Purple dinner

Beets, beets, and more beets. With our vegetable CSA, we have had many beets this winter. I think I've had more beets this winter that the last 5 combined!

I had one batch of beets in the refrigerator that was starting to go soft, so I boiled them to try to extend the cooking life. One night decided that I needed to use them all up. The same night I also decided to stop being intimidated by my purple barley from our grain CSA. The result: a very purple dinner.

First I made purple barley into the same salad that I made with wheat berries earlier this month. It was good. I like the taste of the barley! My 4-year old said this was his favorite part of the dinner. I've also found that I really like the purple barley with Geek Yogurt for breakfast.

I also made a beet soup adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and a beet and potato salad adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites.

The beet soup tasted ok. It did have a gorgeous red/purple color. I made a lot of modifications to the original recipe, but overall it just lacked some substance. I had one kohlrabi from the CSA--not part of the recipe, but I had roasted it and found that none of us wanted to eat it plain--so it went into the soup pot. This made a huge batch of soup; more than the 4-6 serving that the recipes suggests so we ate it for several days and froze a batch too.

Beet Soup

6 cups quick stock

4 beets boiled, peeled, and cut up (from Open Oak CSA)

1 onion chopped

2 cloves garlic (from Open Oak CSA)

olive oil

1 kohlrabi cubed and baked (from Open Oak CSA)

salt and pepper

Make stock with 6 cups of water, potato peelings (from potato salad recipe), parsley, onion peelings, dill, beet peelings, carrot peelings and cook for 20 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Cook onions in oil until soft. Then add in beets and kohlrabi and saute a few more minutes. Add vegetables to the stock. Puree with hand mixer (this is not in the original recipe, but my vegetables were so unevenly chopped that they looked funny in the soup pot together). Add salt and pepper to taste.

The salad was really purple--well more like the color of pink Pepto-Bismal. Th picture doesn't do it justice, because the beets just continued to leak color the longer it was in the refrigerator. The salad was overly acidic with Nancy's yogurt and apple cider vinegar, so we started to add mayonnaise to each serving and that helped soften the flavor. I think it would be better with fresh dill and a red onion (both in the original recipe, but I didn't have either at home). The color sure would make for an interesting potluck conversation piece.

Beet Potato Salad

5 beets, boiled, and cut into bite sized pieces (from Open Oak CSA)

3 potatoes, peeled, cut into bite sized pieces, and boiled

1/2 c minced onions

1 c Nancy's plain yogurt

2T dried dill

2 t cider vinegar

2 pickles, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

Mayonnaise to taste

Boil the cut potatoes in water for 20 minutes until soft. Drain. Place beets and potatoes in a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix together. Chill for at least 30 minutes.

Bean Soup

I love my mother-in-law's bean soup that is served with sauerkraut, but I have never tried to make it because I didn't think it could possibly be as good as hers. We made lots of calls to her to make sure that we got everything right, but in the end my husband said it was nearly perfect!

Making this soup was perfect for a weekend predicted to have snow, and it gave me an opportunity to try out my slow cooker method for Calypso Beans again.

Bean Soup

1 lb Calypso Beans (from Lonesome Whistle CSA)

5 c water

1 lb ham shank (or ham hock)

1/2 lb smoked pork chops (bones cut from meat)

2 polish sausages (or mix of Hungarian, smoked, etc.)

3T butter

flour

sauerkraut

Place beans and water in slower cooker and cook on low for one hour until beans are plump.

Add in ham shank and bones from the smoked pork chops. Cook on low for 6 hours stirring occasionally.

Make Johnny Cakes to put in the oven just before starting the next steps on the stove top.

When fully cooked, remove bones. Transfer soup to a pot on the stove top.

Strip ham from bones and return some to the soup. Cut up pork chop meat and add to the soup. Cut up sausage into rounds and add to the soup (This photo shows one Polish and one Hungarian sausage. We decided to use two Polish in the final soup.)

Turn up the temperature to boil the soup.

Make a roux with butter (or fat) and flour. Mix roux into boiling soup to thicken stirring constantly. Turn down and serve hot with sauerkraut.

