Gazpacho

Ingredients:
- ~7 tomatoes
- 1 purple onion
- 1 red bell pepper (I used orange)
- 1 hot pepper, seeds removed
- 2 cucumbers, peeled
- 4 cloves of garlic
- Fresh basil
- Fresh parsley
- 1/3 C red wine vinegar
- 1/3 C EVOO, the best you can get
- Juice of one lime (you can substitute a lemon or storebought lemon juice if necessary, but I love the lime)
- fresh ground pepper
- ~1 T kosher salt
- ~2 t cumin (optional)

Directions:

I had a lot of tomatoes to use up (doesn't everyone right now?), and a friend on facebook posted about gazpacho, which reminded me how we had liked it when my husband made it last year, and so I made some. Last summer when the hubs made it, I wasn't even home, so this totally counts for being my first time making it. I didn't get his help at all, and did it all by myself! The only thing he did was toast some bread, which is the totally perfect and necessary complement to gazpacho - really good, crusty bread.

First I read over some recipes online.

Then I bought a few necessary ingredients that I didn't have on hand (orange bell pepper (to add color other than red), purple onion, parsley). Then I got to work.

This recipe requires no cooking, but it's still a pretty hefty workload. I decided to be a bit lazy and use my mini-food processor attachment to my stick blender so that I didn't have to worry about finely chopping anything. It worked out very well; in fact, when he had his first bite, my hubby commented that the texture was wonderful, right after he said how delicious and perfect it was.

So basically I just roughly chunked stuff up and popped it into the processor in manageable batches. For the less juicy stuff, I added a tablespoon or two of the red wine vinegar or EVOO to keep things moving in the blender. And to imitate the other recipes' advice to only blend part of the resulting mix, I tried to leave some batches of each veggie a little chunkier while making sure other batches were fairly smooth. I even put the basil and parsley in a batch with the garlic and some EVOO, so there was really as little chopping as I could wrangle.

I dumped everything into a big glass bowl that I have a lid for, and once it was all in there I added a generous amount of salt (because tomatoes love salt!), some freshly ground cumin (the hubby's fav spice, and I think it is indispensable here), and many grinds of the pepper mill. If you don't love cumin enough to grind it fresh like we do, you might even want to add extra, because it is seriously the perfect je ne sais quoi that takes this over the top.

Since there's no other fat in the whole thing, I didn't feel remotely guilty about the 1/3 cup of EVOO. It gives just enough richness to make this very veggie cold soup taste like a meal and not just like watery salsa. Grab a few slices of your favorite crusty bread and dig in!

One recipe mentioned avocado, and while I didn't want to experiment that much with my first try, I love avocado, so I bought one and included it sliced up with the bread as part of the side dish. The bites where I put a piece of avocado onto the bread and ate it all at once with the soup? Transcendent. This was one seriously delicious dinner. I never once thought to myself "it's weird to be eating completely raw, room temperature food for dinner."

Since all the recipes say to let it sit overnight in the fridge, or at least for an hour, I was expecting it to be even better today for lunch, and it was! So don't hesitate to make enough to last for a few days. You won't regret it, and your overflowing supply of tomatoes will thank you!

Was the recipe easy to follow? Yes, especially since there were no cooking times or temperatures to worry about!
Did it taste good? Um, yes.
Would you make it again? Yup!

Chicken Parmesan with Fresh Tomato Sauce

I had a lot of tomatoes from my CSA and friends' gardens, so I knew it was time to try making my own tomato sauce for the first time.

I decided to not use a recipe at all, and just put a few ingredients that I knew would work together and see how it turned out. It worked pretty well!

Ingredients:
- Tomatoes. I had what amounted to about 2.5 quarts, I think. Various types.
- 1 onion
- Garlic. I used 5 or 6 cloves.
- 1 6 oz can Contadina Tomato Paste (only brand I know that has no ingredients other than TOMATOES)
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Fresh Basil
- Salt
- Pepper
- 2 boneless chicken breast halves
- flour
- breadcrumbs
- milk (I used skim, and it worked just fine!)
- Freshly-grated parmesan cheese

Here's what I did:

Chopped up all the tomatoes as small as I could. I kept all seeds and skin, and only discarded the stems, bad spots, and a couple of under-ripe bits if they were too hard.

Heat a few Tablespoons of EVOO in the bottom of a wide sauce pan or skilled (I used my chef's pan). Add all the tomatoes, juice and all. Add lots of salt and plenty of pepper, to taste.

Once the tomatoes have started to head up, add the tomato paste and stir to dissolve it.

