Garbage Pail Pasta

I wanted spaghetti with meat sauce so we made this crazy pile of pasta where half the noodles are farfalle and the other half are elbow.

The sauce started as about six to eight ounces ground beef, three chopped garden tomatoes, canned plain tomato sauce, garlic powder, freshly ground black pepper, basil and Italian seasoning.

But then I threw in leftover julienne carrots, artichoke hearts, and a handful of kalamata olives.

Topped the whole mess with crushed red pepper.

Scrumptious.

Easy dinners

This weekend groceries are low and I threw my back out hand-washing pizza pans at work. 

Last night my husband fried some hot dogs and tossed out some chips, made more palatable by special condiments like wasabi mustard and my own homemade pickles from dill that I grew in my own garden.

Tonight I made a sauce of garlic, sesame oil, honey and low sodium soy sauce for some frozen sugar snap peas. We served these with boxed mac and cheese made with coconut milk and adding bits of bacon leftover from a bacon-and-egg dinner Thursday night.

Chicken-sitting

A friend of a friend is heading to a conference in Pittsburgh and needs someone to care for her chickens. I thought it'd be a great lesson for my nine-year-old.

We headed out to the farm this morning for our chicken care primer and the chickens had laid 4 eggs since their owner had gathered eggs earlier in the day. So my daughter collected them-- still warm! 

We brought them home, washed them and made a big broccoli-tomato omelet. The tomato came from our garden.

Another cucumber salad

I'm not eating the homegrown cucumbers nearly fast enough. I'm worried I'll lose them to the ravages of time. 

But seriously, cucumbers are one of my favorite summer foods. They don't provide nearly the same feeling in winter. The cool flavor, the burst of water in each bite... They provide relief in summer.

Since a friend was kind enough to share her garden bounty, I have three large cucumbers. I've grown cucumbers, but this year my tortoise ate all the plants. She likes cucumber, too.

So to make sure we eat these beautiful vegetables, I made a cucumber salad. And it's vegan!

Ingredients:

- 3 large cucumbers, diced

- 4 slices vegetarian bacon-style strips, cut into tiny bits

- about 3/4 cup black olives, sliced (i used canned whole olives and sliced them myself but I *really* wish I had good olives on hand)

- about 1/2 cup flax seed

- garlic pepper to taste

- Annie's lemon chive dressing, to taste 

(I kept both the dressing and the garlic pepper to a minimum since I want the cucumbers to keep their clean, fresh taste.)

Mix. Chill. Serve.

Garden Beans Caeser Zaatar

One of my colleagues gave me some beans from her garden so I made a variation of green beans Caesar.

I steamed the yellow beans for about 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Make a sauce of two parts extra virgin olive oil to one part balsamic vinegar. Add about 1/2 teaspoon four color pepper and 1.5 teaspoons garlic powder.

Make crumbs of about 1/4 breadcrumbs,  2 tablespoons olive oil, and 2 teaspoons zaatar spice.

Toss beans in sauce. Sprinkle with paprika. Top with crumbs. Bake 15-20 minutes.

I put mine on a bed of shredded cabbage and cucumber.

Kohlrabi

So we grew kohlrabi.

When we harvested it, some was too old and some was too immature.

I have never even tasted kohlrabi before, let alone grown and cooked it. I started by peeling it. I didn't peel enough. I wasn't aware that you would eventually find a potato-like center.

Then I sliced it and brushed it with coconut oil and roasted it in the oven with a sprinkle of garlic-pepper. 

Where it wasn't surrounded by a tough outer skin-- completely unchewable-- it was delicious.

So the moral of the story is to peel the kohlrabi better.

Spicy corn salsa

First canning project of the season. Spicy corn salsa.

For the salsa:

- corn cut off six ears of fresh-from-the-farm sweet corn 

- about one cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half

- about 1/4 cup mild green chili pepper

- about 1/4 cup medium jalapeño, chopped

For the sauce: 

- 1/2 cup lemon juice

- 1/2 tablespoon local raw honey

- 1/2 teaspoon each of ground pepper, cumin, chili powder and hot chili powder

- 3.5 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Mix everything together. Bring to a boil. Simmer, covered 10 minutes, ladle into jars.

Process in hot water bath 15 minutes.

Sliders on the Grill

Yesterday we bought some hamburger sliders on clearance at Target.

We bought three packs of eight, one of which were bacon cheese sliders. The regular beef sliders were $1.99 a pack. The fancy ones were $2.49.

My husband proposed grilling them. It rains every time we grill. And we never get a good fire going. It took us about an hour to grill the sliders, a rousing success.

