Category — Recipes
lemon cucumbers = B&B Pickles
I had these five lemon cucumbers (there on the lower left) from my CSA haul last week and I couldn’t decide what to do with them. Dave doesn’t like cucumbers and five was too many for me to eat over a short length of time. He does love pickles though, so I turned them into bread & butter pickles and then proceeded to give three of the five jars away.
I am by no means an expert on canning, so once I came up with the recipe, I needed to do a Google search to find out just how long to process them. In doing so, I found THIS wonderful blog from a woman in Wisconsin who lives on a 10-acre farm and grows her own cucumbers – that she pickles. Her post on making pickles is fantastic, so if you have questions about the process or want super detailed instructions, be sure to check it out.
When I think of bread & butter pickles, I picture the crinkle-cut slices like those in the jar above. Hey, I have a crinkle cutter, so I dug it out and began using it on the cucumbers. It wasn’t quite sharp enough (it’s old and dull!) so I ended up cutting about half of the slices with the crinkle cutter and the other half with a chef’s knife.
September 6, 2012 6 Comments
a hint of Asia
As summer drags on and I long to make soups, stews, and roasts. To heat the oven and roast vegetables instead of stand in the sweltering heat and grill them. Summer means burgers and we’re actually tiring of those too … so I decided to put a twist on the traditional summer burger and throw in some Asian influence. It was the perfect change!
September 5, 2012 1 Comment
…a bushel and a peck
“A Bushel and a Peck” is a song written in 1950 for the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls. It was later made popular by Doris Day, The Andrew Sisters, and Perry Como, to name a few. It was most recently included in the soundtrack of the movie, Julie & Julia. If you’re not familiar with the tune, check it out HERE. Just don’t blame me if you aren’t able to get the snappy melody out of your head.
What is a bushel and how much is a peck? Both are very old English units of measuring volume. A bushel is a British imperial capacity measure for liquid or dry and is 2152.42 cubic inches. If that makes no sense to you, join the club. A bushel of potatoes would weigh 60 pounds, a bushel of oats comes in at 32 pounds, and barley weighs 48 pounds.
A peck is 1/4 of a bushel. In a dry measure, it is 8 quarts. So when Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, exactly how many peppers did Peter Piper pick? It would depend on the type of pepper, so the answer would be somewhere between 10 to 14 pounds.
Green beans, banana peppers, corn, watermelon, lemon cucumbers, Anaheim peppers, tomatoes, bell peppers, and potatoes from Crooked Sky Farms
When I picked up my CSA weekly allotment from Crooked Sky Farms this past Thursday, there looked to be about a peck of peppers. Now generally when I get this many peppers, I just fire up the grill and roast them off, but my freezer is already full of roasted peppers from the summer’s bounty. Upon further examination, there turned out to be a mixed 3 1/2 pounds of bell, Anaheim, and banana peppers. Not exactly a peck, but still a bunch! And here is what I decided to do with them.
September 4, 2012 2 Comments
… with a chance of meatballs
You gotta love the versatility of your basic meatball. Thrown into pasta, stuffed into a sub sandwich, or tossed with a little sauce for the perfect toothpick-ready party food – all options are delish!
And when you substitute ground turkey for the usual beef or pork… you can have your healthy meatball and eat it too.
August 31, 2012 4 Comments
a lighter sweet note
With the Labor Day weekend just around the corner, I thought you might enjoy a recipe for a light, cool, and refreshing potato salad.
This version leaves out the often cloying mayonnaise base and is lightened up with yogurt and then slightly sweetened with a touch of honey.
August 30, 2012 3 Comments
blue cheese perfection
Often the simplest, purest, and easiest things are the best. That is the case with this perfect appetizer. It is reminiscent of THIS appetizer that I posted, strangely enough, exactly 1 year ago today. Only thing is, this is about 10 times quicker and like I say, simple and pure.
August 29, 2012 2 Comments
Connor’s last summer breakfast
Before Connor packed up his belongings and headed back to school, I made him a special going-away breakfast.
Good luck in school, sweet boy, study hard and have fun! xoxo
August 28, 2012 5 Comments
Sriracha Powder
Pure brilliance!!! That is what I think of the idea of making Sriracha Powder from the wildly popular Sriracha sauce. The brilliant idea and recipe are courtesy of Chef Dale Talde of Talde in Brooklyn, New York.
Chef Talde uses the powder to make his signature Sri-rancha, a Sriracha-flavored homemade ranch dressing. In my book, turning the sauce into a powder is brilliant for two reasons. First, it intensifies the delicious Sriracha flavor. Secondly, it prevents the sauce from watering down dressings, such as the ever-popular Sriracha Mayo. So many wonderful uses come to mind – including sprinkling it atop deviled eggs and potato salad or stirring it into soups and stir-fry.
Plus when you run out of Sriracha, which I do more often than I’d like to admit, you can have the powder on hand as a quick substitute until you get to the market again.
August 14, 2012 2 Comments
shrimp sausage pasta
Back in early June, I told you how I was going to join a CSA. Well, I did, and I was able to pick up a box of fresh Crooked Sky Farm produce every Thursday morning for the past eight weeks. What fun it was to be surprised by the bounty I received.
For the last four weeks of the eight, there was fresh corn. Corn is one vegetable we never get tired of. This is one of the many “easy-breezy” dishes I created to use up all that corn. Of course, many a night, it was plain old corn on the cob, always a wonderful summer-time treat!
August 12, 2012 3 Comments
Pepperoni Arrostiti
As promised, I recreated the Pepperoni Arrostiti that we so enjoyed at Trattoria Contadina. The cheese-stuffed bell pepper uses three different Italian kinds of cheese; mozzarella, asiago, and bel paese. In case you haven’t heard of bel paese before…
Bel Paese – Literally meaning “beautiful country”. This cheese was invented in 1929 by the Galbani Cheese Company in Lobardy. A wax rind covers the uncooked cheese made of pasteurized cow’s milk. The small discs have a soft texture and are peppered with small holes. Bel Paese appears pale with touches of creamy yellow. This cheese is similar to mozzarella or Fontina in its mild, buttery flavor but is distinct in its body and tang. Bel Paese is versatile and easily melted.
It took two tries to get this recipe just right. The first time, I took pictures. The second time, I forgot to do so. As a result, the pictures won’t reflect the light roasting of the peppers before cutting and filling with cheese. I decided this was needed because the peppers were not soft enough the first time around. After roasting lightly, they were the perfect texture… just as we’d enjoyed at the restaurant. Be certain to serve with a nice crusty Italian bread. Trust me, you’ll want it to sop up the tasty sauce.
August 10, 2012 4 Comments
