Very simple, very delicious and a good way to use a pint of small berries.

What better way to use up a whole bunch of carrots than to make a carrot cake? I used up about 2/3 of the carrots from the CSA just for this cake, which I made on Saturday. We just finished off the last pieces on Thursday night. So, this cake has carrots, walnuts, pineapple and giant golden raisins. I also replaced half the oil with applesauce. The frosting is just a standard cream cheese icing recipe (cream cheese + butter + sugar). It turned out pretty good, but I think next time, I'll use crushed pineapple instead of just tidbits to give it a tad bit more moisture. And maybe soak the raisins first too.

Super simple dinner, nothing fancy. We made some easy chicken marsala, steamed some couscous with chopped zucchini and tomato and oven roasted some broccoli and green beans with olive oil, garlic and lemon.

Leah made a little meatloaf using up some of the green onions and garlic from the CSA, paired with beluga lentils and a salad of spicy greens mix, tomatoes and raw zucchini, all from the CSA. The salad mix has some nasturtium flowers in it as well, which are also a little peppery! Leah made the lentils with leftover CSA carrots, green onions, garlic and beef bullion.

We used up the rest of the zucchini for this homemade pizza, which also has garlic, red onions and tomatoes and a mix of mozzarella and goat cheese. The dough was just pre-made from Trader Joes, so it was super easy to just assemble the pizza and bake it. I can honestly say that it was my favorite veggie pizza so far, even with my least favorite of vegetables. I think zucchini is growing on me. I certainly like it better than cucumbers in salads!

We steamed some rice in the rice cooker with a can of diced tomatoes and chopped up "spicy greens" mix from the CSA. Leah made a spicy sauce from roasted tomatillos, roasted jalepenos, roasted green onions, lime, cumin and garlic. She pan fried some onions and halibut and then simmered the fish and onions in the sauce and served it over the rice with avocados and tortillas on the side. The sauce was really delicious and went great with the fish!

Ah, zucchini bread... the best use for zucchini, in my opinion! I'm not the biggest fan of summer squash, so I made this on Friday evening, before dinner. It made a very nice dessert and snack over the next few days.

Even after making the zucchini bread (2 loaves!), we still had a zucchini left. I had to look up online some interesting way to prepare it and found this, which turned out really nice. Just cut the zucchini in half lengthwise, brush with a little butter and sprinkle on some grated asiago cheese (or parmesan) and broil in the oven for about 10 mins, til it browns. The potato salad is boiled fingerlings tossed with a pumpkin-seed oil, dijon and sherry vinegar dressing while still warm.

We're almost to "clean out the fridge" stage to see what we've got to use as sides for dishes. We didn't pick out our basket this week and got a nice variety of items, but we almost used them all up early in the week already. The eggs and the garlic also last longer than 1 week, so we haven't used them yet. Leah made turkey burgers by mixing in some grated pear, garlic, scallions and breadcrumbs to make the very low-fat ground turkey more moist and flavorful. We grilled the burgers along with some leftover mushrooms and a few of the scallions and served it on some 9-grain buns with thick slices of yellow tomato. We also steamed the rest of the green beans and some sugar snap peas as a side dish, tossed with a little butter and salt & pepper.

We also got a TON of fruit from the CSA this week: 9 small peaches, 20 apricots, 1 pint of blueberries and 1 lb of rainier cherries. We also had 2 pears leftover from last week and I wanted to use up some of the fruit before it went bad, so we made a fruit salad and served it over some vanilla yogurt for dessert. We used 1 whole pear, 1/2 the blueberries, 2 peaches, 4 apricots and most of the cherries. We had already eaten 5 peaches earlier in the week with yogurt for breakfast, so we still have a couple left. I think I am going to try to make apricot dumplings this weekend!