I served with my homemade multigrain biscuits, lettuce and the first tomato of the season.

Chicken française pasta

My husband came up with the suggestion of "chicken française pasta" when I first got some boneless, skinless chicken on clearance at Target.

Today we pulled it out of the freezer and gave it a shot.

Ingredients:

- chicken, boneless, skinless and cut into smaller pieces

- lemon juice, about half a cup (two fresh lemons?) 

- one stick butter

- peas

- broccoli

- pasta of choice

- 1/2 cup fresh dill from the garden

- 1/2 cup fresh parsley from the garden

- about six chives fresh from the garden

- 1 teaspoon garlic powder 

- about 1/2 teaspoon garlic pepper (plus another 1/2 teaspoon)

- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning 

- your favorite olive oil 

Heat about one tablespoon butter over low heat in cast iron skillet. Add equal parts lemon juice. Add the garlic powder and the Italian seasoning.

Stir until nicely combined. Add chicken. Increase heat to medium. 

Cook pasta to desired doneness. Drain and set aside. 

When chicken is done, push the meat to one side of skillet. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon garlic pepper. Arrange skillet so empty side is over the heating element.

Add about 1/2 stick butter to empty side of skillet, add fresh herbs and cook while trying to push the sauce around the empty side of the skillet to minimize how much sauce the chicken absorbs. 

Add vegetables to empty side of skillet. Combine both sides of skillet until everything is evenly mixed and evenly heated.

Pour olive oil (cold pressed extra virgin imported from the Middle East is my fav) over the pasta and mix so they are just a tiny bit wet and kind of glistening.

Put pasta in bottom of serving bowl. Top with desired amount of chicken-vegetable mix.

This was incredible!

Crazy rhubarb crumble

This is my crazy, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants cooking at its. At least, I hope it's the best. Looks good. Smells intoxicating. How can we go wrong? It's in the oven now...

Gayle gave us our annual batch of rhubarb. My husband started cutting and we got a yield of about seven cups. This recipe required three. The rest went into the freezer.

My daughter went to work making crumbs. I monitor her dairy intake so I reduced the butter and included some coconut oil. She didn't really listen when it came to "we're making crumbs, not stirring it into a solid mass" so I ended up with a wet solid mass that we had to keep adding solids to. But if I had to guess, these were the final ingredients:

- one cup unbleached white flour
- one quarter cup whole wheat flour
- about one third cup coconut flour
- about one third cup local raw honey
- about one cup sugar
- about one third cup brown sugar
- about two cups oats
- a ridiculous amount of cinnamon
- 1/2 stick butter
- close to 1/2 cup coconut oil

We greased the bottom of my huge Le Creuset skillet and sprinkled about half the crumbs into the bottom. To combat any residual over wetness, we sprinkled even more oats into the pan. Then we sprinkled a few cherries and about 1 cup strawberries into the pan. And then added three cups rhubarb.

Gradually, we heated the following ingredients to a near boil to make a sauce:
- About three tablespoons blackstrap molasses
- one cup water
- two tablespoons corn starch
- one cup sugar

We poured over the fruit. The we added more cinnamon. And dollops of unsweetened applesauce. And topped with the crumbs. And added about 1/4 cup sliced almonds on top of that.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour. I'll let you know if it's incredible. *I hope so*

Verdict: yum!

Garden prep 2013

Every year I try to tame my tiny backyard into a fruitful garden. Every year in early May I'm frantically planting seeds and trying to find plants.

Not this year. I went to Target tonight and bought $35 (before my employee discount) of garden products. I am turning my sun porch into a greenhouse.

If you followed by crazy urban garden last year, you know it was a helter skelter mix of everything from eggplant to sweet corn.

The tortoise ate all the peas. The watermelon disappeared. The cantaloupe never bore fruit.

This year I bought a slew of organic Burpee seeds, a ready to go seedling flat and a bag of potting mix. I plan to get more containers I've been saving in the garage and as soon as the ground thaws, I'm digging out some compost.

So what did I buy?

- cilantro
- basil
- rosemary

( I love herbs )

- spinach
- lettuce
- cucumber
- Oregon sugar peas
- tomato
- squash (dark green zucchini)
- watermelon
- radish

BLT

My husband made BLTs for lunch: bacon purchased at a local farmer, tomato given to us from someone's garden, lettuce and spinach on a bagel (mine was everything) that my mom brought from Dunkin Donuts. Of course, I had horseradish instead of mayonnaise.

Served with a side of sweet potato chips from Aldi.

Fall!

