Another weekly haul from my CSA – another recipe to go with it. In case you forgot, CSA is a Community Supported Agriculture group that comes together to purchase fresh farm produce and products from local farms. The CSA I belong to gets its items from Crooked Sky Farms and this week, one of the items in my basket was a bag of fresh wheat berries.

What is a wheat berry? A wheat berry is the entire wheat kernel, minus the hull, composed of the bran, germ, and endosperm. Wheat berries have a tan to reddish color. They are often added to salads or baked into bread to add a crunchy texture. When wheat berries are milled, whole-wheat flour is what you end up with.

Have you had wheat berries before? Have you cooked with them? I’d previously eaten wheat berries but I hadn’t used them in my kitchen yet. Now I have, with delicious results. Enjoy!

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There is so much to love about this mac & cheese:

1. It’s mac & cheese for goodness sake – gotta love that!
2. It has three fantastic kinds of cheese – provolone, Fontina, and mozzarella … no cheddar in sight
3. No need to do a stove-top roux first – super easy
4. It’s topped with rich beef short rib meat
5. The meat is already cooked and prepared, ready to shred and use – EASY!
6. Individual servings – awesome!
7. It was a huge hit with my guys (husband, son, and Dad) last Sunday night – Manly Man Mac & Cheese!
8. Lastly, if you made or plan to make the 3-cheese grilled cheese sandwich from yesterday’s post… this uses the same 3 kinds of cheese. Coincidence? I think not.

Yeah, this is good stuff, perfect for a family meal and special enough for guests. I purchased the prepared boneless short ribs at Costco, but I’ve noticed that most grocery stores sell pre-cooked and packaged short ribs as well. For some strange reason, the Costco package is 17 ounces, but we’ll just round it down to a pound – to make it easy. The meat also comes in a sauce, drain it off and discard, you won’t need it. You will be making an easy and much better ragù.

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Every year, around this time, when most of the country is feeling the sweet coolness of the coming season, I ask myself that very question, “Autumn is guaranteed, isn’t it?” Here in the Arizona desert, we won’t feel the cool relief of fall for more than a month. But… with the guarantee that it WILL come, I made these spice cookies to have a little pre-fall flavor in the house.

The other incentive was the Hershey’s Pumpkin Spice Kisses I found at Target after learning about them on Pinterest. Just in case you can’t find them in your area, I’ve also given you a yummy frosting recipe to top the cookies with. If you do as I did and frost a dozen of the cookies and push a Kiss into the other dozen, cut the frosting recipe in half.

Or go crazy and use both – frost the cookies once they’ve cooled and then stick a Kiss on top.

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What’s that you say?
You loved the last lentil recipe so much that you want another?
OK, I can do that.

Let’s hear it for lentils!

• Lentils are very affordable.
• A one-cup serving of lentils contains just 230 calories.
• Lentils are rich in fiber, protein, and iron.
• Unlike most dried legumes, lentils do not require soaking before cooking and are ready in less than 30 minutes.

You could easily make this a vegetarian soup by using vegetable broth instead of chicken broth (or all water in place of the broth) and by omitting the chorizo – just be sure to spice it up. Add more smoked paprika, plus a 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne or red pepper flakes, and a dash of Sriracha or Tabasco sauce.  (Or see the comment below from my sweet and super smart daughter, Marissa, about soy chorizo)

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I adore Greek Salad! The feta, the olives, the dressing – it’s hard to beat!

When I made this salad with the addition of kabobs, I threaded wedges of red onion along with the tomato halves. The onions overpowered the salad, so I’ve omitted them from this recipe, although you’ll see them in the photos.

The pickled red onions really make the salad, so use those instead. You will always find a jar of pickled red onions in our fridge, we throw them into just about everything. I’m also missing sliced English cucumber in the photos.  I forgot to buy the cucumber when I was at the grocery store, even though it was on my list – hate it when that happens!

Oh, and the reason I thread the chicken and the vegetables on separate skewers is to be sure there is no cross-contamination from the yogurt marinade clinging… but the not fully cooking on those tomatoes. Better safe than sorry! You can always re-thread before serving, as I did here.

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Earlier this year I heard Dr. Oz say that pistachios are good for you. They are rich in phytosterols, antioxidants, unsaturated fat, carotenoids, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Additionally, they are lower in calories than other tree nuts. As a result, for the past several months we’ve kept a bowl of pistachios on the island to snack on.

Last week on the Today show, I saw an interview with nutritionist, Joy Bauer. She spoke about the health benefits of lentils and pistachio nuts:

Lentils are and excellent source of protein and are high in soluble fiber which acts as a magnet to escort bad cholesterol out of the body. Lentils will drive down bad LDL cholesterol. It is advised to eat lentils twice a week.

Pistachio nuts contain a plant compound that blocks cholesterol. It is recommend to eat 1 to 2 handfuls of pistachio nuts per day. (that’s between 15 to 20 nuts)

All of that inspired me to create this truly delicious and easy-breezy recipe. Dave said he’d eat it at least 3 times a week if I’d make it that often. Yeah, it is that good!

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Marissa told me about a dish she and Jeff had at Hard Knox Cafe in San Francisco. Fried Chicken Pot Pie! OH MY, yes, please. I chose to not look up their version before coming up with a take on it myself.  As an added bonus, Connor asked if he could help me make dinner that night… What? Of course!

After Connor and I did our magic and we devoured the fruits of our labor, I Googled the Hard Knox menu and found that their recipe consists of boneless fried chicken, roasted pearl onions, potatoes, carrots, and herb gravy topped with a homemade puff pastry.  Sounded good, but I just know that ours was better! Our crust was out-of-this-world-amazing! Plus we did not have the carrots (Yay, no carrots!)  So amazing, in fact, that Connor wanted to make it again the very next night. Which I am a tiny bit embarrassed to tell you – we did! The second time around I added some roasted hot peppers to the filling for added color (OK, the only color) plus a bit of heat. Wonderful both ways!

You may notice from the photos that I made it in a pie dish. While creating the recipe, I’d planned on using a deep-dish pie pan, but could not find it when the time came to fill the pie. The dish I used was not deep enough and only held 1 quart. You need at least a 2-quart pan, so use an 8×8-inch square Pyrex pan if you too can’t fit or don’t have a deep-dish pie pan. You know how it goes… do as I say, not as I do.

This is rich, as you would expect, so serve with a big green salad. Trust me, it’s worth every ounce of guilt you may feel!  Plus we’ll make up for it on the upcoming Wednesday post with a super YUMMY and super healthy dish I created after hearing about some things we all should be eating according to Today Show Nutrition & Health Expert, Joy Bauer.

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If my husband, Dave, sees the word “Caesar” on a menu, he is immediately drawn to that dish and will most likely order it. It is nearly impossible for him to NOT order Caesar Salad at any new restaurant we visit. He won’t pass up the opportunity to see if THIS is the best Caesar Salad ever. More often than not, he is disappointed. The one thing that will make him happy, even if the salad is lacking? If there are anchovies laying there in plain sight on top of the salad. My man loves his anchovies!

I didn’t go so far as to lay anchovies over these Caesar green beans, but I did sneak a bit of anchovy paste into the dressing… leave it out if you would like… it is not essential in this particular recipe.

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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.

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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!

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