The Blessing and the Bane of the CSA: eggplant

I've never been a big eggplant fan.  However, for reasons that are not clear to me, our CSA is a HUGE fan of growing tons of all different kinds of eggplant (turns out they come short and fat, long and skinny, purple or white, all different combinations).  That's the "bane" part - too much eggplant!

I try really hard to eat the stuff that comes in our CSA under the principles of not wasting food we're paying for and being willing to try new things.  The eggplant stymied me for a while.  However, over time (and here comes the "blessing" part) I have found a few recipes that include eggplant that I really like.  It turns out that I still don't like breaded, oven "fried" eggplant.  I dislike how mushy it gets.  But, grilling eggplant gives it a whole new dimension.  Here are several recipes that I highly recommend, all of which feature eggplant.

Quinoa cakes and eggplant ragu:  I know I've mentioned this before, but it really is one of my favorite dishes.  Make sure to really chill the formed quinoa cakes, don't try to flip them too early, and don't get too upset if they fall apart.

Spinach salad with grilled eggplant:  This recipe is amazing.  I go back for seconds and thirds and look forward to it in my lunch the next day.  Given how I generally feel about eggplant, that's really saying something.

Grilled eggplant pizza:  This pizza brings up the idea of grilling an entire pizza.  We often do this now.  It tastes good, and you don't have to to turn the oven up high to cook your pizza.  I do find that grilled pizzas are more successful if you pre-cook the toppings, since they almost exclusively get heat from the bottom.  There's just enough from the top to melt the cheese.  And while we're talking about pizzas, here is a topping combination that you have to try:  caramelized onions, gorgonzola cheese, and walnuts.  Unbelievably good.

If you have a ton of eggplant to use up, I hope these recipes provide some inspiration for some new dishes.  In the meantime, even with these recipes I can't eat as much eggplant as our CSA gives us, so if you have any other ideas for it, let me know!

Farmland Vegetable Pie

Molly asked me the other day for a recommendation for good vegetarian main dish other than my two go-to favorites of quinoa cakes with eggplant ragu (always excellent!) and roasted vegetable panzanella (also always excellent).  Of course in the moment my mind went blank, and I had no ideas.  Flipping through an old August Gourmet this week, though, reminded me of another favorite - Farmland Vegetable Pie.  Despite the somewhat awkward name, this is a great dish.  The recipe as written is a mix of summer vegetables (zucchini, okra, corn, and tomatoes) with a lot (1 c chopped) basil, and a mild melting cheese (it calls for Havarti or Muenster, and I've always used Muenster) all cooked in a cornmeal biscuit crust.  I modify it a bit, of course.  I leave out the hard boiled eggs, since I don't like them.  And rather than roll out two crusts just to have the bottom one get soggy, I just make this as a cobbler by putting big of globs of biscuit dough on the top.  Another benefit of this approach is that you can then cut the oven time about 10-15 minutes.  You could also cut the fat/non-nutritive part of the dish by making only a half recipe of the biscuit dough, and it would still be plenty.  I often find it useful to read the reviews of the recipes at Epicurious.com.  The reviews for this recipe suggest applying the basic concept to all different kinds of veggies, including winter squash, fennel, etc.  I think that would also be a fun thing to try.

Nothing like a tasty, healthy, filling dish that clears a bunch of CSA veggies out of the fridge!

Hope you try it and enjoy it.
-Maggie

Another Test

Trying again to see if I get and email notification of this post.

Does anyone else get email notifications of comments added?

Dad

Keeping Menus

We just had a very nice visit from Mom's cousin Lynn and her husband Jim, including the four of us going to OCNJ for a day on the beach with Sarah and John.  Lynn commented that through their married life, she had made menus for their meals and had kept them all.  At first, this might seem a little over the top, but as we thought about, Mom and I realized that what we have eaten at meals has changed dramatically over the years, to a great extent in response to the changes in our life: young and newly married, we ate one way; with six kids on the farm, we ate entirely differently; as we get older now, our meals are very different.  We realized that it would be fascinating to have a daily log of what we ate, kind of "Our Life in Food", to look back on.  It could provide a powerful window on our daily personal history and be a great memory aid, probably as good as the photos in the picture box.  As an added benefit, it would remind us of favorite recipes that we used to use but have forgotten.

Well, we did not think to do when we were young, so we do not have a "food journal".  But you who are young might make a habit of jotting down your meals each day, maybe with a brief comment on what is going in your day-to-day lives.  I guarantee you, you will be glad to have it when you are 60.

