Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce

I got the most luscious little cherry tomatoes in the CSA box a couple days ago. They were perfectly ripe- no time to waste in using them. But what to make?
Then, at the SLU farmer's market today I found some some wild mushroom ravioli. An idea started coming together. I'll make a sauce! It's a super easy, super flavorful little sauce. Bold, sweet flavor, in about 16 minutes!

















Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce (for two)

• a pint of cherry tomatoes - the riper the better
  
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• 2-3 cloves chopped or pressed garlic (if you'd like a bit stronger garlic you could slice it instead)
• salt & pepper
• fresh thyme

Preheat your oven to 400°.
Get your knife nice and sharp and slice the cherry tomatoes in half. Put the halves in a small mixing bowl with enough olive oil to coat them (not too much is needed) and about the same amount of the balsamic vinegar. Add the garlic and salt & pepper to taste. Gently toss the tomatoes, coating them with the mixture.
Transfer the tomatoes to a rolled edge baking sheet pan (otherwise known as a jelly-roll pan). I had them all facing cut-side up, but not sure if that really matters. Drizzle any liquid that might be in the bowl over top of the tomatoes. Lay a few sprigs of fresh thyme over the top of the tomatoes and put them in the oven. Check them after about 15 minutes. They should look very soft, some will probably have collapsed.
When they're done cooking take them out of the oven and pick the thyme sprigs off the top. Run the thyme through your fingers to take the leaves off the sprigs, then sprinkle the leaves over the tomatoes.
Voilà, it's done! You can spoon the mixture directly over the pasta of your choice (make sure to get all the good bits off the pan!), or it'd make an incredible bruschetta.

Long Time Gone

Well, the blog has suffered from lack of updates as of late, but now I'm back, I say!

Getting a lot of zucchini and summer squash in the CSA box lately. I was hit with the inspiration to make a lasagna with the squash as the noodles! I'd heard of it before, but didn't have a recipe, and it was after work one day, so I decided to take some short cuts (using a store bought tomato sauce and amping it up). I also had to figure out how to use my mandoline (still wrapped in plastic). It turned out to be super easy, and I'm in love with it now.



Vegetarian "No-Noodles" Summer Squash Lasagna

• Summer squash- I used a combination of zucchini, pattypan and crookneck. I used approximately 1 medium of each kind for a lasagna in an 8x8 pan. I had leftover slices, but leftover is okay.
• A red sauce of some sort, homemade or store bought. I used Lucini Sicilian Olive and Wild Caper sauce. I added chopped garlic and sliced crimini mushrooms.
  
• 1/3 package of Original Smart Ground.
• crimini mushrooms
• a few small carrots- or a couple big ones.
• goat cheese
• "Italian blend" cheese.

Preheat oven to 450.
Get your sauce going. I combined the store-bought tomato sauce with garlic and crimini mushrooms. The sauce I used was really flavorful- but flavor your sauce to your preference. Add the Smart Ground. This is a ground beef alternative, but you won't be able to really tell the difference, except it won't be fatty or greasy! Let the sauce meld flavors and warm up while you're prepping the rest of the ingredients.
Slice the squash on the mandoline into 1mm strips. I first cut the zucchini in half and ran it that way, but realized that leaving it whole was just as easy- or easier.
Slice the carrots on the mandoline into 1mm strips or rounds or oblongs.
I bought my crimini mushrooms already sliced, if you don't then slice them (not as thin as the other veggies).
Start layering! I put some sauce in the bottom of the pan (didn't grease the pan), then a layer of squash- not necessarily one slice thick, I was pretty random, as the pattypan was round, and I liked the squash layer about two slices thick. Add some carrot- I just sprinkled carrot slices on. Add some mushrooms. Add a layer "Italian cheese" and dot some goat cheese on top. Then another layer of sauce, veggies, and end with cheese. You can do as many layers as you want- this is the amount that fit in my dish.
Bake with some foil loosely covering the dish for 30 minutes. Uncover and cook for approximately 10 minutes more. Keep an eye (or nose) on it though- don't let it get TOO brown.

Veggie Leanings

You may notice that many of my recipes are vegetarian. I'm noticing that too. I eat meat, as of right now, but I also believe that we don't need a lot of meat (if any?) to live a healthy life. There's an idea out there, of living "Vegan until 6pm" or "Vegan until dinner". It's not a fad diet, though it may be made into one eventually. It's a lifestyle that is mindful of our health and the welfare of animals and the planet. I totally support family farms, but the vast majority of what we eat doesn't come from family farms. BUT, I'm not going to proselytize or lecture about this. There's plenty of information out there, and I'd be totally willing to talk to anyone about it in person. That being said, I probably would rather be a vegan after 10am. And might just try it. But ANYway, here's a vegan recipe I tried out recently, and liked.
Quinoa Loaf
based off a recipe from Whole Foods

• Olive Oil
• 8 oz mushrooms (I used a mixture of criminis and wild) - sliced
• 2 carrots chopped to pea-size
  
