Tomato Celebration

Oooooooh, pretty!  Green beans lend themselves to so many flavor profiles.  They're so amiable, even kids usually love them.  Plus, they're fun to eat if you use your fingers (highly encouraged in dipping situations).  But for me, serving them dressed in a dill vinaigrette with red onion and goat cheese can't be beat.  Unless, of course, you throw that over some lettuce and add some tuna!  If you were to try only one recipe from this blog, let it be this one (I'm not using much foresight here.  What if the next post brings an even better dish...)  Still, this is so worth trying, because it tastes so great, and is such a breeze to whip up.  And even though green beans are perfectly good with some butter and maybe a few almonds, perhaps you just need a change.  So.  Steam the beans (about a pound, tips removed) for a few minutes until crisp-tender.  Then plunge them in ice water to stop the cooking.  Whisk up a vinaigrette with olive oil (3 T), lemon juice (or vinegar- I used champagne vinegar- 2 T), dill (fresh is truly best- 2 T, but dried will do in a pinch- 1/2 T), salt and pepper.  In a bowl, toss the green beans with the vinaigrette, sliced red onion (1/4 cup), and goat cheese (1/4 cup).  Feta is nice, but I tried a lovely local goat cheese that was much milder.  It did the trick just fine, because it still had that tang.  Here comes the hardest part:  let it chill for 20-30 minutes while the flavors marry.  Then eat it up!  This is best eaten the day you make it, because the beans will be so lovely and bright green, but truth be told, it's still yummy after a day or two, just not as pretty.  This makes it an ideal candidate for a leftover to take for lunch.  Sooo good!

And how about tomatoes?  All year I shun tomatoes because the mealy, tasteless supermarket tomatoes on offer in midwinter just don't compare to the amazing, firm, juicy, flavorful, vibrant tomatoes you can find locally when the time is right!  The heirloom varieties are so gorgeous!  Yellows, oranges, every shade of red, purple, stripey green.  I came into some super-ripe tomatoes recently, and they were begging to become a sauce.  So, I sweated some diced onion, added minced garlic, a pinch of crushed red pepper, diced carrots and diced green pepper, and lots of chopped tomatoes.  Then I let the lot cook down for a few hours, getting the house smelling mighty good.  I stirred fairly regularly, and when I knew I would be distracted, I simply turned the heat down until I could devote more attention to it.  This keeps the bottom from burning.  When the flavor and consistency were to my liking, I stirred in some capers and let the whole thing cool off.  The next day I froze most of it and saved some for yummy pasta.  I left it very mildly seasoned so I could make adjustments in my final dishes.  You can add salt, but it's mighty hard to take it out...

And now for another low effort, high payoff dish:  Crisp!  Again- use what's in abundance!  I had peaches for days, and I got some blueberries in my CSA box, so I used that.  In the end, I only had a few blueberries to add since my fiance loves blueberries, and most of them found their way into his breakfast...  So about crisp:  I love this dessert, because who doesn't love a little crunchy goodness?  It's way easier than pie, and so super yummy.  First make the topping:  3/4 cup each of flour, oats, brown sugar and butter.  Chop the butter into little pieces, then cut everything in together until it's well combined.  Then let it chill while you prepare the filling.  Just slice up some fruit (I went with 4 pounds of peaches and maybe 1/4 cup blueberries.  Really.  That's all that was left.  He ate that many.)  Toss the fruit with 1 1/2 T flour.  Then pour the fruit in a 2 qt dish.  Actually, use a 2 1/2 qt dish, because as you can see in the photo, I couldn't fit it all in a 2 qt dish, and had to make a cute little mini crisp in a large ramekin.  Then top with the topping and bake in a 375 degree oven.  Check it after 30 minutes, and turn it if your oven doesn't bake evenly (most don't).  Then cook another 15 minutes or so, until the fruit is cooked through and bubbly and the top is a lovely golden brown.  It helps to bake it on a cookie sheet unless you enjoy scraping goo off the bottom of your oven.  (This way you can scrape goo off the cookie sheet, which is slightly less annoying.)  Let it sit and cool on a wire rack to prevent tongue burns, then serve with vanilla ice cream.  You'll want to make this over and over, because it's easy, breezy, and too delicious!  Enjoy!