Dad

Testing

I just tried to add a follow by email gadget and am creating this post to test to see if it's there.

Email updates

Anyone know how to set this thing up so it sends email notification of new posts and follow-ups?  Sure would be handy
Andy

Keep this alive!

Keep the blog alive!!  We can do it!

In other news, I didn't cook anything last night, but I did do something I've never done before...

I went running at Reid Park after work (I've done this many times).  It's a 3 mile loop.  Recently I've been doing the 3 mile loop and then going about another quarter mile and turning around, thus putting me at 3.5 miles.  The most I've ever run in my life is 4 miles, but I'm trying to convince myself to do a 10K in the fall, so I thought I'd push it past 3.5 miles last night.

It had just monsooned, so it was gray, cool (85), and humid!  I ran around the park once and was super sweaty, but not very hot.  I decided to see how much farther I could run...and I went around twice!  6 miles baby!  I didn't stop for water, walking, or anything.  I ran a full 6 miles.  I couldn't believe it!

I'm paying for that this morning in that I can hardly stand, but it felt pretty powerful last night!  Anyway, just wanted to brag a bit cause I'm pretty proud of myself.

Have a lovely Wednesday!  It's back to school night at Palo Verde and my choir is performing...

Molly

Sausage and Sauerkraut - the recipe

Sorry it's taken me so long to post this.  Here is Kanga's recipe for Sausage and Sauerkraut.  There are  no big secrets - this recipe tastes just like I remember it.  This makes one large casserole dish full (ie, what Kanga used to make for all of us), so you might want to scale it down a bit.  I've had the experience of making this for friends before, and, well, it turns out I can't eat 1/2 recipe worth of leftovers all by myself.  It might freeze well though, and then, some cold day you could come home and pull it out of the freezer and be in heaven.  Worth a try anyway.  

I'm glad you tried sauerkraut Andy!  I was going to send you some of mine, but it didn't turn out well enough this year to be worth the cost of shipping.  It's okay, but not amazing.  My first batch I added too much salt.  Between my first and second batches I realized I could put my crock into the dishwasher, and get it a lot cleaner, which I did.  And it worked - no mold or funk or anything grew (all my other batches had some funk growing on the top side of the bags of water I use to weigh down and cover the kraut).  And lo and behold, in addition to having no funk, the kraut turned out to also be lacking in flavor.  I mean, we're enjoyed brats and sauerkraut with it, it's still going to make a pretty decent batch of sausage and sauerkraut, and it will figure in my Thanksgiving dinner, I'm sure.   I'm sure there's something in there about the mess and funk in life providing all the flavor, but I'm too beat to work it out.  

Here're the goods:

Mix together and form into balls:

2 lb sausage

2 large onions, chopped

2 c. rice - uncooked (I've always used white.  You might be able to substitute brown since the dish has extra water and cooks for a while anyway).

2 eggs

Layer sausage balls with ~6 pounds of sauerkraut in a casserole dish, starting and ending with sauerkraut.   (Kanga always used an enamel coated cast iron dish.  Ceramic should work as well.  I wouldn't use plain cast iron - I think the acid of the kraut might react badly with the metal.)  

Cover with water to 1 inch over the top (if you're cutting the recipe in half, you'll probably need to cut down on how much water you use as well - maybe cover with 1/2 - 3/4 of an inch of water.  You can always keep your eye on it and add more if necessary.)  Simmer, covered for 1 1/2 hours.  Serve with Dad's best mashed potatoes in the world.

Mmm, I'm totally going to make this as soon as it cools off a bit and we get some rain!  Thanks for the reminder, Andy!

Missus, hunh?... : )

Stuffed Mushrooms

I made some stuffed mushrooms to take to a girls' night last night, and they were a hit.  After reading a couple of recipes online, I decided to just wing it.  The beauty of the stuffed mushroom is that I think you can adapt them for whatever flavor family you're craving or for how healthy or not you want them.  Here's what I did...

• Cut the stems out of the mushrooms and set aside.  
• Chop up the mushroom stems, a shallot, and a few cloves of garlic.  Saute the stems, shallot, and garlic in some butter.  Add some salt and pepper.
• Dump a block of cream cheese (this is where the unhealthy side kicks in) in a bowl, mix in a package of chopped spinach.  Add the sauted shrooms mixture and stir it all up.
• Add some shredded parm and bread crumbs. 
• I then threw in some oregano and basil, but you could use whatever inspires you.
• Toss the mushroom bottoms in olive oil and place in a baking dish.  Scoop some of the filling inside each one, top with a bit of parm and bake.  I baked them at about 325 for 15 minutes maybe?  I don't know, truthfully I wasn't paying attention.