Wheat, corn, rye, blueberry muffins

On a cold winter afternoon we needed a preschool friendly activity. Muffin making! These are adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I like them. They're really substantial and the mix of flours was really nice. (Our cat likes to eat muffins and she liked them too!)

Muffins

1 c whole wheat flour

1/2 c rye flour (from Open Oak CSA)

1/2 c Saskatoon corn flour (from Open Oak CSA)

4 T molasses

1/4 t salt

2 eggs

1 c milk

1/3 c canola oil

1 c blueberries (from McKenzie River Organics)

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Combine until just mixed. Pour into oiled muffin tins. Bake 375F for 25 minutes.

Refried Calypso Beans

After making Pasta and Calypso Beans, I still had half of a batch of cooked beans. One staple dinner in our family is simple burritos. I normally use refried beans from a can to which I add onions, garlic, cumin powder, and chili. This was so simple to make, and I like the "build your own" aspect to burritos. I liked the Calypso beans and in the pasta recipe, but I'm not convinced they are the right bean flavor for this dinner.

Refried beans and simple burritos

2 c cooked Calypso Beans (from Lonesome Whistle CSA)

olive oil

cumin

chili powder

salt and pepper

shallots (from Open Oak CSA)

garlic (from Open Oak CSA)

spinach

ground beef cooked

tortillas

salsa

plain yogurt

Heat oil in a skillet. Add beans and mash with a spoon. Add in spices to taste. In a separate pan, saute shallots and garlic and wilt spinach. Cook ground beef with same spices. Serve all parts separately or together on a tortilla.

Wheat Berry Salad

I'm looking forward to trying new ways to eat the whole grains from our Lonesome Whistle CSA. I made this wheat berry salad to go with poached chicken. For the deconstructionist 4-year old member of our family, I served just plain wheat berries, cucumbers, spinach, and feta. He said that all the ingredients were good and finished everything on his plate! Yeah! We ate it up so quickly that I didn't even have a chance to take a picture!

Wheat Berry Salad

1 c wheat berries (from Lonesome Whistle CSA)

3 c water

1T olive oil

5 shallots (from Open Oak CSA)

3 cloves garlic (from Open Oak CSA)

several handfuls of spinach

sliced cucumbers

crumbled feta cheese

salt and pepper

Place wheat berries, 1T olive oil, and water in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and simmer until wheat berries have absorbed all of the water. In another pan, saute shallots and garlic. Add and steam spinach with salt and pepper until bright green. Combine wheat berries, feta, spinach mixture, and cucumbers together.

Pasta and Calypso Beans

I picked up our first bucket of grains and beans from our Lonesome Whistle CSA. Thirteen pounds of flour, beans, barley, wheat berries, and oats. It's the first time I've had a CSA like this, and it's a little intimidating!

I decided to start with a simple family bean soup recipe. However, I cooked the beans too long in my slow cooker without adding the meats. I'll try bean soup again sometime soon. For now, I decided to turn some of the beans into a simple recipe from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites Cookbook.

The calypso beans are so creamy and worked well in this recipe. The recipe was good for our family because it was easy to deconstruct by keeping the beans and pasta separate for a member of our family who is not a fan of tomatoes.

Pasta and Calypso Beans

2 c dry beans (from CSA) (I used 2 c cooked beans in the recipe)

5 c water

5 shallots chopped (from CSA)

2 cloves garlic minced (from CSA)

1 t dried rosemary

olive oil

1 28-oz can of tomatoes

salt and pepper

brown rice pasta

Place the beans and water in slow cooker and cook on low for 4-6 hours.

This over cooked them, but was perfect timing for this recipe.

Boil water for pasta. Add brown rice pasta, cook 1 minute, and then let stand in hot water for 15 minutes.

Cook shallots, garlic, and rosemary in olive oil.

Add in can of tomatoes, 2 cups of cooked beans, salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes. Blend with immersion blender. Pour sauce over pasta.

Squash Gratin

Thank you Ellen for making this recipe for Nicole. Thank you Nicole for making it for us. And thank you Ellen for emailing me a scan of an evidently well loved copy of the recipe so we could adapt and enjoy it with our sweet meat winter squash. It is wonderful to eat fresh out of the oven and as leftovers.