• salt and pepper
• 3 cloves garlic
  
• 15oz can of garbanzo beans (no-salt added would be best) drained and rinsed
• 3/4 cup uncooked rolled oats
• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 cup frozen green peas
• 3/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1 cup chopped red onion
• ground sage
• herbes de provence

Preheat your oven to 350.
Cook your quinoa by placing the rinsed quinoa, 2 cups of water and a pinch of salt in a medium pot. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until the water is absorbed- about 10-15 minutes. When it's done cooking just pull it off the heat, but keep the lid on.
Heat about a TBSP of oil in a skillet over med-high heat. Press 2 cloves of garlic into the oil, add the carrots and mushrooms, some salt and pepper and cook until mushrooms are cooked through and carrots are getting soft.
In a food processor or blender, put beans, oats and 1/2 cup of water. You might need a little more liquid if you're using a blender. Pulse until it's "almost smooth".
Then in a large bowl, combine the mushroom mixture, the bean mixture, 2 cups of the quinoa, 1 more clove of pressed garlic, the peas, parsley, onion, salt & pepper and herbs to taste (I used about a teaspoon each).
Transfer mixture to a loaf pan that has been lightly greased with olive oil. Gently press it into the pan, slightly mounding it in the middle. Bake until it's firm and golden. I baked it for an hour in a convection oven, but when I cut into it, it was still a bit too "gooey"... so you may have to stick it back in the oven. I'd suggest starting at 1-1/4 hours and plan that it might take a little extra time. Let it rest for about 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

I served it with:
Mushroom Gravy

• Olive oil
• 2 large shallots- minced
• 1 lb of mushrooms, sliced very thin (I used a combo of crimini, portabello, shiitake and assorted wild)
• 5 tsp arrowroot
• 2-1/2 cups warm stock (I used vegetable, you could use any kind you wish)
  
• 5 TBSP white wine
• 1/4 tsp Herbes de Provence
• 2 TBSP soy sauce
  
• Salt & pepper (I used white pepper)

In a large, deep saute pan (maybe 1-1/2 qt or so), heat the oil and cook the shallots and mushrooms until soft. You aren't trying to caramelize, just cook them down. About 10 minutes or so- it's a lot of mushrooms and you want them really cooked.
While that's going on, heat up your stock (in the microwave is fine) and stir in the arrowroot, 1 tsp at at time, stirring each tsp in with a whisk. You don't want it to sink and stick to the bottom of the bowl.
Add the stock mixture to the mushroom mixture and stir, combining. Then add the wine and seasonings and bring it up to a boil, stirring constantly. Lower it to a simmer and cook about another 10 minutes.
You could serve it like this, but I put it in the blender in 2 batches to make it a little more thick and homogeneous.

Pizza!!

Pizza is so easy. There are gluten-free crusts for those who can't do wheat. For me, there's Whole Food's pizza department, that has crusts they can roll out for you, with cornmeal on it and everything. Of course you could make your own, and I'm sure it's relatively easy, but when you have 1/2 hour to prepare dinner for 4 people, well, it just didn't work for me on Saturday.

Fig Goat Cheese Pizza

• pizza dough from Whole Foods (or the like) -rolled out.
• olive oil
• roasted garlic
• goat cheese (I just had some goat cheese crumbles in a little tub, but any will do)
• mozzarella cheese- shredded
• figs (since figs are out of season now I used "Fig Galaxy" from Mountain Fruit Co.- it's like a jar of figs w/o the skin. Or like a thick fig jam)
• arugula (baby arugula is the best- but any will do)

A pizza stone is the best way, in my opinion, to bake a pizza. The crust comes out crispy, but not burnt. If you can go this way, preheat your pizza stone (while the oven is preheating) to 450 degrees.
While the stone is heating, form your pizza dough on some kind of sheet that has no lip. I use a thin cookie sheet I have that has no lip on 3 sides. Make sure if your pizza dough doesn't already have cornmeal on the bottom you put some on the cookie sheet. Get the finer cornmeal, not polenta or course corn meal.
Brush the entire now-pizza-shaped dough with olive oil (all the way to the edge!), then smush some roasted garlic up and spread it around. It doesn't have to be all over... just as much as you'd like. I've also used the oil from a jar of sun-dried tomatoes instead.
Sprinkle on some mozzarella. I'm not too liberal with this cheese. I just give a uniform light covering... but be as liberal as you like.
Next, spoon the fig (or lay the fresh figs) in glops all over, making sure each bite would have some fig. Spread the goat cheese crumbles around in a similar fashion. Then top with a bunch of baby arugula. It will cook downand get kind of crispy... so you can be pretty liberal.
Pull the rack with the pizza stone out and (this is where it gets tricky) wiggle the pizza from the cookie sheet onto the pizza stone. The first time you do this you might have some trouble, but just be able to laugh at yourself and have a misshapen pizza.
Bake until the crust is browned... about 15 minutes or so.

