Roast Vegetables and Stir-Fry Asian Greens and COOKIES!!

I love vegetables.  I bet you didn't know that. :)
This week from the CSA we got some baby beets, baby scarlet turnips, and cauliflower.  I decided it would be tasty to roast them all in olive oil with some onions and garlic.  But the baby beets were so...baby...I mean, they were all beet greens, that I was perplexed.  So.  I composted them.  The remaining veggies were great!  I roasted for about 40 minutes at 400F.

We also got some great Asian greens.  Kale, baby bok choy, tatsoi.  I love baby bok choi and tatsoi.  I stir-fried them quickly and put some of Trader Joe's Island Soyaki sauce on them delish!  And in the same Trader Joe's vein, we had breaded chicken cutlets.

I was also craving something sweet yesterday.  Bad me.  I thought about cookies, and where better to look than Love Veggies and Yoga.  I mean, all the desserts Averie makes - she's a pro.  I found her recipe for Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies, and the rest was history! I cooked mine a little longer than she did, but they were still tasty.  My only regret is that I made bagels on Saturday and needed only egg white for that, but I needed an extra yolk on Sunday for the cookies.  Next time, I'll make them on the same day.

Potato and Greens Soup - CSA and a Fridge on the Fritz

Our fridge has been on the fritz.  I noticed on Thursday that the milk just didn't seem cold.  So I mentioned it to my spouse.  He vacuumed out the coils and all, checked various parts of the fridge, but it still didn't seem quite right.  So Friday, we called the Sears repairman.  It's a 10 year old Kenmore fridge.  I was starting to think that I might have to bring home my mini-fridge from the office.

Spouse met the fridge guy at home, and he diagnosed the problem.  It cost us 70 bucks for the diagnosis.  The fan in the freezer was not running.  I guess the way the fridge works is that there's a fan in the freezer that blows cold air into the fridge, but the fan had stopped running.  He tapped it and it started again, but noted that it probably needed replacing.  The cost for the part would be $90, and labor would be $200.  But he told my husband that there's a local store that would sell the part for $60, and all he had to do is remove four screws and plug the thing in.  So, being engineers, that's what we decided to do.  But oops, they aren't open on the weekend, so we've been spending our weekend constantly checking on the fridge.  It's gone out at least one more time.  Thank you Sears repair guy for the money-saving tip.

This week from the CSA we got organic Yukon Gold potatoes and a bag of mixed "stir-fry greens". This is a mix of dark leafies.  There's a few kinds of kale, and what looks like cabbage and radiccio, maybe some dandelion greens too.   I felt inspired to make soup based on a BBC show I watched on line, that was linked from this post of a blog that I really enjoy.  Turns out that soup makes you feel fuller longer.  And I've been loving my Blendtec since I got it for my birthday a couple of years ago.  I also have an immersion blender that I use for slightly chunkier soups.

I also pulled out my cookbook from Nikki and David Goldbeck called American Wholefoods Cuisine, and found a recipe for "Potato and Greens Soup".  I used their recommendations on how long to cook the soup with just the potatoes and after you add the greens. 

It was quite delicious, but needed a tad more salt.  I always under-salt my soup and need to add more later.  You can use water or vegetable stock instead.  I roasted two chickens of chicken parts last weekend, and saved all of the bones in the freezer.  So, step 1 of the soup yesterday was to make the stock.

Potato and Greens Soup
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, pressed
About 6-8 cups chicken stock (I just eyeballed it until it looked right)
1.5 lb potatoes, diced (I left on the peels because they are nutritious and were organic)
1 bag or 1 bunch greens
1/2 to 1 tsp oregano
1/2 to 1 tsp marjoram
pinch fresh rosemary ('cuz we had it)
1 cup shredded cheese (I used an Italian blend)
S&P to taste

Saute the onion in olive oil in a pot until soft.  Add the garlic and saute one more minute.  Add the chicken stock and potatoes, bring to a boil.  Add the oregano and marjoram.  Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, covered, 15 minutes.

Meanwhile wash the greens and remove tough stems.  Remove cover on soup when potatoes have been cooked 15 minutes and add the greens.  Cover again and cook 15 minutes.  Add the rosemary. 

Move the soup to a clean, cool stockpot.  I find that when I want to puree the soup in the blender, I need two pots, and I need to cool the soup.  So I first move the soup to a cool pot (in this case, the one I had the stock in), and then after it cools about 5 minutes, I puree it in batches in the blender.  Then I move the pureed soup back to the original pot.  Makes more dishes, but it easier.

Once the soup is pureed, return to low heat and add the cheese, S&P.  Delicious!

Chicken Spaghetti Squash Parmesan, and my first brisket

Chicken Parm

Last night's dinner was chicken parmesan.  Now, I've made versions of this from scratch before.  As in, debone the chicken breasts, pound them out, bread them, fry them, make the marinara sauce, etc. etc.

