Eggplant Overload

With 20 pounds of tomatoes that I've been getting every week lately, one might assume that I might be overwhelmed by all those tomatoes. And although that is starting to be true, it's really the eggplant that's getting to me. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that tomatoes can be processed in bulk: you can easily throw ten pounds of tomatoes into a pot or into the oven and make sauce. But eggplant?  Not really.  At least not in this household.  But at least I've come up with four dishes that, in theory, people might eat. These include Baba Ganoush, Eggplant Caviar, Eggplant in Garlic Sauce, and Eggplant Parmesan.

I am crazy for baba ganoush and I've gotten some other family members into it too, including my mother who doesn't like eggplant at all. There is a middle eastern restaurant somewhere in Brooklyn (wish I remembered its name) that serves the most delicious baba ganoush. It is super smoky and intense. You either love it or you hate it. I happen to love anything really smoky so this eggplant dish is like catnip to me. The more I smell and taste it, the more I crave it. So the minute I first got eggplant, I wanted to try making my own. The most promising recipe for super smoky baba ganoush comes from David Lebovitz, whom I admire. So I tried it. The first batch came out so well that there was no time to photograph it before it disappeared.  The only problem with it was that it was not smoky at all.

This is what happened: I am blessed with a gas stove so I turned it on and set my eggplants on top of the flame. The eggplant just sat there, not really charring while flames jumped and singed the cap part of the eggplant. I turned it and tried to do other sides. Ten minutes later, there was hardly any char on the outside of it. I got impatient and also began to worry about burning down my house so I stuck the eggplant under the broiler instead. That charred it much faster. But here's the thing: how is the smoke flavor supposed to get into the eggplant dish? Once you char it, you take the skin off and you're left with the soft interior that is not smoky. If I owned a grill, I would most likely char the eggplant on the grill to get the effect I'm after but without it, I just have the stove and oven.

For the second batch (pictured here), I skipped the charring step altogether. The taste was different but good in its own way. I also reduced the amount of parsley as it was overwhelming in the first batch. The reduction of parsley was still not enough so if I make this again, I might even drop the parsley altogether. I also reduced the amount of garlic and skipped the chile powder. You want the taste of the eggplant to come through and not the other ingredients. If you try this recipe, let me know if you can get it smoky (if that is what you like).

Baba Ganoush
(Adapted from David Lebovitz)
(Print this recipe)

3 medium eggplants
1/2 cup tahini paste
3 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 cloves garlic
1-2 tsp. salt (to taste)
1-2 Tbsp. olive oil
1-2 sprigs of parsley, finely chopped (optional)

1. Wash, dry and prick the eggplant all over. Place it under the broiler for 10 minutes or so until the outside is charred. You can turn it midway through cooking. Turn off the broiler and heat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Move the eggplant to a baking dish and roast in the oven for 30 minutes or so until soft. Pull out and let cool.

3. Once cool enough to handle, split the eggplants open and scrape the pulp into a food processor. Puree together with the other ingredients. Taste and adjust seasonings. Refrigerate for a few hours to let the flavors mix. Serve with pita, on bread, or even as a dip for veggies.

Tomatoes!

You know the old saying, "When life gives you tomatoes, make tomato sauce."

Well, maybe not quite.

But that is what I've been doing with the pounds and pounds of tomatoes from the farm. There are slicing tomatoes--eight pounds today, and heirloom tomatoes--another eight pounds, and plum tomatoes, and grape tomatoes, and itty bitty yellow tomatoes the size of currants. They are all so good. And even though they are overflowing my counters--thank goodness they don't need refrigeration--I am not one to turn tomatoes away. Most of the large tomatoes have been sliced and used on burgers and sandwiches. The heirloom tomatoes have been chopped and made into salads; the itty bitty tomatoes have been consumed by my son who was tickled pink that they were so tiny and delicious.

But that still leaves, oh, about 30 more pounds of tomatoes. And they just keep coming. So. There is only one thing to do with so much goodness: make tomato sauce. I've never made tomato sauce before because frankly, jarred tomato sauce is cheap and requires so little work. And even if you don't like prepared tomato sauce, regular canned tomatoes cooked with some herbs and spices are cheaper than buying fresh tomatoes by the pound and making your own. If I weren't receiving pounds and pounds of tomatoes from my CSA, I wouldn't spend $20 on tomatoes just to make one quart of sauce.

But here I am, making sauce. Last week, before I went on vacation, I had about six pounds of grape tomatoes. Now, grape tomatoes aren't normally used for making sauce since you usually blanch the tomatoes and then peel the skin. Can you imagine peeling 300 grape tomatoes? I think not. There is a different way and I found it in a book called, Can I Freeze It?. It's so easy and comes out really well.