My New Favorite Thing

Wow.  Harvest is in full swing and there are so many amazing things to eat, and in such quantity!   I've been cooking and cooking and neglecting my blog.  Apologies, my patient friends.  So.  What have I been up to?  Well, schedule changes led me to do some exploring of different markets.  I found a Thursday afternoon market that is smaller and seems more family oriented.  My treasure find at this market was one of this blog's namesakes:  squash blossoms!  They're so beautiful, I love that you can eat them!  I bought a bunch, and ended up giving them to my fiance, who promptly stuffed them with a crab and cream cheese mixture- yum!  I also picked up some little red and white potatoes, some kohlrabi (just for kicks), another adorable round zucchini, tomatillos, and onions, and fruit for snacking (grapes and pluots).  I love tomatillos for soups and salsas.  It's still too hot for  soup, so I opted for salsa - just roasted the tomatillos (minus the skin, tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper) along with some onions and garlic, then blended it all together with lime juice and cilantro.  Then I lamented not having picked up some peppers!  It needed peppers.  

I decided to use some of the beans I'd frozen, and made a southwestern lasagna.  I originally learned of this dish as chilaquiles, but there are so many versions of chilaquiles that I think it's safest to call it a southwestern lasagna.  In a pan I sauteed up some chopped onions and minced garlic, then added some ground beef.  Once that was cooked through I added chopped zucchini, chopped tomatoes, and the defrosted beans, as well as some crushed red pepper flakes.  While that was  cooking, I cut about a dozen corn tortillas in half.  Then I just layered it in a 9 X 13 pyrex dish, sauce first, then half the tortillas, then one cup sour cream, 6 oz grated cheese, the remaining tortillas, the remaining sauce, and then 6 more ounces of cheese.  Just bake it in the oven until it's good and bubbly (about 30 minutes at 350 degrees).  This is awesome for a family, or good for freezing if there's only one or two of you.

Let's see, what else did I make?  I decided to try a recipe from the beloved Deborah Madison.  In her book Local Flavors, she has a recipe for Market Ragout of Turnips, Kohlrabi and Peas.  Well, I adapted it a bit for what I had, and it became a ragout of carrots, kohlrabi and green beans.  Either way, it worked out just fine, and I served it up with roasted potatoes and black cod, and was so very happy to be alive and consuming such food.  By the way, the glass in the background contains my new favorite thing...

So, to make the ragout, melt  a tablespoon of butter, add six spring onions (halved), three medium carrots cut into 1-inch pieces, and two kohlrabi.  How to deal with kohlrabi? Cut off the top and bottom, then trim off the skin (or use a peeler).  I cut mine into quarters and then sliced each quarter about 1/3 inch thick.  Kohlrabi reminds me of the stem of broccoli, and would be great in a stir fry.  Ok, so add water to cover the veg halfway, and a teaspoon of salt.  I threw in some sage since I had it handy.  Simmer until the veg is almost cooked through, then add the green beans (about a half pound).  Deborah then adds spinach, and creme fraiche, and basil.  I just tossed the vegetables and let the liquid cook down so it ended up "glazed".  Her way sounds yummy too, and the next time I have all those ingredients at once, I 'll try it out...

By the way, you'll notice the skin is still on the fish.  Here's the thing- if you're put off by fish skin, think about this:  isn't the skin of fried chicken the best part?  Or what about chicarron (fried pig skin)?  OH, sooooo good!  So, give crispy cod skin a try- it's delicious!

As it turns out, I came into some peaches, and finally here comes the part about my new favorite thing.  I had a lot of peaches.  I mean, more than a girl could hope for.  My first plan of attack was to make peach butter, which a friend had just made, and sounded like fun.  It was fun, until a bit of peach butter splattered out and burned me.  It's all fun and games until someone gets burned.  Ah well, battle scars.  To make peach butter, one must first blanch and peel many peaches.  So, I had my pot of water going, and peaches were blanching, and the house was smelling mighty nice.  As I continued blanching, I noticed the water was picking up a lovely color.  So, I began to save the skins, and after I'd finished the blanching, I added the skins to the pot of blanching water and simmered it until it reduced a bit.  I kept tasting it and reducing it until the flavor was strong enough (about by half), then I strained it and chilled it.  Voila!  Peach water.  Mmmmm, this is a lovely light refreshing drink, kind of like a fruit tea.  It would be stellar with a splash of amaretto!  Try it the next time you find yourself blanching peaches.

I could go on- there's peach blueberry crisp, tomato sauce and my favorite green beans still to talk about.  The best news is that I joined a CSA and am now getting a lovely box of local fruits and vegetables every week, which makes it easier on me if I can't make it to the farmer's market.  There are so many ways to get great food!  I love it!  I hope you do as well.  Go, eat something wonderful, and enjoy the waning summer days.