Zucchini Casserole ala Ellen

My friend, Elizabeth Ellen, swears by her mother’s Zucchini Casserole.  I had two zucchini hanging out waiting for something to do, so I asked her for the recipe and made it tonight as a side dish to our angus burgers.

Zucchini Casserole ala Ellen

2 cups mashed squash or zucchini
1 small onion, diced
½ cup cream or half/half
1/4 cup saltines or Ritz crackers
2 T. Butter

Slice squash. Boil in salted water until done.
Drain and mash (food processor works good).
Saute onion in butter. Mix onion with squash
and add cream and mashed crackers. Put all
into a greased casserole (8×8x3 or similar size).
Top with buttered bread crumbs or cracker
crumbs. Bake at 400∘ for about ½ hour or
until firm.

Adjustments:

• I didn’t boil the zucchini, just shredded it raw in the processor.
• I added chopped sage and rosemary to the onion saute.
• I didn’t have crackers, so I just crushed up some pita chips.
• I added some chevre to the mixture.

It was deeelicious!  My only problem was it never got very stiff, but that was probably cuz I was in such a hurry to eat it I couldn’t wait for it to bake…I still ate half the pan, stiff or not.

The angus burgers came out much better than the 4th of July fiasco and instead of using regular buns, I sandwiched them in Roasted Onion Ciabatta rolls I picked up from the Wild Flour Bakery stand at the Farmers’ Market in Northern Liberties yesterday.  At the Wild Flour Bakery stand they also sell these awesome crackers in different flavors; you get 2 crackers (5″x7″) for $1!!!.  My favorite is  the cardamom & sucre cracker, but they didn’t have any, so instead I got olive & fennel and roasted garlic & rosemary.  MMMMMMM!!!!

*Isn’t their font lovely?  I love their packaging design.

Black & White Eggplant Pasta

First, I want to apologize for not being a very good blogger…I think the summer heat is getting to me and I just can’t get the motivation together to cook anything! But last night I did have a watermelon-feta-arugula salad that was pretty yum! (no pics, it was late.)

I have a lot of eggplants in my fridge and so tonight I decided to use a good portion of it in this recipe: Black and White Eggplant Pasta.*

The name of eggplant was given it by Europeans in the middle of the eighteenth century because the variety they knew had fruits that were the shape and size of goose eggs. That variety also had fruits that are a whitish or yellowish colour rather than the wine purple that is more familiar to us nowadays. So the sort they knew really did look as though it had fruits like eggs.

-Michael Quinion

The interesting thing is when white eggplant is cooked the skin turns brown, so the final dish of course didn’t look at all B&W–don’t be fooled! ;p

*I didn’t have any basil leaves (don’t ask) so I used mint leaves and I put a little tomato sauce in there since I only used 3 ripe tomatoes. I also used crushed red pepper in place of the hot sauce and cayenne pepper.

Eggplants are one of my favorite vegetables and they always make me think of this song Rick likes to play for me (I’m his eggplant girl afterall).

Eggplant
Michael Franks
From: The Art of Tea

Whenever I explore the land of Yen
I always take one on the chin
And now this lioness has almost made me tame.
I can’t pronounce her name but
Eggplant is her game.

The lady sticks to me like white on rice.
She never cooks the same way twice.
Maybe it’s the mushrooms. Maybe the tomatoes.
I can’t reveal her name but Eggplant is her game.

When my baby cooks her Eggplant,
She don’t read no book.
She’s got a Giocanda kinda of dirty look

And my baby cooks her Eggplant,
Bout 19 different ways.
Sometimes I just have it raw with Mayonnaise.

-break-

Maybe its the way she grates her cheese,
Or just the freckles on her knees.
Maybe its the scallions. Maybe she’s Italian.
I can’t reveal her name but Eggplant is her game.

When my baby cooks her Eggplant,
She don’t read no book.
She’s got a Giocanda kinda of dirty look.

And my baby cooks her Eggplant,
Bout 19 different ways.
Sometimes I just have it raw with Mayonnaise.