Tomato Sauce
(adapted from Can I Freeze It? by Susie Theodorou)

6-8 pounds of tomatoes (cherry or grape)
6 Tbsp. water

1. Put the cherry or grape tomatoes in a big pot. Add 6 tablespoons of water. Take a piece of parchment paper, crumple it and wet it. Smooth is out a bit and place directly on top of the tomatoes so that it's touching them. Cover. Set the heat to low and let them simmer for 30-60 minutes. They're done when a bunch of them have split. Drain and let cool a bit.

2. Puree in a blender or food processor.

3. Take a fine-meshed sieve and set it over a bowl. Working in small batches, pour the puree into the sieve and use a large spoon to force the puree through the sieve. I started doing this with a spoon but then switched to a ladle and the work went much faster. A regular spoon is fairly useless so get something really big. After pressing a bit, scrape the tomato sauce from underneath the sieve periodically to get as much as possible. After there's no more left to press, what you will have left in the sieve are the skins and seeds. You can dump those out.

4. Use immediately or freeze for later use. You can freeze in two-cup batches in quart-sized freezer bags or in larger batches in gallon bags. If you use it immediately, put the sauce in a pot and simmer with herbs and spices of your choice.

Since all I've done is freeze my sauce, I haven't yet tried making a pasta sauce out of it. I'm sure I will soon though!

Garlic Green Beans

Week 14's take included zucchini, cucumber, basil, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, a melon and two watermelons. I also got to pick some blackberries, hot peppers and some snap beans.

Snap beans--or, green beans as I know them--are a staple of school lunches and seem the quintessential American vegetable of the 1950's. You know: meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans. At least that is how I picture a typical American dinner from the 1950's. And whenever I've come across them in school or at a salad bar, they've always been clipped at the ends and have had that greenish gray color. Needless to say, nothing about this image endeared me to green beans and they've essentially been invisible to me in the supermarket.

But after going through the effort of picking a quart or two of these beans in the heat, it was mandatory that I make something with them. When cooked properly, what an unexpected delight they are. The recipe I found seemed easy and contained ingredients that I liked so I gave it a try. All I can say is, wow. I really couldn't stop eating these. This simple dish added so much flavor to a recent dinner of sticky ribs. This vegetable will be added to my repertoire.

Garlic Green Beans
(Adapted from a New York Times recipe)
(Print this recipe)

1 1/4 pound green beans, cleaned and trimmed
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 tsp. lemon zest, grated
3 Tbsp. chopped or slivered almonds
Additional chopped almonds
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and when boiling, drop beans into the water. Boil for 3-5 minutes, depending on how crisp you want them to be. Drain and drop the beans into ice water to stop the cooking. Drain and dry off as best you can.

2. Heat olive oil in a pan on medium heat and sauté the garlic until fragrant, about 30-60 seconds. Stir in the beans and sauté for another minute. Then add the parsley, lemon zest and almonds. Mix thoroughly and season with salt and pepper.

3. Transfer to a serving dish and top with the additional almonds.

Zucchini Fries

So it's Week 13, which is the halfway mark. I can't believe how quickly time is going but I'm also pleased with how many things I've managed to accomplish in this time. This week brought me lots and lots of tomatoes (which is how I like it), zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, chard, watermelon, dill, cilantro, blackberries, and snap beans.

It was a little quiet on this blog in the last two weeks. It wasn't because I wasn't cooking; I had created a number of dishes that didn't quite make the cut for the blog. Since one of my goals is to make my daughter eat vegetables, I tried out some vegetable recipes that I thought she might actually eat. Since fried foods are toddler favorites (no surprise there), I experimented with some zucchini pancakes. The recipe I got was simple enough: julienned zucchini, flour, water, salt. Mix it all together and fry as little zucchini pancakes (sort of like latkes). Well, my husband and I enjoyed them enough but they could have been a little tastier (and thus, I didn't post the recipe or results). They didn't quite crisp up on the outside like you would expect and the interior was too soft. My daughter, fooled by the sight of a crispy pancake, did give one a try but it didn't work for her. After some more experimentation with zucchini pancakes using different proportions and such, I've given up on that recipe for the time being. It has potential but it needs more work. Instead, I tried making zucchini fries. This recipe was a success for at least the three of us. We ate it up, dipping it in some ranch dressing.