While that bubbles, chop up the onion and garlic. Heat up a little more EVOO in a skillet (you can use the same skillet for the chicken in a few minutes). Sautee the onions & garlic separately until they're fully cooked and slightly browned, then dump them into the bigger pot with the tomatoes.

This is probably a good time to pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees.

While the onions & garlic are cooking and the tomatoes continue to simmer, prepare the chicken:
Rinse & dry each piece. Pound them a little so they're a bit thinner - mine weren't too thin, just about 1/2 or 3/4" - it doesn't matter, I just wanted to flatten them out a bit.

Use two salad plates and cover each with a few heaping Tablespoons of flour and breadcrumbs, respectively. Add some salt and pepper to each plate (unless your breadcrumbs already have salt!). Put some milk in a shallow bowl.

Dip each piece of meat into the flour (flip it to cover all surfaces), then into the milk quickly, then in the breadcrumbs (again turning to coat fully). This should give you a thin but complete layer of breading.

Once the onions & garlic are done cooking and have been added to the tomatoes, put a little more EVOO into the now-empty skillet, heat it, and add the chicken breasts. Cook for a few minutes on each side until they're nicely browned, crispy, and cooked through. Set aside until the sauce is ready.

The sauce is ready whenever you think it's ready: I just cooked it until it was a bit thicker and reduced, pleasantly chunky but still with plenty of liquid, and obviously very cooked because the tomatoes were all mushy and it looked like, well, tomato sauce! At this point I tossed a bunch of fresh basil into the pot (stack a bunch of basil leaves, roll them up, and slice thinnly), tasted it, and added a bit more salt and pepper.

Once the sauce is ready to go, spread a generous layer of sauce in the bottom of a glass baking dish (I used a small dish since I only had 2 pieces of chicken).

Grate some fresh parmesan onto both chicken breasts and place that side down in the sauce in the baking dish. Generously grate more parmesan over the chicken, put a little dollop of sauce on top of each piece, and pop it in the oven, uncovered, for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is all melted and sauce is bubbley.

Scoop onto dinner plates, including all the sauce in the baking dish, add some crusty bread, and enjoy!

I made way more sauce than I used for the actual Chicken Parmesan. I've never made either fresh tomato sauce OR Chicken Parmesan before, so it was a fun evening!
The rest of the sauce is in my fridge, in one container for me and another container to go to someone who gave me some of the tomatoes.

Was the recipe easy to follow? I wish I had thought through the steps in a little bit more detail before I dove in, but it all worked out in the end, so yeah.
Did it taste good? Extra-delicious because I knew all the tomatoes were grown within 30 miles of my house using no chemicals at all! The EVOO probably didn't hurt either.
Would you make it again? Definitely. I anticipate getting tons more tomatoes over the next month, so the sauce will probably become a frequent task. I plan to put it over pasta, other meats, and hopefully a homemade pizza in the near future! We eat a lot of chicken, though, so this will very likely be repeated in the near future. Other than chopping up all the tomatoes, this was really quite easy to make.

I was thinking a bell pepper wouldn't be amiss in the sauce, and some white wine would be another great addition - next time I'm planning to use the wine to deglaze the pan after cooking the onions, garlic, and chicken. Adding all that crispy goodness with the wine to the sauce would take the flavor to a whole new level!

It's a good thing there's sauce leftover to look forward to for dinner this weekend.

Three-cheese Veggie Strata

Ingredients:
- 2/3 stale baguette, sliced
- 1 onion
- 2 chili peppers
- 5 small tomatoes
- 10 mozzarella balls, quartered
- 3 eggs
- 1 C ricotta cheese
- 2 C milk
- Parmesan cheese
- Salt
- Pepper

Here's the story: I had a bunch of stuff I needed to use up. Among these were a partial and very stale baguette, and three eggs that had been hanging out in my fridge too long. Stale bread and eggs spells Strata, so that's what I made!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

Butter the bottom of a round, deep 4-quart casserole dish

Slice up the baguette enough to cover the bottom of the casserole dish, then roughly chop the rest into crumbs and dump those in to fill in the holes

Dice up the onion, peppers (remove seeds), and tomatoes and spread it over the bread

Sprinkle with salt & pepper to taste (keep in mind you're adding more s&p later)

Quarter the mozzarella balls and press those into the top

Break eggs into a 4-cup liquid measure and beat them
Add ricotta and mix in with the eggs until smooth
Add salt & pepper to taste
Add milk until the total volume is 4 cups
Stir/beat until smooth
Pour slowly over the stuff in the casserole dish, giving it time to soak in to the bottom

Sprinkle the top with parmesan, and additional salt & pepper if desired
Pop it in the oven, uncovered, for about 70 minutes or until the top is browned, edges are bubbly, and the middle has puffed up a bit
Remove and let sit for ten minutes
Scoop & serve with a big spoon!