So... some other ideas for pizza toppings? Besides the standard?
How about Pear, Gorgonzola and caramelized onions?
Or one of my favorite combos: charred eggplant, roasted red pepper, caramelized onions, wild mushrooms and artichoke hearts.
Add a meat to any of these, like chicken or prosciutto.
Maybe a sweet pizza with brown sugar and peaches??
The possibilities are endless.

Farmer's Market Find

I went to the local farmer's market this past weekend. I found a lot of normal stuff, like kale and beets and apples. I also found some more... exotic fare. I got some wood sorrel (citrusy leaves that look like clover), some miner's lettuce (also called purslane, it's delicate and full of vitamin c), sunflower sprouts and the pièces de résistance : fiddlehead ferns! But what to do with them?
You can saute them or boil them. But I felt like some soup!



Fiddlehead Fern Soup

• 1-1/2 cups finely chopped fiddlehead ferns (make sure if you forage for these yourself you pick only edible ones! The farmer's market or grocery store is a safer bet.) Before chopping, cut off the dry ends and if there's any brown papery stuff: peel it off.
• 2 TBSP butter
• 2 low-sodium vegetable boullion cubes
• 1 large shallot-finely chopped
  
• 2-4 spring garlic bulbs- thinly sliced (also called baby garlic, green garlic or scapes- they are very young garlic and look more like a green onion with a little fatter bulb. I use the white bulb part and some of the green)
• 3 cups 2% milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 tsp or so truffle oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add the boullion, stirring until well incorporated.
Add the fiddleheads, shallots and spring garlic and sauté for 10-12 minutes, until everything is nice and soft. Undercooking fiddleheads can lead to illness, so give them a good long sauté.
Turn the heat down a bit and add the milk. Stir to incorporate and bring to a simmer. Add the salt, pepper and truffle oil and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add the cream and let it heat up, stirring.
I mixed it all together with a stick-blender at the end, but it's not really necessary. You could also put it in the blender if you felt like it.
The taste is really good... like cream of asparagus soup, but a bit different.

What to do with cauliflower...

So, cauliflower isn't my favorite veggie. For me, when it's raw it's too squeeky (on the teeth), steamed it's kinda boring... then there's the fact that it's cruciferous (read: might cause me some pain in the intestines). But today I give you two things to do with cauliflower that is so yummy it's worth the risk. I was out at a local restaurant and they had a to-die-for cauliflower soup. So I asked for the recipe... here it is:

Flat Iron Grill Pureed Cauliflower Soup
the amount of cauliflower you'll use depends on how much soup you want to make.

• cut the florets off the main stem.

• coat florets in oil, salt and pepper.

• spread florets on a cookie sheet or in a baking dish and roast in the oven until they're soft and browned (maybe 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes).

• saute some onion or shallot

• puree cauliflower in a blender, food processor or with a blender stick with the onion/shallot and enough cream to reach the consistency you'd like.

• top with a drizzle of truffle oil, cilantro oil and a dab of crème fraîche.

It's so good and earthy... you might want to lick the bowl clean.

Recipe number two is just as simple as the first.

Mashed Cauliflower
this is like mashed potatoes but better for you... you'll be hard pressed to tell the difference.

• get a head of cauliflower and cut off the florets.

• steam in a pan with some chicken or veggie broth until fork-tender.

• drain off the broth and put back in pan on low heat to dry them a bit (like you might do mashed potatoes.

• mash the florets with a potato masher, or a stick blender or beater, whatever you'd use to make mashed potatoes. Add in a bit of lite Boursin for some great flavor and a bit of cream to desired consistency. It should be just like mashed taters.
  

Black beans and bananas?

Let's just get right to it:












Black Bean & Banana Empanadas

2-3 TBSP canola oil
2 ripe medium bananas- chopped
15 oz can of black beans- rinsed
thawed package of puff pasty (i used some from http://www.aussiebakery.com/ which was trans fat/cholesterol free! but you could use pepperidge farm or whatever you have near you)
1 medium onion- chopped
garlic (I used a mix of chopped and crushed- maybe 3 cloves worth)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro- chopped
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne
few dashes of tabasco

Preheat oven to 425 degrees
Heat the canola oil in a medium pan. Add the chopped bananas and saute until bananas are golden and caramelized. Make sure to stir/flip occasionally or else they will stick to the pan.
Use a slotted spoon to remove the bananas from the pan and put them on some paper towels to drain.
Add your chopped onions to the remaining oil in the pan. Cook until golden. Then add the black beans, cilantro, cumin, cayenne and tabasco. Cook until well blended and warm. Add the bananas and salt to taste and take off the heat.
Using the back of a fork, mash the mixture together, mixing it all together thoroughly.
You can make your empanadas as large or small as you wish. I cut the puff pastry into 3"-4" squares. I placed a really heaping tablespoon, closer to 2 TBSP in the center, then folded one corner to the opposite, forming a triangle. I pushed down the edges of the pastry, sealing in the mixture. I then pressed a fork into the edges, creating a little pattern and sealing further.
Bake for about 15 minutes. Until they're nice and golden brown.
I served them with some sour cream mixed with a little lime juice and cayenne.