Jealousy (Sidney Street Cafe)

My heart is breaking as I type this entry. You know how some women get jealous when their boyfriends or husbands go out for beers with their friends and worry all night about what they're doing and with whom they are doing it? Well, I'm not the jealous type, but I have to say that it is absolutely killing me that The Captain is at Sidney Street Cafe right now with some work people, and I am home, alone, drinking boxed wine and feeling sorry for myself.

It's not what you think. I'm not jealous of his companions or the fact that he's out and I'm home. I'm jealous of the fact that he is probably eating delicious little savory veal dumplings, and a richly sauced filet au poivre, or something seasonal and delicious that Kevin Nashan whipped up with ingredients he collected at the Maplewood Farmers Market yesterday. The saddest part is that I am sitting by my phone, wishing he would text me to let me know what the specials are today or telling me how the staff is asking about me. :( Too sad, really.

(The above picture is from the SSC website. Those are the veal dumplings that I dream about in my sleep.)

An Odd Way to Relax or Why I Am Screwed If the Power Goes Out for an Extended Period of Time

During the summer, between the farmshare and the garden, we get way more vegetables than we could ever consume. So we eat some, and I freeze a bunch. I always found the process for freezing green beans bothersome, but something changed this last year (I have no idea what or why) and I absolutely look forward to doing this chore. Here's how that works:



Step 1: Snap the tips off the green beans and give them a quick rinse.



Step 2: Throw the beans into a pot of boiling water. Boil for 3 minutes.

Step 3: Remove beans from water and place into an ice bath for another 3 minutes.

Step 4: Allow beans to dry out on a towel.

Step 5: Bag, remove air, and freeze.

They look so orderly and precious. I write the date on them so I can use the older ones first come winter when I am cooking up frozen vegetables.

We bought a chest freezer for the basement this year, so I am on a mad freezing kick. These are the things I froze the day before we left for Seattle. Some beans, corn, peppers, tomatoes, and pesto. The freezer is nearly full, so if the power goes out I am screwed.

Got a Lot of Free Time and Need a Way to Use Up Some Squash? Butternut Squash Pie is Here For You.

I found myself with 4 varieties of squash sitting in my squash bowl, so I was trying to think of an interesting way to use some of them up. I thought "What if I made a pumpkin pie, but instead of pumpkin, I use butternut squash?" And I really thought I had come up with something brilliant and new. So, of course, I googled it to verify that I had invented a new pie and, of course the pie already existed. I picked this recipe to try:

http://events.nytimes.com/recipes/8477/2004/11/24/Butternut-Squash-Pie/recipe.html

I started by splitting and seeding my squash and placing it in a 350 degree oven to roast.

On to the pie crust. I don't own a food processor, so I did a few things a little differently than the recipe directed. I had to make mine old school which means I had to get out the pastry blender and do a little upper arm work out.

After the butter and shortening were incorporated, I added some egg and ice water to bind it together. I have never used egg in a pie crust. When it all pulled together, I saran wrapped it, and chilled it in the fridge.

Hmm the squash roasted up nicely. The kitchen had a nice fall harvest smell about it.

This was fun. Picking up the hot squash and scooping out the flesh from the skin. And then again, because I don't have a food processor, I kind of mashed it up with a fork a little bit. Then I put it in the fridge to cool it down.

The crust was in the fridge for about 30 minutes when I pulled it out to roll it. Now, I have many good qualities and talents. Pie crust rolling ISN'T one of them. Still, it turned out not half bad if I do say so myself. And it goes back to the fridge to chill some more.

While the crust chilled again, I started on the filling. Some sugar, eggs, spices, cayenne pepper (whooooohoooooo) and my squash. I mixed it up in the kitchen aid. I added the cream and for good measure (since I wasn't using the food processor again) I whirled it up with my immersion blender just to make sure there wouldn't be any weird chunks. I put this in the fridge and grabbed the pie crust.

Time for some blind baking. I lined the crust with foil and filled it with dried beans.

After the crust was partially baked, I put the filling in the pie shell and returned it to the oven.

