Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

We celebrated in true locavore style. The day started out with a trip to Drumlin Farm, where (joined by Steve’s brother Dave) we participated in the “Sap to Syrup Farmer’s Breakfast.” We learned about maple sugaring and ate pancakes, sausages, and potatoes.

Back home, in the evening we cooked up a homemade, mostly-local shepherd’s pie. Served with a Harpoon Celtic Ale, it made for a great St. Patrick’s Day dinner.

Shepherd’s Pie
Recipe adapted from this one on Epicurious

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1 large parsnip, peeled and chopped
1 cup chopped turnip (we used 4 small purple top turnips)
1 pound ground lamb
1 cup vegetable broth
1 tablespoon tomato paste or sauce
1 teaspoon chopped fresh or dry rosemary
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 1/2 pounds  potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 large celeriac, peeled & cut into chunks
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 375°F.
In a medium-large sauté pan over medium-high heat, heat the oil, then add the onion, parsnip, turnip, and meat. Cook until browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain the fat and add the broth, tomato paste, and herbs. Simmer until the juices thicken, about 10 minutes.

Pour the mixture into a 1 1/2-quart baking dish, or keep it in the saute pan (if it is oven-proof) for baking.

Meanwhile, bring the potatoes and celeriac to a boil in salted water. Cook until tender, about 20 minutes; drain. Mash with the butter and milk. Spread them over the meat mixture.

Bake until golden, 30 to 35 minutes.

Big Apple Pancake!

Apples play a prominent role in our cooking throughout the fall and we especially love them in breakfast foods – apple crisp, oatmeal with apples, and this Big Apple Pancake are some of our favorites.

Big Apple Pancake
Recipe from Epicurious

1/2 stick (1/4 cup)  butter
1 large sweet apple such as Gala or Golden Delicious, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4-inch-wide wedges (actually, we usually don’t bother peeling the apple)
1/2 cup  milk
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
Confectioners sugar for dusting

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 450°F.

Melt butter in a 10-11 inch cast iron skillet over moderate heat, then transfer 2 tablespoons to a blender. Add apple wedges to skillet and cook, turning over once, until beginning to soften, 3 to 5 minutes.

While apple is cooking, add milk, flour, eggs, granulated sugar, vanilla, and salt to butter in blender and blend until smooth.

Pour batter over apple and transfer skillet to oven. Bake until pancake is puffed and golden, about 15 minutes. Dust with confectioners sugar and serve immediately.

Asian Fish in a Packet

We got lots of bok choy and daikon radish in our winter farm share. Mostly we’ve used them in stir fry, but when Jen’s mom bought us some fish at her local farmer’s market, Jen remembered this recipe that we’d made a couple years ago. Everything cooks together in a foil packet and the flavors all meld together beautifully in the packet. As a bonus, cleanup is easy!

Asian Fish in a Packet
Adapted very slightly from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home

2 firm fish fillets or steaks (5-6 oz each; we’ve made it with striped bass and with haddock)
1 c cooked rice
2 c coarsely chopped bok choy
about 1/2-1 c sliced daikon radish
2 scallions, chopped
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. grated/finely chopped fresh ginger
1 garlic clove, minced or pressed
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper, or one small chili pepper, chopped

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Take two 12 x 24-inch sheets of aluminum foil, fold each over sheet over to make a double-thick square. Brush a little oil on the center part of each square. Rinse the fish and prepare the other ingredients. In a small bowl, combine the vegetable oil, grated ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, and chili pepper.

Spread half the rice on the center of each foil square and then layer the greens, radish, fish, and scallions on top of the rice. Pour half the sauce over each serving. Fold the foil into airtight packets. Bake for 20 minutes. Carefully avoiding the steam that will be released, open a packet and check that the fish is cooked.

To serve, carefully open the packets and transfer the contents to plates or bowls.

Every Day is Food Day

Monday was Food Day, but we were a bit behind on figuring that out so we didn’t do anything special. We did, however, have this really yummy tart for dinner, so that’s worth posting about anyway.

Blue Cheese and Red Potato Tart
Recipe from Smitten Kitchen

1 Savory Tart Shell (see Smitten Kitchen recipe for this) or recipe of your choice, or you could cheat like I did and use one of those Pillsbury pie crusts that come rolled up in the refrigerator section of the grocery store – in a 9-inch tart pan (well, mine was 10 inches and no harm done) and ready to fill
1 pound small red potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1/4-inch slices
1 cup heavy cream
1 large egg yolk
1/4 pound blue cheese, crumbled (about 3/4 cup)
1 tablespoons finely chopped herb or herbs of your choice, such as a mixture of thyme and rosemary (it’s times like these I love our recently-planted herb garden!)
Fine sea salt for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium saucepan, cover potato slices with water by two inches. Simmer, uncovered, until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain. If the potatoes don’t seem very dry, pat them dry with towels.