This was not that kind of chicken parmesan.  I did use spaghetti squash instead of pasta and had to roast the squash.  It was good, but the only pesto I have left in the freezer is arugula pesto, and it wasn't as good as basil pesto would be.

Spaghetti squash chicken parm
1 spaghetti squash
16 oz marinara
olive oil
1 small onion
10 oz sliced mushrooms
2 cubes frozen pesto
4 cloves garlic
mozzarella and parmesan cheese
frozen breaded chicken tenders (From TJ's)

Slice the squash in half and scoop out seeds.  Place face down in a pan coated with cooking spray. Roast 1 hour at 375F.  Let cool.  Remove strings with a fork.

Saute onion and mushroom in oil.  Add squash strands.  Add pesto and combine well.

Spray a 9x9 pan with cooking spray. Layer veggie mixture out.  Place chicken tenders on top.  Top with marinara and the cheeses.

Bake covered at 350F for 15 min.  Increase to 375F, remove foil, and bake for 15-25 more min.  Delish!

I roasted the seeds!

Brisket

I also bought my first brisket at the farmer's market. I found a decent crockpot recipe.  And...we didn't like it.  The sauce was good, but the brisket was way too fatty and chewy.  So, maybe we screwed it up (spouse did it today - he had the day off).  How can you screw up a crockpot recipe?  Anyway, next time I just go with pot roast.

We also steamed up some baby kale and cabbage leaves and I made a cream sauce with milk, parm, cream cheese, garlic powder, and lemon juice.  I don't have a final photo, but THAT was great.

Pizza, Soup, and Hummus, Oh My! and Cupcake Wars

And cupcakes.  Let me explain first about the cupcakes.  Last weekend (the long holiday weekend), I vegged on the couch a bit and watched Food Network.  And I came upon Cupcake Wars.  Now, I do like my food TV and competitive shows.  I like Anthony Bourdain.  I faithfully tape Top Chef.  I enjoy a good episode of Chopped.  When I was on maternity leave 6 years ago (almost), I watched a lot of food TV while nursing my son (my husband ate like a king during those 3 months, and I watched so much that it was over a year before they showed an episode of Barefoot Contessa, Giada, or Rachael that I HADN'T seen.)

But these "challenges" and "wars" - not really into it so much.  Maybe it's because I'm not really into dessert.  But we caught the start of an episode, and lo and behold, one of the contestants was from Santa Barbara!  We have more than one cupcake shop in town, but Crushcakes Cupcakery is one we drive by weekly.  It's in downtown and on the way to the farmer's market on Saturdays. 

I enjoyed watching the show and so did my son (probably had something to do with it being cupcakes).  The editing on the show isn't that great.  I've seen 4 or 5 episodes so far, and it's pretty clear very early who is going to win. Thus far, it's always been the "pretty girl" (young and pretty, and I'm not exaggerating), and she gets a lot of air time.  So alas, our local girl came in 2nd (for the THIRD time). 

Yesterday, we (I) decided to stop at the shop after our grocery shopping.  Spouse picked vanilla (not lemon, who knew?)  Kiddo picked "peace" because he liked the frosting.  Mommy picked peanut butter cup.

We waited until after lunch and after a trip to the park to try out my son's new bike to eat them (and did that while watching another episode).  I am pretty amazed at the combinations of flavors they come up with and the decorations.  I'm pretty sure the contestants know the "theme" before the go (such as poker or surfing), so that they can take the decorations they need and design a final display.

The cupcakes were pretty good, but were $3 each, so they are a treat for sure.

On the home front yesterday, I decided to make hummus. I've had the ingredients forever, including an unopened jar of tahini, and have just been lazy and have been buying it.  I use the Cook's Illustrated method, which basically involves putting the water-based items in the food processor first (chickpeas, lemon, water, garlic, spices) and puree'ing them pretty fine, and drizzling in the olive oil/tahini mixture later.  Makes it really smooth.

How come the hardest part about making hummus is the 10 minutes that it takes to stir in the oil in the tahini jar??

Next up: Creamy cauliflower kale soup

I saw this recipe in my MIL's Martha Stewart Living magazine, and basically bought the magazine to try it out.  It is vegan, and tasted pretty good.  However, it uses water as a base.  So it could have used a little more seasoning.  Maybe extra salt, or some homemade stock.  I'll make it again, but with stock next time.  It's cauliflower, kale, garlic, onion, water, salt, pepper, and dill.  Pretty simple.  If you use the blender, it gets really creamy and frothy.  And we love soup in this house!

And finally: Pizza

You know me, I love pizza.  And I had some time, so I fired up the bread machine.  The bread machine makes it so easy.  To make the dough the way I like it, it still takes a couple of hours.  The bread machine only runs for 45 minutes, but there is a little bit of kneading, resting, shaping, resting, par-baking...much of this isn't necessary, but it's what works with my oven and pans.

This is our standard pie, with sauteed onions, pesto, cheese, olives, and sun-dried tomatoes.  Eaten with ranch and sriracha of course!