Squash Gratin adapted from Provence the Beautiful Cookbook

4 T olive oil

1 onion (from CSA)

1/4 sweet meat winter squash roasted, peeled, and diced (from CSA)

salt

2 T water

½ c half and half

2 eggs

½ c Parmesan, Asiago, Romano cheese blend

Pepper

Nutmeg

Place sweet meat squash on a baking dish "flesh" side down. Poke holes in skin with a knife. Bake at 300F for 30 min. Remove from oven. Let squash cool and then peel. Cut squash flesh into 1 inch chunks.

Heat 2 T olive oil. Add onion and cook until transparent. Add squash, salt, and water cover and stir often until squash has reduced almost to a puree about 30 min (I still had lots of squash chunks in the final product and liked the texture). Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375F. Spray baking pan with oil.

In a small bowl, whisk together half and half, eggs, 1/4 c of the cheese, pepper, and nutmeg. Stir the egg mixture into the squash. Then pour into gratin dish. Sprinkle with 1/4 c cheese. Dribble 2 T olive oil over the surface in a criss cross pattern. Bake 375F 30 min.

Weeknight dinner in four courses

We needed to do something fun for an easy weeknight meal. I turned an ordinary dinner into a four course meal. This was a winner with the 4 year old--meat, raw vegetables, applesauce, and dessert, and I didn't have to try and create something else that he would willingly eat for dinner.

Course One: Vegetables

Lettuce and shredded carrot salad with Yumm! sauce

Green peas

Parsnip puree

I have watched several cooking show recently where guests are served a form of parsnip puree. This one had a nice flavor with the roasted parsnips, but it had a funny texture--a little grainy.

Parsnip puree

5 parsnips peeled and diced (from CSA)

olive oil

sour cream

milk

salt

nutmeg

Roast parsnips with olive oil and salt in oven 350F for 30 min. Pour into food processor with sour cream, milk, and nutmeg. Blend and keep adding until they reach the desired consistency.

Course Two: Meat

Baked Chicken (Adapted from Wheat-Free Recipes and Menus by Carol Fenster)

1/2 chicken cut into pieces

1/2 c milk + 1 t cider vinegar (or real buttermilk)

1/4 t garlic powder

1/4 c flour

3 T corn flour (from CSA)

1/2 t salt

1/4 t paprika

Mix dry ingredients together on a plate. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray. Dip chicken pieces into buttermilk then into flour mixture. Place on baking sheet. Cook 400F for 45 minutes.

Coure Three: Fruit

Applesauce

One colander full of apples (from our apple tree)

1 c water

1/4 c sugar

2 t cinnamon (optional)

Core and cut apples and place in large pot with water. Simmer until apples are completely soft. Process apples through food mill and add in 1/4 c sugar. Serve topped with yogurt.

Course Four: Dessert

Walnut Potica Roll from Andrej's European Pastry in Chisholm, Minnesota

Thank you Nana! We love this traditional Serbian Christmas dessert (and that it arrived in our mail box--great present)! Yum, yum, yum! I'm going to learn how to make this for next year.

Quinoa Casserole

This is a dinner that happens when the work week starts without a plan, and I try to make dinner while also trying to entertain a hungry four year old who wants to help.

I had two bags of quinoa that have been in the cabinet for six months, which I used as a starting pont to find something in my recipe books. I also had some sour cream (original calls for cottage cheese, jack cheese or tofu) and parsley left from holiday meals, and lots of spices. The original recipe in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is officially for Spicy Quinoa and Potato Croquettes. I didn't have the time for monitoring anything on the stove top and was more in the mood for a casserole dish. I'm calling this Quinoa Casserole. It worked well, and everyone said it was good. I think we'll keep this recipe around.

Quinoa Casserole

3 potatoes peeled and chopped (from CSA)

1 /3 c dry quinoa

2/3 c water

1/2 onion chopped (from CSA)

olive oil

2 t paprika

1 t coriander

1 t cumin

1/2 t oregano

3 cloves garlic minced (from CSA)

1/4 c chopped parsley

1 egg

1/3 c sour cream

salt

1/4 c shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Cook quinoa in water simmering until all water is absorbed (12-15 minutes). Boil potatoes in water until soft. Mash potatoes into the cooked quinoa.

