How to cook summer squash, part 1

Remember Barbara Kingsolver's Disappearing Zucchini Orzo? I have riffed on that recipe repeatedly, often substituting rice (white or brown) for the orzo. It's such a great formula for using a lot of summer squash. Grate it up and cook it the heck down. I love stirring in a cup or so of grated romano cheese, but it's delicious without.

Tonight, I'm doing it with brown rice and no cheese (it was a heavy-dairy day), but I threw together a little relish-like thing for the top: small dice of tomato, green pepper, peach and onion, with minced serrano for a little kick.

I was pleased that I thought of the peach. I made jam today, and had an extra peach that had been blanched but not yet peeled. And I love sweet fruitiness combined with the subtle heat of a chili pepper. I'm looking forward to this one!

(Hopefully I'll post a picture later!)

What I planted today . . .

Phew, it's hot. I just put in the rest of the tomatoes--I bought a 6-pack of romas (which I planted yesterday) and a 6-pack of sun gold cherries (today). I also planted 3 parsley plants, 6 hot pepper seedlings, a row of radishes, and more kale and chard. I wish I could remember the date I put in the first of the kale and chard, but I'd say around 2 weeks ago. I think the chard is getting eaten by critters (either that or I haven't watered them enough, sigh.) I also planted nasturtiums and marigolds.

Last night I picked up a bag of mesclun mix from Mainstone Farm in Wayland, so for dinner we had a big salad with avocado, radishes, carrots, chickpeas and olives, in a balsamic vinaigrette. Oh, and croutons that I tossed with olive oil and Penzey's "sandwich seasoning." Altogether a very satisfying meal.

Chermoula

These pictures, as frequently happens, are out of order. For reasons I can't quite understand, blogger uploads the pictures backwards from how one selects them. Or else it's just messing with me.

Anyway, I frequently get a bunch of cilantro, and don't know quite what I'm going to do to use ALL of it. I often use a few sprigs to half the bunch, but the rest doesn't quite make it into, well, anything but the compost pile.

I vowed it would be different this time -- and I decided to make this Moroccan sauce, traditionally used on fish. I used it two ways: once to dress some thinly-sliced raw salad turnips. The other time I put over a couple of portobello mushrooms Jon grilled for me. Totally delicious.

(The first picture is, um, maybe not as clear as it could be. It's a grilled mushroom on a roll. Blurry, of course.)

Chermoula

about 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
about 1/4 cup chopped parsley
4 garlic scapes, minced
4 scallions, minced
salt to taste
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/3 cup olive oil
juice of 1 lemon

Fun with garlic scapes

I'm pretty much out of scapes (I have two more hoarded from last week to use in pesto later) but next year, I'm going to make this.

A perfect early summer meal

This isn't so much a post about recipes, as just a celebration of a dinner made from local food.

First, steamed beets, sliced and tossed with butter. My sister loves beets so much that she believes butter's purpose on earth is to be combined with beets. Usually I make pickled beets, which is my favorite way to eat them, but for the first beets of the season, I made them Julie's way. They were sensational.

Next, a beautiful salad, with two kinds of lettuce and arugula, radishes and salad turnips. Dressing loaded with garlic scapes, and a couple of tablespoons of chopped parsley and dill from my herb garden.

Finally, a classic in my kitchen: "Spinach Squares." Also known as crustless quiche, and the basis for those little mini-quiches I made a few weeks back. (These are also great brunch food.)

3 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup (or more - up to 1/2 lb) grated sharp cheddar
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
as much spinach as you can procure
onion/garlic/leeks/etc. (I'd use one small onion -- use that as your guide for amounts of other things)

Saute onion (I had some lovely spring leeks so I used those) in 2 tablespoons of olive oil till softened.

I had one good-sized bunch of spinach, but could easily have used two. Also I have successfully made this with frozen chopped spinach -- a one-lb. bag works perfectly.

Chop the spinach and add to the pot with the onion. Let it just wilt -- don't cook it too much. Allow it to cool.

preheat oven to 350.

In a 9x13 pan, melt a tablespoon of butter. Tilt the pan so the bottom and sides are coated.

Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl.

In another bowl, beat the eggs, then add the milk, the cheese, and the spinach mixture. Carefully mix in the dry ingredients, then spread into the prepared pan.

Bake for 35 minutes.

Strawberry roll cake

We picked strawberries, 6.5 lbs, which yielded enough for 4.5 pints of jam (still making the old-fashioned, long-simmered, no-added-pectin kind), plus the sauce for this strawberry roll cake, and some just for snacking. I still have plans to pick more in a few days. I want to be drowning in jam. Jon loves strawberry jam; I love making it. Good thing we're married.

Several factors contributed to the making of this cake:

1. I had a weird hankering to make a roll cake a couple of weeks ago, and told Arij maybe I'd make one for my birthday in a few months. (Planning ahead is so important, don't you think?)

2. The kids requested shortcake (complete with whipped cream), but I was pretty sure they were thinking "cake" and not "biscuit," so I thought I should make something cake-like for the base.

3. I consulted The Joy of Cooking for cake recipes; they suggested a sponge cake. My original intention (lacking little cake molds) was to cut it up into squares and layer them with a little strawberry syrup and top with whipped cream.

4. But then all three of these things coalesced and I thought, why not just roll that sheet of spongy-sweet goodness up with some strawberries?

The result was yummy.