Zucchini Fries
(Adapted from Neely's Fried Zucchini)
(Print this recipe)

2 zucchini, cut into French fry sticks
1/3 cup flour
1 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
2 Tbsp. chopped parsley
1 egg, beaten with a few Tbsp. of water
Salt and pepper
Oil for frying

1. On one plate, spread out the flour. In a wide bowl or pie plate, mix together the panko, Parmesan, parsley and salt and pepper. In a second wide bowl or pie plate, put the egg mixture.

2. Heat a heavy, deep pan on medium-high heat.  Add about 1/2 inch of oil to cover the bottom of the pan.

3. Dredge the zucchini fries in flour, then in egg, then in the panko mixture.

4. Carefully add a few at a time to the hot oil. Be sure not crowd them. When they are brown on the bottom, about 2-3 minutes, flip them over and cook the other side for another minute. Pull out and drain on paper towels. Sprinkle more salt on them while they are still hot, if necessary.

5. Serve with some ranch dressing.

A Fresh Summer Salad and Crispy Potatoes

Weeks 9 and 10 were nearly identical: lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes,  beets, cabbage, and chard. Week 9 provided me with zucchini and Week 10 provided me with corn instead. I was very excited by these selections because we are now in territory that I'm familiar with: potatoes and tomatoes, staples that my kitchen is never without year-round. Although supermarket potatoes taste the same year-round, tomatoes are another story altogether. In winter, we have to put up with those pale, tasteless things that pass for tomatoes. So when the summer tomatoes come, it is cause for celebration. We usually just slice tomatoes and eat them raw in salads.

One of my favorite salads is a variation on a summer salad that I grew up with, simply called Summer Salad. This salad is traditionally made with cucumbers and radishes but when my son was little, he didn't like radishes and I began substituting tomatoes. You can use cucumbers and radishes or cucumbers and tomatoes or a combination of the three. The ingredients in this salad are so simple you won't believe how delicious it can be with just those few items. The secret is in the combination of sour cream and salt. It won't taste nearly as good if you don't salt it well.

Summer Salad
(Print this recipe)

1 seedless baby cucumber
1 tomato (or several radishes)
2-3 Tbsp. sour cream
Salt

Dice the vegetables so that they are uniform in size. If you can't find seedless baby cucumbers--and they do make a difference--make sure you take the seeds out of a regular cucumber before dicing it. Add the vegetables to a bowl and mix with sour cream and salt to taste. Let stand 5-10 minutes and taste. Add more salt if necessary. The salad will begin to release a lot of liquid pretty quickly. You can drain it if you wish or simply eat it up when you get to the end of the salad.

Crispy Potatoes
(Print this recipe)

2-3 potatoes
oil for cooking
salt

The trick to getting these potatoes crispy on the outside and soft on the inside is to boil and then fry them. It takes a little longer but the results are worth it.

Wash, peel and slice the potatoes into thin rounds, about 1/8th inch thick (or thinner). Put them into a pan and add enough water to cover them. Bring to a boil over medium heat. At this point, test the potatoes with a fork. They should be underdone a bit but not hard. If they are still quite hard, turn the heat to low and cook another few minutes. Drain and lay the slices out on a paper towel to dry somewhat. Heat a pan on medium high and add sufficient oil. This is not the time to skimp on oil. When hot, begin adding the slices to the pan carefully, making sure not to overlap the slices. If the slices are still wet, you will get a lot of splatter so it's a good idea to make sure they are as dry as possible. Fry until they are crispy on the bottom side, then flip to the other side. Remove from pan and onto paper towels. While the potatoes are still hot, sprinkle with salt. Continue frying the rest of the potatoes in batches in the same manner.

Enjoy!

Easy Cold Beet Soup (Borscht)

Forget that overly sweet Manischewitz borscht in a jar. This soup, made from scratch, is the real thing. And the best part is that it is really easy. It does take time (because in this case "easy" does not equal "fast") but you will have enough soup to last a few days.

When Week 8's selection included a bunch of beets for the first time, I immediately thought of borscht. I grew up on this soup but I never actually made it before. My mother came over to show me how to cook it. I got the beets out for her, walked away for a little bit to attend to something else and when I came back... Voila! The soup was done. I told you it'd be easy.

But in case you don't have someone else to make this for you, here is the recipe:

Easy Cold Beet Soup (Borscht)
(Print this recipe)

3 medium beets, stems removed
2-3 potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters
The juice of 1/2 a lemon
salt
sugar (optional)
hard-boiled eggs, sliced
diced cucumber
sour cream

1. Wash, peel and cut the beets in half. Fill a medium pot with water and put beets in. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium low and cook until they are fork tender, about 20-25 minutes. Ten or fifteen minutes into the cooking, add the potatoes so that they cook with the beets the last 10-15 minutes.

