Posts Tagged ‘Recipe’
It’s been a busy few weeks around our house. Though my husband and I are both teachers, with all summer off, we hardly end up feeling like we’ve had all summer off. We have work stuff and home stuff keeping us plenty busy.
The folks at the CSA farm have been busy, too, Many crops are in season. Lately, we’ve enjoyed a wider range of vegetables, including two varieties of cucumbers, kohlrabi, purple snap beans, sugar snap peas, and broccoli. Our household hasn’t tried the kohlrabi yet, but we have greatly enjoyed the rest of the veggies. The broccoli definitely impressed us–it was very flavorful. We learned that purple snap beans don’t stay purple once you cook them. We’ve eaten a lot of salads, but have also continued to try our hands at some fancier fare.
A success this week was Swiss Chard and Artichoke Pizza. You can find the recipe at Farmgirl Fare’s blog. We added red peppers to the saute because we enjoyed the mixing of the sweetness of the red peppers with the more bitter chard when we made chard pie. We also made a second pizza with red sauce. Our friend Shannon was visiting. Like us, she couldn’t decide which pizza she liked more. The chard went really well with the red sauce and makes me think I should make a lasagna chocked full of my next load of greens. Also, I didn’t prepare my own dough and went the lazy route, using store-bought crust instead.
I’ll leave you with this beautiful site…my oldest son liked the sugar snap peas so much that he asked for them for a snack!
Update on my youngest son: still no veggies have crossed his lips. We tried to get him excited about the sugary peas, which were just like candy, but, umm, he didn’t buy it.
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I borrowed Barbara Kingsolver’s new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life from my local library and devoured it this week. Though I have loved Kingsolver’s fiction in the past, I wasn’t sure how intriguing this book would be. I was pleasantly surprised.
The book follows Kingsolver and her family as they attempt to live a year eating only locally-grown foods, mostly homegrown. The current popular term for such a lifestyle is locavore, and it’s an idea that is spreading. Kingsolver was ahead of the curve.
The book could have made for dry reading material, but Kingsolver was great at including just-right anecdotes to keep the story flowing with a light, sometimes humorous, narrative. Readers will not only get to know Kingsolver’s family, they will learn a lot about how to raise and preserve vegetables and animals. Readers even learn about the very rare practice of turkey sex.
The narrative of the family’s experiences is broken up by occasional informative pop-out sections, explaining the myriad reasons why people might want to think more carefully about the American diet. This information comes across as merely informative, not preachy.
The book also includes seasonal recipes, which is a wonderful feature. Kingsolver shows what kinds of delicious foods can be enjoyed without visiting the grocery store. I was amazed by the wide-range of foods the family was able to eat, even in the depths of winter.
While this book was fascinating, I’m not planning to follow suite. Kingsolver apparently already had a green thumb and a great base of knowledge, before beginning her experiment. My family lacks in these elements; however, the book reminds me that we can greatly improve our food sources, even without going to the same extremes.
Kingsolver was kind enough to share all of the recipes on the book’s website.
Why is the lovely, yummy eggplant is such a wallflower of a vegetable? It is such an awesome vegetable to behold: it’s purple, it has a funny shape, and it’s slightly smooshy. What I love about the eggplant is how easily it can be chopped. I’m a big fan of squash, especially acorn squash; however, I always fear I’ll end up in the emergency room after fighting a squash while cutting it. The eggplant causes me so much less stress, plus people can eat the skin. Take that, Squash!
I think it tastes like a cross between a potato and a zucchini. While our culture seems to appreciate the other two, eggplants are rarely used. If you are looking for a wonderful use for an eggplant, here’s an idea: Take your favorite lasagna recipe and use eggplant instead of the noodles. To do this, here is what you need to do:
* Preheat your oven’s broiler
* Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil, and spray with cooking spray or rub with olive oil
* Cut your eggplant in half, and then slice it into 1/2 inch slices, with each being the approximate width of a lasagna noodle
* Lay the eggplant pieces on the foil. Do not overlap.
* Place in the oven and broil each side for 5-7 minutes, or until cooked through
Now, it’s ready to replace the noodles in your recipe. This is an extra tasty AND extra healthy swap!