Meanwhile, saute onion for a couple of minutes and then add in spices and salt. Once onions are cooked through, add in garlic. Add to quinoa/potato mix. Add in parsley, egg, and sour cream. Mix well. Place in casserole dish and cover with shredded cheese. Bake 300F for 20-25 minutes.

Sunchoke, Potato, Carrot Latkes

This is the second year that we have had sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes) in our winter CSA bag. They are such an interesting little tuber from sunflower plants. Last year we tried a sunchoke, couldn't figure out what to do with the rest, and gave them to a co-worker. This year I was determined to find a recipe and use all of the sunchokes in our bag even though my husband jokingly recommended that we, "make compost" with the sunchokes.

Our Open Oak CSA farmers recommended trying sunchoke latkes. I read through many recipes online including this one on the Gastronmer's Guide and my friend Karen's recipe for root vegetable latkes and my friend Jessica's family's potato latke recipe. Mine were sort of a combination of all of these ideas. We enjoyed eating them (in small quantities because we've read reports of people having trouble digesting the sunchokes) with sour cream and homemade applesauce from our apple tree. They turned out much better than I expected! I would make this recipe again, but next time I would add in an onion for flavor.

Latkes

3 potatoes peeled and shredded (from CSA)

7 sunchokes shredded (from CSA)

1 carrot peeled and shredded

2 eggs

1/2 c flour

salt and pepper

Olive oil

Peel potatoes and carrots. Shred potatoes, carrots, and sunchokes in food processor. Place in strainer to drain off any excess water.

Beat eggs, flour, salt and pepper in a bowl. Add shredded, drained vegetables and cover with flour/egg mixture.

Heat skillet pan and add oil. Form latkes and cook until golden brown on each side. These were getting brown before the vegetables were cooked through, so I transferred them to a large sheet pan and baked at 250F for 20 minutes. Serve with sour cream and applesauce.

Sweet Meat Squash and Escarole Pizza (aka Rose Bowl Pizza)

Our last CSA bag of 2011 included half of an Oregon Homestead Sweet Meat Winter Squash. It's huge! We have already had too many sweets in our family recently so I didn't want to make a pie. I've already made a couple of different types of pasta with butternut squash this fall so I rejected the pasta ideas. There are many squash soup recipes available, but I recently made butternut squash chowder. I wanted to try something different with this squash. With a quick search, I found a recipe for caramelized butternut squash pizza. Homemade pizza with whatever seasonal toppings are in our refrigerator is a favorite in our family, and we always had pizza on Saturday nights when I was little. Here's a new combination for us with sweet meat and escarole. I realized as I was cooking the ingredients that the squash and greens are yellow and green. So this turned into Rose Bowl Pizza to celebrate the Ducks win today (which we ate during the last exciting quarter of the game)!

My husband declared of the pizza, "This is good! Really, really good!" It's a winner!

Pizza Dough

2 1/4 t yeast

1 T sugar

1 c warm water

3 T olive oil

1/2 t salt

2 3/4 c wheat flour (can use white flour and only 2 T oil)

Mix yeast, sugar and water together in a bowl (I use my mixer for everything); proof yeast for 15 minutes. Add in oil, salt, and wheat flour. Mix thoroughly. Let dough rise for 1 hour. Turn out onto floured board and roll into pizza pan shape. Add toppings. Bake 400F for 18-20 minutes.

Squash-Escarole Topping

1/4 sweet meat squash (from CSA)

1 bunch escarole chopped (from CSA)

1/2 onion chopped (from CSA)

3 cloves garlic (from CSA)

Olive oil

4 T Butter

1/2 t dried sage

black pepper

salt

Parmesan cheese

Sharp Tillamook Cheese

Place sweet meat squash on a baking dish "flesh" side down. Poke holes in skin with a knife. Bake at 300F for 30 min. Remove from oven. Let squash cool and then peel. Cut squash flesh into 1 inch chunks.

Melt butter in big sauce pan. Add in squash chunks and onions. Let cook until onions are soft. Add in sage, salt, and pepper and stir. Add in escarole and garlic.

Cook just a few minutes until greens are wilted.

Cover pizza dough with olive oil. Add cooked toppings (and make 4 year old approved corner with turkey pepperoni).

Top with cheese. Bake 400F for 18 minutes.