2. When the beets are tender, pull them out and cool until they are cool enough to handle. Continue cooking the potatoes in the pot.  When cool enough to handle, grate the beets on the large holes of a box grater or with the grating attachment on a food processor. Put the beets back into the soup. Cook a few minutes more, testing your potatoes. Potatoes will be done about 15-20 minutes after you put them in. Make sure not to overcook the potatoes or else they will disintegrate into the soup.

3. Add the lemon juice, salt and sugar (if desired). If adding sugar, add a teaspoon at a time, then taste and adjust as needed. Cool the soup, then refrigerate. It's even better the next day.

4. To serve, Russians typically ladle the soup into bowls and pass the eggs, cucumbers, and sour cream around so everyone can add however much they want.

Enjoy!

Simply Sautéed Swiss Chard

Chard's colorful stems and veins that run through the leaves remind me of Magritte's trees. This was previously a vegetable that I ignored in the supermarket because I was unfamiliar with it. Seeing it as part of my weekly share forced me to try it. It's a green, much like spinach, and as such, it's easy to prepare. Whatever you can do with spinach or beet greens, you can do with chard. To make a quick side, here is all I did:

Simply Sautéed Swiss Chard
(Print this recipe)

1 lb. Swiss chard
1-2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 clove of garlic, chopped or pressed
Lemon juice
Salt

Chop the chard, separating the stems from the leaves. Heat a pan and add the olive oil. When it's hot, stir fry the garlic until just fragrant, no more than a minute. Add the stems and cook until tender. Then, add the leaves and cook a little longer until they are wilted. Season with salt (and pepper if you like) and squeeze some lemon juice over it.

Asian-style Cabbage Slaw

Week 7's selection included red-leaf lettuce (6 heads), collards, Chinese cabbage, curly endive (chicory), green garlic, and the aforementioned broccoli. Since the July 4th holiday weekend was approaching, I decided to make some coleslaw for a family barbecue. Traditional coleslaw can be hit or miss for me (and depends largely on whether it is made with onions, which I can't stand). It also uses a lot of mayonnaise, which, although it tastes great, can be overwhelming. I wanted something a little different that would use Chinese cabbage instead of regular cabbage and give coleslaw a lighter taste. The stalk of a Chinese cabbage leaf tastes pretty much like regular cabbage. The leafy part, however, is more tender but still has the same flavor.

A simple search turned up this recipe from Bobby Flay for Napa Cabbage Slaw. I modified the recipe quite a bit to make my own version that gives the cabbage an Asian flavor without the spiciness.

Asian-style Cabbage Slaw
(Print this recipe)

Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 Tbsp. rice vinegar
2-3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1-2 Tbsp. mayonnaise
1-2 Tbsp. soy sauce
1-2 Tbsp. brown sugar
Salt
1 head Chinese cabbage or Napa cabbage (plus another head if need be), shredded
1 large carrot or 2 small carrots, shredded
2-3 scallions, thinly sliced

1. Mix the first 6 ingredients. Taste and adjust the quantities of any of the marinade elements. I did a lot of fiddling with the oil, mayonnaise, soy sauce, and sugar because I started with too much acid (i.e. lemon juice and vinegar).

2. Add the cabbage, carrot, and scallions and toss to mix. Let sit in the refrigerator for at least half an hour. Mine sat in the refrigerator overnight. The longer it sits, the more the vegetables will sink into the marinade and the more marinade you will have. Once you take it out of the fridge, feel free to add more shredded cabbage to increase the volume and soak up the marinade. If you don't add more cabbage or other vegetables, you will end up with a growing pool of marinade at the bottom. This doesn't affect the taste; only the presentation.

Enjoy!

Scallion Pancakes

After weeks of filling my fridge with organic, nutrient-rich, green vegetables that I minimally processed for dinner, all I could think about when I saw the scallions at the farm stand during Week 5 was scallion pancakes. This is a great way to make a nutritious vegetable less nutritious by adding white flour. But no matter. I had to have these. After a little searching, I found this recipe, complete with pictures.

I followed the recipe step-by-step. After I left the dough to rise, things began to unravel. After checking the dough repeatedly, it still hadn't risen. It was getting close to dinnertime, family members would be home soon, and they'd be hungry. So, I took the dough out anyway, and began to work on it. And work on it. And work on it. It was sticky and unmanageable. I couldn't get it to become smooth, dry and elastic (as in the recipe's picture) to roll into a log. The dough had no intention of rolling into a log. If I picked up one end, it would just ooze out of my fingers and refuse to comply. I added flour. And more flour. And even more flour. Each successive addition of flour (by tablespoons) seemed to just disappear into the dough mass after a while. I must have added more than a cup of additional flour before I just threw up my sticky hands. 