Pick-up: July 26

• 4 Tomatoes – Katona Farms, NJ
• 6 White Nectarines – Three Springs Fruit Farm, Aspers, PA
• 1 Seedless Watermelon – G & G Stecher, Swedesboro, NJ*
• 2 Green Bell Peppers – Flaim Farms, Vineland, NJ
• 1 bunch Fresh Basil – Greensgrow Farms, Philadelphia
• 1 bunch Kale – Greensgrow Farms, Philadelphia
• 1 Canteloupe – G & G Stecher, Swedesboro, NJ*
• 2 Zucchini – Russo’s Orchard Lane Farm, Chesterfield, NJ
• 2 White Eggplant – Flaim Farms, Vineland, NJ
• 1 Qt Apple Cider – Kauffman’s Farm, Philadelphia, PA
• Cheese – Chevre – Firely Farms, Bittinger, MD
• Dairy Option: 1 dozen Free-Range Eggs

A la carte:

• 5 assorted peppers – Greensgrow Farms, Philadelphia
• 4 heirloom tomatoes – Greensgrow Farms, Philadelphia
• 1 pint blackberries
• 1 pot assorted Sedum

*I have got to use up the melons early, last week my cantaloupe rotted before I got to enjoy it. This post on the Dinner Tonight blog is inspiring. I like the watermelon balls tossed with rum and mint leaves! Watermelon Mojitos!

Μελιτζάνες και Πατάτες Τηγανιτές (Eggplants and Potatoes Fried)

Much like the fasolakia and yemista, this meal is quintessentially summer and probably my most favorite. Fresh eggplant, tomatoes and potatoes from local gardens/farms taste so sweet! This is another olive oil drencher, but since I fry the eggplant and potatoes in an olive oil/canola oil blend they usually absorb a lot of oil that way, so I don’t need as much in the final pot. Everything in tonight’s meal was local except for the oil and garlic.

Μελιτζάνες και Πατάτες Τηγανιτές (Eggplants and Potatoes Fried)

• 1 large eggplant
• 2-3 medium potatoes (peeled)
• 2-3 ripe tomatoes (skinned)
• 3 garlic cloves (minced)
• olive oil
• canola oil
• mint leaves
• salt and pepper

Slice up eggplant into strips and potatoes into fries. In a wide sauce pan pour olive oil about an inch deep and heat. Fry potatoes first in batches and then fry eggplant strips. Set aside.

In a separate pot, saute garlic in about 2 tablespoons olive oil, then roughly chop up tomatoes right into pot (to ensure juices are not lost). Cover and let sauce simmer until the tomatoes are soft. Then add the fried potatoes, eggplant and chopped up mint leaves, gently stir together. Cover and let it all simmer together for a few minutes to allow all the flavors to meld.

Serve it with a chunk of feta and a couple slices of rustic bread-YUM!

Random Edibles Frittata

I have been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and Co. and it seems like they are always making frittatas!  So tonight I was inspired and made one for dinner.  I threw in a bunch of things I had laying around: leeks, corn (there’s still more!), jalapeños, a hot red pepper, tomatoes, a few basil leaves and the dill cheese I got in the share this week.  It was super tasty, didn’t even require a dash of salt!  BUT I burnt the bottom, does anyone have any ideas about how to avoid burning the bottom of a frittata in a cast iron skillet?

Fresh (and some dried) Fig Ice Cream

Unfortunately, the photos in this case look better than the food tastes.  I totally screwed up on this ice cream recipe from David Leibovitz’s book The Perfect Scoop.  The recipe calls for about 20 fresh figs, I only had 8 so I thought I would throw in 8 dried figs to substitute…but I didn’t consider how sweet dried figs are!  Which would have been okay…if I hadn’t poured in all the sugar the recipe calls for!  Ugh.  I still froze it and will slowly eat it (even if it makes my teeth rot!) but I am sorely disappointed.

Check out Clotilde’s adaptation of this recipe over at Chocolate & Zucchini, she got it right.

Yemista (Stuffed Vegetables)

From here on out, I will refer to this dish as “yummy-sta”.

This was actually my first attempt at making this traditional Greek dish sans my mother’s aid.  (When I say aid I really mean my mom doing everything and me observing.) Usually, when my mom makes this dish, she bakes a huge pan of vegetables: zucchini, eggplants, tomatoes and bell peppers; and the leftovers last forever.  I thought I better start small and made us a modest batch.  I primarily wanted to use up this massive Sicilian Eggplant we got in the share a few weeks ago, so I cut that in half and dug out the insides to use in the filling.  I’m not sure if it was the size of the eggplant or the type, but it’s skin was really tough and chewy, I’m wondering if I should have baked the eggplant shells a little before stuffing them maybe?

Overall the dish tasted amazing, but of course not even close to the yumminess of my mom’s.  It really needed more olive oil!  Yummy-sta, like fasolakia, are considered “lathera” foods (the Greek word for oil is “lathi”); therefore meaning cooked in olive oil.  You can never have too much olive oil in your pan, NEVER.  The best part is mopping up the flavorful yummy-sta oil and scraps at the bottom of the pan with crusty bread!