I cooled it on a rack for a while and transferred it to the fridge before I went to bed.

Hmm, that fluting didn't turn out so well once it baked up.

No squash pie would be complete without a little whipped cream. So a little cream, a little powdered sugar and whip it. Whip it good.

And the finished product. A little Butternut Squash Pie for Breakfast. This pie was a lot of work, but it was REALLY good. It might be good for pulling an old switcheroo at Thanksgiving to see if anyone notices that its not pumpkin pie. (The Captain said it was better than pumpkin pie. Go figure, its about 4 times the work of my normal pumpkin pie recipe.)

A Million Little Yeastes

Is probably how my mother and sister are going to refer to my previous entry. There has been some confusion regarding my yeast related memoirs.

As a matter of clarification, I would like to acknowledge that in elementary school I also had a yeast themed science fair project. My mother and sister helped me with it. And by helped, I mean that they did the project for me after I threw a tantrum and went to the movies with Tricia L. That yeast project was an award winner. Upon prompting, I vividly remember the delightful little rolls they made.

The previous entry refers to my 7th grade attempt to recreate that award winning project. I am deeply sorry if any feelings were hurt by my memory lapse.

Now come over and make some rolls for me.

LOVE YOU GUYS!

Pizza From Scratch aka My Adventures in Yeast

I have always had a complicated relationship with yeast. Well, maybe not always. But at least since 1985, the year my Science Fair projected I called "Yeast The Helpful Fungi" scored me a grade of a solid C. The idea was great. Bake two mini loaves of bread. One with yeast and the other without and compare the results. Write a nice little report about yeast. Collect high marks. It didn't work out that way though. My parents were out of town the weekend before the project was due. So my Grandma Nancy - who by the way is a WONDERFUL cook and baker - embarked on this project together. We tried all day and all night and we could not get the batch after batch of dough we made to rise. So my wonderful display for the furthering of sciences ended up being a couple of hard lumps of cooked dough that resemembled uncolored play-dough. It was probably the worst, yet most deserved grade I got in junior high. My project sucked.

Fast forward to around Christmas time last year. Everyday Foods magazine (LOVE IT) had an easy recipe for yeast rolls. So I tried it and the rolls were really good and cute as all get out. I declared myself free of the yeast curse that I had been carrying for the last 20+ years and proudly announced to my mother that I would be bring the bread from Christmas. Thank goodness my mother had the sense to buy some backup rolls because the second batch turned out nothing like the first, and no one wanted to eat the little unleavened, heavy knots I ended up bringing to the celebration. (Thanks, Mom!)

Today, I hope I won't jinx myself when I say that I have finally found a yeast recipe that I can make. Consistantly. We eat pizzas around here about once a week now, and I have been making the dough myself, for like a month now, without any failures. I found the recipe on epicurious.com and they attribute it to Giada DiLaurentis. Its about the easiest thing ever to make.

Dissolve 1/4 ounce of yeast in 3/4 cup of warm water. (I add 1tsp sugar here instead of later to give the yeast something to eat.) Wait 5 minutes. Then add 3 tbs oil, 2 cups of flour and 2 1/4 tsp salt. Mix until dough ball forms. (Add more flour if necessary.) Pour a little more oil on the dough and flip it around until oil is coating the boil. Cover with a towel and place in a warm spot and.....

VOILA!

After an hour, the dough has risen!

While waiting for the yeasty magic to happen. I make sauce. Lets see. Onions, garlic, chiles, a sweet red pepper (not a huge fan of the veg, but get it in the farm share so I hide it in my soups and sauces), some tomatoes that I froze earlier in the year, and some oregano, parsley, and basil. Cook root vegetables and peppers til tender, add tomatoes, then at the last minute add herbs. Blend it up with immersion blender. (I have a tendency to fling hot sauce around the kitchen in this step.)

Here's a picture of some pretty cheese.

The Captain was in charge of pizza #1. He did some sauce, mozzerella, kalamata olives, basil, black pepper, and a dried chile.