The cake was moderately fussy. The recipe instructed me to beat 5 eggs with 3/4 a cup of sugar for 5 minutes (with a stand mixer) or 7-10 minutes (with a hand-held mixer). Well, since I don't actually BAKE cakes (or so goes the logic in my little brain), I don't own a stand mixer. Besides . . . where would I *keep* it?! But I was making this as I was stirring jam, sterilizing jars, supervising my kids, etc., so I couldn't very well stand there all that time. So I took breaks, and estimated, and tried to gauge whether it resembled "soft whipped cream." (Oh, I also worried if one could OVER mix it and ruin it irreparably.) So I finally just stopped beating it already and added the 3/4 cup of sifted cake flour, the teaspoon of baking powder, and the 3 T of melted butter combined with 1/4 cup of hot milk.

The baking was uneventful: I poured the batter into an 11x17 pan lined with the sil-pat (basically reusable parchment paper) and baked for 9 minutes. You have to invert it right away onto foil, wait for it to cool, and then peel off the parchment, flip it back over and peel the foil off. Then it's ready to go.

basil and garlic scape pesto, with an elaborate presentation

Do you ever fiddle around with food, preparing multiple parts of a dish, only to realize you've just spent an inordinate amount of time on something that doesn't really even count as a full meal?

Oh. Maybe it's just me, then.

Moving right along . . . We got a little bunch of basil, yielding maybe a loosely-packed cup, from our CSA this week. Not enough to really make pesto with. But we also got a generous clump of garlic scapes, and together, I thought they'd make a great pesto. I shelled a couple of walnuts and tossed them in the processor, followed by 3 or 4 coarsely chopped scapes and the basil, adding a little olive oil to loosen it up. I added a few pinches of salt and some parmegano reggiano, and scooped it into a jar. Lovely.

But what to eat it on? Pasta? Yawn. How about polenta? But I apparently am incapable of making it and leaving it alone. I made my oven-baked polenta, then stirred in about a cup of grated romano cheese. I scooped it into a loaf pan and let it solidify.

Somewhere along the way, I realized I had a few mushrooms that my mom had brought me, and they weren't getting any fresher . . . . so I chopped those up and seared them in olive oil with a little salt.

Once the polenta was (almost) solid -- almost because I ran out of time -- I (washed the processor and then) processed up a couple of slices of pain de campagne from several days ago to make crumbs. I dipped the polenta slices into a an egg beaten with a little salt and a couple tablespoons of milk, and then into bread crumbs. I baked them at 400 for 20 minutes, flipped them over, and baked for 20 more minutes.

But really, does fussed-over polenta topped with fungus and elaborately-wrought weeds mushrooms and pesto really constitute a meal? No, I didn't think so either.

So I threw together a salad, with scallions, radishes and beautiful lettuce, dressed with a lemon juice and olive oil vinaigrette. (Um, is it still vinaigrette if it doesn't contain vinegar? Clearly, one for the ages.)

Know what? It's a good thing I have an indulgent spouse who puts up with this kind of thing for dinner. The fact that it tasted beyond fabulous probably had something to do with it.

(As you can see, the camera situation is getting pretty desperate around here. I have *got* to upgrade.)

braised turnip and radish greens, for breakfast

We had two beautiful bunches of turnips and greens, as well as one of radishes. I've read that radish greens are edible, and they looked so fresh and yummy, so I decided to toss those in with the turnip greens.

I cleaned them and chopped them, then tossed them into a heavy pot with a couple tablespoons of olive oil. I added a couple of minced garlic scapes and some salt.

I stirred for a bit, and then wondered what I'd use for braising liquid. Water would do, I guess . . . then I remembered that I'd just cooked lentils for lentil salad (see two posts ago) . . . that lentil cooking water would be perfect!

I cooked them for about 10 minutes, maybe, or a little more, till they were tender.

Leftovers, pictured above: toasted pain de campagne, topped with warmed juicy greens and an egg.

(Yes, this would be Jon's plate, with the leftover steak for breakfast. He and my dad were in heaven.)

Quick bok choi

Today was the first pickup at our summer CSA. (It also might be a year ago today that I started this blog -- can that really be?!) I participated, a little, in a new member orientation that was instituted this year, and Ellie, one of the growers, pitched this blog (Thanks, Ellie!) And then I had a conversation with a new member about what to do with bok choi -- I sort of rattled off a "recipe," but told her (hi, Debbie!) that I'd put one up here.

1 bunch bok choi (these bunches were huge -- maybe a pound?)
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 large-garlic-clove-size piece of fresh ginger, minced
2 T soy sauce
1 (scant) T rice vinegar
2 tsp sugar
1 heaping T corn starch
1 T canola oil mixed with 1 tsp Asian sesame oil

The biggest trouble I have with bok choi is how watery it can be. I think I came up with a solution. I chopped the leaves, but kept the stems separate, and cooked them first. Also, I used plenty of corn starch in the sauce.

Note: as you can see from the pictures, I wasn't super-careful about keeping the stems and leaves separate. It doesn't really matter; just be sure you get most of the stems separated.

Heat the canola and sesame oils in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the stems and cook, tossing or stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes, until they're tender (try a piece -- you don't want it soggy, but you want it to cook down a bit and let that excess water cook off.)

Add the green part of the leaves as well as the ginger and garlic. Continue tossing/stirring for another 3 or 4 minutes.

In a small bowl, combine soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and corn starch and stir well.

Give the sauce an extra stir right before adding it to the skillet of greens. Stir constantly to coat all the bok choi with sauce and let the sauce thicken (about 30 seconds?), then remove from heat and serve.

Edited to add: We get a *lot* of bok choi, so I reprised this a few days later. This time I used Loriva brand roasted peanut oil combined with canola to cook with, and drizzled on a couple of teaspoons of toasted sesame oil at the end. I also increased the amount of sauce I made to accommodate the cooked soba noodles I tossed in to make a meal out of it.

Next up, maybe, fried rice with bok choi.