Anyhow, they were delish.  I had a bit too much of the filling in each mushroom, but I wasn't complaining.  I made 24 to take the the party and 6 of us ate them all.

Molly

More on Pickles

Our cucumbers up and quit for the most part and Jo (and I) ate up most of the dill pickles.  There's still enough left for another burger with fresh tomato and dill pickle but I have to wait until the baker comes back from vacation this week to get the medium sized kaiser roll, which is a must.

Meanwhile, the zucchini, green and yellow, are trying to take over the world.  I know zucchini pickles have been tried before with mixed reviews but I figured "what the heck? It's that or feed them to the chickens (who are somewhat ambivalent, to say the least)".  So I sliced up a bunch of zuc's, same as I had done for the over sized cuc's, and put them in the axillary pickle "crock".  I followed Kanga's recipe concept, using white wine vinegar instead of apple cider this time.  No garlic or red pepper, and since dill was kinda "reserved" for the cuc's, I looked around for another herb.  My French tarragon has done really well in the herb garden this year and as tarragon vinegar is superb, I decided to give it a try.  So, substitute tarragon for dill, zuc's for cuc's, leave out the garlic, set the "crock", and see what happens.

WOW!  OK, it's not your usual pickle; Jo said they were "interesting with a kinda anisy flavor".  But if you like tarragon - a somewhat esoteric taste, I must admit - these are really, really good.  So far, I have eaten only some of the small, firm rounds; haven't tried the large, seedy rounds yet.  I am sure the flavor will be fine, but some objection to zucchini pickles centers around texture.  I will let you know as we get down into the "crock".  But I think we have two learnings:

1.  Yes, you can pickle zucchini successfully.  And when the cucumbers are waning and zucchini is trying to take over the world, this is a good thing to know.
2.  Tarragon pickles are very, very interesting.  This may not be something you throw on a burger at the grill like our old friend garlic-dill, but it's really good and has its place in the world.
3.  Playing with pickles is a lot of fun.
4.  There are three kinds of people in the world:  those who can count and those who can't.

Lindsey

Update on 8/14/2012:

So, I decided to try some other herbs.  I was making small batches so I used quart jars for the "crock".  I cut up some small green and yellow zuc's, picked grape leaves from the fox grape vine in the thorn bush, cut some winter savory and thyme from the perennial herb garden and basil from the annual bed and assembled three mini-crocks, seen above, using white vinegar and Kanga's recipe.  After three days, the zuc's were pickled. 

These do not taste like any other pickles have ever had.  The texture is good; the herb flavors are wonderful.  I could see a plate of them as part of an appetizer.  Also, they would probably be very good diced up in cold salads like pasta or tuna.

If you have zuc's coming out of your ears and a source of fresh herbs, give these a try.  We'll need to experiment around a bit, but I think this one is a keeper.

Sausage and Sauerkraut

Alright, pickling sounds good, and I am going to try the mix of the two versions, but I want to switch gears into some probiotic sauerkraut.  Please understand that we have been dipping into the mid thirties at night, and fall frost threatens at every sunset, so technically it is fall, and I will cook as though that is the case, and also drink hot buttered rum in the rain, as this too is a sign of fall.  So in the high country not much grows 'cept rhubarb, hearty greens, and (what the rest of you would refers to as) winter roots, though here they are a summer crop.  This aides in things like peach/rhubarb cobbler (awesome by the way) and fall spinach and the like, but it also has a hand in some cheap cabbage.  We have some kim chi going, and also some traditional (no vinegar added, just rocksalt and cabbage) sauerkraut.  This means that soon enough I will have some seriously good kraut on my hands.  It's gurgling in the living room as I type.  So I already started the bragging process about this recipe to the missus, and how it might change her perception of reality and all, and now I kinda need to back that up.  SO....Sausage and sauerkraut.  Anybody???.  OF COURSE I'm going to accompany it with some of Dad's Famous Jerry Garcia Mashed Potatos (it really is the space between the notes that makes the potatoes and and the Garcia solos so goddamn amazing, so I've adopted a new name to honor both.) (come on the old bird would have been 70 two days ago, it's Jerry week)  Looking to knock this one out of the park, and I'm not watching calories or anything else here, just need the classic recipe for sausage and rice balls in sauerkraut.  I have the mashers dialed.
Thanks
Love you all
Andy