Arrange potato slices, overlapping slightly, in concentric circles around the tart pan. Sprinkle blue cheese over potatoes. Whisk cream and egg yolk together and pour into tart shell, then sprinkle tart with herbs of your choice and salt.

Bake tart on a baking sheet until bubbling and golden brown, about 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan on rack and serve warm or cold. With a big green salad, for balance.

Oh, and the leftover egg white is perfect for making just a few meringue cookies for dessert!

Fall Salad

Well, so much for all those posts we were going to make in September! What happened to September (and most of October) anyway?

But anyway, back to the food.

We eat salads all throughout the growing season but one of the things that’s fun about eating seasonally is the way the salads evolve with the seasons. In spring, a salad is likely to involve baby greens, snap peas, and radishes. Later in the summer, the more standard salad fixings like lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers make their appearance.

Today we had a quintessential fall salad – arugula with roasted delicata squash rings and toasted pumpkin seeds. The salad also had dried cranberries, apple slices, and cheddar cheese, but  the squash/arugula/seeds combo would have been sufficient on its own. It was a perfect way to wrap up a weekend of shopping for pumpkins and Halloween costume supplies and is definitely a combination we’ll be using again. We drizzled ours with olive oil and honey-ginger vinegar, but any simple vinaigrette would probably have been fine.

Grilled Eggplant Sandwiches

We did a fair amount of cooking and eating over the long weekend so we’ll be making a few posts this week.

We’ve made these grilled eggplant sandwiches a couple of times and they are a great way to make a quick, healthy, and tasty dinner with summer vegetables. Even one good-size eggplant makes enough for a couple of lunches from the leftovers.

Grilled Eggplant Sandwiches
Inspired by Simply Recipes

Slice one large eggplant into rounds, about 1/4″ thick. Brush both sides of each slice with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill eggplant slices until soft and slightly browned.

Serve warm on hamburger buns with sliced tomato, fresh mozzarella, a few basil leaves, and a drizzle of olive oil. Leftovers are also good in cold sandwiches – we brought them with us for a picnic when we went canoeing the next day.

Cooking up a storm

We were in Vermont for a weekend getaway but decided to come home early (Saturday night instead of Sunday night) to get in ahead of Hurricane Irene.

Waiting out the storm indoors provided the perfect opportunity to cook up some of the summer vegetables that have been taking over our fridge lately. In addition to freezing some tomatoes and a pot of ratatouille, Jen roasted some of the vegetables and used them for pizza.

Pizza is usually a weeknight dinner for us, so we just top store-bought pizza dough with whatever we have on hand and throw it in the oven as quickly as possible. This one was an exception because, being home all day, there was plenty of time to both make the pizza dough from scratch (in the bread maker) and pre-roast the veggies.

Roasted Vegetable and Pesto Pizza
1 summer squash
1 Japanese eggplant
1 green pepper
2 scallions
A couple handfuls of cherry tomatoes

Chop veggies in bite-size chunks, toss with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, and spread in a single layer in a pan. Roast about 1/2 hour, or until veggies are soft and browning, at 425° F. Turn oven temperature up to 500° F.

Roll pizza dough directly onto a pizza stone with a rolling pin (store-bought dough works well, or if you want the recipe for the bread machine dough, post a comment below).

(Although we didn’t do it, you may want to bake the dough for a short while – about 5 minutes – at this stage to pre-cook it. The dough came out less crispy, and the cheese more browned, than we’d consider ideal).

Spread a few tablespoons of pesto on the dough. Add 2-3 cups shredded mozzarella, then top with about 1/2 the roasted veggies (save the other half of the veggies for another pizza – they’ll keep well in the freezer). Bake the pizza for about 10-12 minutes on the bottom rack of the oven, until cheese is melted and crust is browned.

(Notice the small segment on the right with just cheese? That’s Anna’s slice. She doesn’t go for the fancy toppings so much. In fact, she was kind of disappointed there was no pepperoni.)

As we were posting this, we realized that this is the third pizza we’ve featured on the website. Can you tell we like making pizza? It’s right up there with eggs and greens.