I decided to just start cooking them and hope for the best. Instead of cutting off neat disks from a log, I just started tearing gobs of dough from this mass. Rolling was impossible so I just patted each disk with my hand, sprinkled scallions on top, and tried to roll and squish it down as best I could. I prepared all these little "patties" and laid them on a plate to fry. My husband arrived home at this instant and saw the mess and my distress. He dropped his bags on the floor and began to help. He noticed that the patties that were already in the frying pan were puffing up and we were both concerned that they would brown on the outside but remain raw on the inside. He came up with the technique of further mashing these patties into the frying pan with a spatula to make them thinner. As a result, some came out as puffy, little pancakes and some were large and thin. After everything was done, it was the moment of truth.

We all tasted one. They were delicious! Puffy or thin, they all had the same, chewy, delicious taste. Despite the dough not quite working the way it should, they were as good, if not better than, a Chinese restaurant's. They were hands down the best thing I've made with the CSA vegetables so far. Yeah, I know, it's the dough and not the scallions that made this good but hey, it was something I had never made before.

Next time when I make this, I'll try to add less water in one of the early steps. That may have caused the problem. It's also possible that my yeast wasn't as fresh as it could have been (but it wasn't expired) and prevented the dough from rising promptly.

Lettuce, Lettuce, and More Lettuce

On my pick up day of the second week, it was raining cats and dogs and lizards and snakes. I debated about whether to go at all and re-read the rules about switching pick up days. You can switch days if you call in advance and you’ll be able to pick up the produce that they harvest for you on a different day but you can’t pick your own vegetables on other days. So I put on my poncho and headed to the farm. I dressed in a light t-shirt and pants underneath. I arrived and had my first experience with picking up the vegetables that they had harvested. At the farm stand that week they had lettuce and arugula. I had checked the farm’s blog before going to see what would be available that day. The blog mentioned a “little lettuce” and arugula. When I arrived, I realized that my definition of “a little” was different from the farmer’s. My share included four heads of lettuce and a pound of arugula! I laughed. What was I going to do with four heads of lettuce? Even at our most diligent, there is only so much lettuce that we can eat in a week. And a pound of arugula? When you go to the supermarket and you pick up a clamshell container of arugula or other greens, the container looks big but it is usually only 5 or 6 ounces of greens. Imagine loading up the scale with a pound of greens. It makes for a lot of volume.

There were strawberries to be picked still and I decided to go picking despite the rain. It wasn’t raining heavily – and I did have my poncho on – but the wind made it cold. What made me think that mid-May rain was going to be warm? I trekked the significant distance to the fields and began to pick. It was slow going because of the rain and my glasses began to collect rain and obscure my vision. The wind whipped at me periodically. By the time I was done, I could barely wait to get home. My fingers were so frozen I couldn’t uncurl them, and the two paper quarts of strawberries became too wet to hold all those strawberries. A tear developed in one of them and by the time I got to the car, the bottom fell out and with it, all the strawberries. I picked them up from the gravel and put them in a plastic bag. In the car I turned on the heat, which quickly warmed up my frozen fingers. Next time if it rains, I’ll pick a different day to go picking.

But oh, those strawberries were worth it.

The lettuce found its way into my usual green salad consisting of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and carrots. Arugula took a little more thought because I didn’t remember what it tasted like or knew what to do with it. Sure I’ve had it in salads when I've gone out to a restaurant but I’ve never bought it. When fresh, the taste is bitter and surprisingly spicy. How could a green be spicy? Over the course of the week, I made two different arugula salads, one using both arugula and strawberries. It makes me feel clever to make use of more than one weekly CSA ingredient in one dish.

Arugula Salad

(adapted from a Whole Foods recipe)

2 Tbsp. lime juice

1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

1 tsp. sugar

¾ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. ground cumin

1 garlic clove, minced

1 Tbsp. olive oil

2 cups baby arugula leaves

2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro

Combine the first six ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk in the olive oil. Add the arugula and cilantro and toss. Adjust the seasonings if necessary.

Strawberry Arugula Salad

(adapted from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman)

3 cups strawberries, hulled and halved

1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

4 cups arugula

Salt

1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

Mix the strawberries with the balsamic vinegar and let stand for ten minutes. Add the arugula, salt and olive oil and toss. Adjust the seasoning, if necessary.