Yummy-sta (a small batch)

*The measurements and directions are all approximate.  My mom kept saying “look with your eyes, you will know if it is enough”.  Shrug.

• 1 large eggplant or 2 medium ones (cut top off and dig out insides, set aside)
• 2-3 bell peppers (cut off tops and clean out insides)
• 2 tomatoes (cut off tops and dig out insides, set aside)
• 1-2 zucchini (If big enough, cut off tops and dig out insides and set aside)
• 1 med onion (quartered)
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 1/2 a pound of ground beef
• About a cup of rice
• 2 good sized baking potatoes (quartered)
• fresh mint leaves (chopped)
• about 1/2 cup tomato sauce
• OLIVE OIL – I dunno, a gallon maybe??!!
• salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350º.  Clean and prepare vegetables.  Puree the eggplant, zucchini and tomato innards in a food processor with your onion, garlic and mint leaves.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Combine the puree in a bowl with rice and ground meat and about 1/4 cup of olive oil.  The mixture should be chunky and there should be enough rice to soak up a lot of the liquid, “you will know”.

Oil a roasting pan (really oil it) and within it set up the hollow vegetables.  With a spoon carefully fill each vegetable with the mixture right below their tops (the rice will expand while cooking).  Place the quartered potatoes into the now empty mixture bowl, toss them with some olive oil and a lil bit of tomato sauce (S&P too) and then stuff the potatoes into the crevices between the stuffed vegetables in the pan.  Back to the bowl take about a 1/2 cup tomato sauce and a 1/2 cup olive oil and whisk together with some salt and pepper, pour this over the vegetables.

Cover with foil and back for about an hour, then uncover and allow to brown.  Enjoy!

Pick-up: July 19th

• White Corn – A.L. Gaventa & Sons, Swedesboro, NJ
• Cantaloupe – G & G Stecher, Swedesboro, NJ (it smells so good!!!)
• Blueberries – Hammonton, NJ
• Arugula – Flaim Farms, Vineland, NJ (2 bunches!!!)
• Leeks – Flaim Farms, Vineland, NJ
• Eggplant ‘Black Beauty’ – Flaim Farms, NJ (traded a bunch of kale for an extra one of these!)
• Assorted Herbs – Greensgrow Farms, Philadelphia
• Cheese – ‘Garden Dill’, Hillacres Pride, Peach Bottom, NJ
• Dairy Option: 1/2 lb. Amish-style Butter

A la carte:

• 1 whole chicken – Griggstown Quail Farm, Princeton, NJ
• Assorted hot peppers – Greensgrow Farms, Philadelphia (some)
• 3 potatoes
• 1 sweet potato
• 4 tomatoes
• 1 cucumber
• 1 green pepper (I’ve saved my peppers and eggplant from last week to make some Yemista this week!)
• 1 red onion
• 1 pint mission figs – (I know, non-local, but I plan on making some awesome “non-local fig” ice cream with it! and only at $3.50 a pint!)
• 1 Rosemary plant

Kale Pesto!

Pesto is such a great weeknight meal: QUICK AND EASY.  Also you can substitute any greens for basil or walnuts for pine nuts…it’s a great way to use up a few things laying around.  I had some Red Russian Kale from a share pick-up a couple weeks ago and the basil this week was a bit skimpy, so I thought I’ll combine them.  A great trick I learned from the blog I Heart Kale is to blanch the kale in a strainer with boiling water (and the garlic).  It mellows the flavors!  I kinda winged it from there and didn’t measure the rest of the ingredients: grated parm, olive oil, pine nuts (toasted-yum!), some basil leaves and a couple cloves garlic.  It was so yummm! Great healthy alternative to just plain ol’ basil pesto (not that there’s anything wrong with it!)

Chili-Rubbed Salmon with Corn Fritters and Red Cabbage Salad

Tonight’s dinner was a variation on one of my favorite Dinner Tonight menus. I found the chili-rubbed salmon recipe (minus the zucchini and corn parts) on the Martha site. They were having a sale at Whole Foods on wild caught salmon so I thought it opportune. Also was really stoked about finding another fun recipe for corn. These were definitely the highlight of dinner! I actually think I had too many kernels for the fritter mix, but nevertheless they were delicious. I need to start freezing some of this awesome corn for the winter! I cut up some red cabbage and tossed it with olive oil and apple cider vinegar. All in all it was an okay dinner. The salmon was super dry and I wished I had brushed it with some oil in the rub.