I'm quite sure this would do very well as a make-ahead, spending one night in your fridge before baking.

Was the recipe easy to follow? I made it up as I went, so...yeah.
Did it taste good? Goodness, yes. You could pour 3 cheeses and some egg over just about anything and it would taste good.
Would you make it again? This was one of my semi-regular episodes of throwing everything I need to use into a casserole dish (or saute pan, or baking dish, or whatever makes sense for what I have) and calling it dinner. So, probably not exactly this, but I'm sure I'll keep using the same strategy over and over, and strata is often what comes out if we have old bread and eggs on hand! This particular version would have also been great with some additional herbs (basil, maybe?) or some protein (crab or bacon comes to mind, or some sausage).

Kohlrabi & Avocado Salad

The original recipe is here.



Ingredients:
- 3 medium Kohlrabi bulbs
- 2 ripe Avocados
- 3 Tablespoons Lime Juice
- 1 Scallion, chopped
- 2 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
- 6 Tablespoons extra-virgin Olive Oil
- 1/4 teaspoon Garlic Powder
- Salt
- Fresh ground Pepper
- 1/4 cup crumbled Feta Cheese

Chop it up, mix it up, and serve. Yum.

My sister discovered this recipe after we got Kohlrabi from our farm share and had no idea what to do with it, having never heard of it before. So I'd eaten hers twice before I made it for myself last night.

I had only 2 kohlrabi bulbs, and 3 avocados, so that's what I used. I also didn't have scallions, but chose to use fresh garlic instead of powder, so I think the zing of fresh garlic mostly made up for the lack of scallions.

I also used an entire lime, since I just love all things lime lately, and the rest of the ingredients I didn't measure - just drizzled in what felt right. We didn't have any feta cheese, but I certainly didn't miss it, and even though I love feta in general, I didn't love it with this salad the first time Hannah made it, so no loss.

The main thing you definitely want to change about the recipe above is the amount of EVOO. Use less, no more than half as much. It is way too oily otherwise. The avocado adds fat already, so you don't need the extra oil for flavor.

And finally, my avocados were very soft, and I stirred things a little more than I should have, so the avocado cubes mostly got mushed up. Next time I'd hope for slightly firmer avocados (it can be really hit-or-miss with the grocery store's selection) and I wouldn't mix it up after each ingredient - I'd toss the avocado and kohlrabi with the lime juice (to keep them from turning brown, especially the avocado) and then wait to toss everything again until all the rest of the ingredients had been added.

Assuming most of you have never heard of Kohlrabi either, it is crunchy and white inside, a lot like jicama, altho it's supposed to taste more like broccoli (but I don't really taste the resemblance, which is good, because I don't much like broccoli). It looks like this, although the ones we've been getting are actually purple on the outside, and more bulbous - this picture makes them look more like brussles sprouts or something, which they don't at all. And if they're not trimmed, those little stalks are just the bottom of big leaves. Aah, here's a better picture:


Anywho, the questions:

Was the recipe easy to follow? You betcha!
Did it taste good? It sure did! It's a new family summer favorite, in fact.
Would you make it again? I'll probably keep making it as long as the CSA keeps giving us kohlrabi!

Sloppy Joe

Believe it or not, I had never made this for myself before. As in, from scratch, not from a can. Well, let me say, it's a great crock pot dish for a picnic or outdoor party.

Ingredients:
3.5 lbs lean ground beef
2 onions, diced
2 green bell peppers, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced (or more, to taste)
1 can (12 oz) Contadina tomato paste
1 jar medium salsa (your favorite salsa - mild is fine too, or super hot!)
1/8 c ketchup
1/4 c grainy mustard
1 Tbsp mustard powder (or more, to taste)
1 tsp garlic powder
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Cook onions and bell peppers in a little bit of olive oil until tender.

Add minced garlic & cook for a few more seconds

Add ground beef; continue to cook until beef is done.

Use a slotted spoon to transfer everything from the pan into the crock pot, leaving behind all the liquid fat and other juices.

Add the remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Set your crock pot for whatever length you like (how long until you want to eat dinner?); I did 4 hours.

If your sloppy joe has liquid sitting on top, it's probably from the salsa. Just cock the lid for a while until it cooks off.

Serve on a hamburger bun or your favorite sandwich bread - I used whole wheat sliders (mini hamburger buns), and it was delish! Another serving suggestion: cole slaw, on the side or right on top. Or cheddar cheese. Or whatever you want.

This makes a lot, but it is definitely freeze-able, or good for a big party, or great as leftovers all week long. Also great for re-purposing as a pizza topping, into a casserole, on a baked potato, over pasta (I can vouch for the yumminess of sloppy joe pasta sauce, which I did later in the week)...use your imagination!