Pizza #2 was my baby and I went for my new favorite. Sliced red potatoes, rosemary, parmigianno regianno, cracked black pepper, a dried chile, olive oil and some French grey salt.

Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven on the top and bottom racks for about 20 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through.



Here's pizza #1 out of the oven.

And pizza #2.

Serve with beer or wine. :)

I like these pizzas because they are a good way to use up some vegetables, and its a nice way to go meatless for a night, but it doesn't really FEEL like a meatless night. Plus, they are kind of fun to make together.

As a side, I would like to note that apparently my battle with yeast rages on. I went to start the crust not 5 minutes after the kitchen floor that I had JUST cleaned had dried. When I opened the jar of yeast, I somehow managed to spill a bunch of it all over the counter and newly cleaned floor.

At This Point It Ceases to Be Informative and Takes on More of a "Look At My Stuff and Be Jealous" Vibe

This is what was in my CSA box this week.

Sometimes I wonder how much stuff is in the full share. I don't really poke around those boxes because I think its in poor form to mess with another man's produce.

In case you are interested, this is what was included this week:

 Sweet Potatoes
 Green Beans
 Kennebec Potatoes
 Candy Yellow Onion
 Pepper
 Swiss Chard
 Butternut Winter Squash
 Summer Squash (half share)
 Green Tomato
 Radishes
 Turnips
 Lettuce/Arugula Mix

No Cream - Cream of "Choose Your Own Vegetable" Soup

I make soup all the time. It’s a great way to use up vegetables from the garden or the farmshare (especially when they hit all at once – tomatoes, I’m looking at you.) Anyway, I use pretty much the same recipe for every soup I make. The only thing that changes is that I swap out the vegetable for whatever is in season.* And maybe change the spices around a little bit. I make asparagus soup in the spring, a curried zucchini soup in the summer, and a corn bisque in the fall. Soup is also a good way to use up vegetables from the farmshare that aren’t necessarily my favorites. I’m not a huge fan of sweet peppers. I’ll throw some red sweets in with the tomatoes when I am making tomato soup and I don’t even realize I am eating them.

So I call this “Cream of Choose Your Own Vegetable Soup”. Today its corn.

I find it easiest to prep all my ingredients before I make the soup. So I have chopped up an onion, garlic and some chiles. I also chopped up some celery because I had a lot of celery and figured I should use some up.

And I removed the kernels from 4 ears of corn.

Saute one diced onion with four chopped cloves of garlic and a couple diced chiles in a little bit of olive oil (and maybe a little bit of butter if I am feeling decadent.) When the onions turn transluscent, I add half of the kernels from the 3 – 4 ears of corn that I have removed from the cob. I throw in some thyme (thyme is ALWAYS good in a vegetable soup) and saute for a few more minutes. Then I add a little wine (boxed Pinot Grigio is perfect), cover the vegetables in chicken stock and allow them to simmer until tender. It doesn’t take very long with the corn; 10 minutes is plenty of time. I remove the soup from the stove, and puree with an immersion blender. Then I put it back on the heat, add the remaining corn, a bay leaf and enough stock to bring it to a consistency that I like. Then I taste, salt and pepper. Simmer again until corn is tender. Its ready. (You might have noticed that I don’t add cream to my “Cream of Choose Your Own Vegetable Soup”. I don’t like the guilt I feel the extra calories. And it really doesn’t need it. But, in a perfect world where fat didn’t exist, I might find occasion to enrich the soup with a little heavy cream right at the end.)

This soup is fool proof. I like to garnish with something crunchy like fried tortilla or wonton strips. As I am not a huge fan of frying things in my kitchen, I usually buy these thing already prepared. The grocery stores sell them in resealable bags over by the croutons and salad dressings.

I always make extra and freeze it for quick lunches. The Schnucks Olive Bar containers are the PERFECT size for freezing as they hold two servings of soup.


*How do I know if a vegetable is in season if I don’t have a garden or shop at the farmers market? The cheapest vegetables are usually the ones that are in season. Corn that’s on sale at the grocery store 4 ears for $1? That’s in season.