Today we ran out to Kline Farm to get honey, eggs & yogurt. While I was there I also grabbed some bacon and a pound of local grass fed beef that came from a farmer with whom I used to serve on the Penn State Cooperative extension board in my county.

Then I also grabbed a gallon of apple cider from a local orchard. So we've been drinking a lot of hot apple cider with fresh ground cinnamon.

For dinner, there was a family effort to make burgers from the beef, which we served on tortillas with fresh spinach, garden tomato, and our own lemon pickles. Sides included homemade French fries and roasted cauliflower.

Man, am I stuffed.

Child soft tacos

We're reinstating the child-makes-one-meal-per-week policy and she opted for soft tacos.

In the skillet, she combined:
- water
- about 2 tablespoons chili powder
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- 1 finely diced garlic clove
- 1 pinch Indian chili powder
- 1 pinch Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

- 1 lb ground beef
- about 16 ounces corn
- about 16 ounces beans
- 1 bell pepper from the garden, diced
Cover with water and boil at medium to medium high for one hour, adding more water and stirring every 15 minutes

Eggplant sandwiches

I hoped to make more eggplant parm but ran out of crumbs.

I breaded the eggplant and fried it in oil and fresh basil from the garden.

Then I piled it on hot dog buns (potato rolls) and topped it with spring mix and salad dressing.

Except for mine. Mine got horseradish sauce.

Chicken white chili in the crock pot

I adapted this from a recipe on food.com.

The original:
http://www.food.com/recipe/amazing-crock-pot-white-chili-w-chicken-194585

In the crock pot, on high, about four hours:
- one can chicken noodle soup
- three cans water
- one box Archer Farms butternut squash soup
(I didn't have chicken stock)
- about 2 cups diced leftover chicken
- 2 really big cloves garlic, minced
- 3 peppers from my garden, diced (one green, one jalapeño, and one spicy green)
- about 45 ounces white beans
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 2 teaspoons parsley
- 1 teaspoon fresh oregano from my garden
- 1/2 teaspoon country herb seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

At 2:30 (about 80 minutes after I set the crockpot up), I tasted the broth and found the peppers had kick but the broth was a tad plain and runny and I saw way more chicken than beans.

So I went into my freezer and added another bag of beans. Each bag is roughly 15 ounces/1 can. Then I added maybe a 1/2-3/4 teaspoon more cumin and about 1/2 teaspoon chili powder.

Then I still wasn't happy so I added a can of creamed corn for more body. Might add fresh broccoli later.

Lemony pickles

We started making pickles today with a new recipe and I noticed it called for fermenting the cukes first.

That's not happening.

So while trying to find another recipe for my salted cukes, I was reminded that a pickling brined is equal parts water and whatever vinegar you like.

Based on my recipe research, I sliced my seven small pickling cucumbers into coins and added sliced lemon.

I boiled a mix of sugar, apple cider vinegar, water, strawberry basil balsamic vinegar, garlic pepper and lemon thyme from my garden.

Best eggplant ever

So, eggplant is labor intensive. But for some reason I planted it. Now I have to cook it.

First, I washed and peeled the eggplant. Then I thinly sliced it and laid the cutlets on tea towels. I lightly lightly salted them, sprinkled them with garlic powder and Italian seasoning. I covered them with another tea towel and piled the tea towel with cookbooks and Le Creuset cookware.

Two hours later, I breaded them with egg and a mixture of my leftover crumbs-- bread crumbs, bagel crumbs, goldfish crumbs and everything pretzel chip crumbs.

Then I fried them in lots of oil.

Meanwhile, I browned some ground sausage. Added peppers and tomatoes also from my garden. And no salt added tomato sauce. And Italian seasoning.

Layered eggplant with the sauce to fill the casserole dish. Baked at 350 for an hour.

Canning more

Today's trip out to the garden yielded two zesty peppers, two red peppers that haven't turned red, 3 red plum tomatoes, several pickling cucumbers and an eggplant.

So, we canned. We made a dill pickle brine, added fresh ground black pepper and garlic and prepped the cucumbers for pickling. We diced the red tomatoes and sliced the zesty peppers to add to the mix.

We reserved some of that brine and added more vinegar and some sugar to do a cold pack of pickled green tomatoes, based on the recipe in Better Homes and Gardens Can It!

Everything is in the hot water bath now.

Snack of rice and tomatoes

I have to eat something before work. I have cube steak in vegetable stock in the crock pot with carrots and Brussels sprouts.

So, I made a cheese and broccoli rice mix and added extra broccoli and tomato from my garden