I specifically mentioned Contadina tomato paste for two reasons: first, I wanted more than those tiny cans or tubes, and this was the only brand at my supermarket in a bigger can; and second, because of the ingredients: tomatoes. No preservatives, no salt, no spices - the lable says simply, "Ingredients: tomatoes." And that's what I like to see. I can add my own spices, thank you very much! Also, the recipes I looked at all called for lots of ketchup, but I love the richness of tomato paste, so I used it instead and added the salsa for some additional liquid (or my "sloppy joes" would have just been "joes" because they would have been so dry!)

Was the recipe easy to follow? Yup! Another simple one cobbled together from online recipes based on what I thought sounded good.
Did it taste good? It did, and it does! I'm looking forward to leftovers tonight.
Would I make it again? Definitely! Might even branch out with some additional ingredients, like mushrooms (which I forgot to buy, whoops!), or try it with ground turkey instead. Or try a vegan version with chopped-up mushrooms and black beans instead of meat!

Sangria

Ingredients:
1 bottle dry red wine (750 ml is standard bottle size) (I used a cheap red table wine)
2 c gingerale
1 c orange juice
1/2 c brandy (you can use cheapo stuff for this recipe)
1/2 c cointreau (triple sec is also fine, I just had cointreau on hand)
1 lemon, sliced
1 orange, sliced
2 limes, sliced
1 big, glass pitcher (so you can see the pretty citrus slices!)

The sliced citrus fruit is mainly for decoration - just slice it with the skin on (make sure to wash first and peel off any stickers), throw away the very ends, and toss all those pretty cross-sections into your pitcher.
Add the rest of the liquid ingredients.
Stir well.
Pop it in the fridge, and serve it cold! Over ice or straight.
One tip: I know from puting whole citrus fruit into tea that you don't want to make it way ahead of time, or the skin on the fruit will end up making the whole thing taste bitter. It takes a while for this to happen, so it will still taste great for your whole party, but if you want to make it ahead of time just don't add the fruit until the end. Better to refrigerate all the ingredients separately and then throw it together right before you serve it. It won't last long, trust me. This stuff goes down WAY too easy.

I've loved Sangria for a year or so, and was reminded how easy it would be to make myself when I went to my cousin's baby shower. Her mother-in-law makes some REALLY delicious sangria. I may or may not have had two full cups, in those BIG plastic party cups. YUM.

I was having a little gathering recently and decided to make it for myself, so I looked at a few recipes for it on allrecipes.com, and just kind of cobbled together what sounded good to me. I decided to go with all citrus and no apples or strawberries etc. just for the look of it, but other recipes call for additional fruit as well. I did NOT use simple syrup or sugar (I know the baby shower sangria had simple syrup in it) because I like the dry red wine still discernable, plus I figured there was plenty of sweetness already being added from the liquor, OJ, and gingerale. I was right. So I say NO to adding additional sugar!

I still want to get a hold of my cousin's mother-in-law's recipe, which I believe was simpler, but this was DELISH and I would make it again in a heartbeat. It was a really big hit at the party too - even the two pregnant ladies each had to try a teensy sip!

Was the recipe easy to follow? Heck yes! You just measure, pour, and stir.

Did it taste good? Way too good for my own good! Luckily at this party I was playing the hostess, so I only ended up having one small-ish glass because I wanted everyone else to be able to enjoy it! Next time I'll buy a double bottle of wine and make twice as much.

Would I make it again? I think I've answered this question already, don't you? I might even make it again tonight, all for myself.

Whip It Up 2009 is almost here!

Next week starts Whip It Up 2009! I'll be posting one recipe per week on this blog, and I'm pretty sure all of my recipes will include veggies (and/or fruit!) from our CSA subscription. So exciting!

My only worry is the electric range. So far, I haven't cooked on it enough times to get REALLY frustrated, but just enough that I am planning to avoid cooking anything complicated until we get the propane range. I've already burned rice twice, so next time I'm reverting to the oven method that saved me at our VA apartment, which also had an electric range: preheat the oven to 375, and once the rice boils, pop on the lid and stick it in the oven. Otherwise it gets too much direct heat on the bottom of the pot!

One thing I will have to wait for the propane range to make: cream sauces. Too finicky for electric! I think when we do get the propane range, I will celebrate by making Portobello Mushroom Lasagna from Ina Garten via RA during Whip It Up 2008. And hopefully I'll use the loaf pans to make individual lasagnas again, since it worked out so well a few years ago and I haven't gotten around to trying it again. Yay for delicious gift-giving!