Mezza Dinner

Despite the 60-degree, rainy weather summer is coming, and we can see it in the change of local produce that is available!  I was inspired to start making dinner with some basil that I had in the refrigerator and fresh garlic scrapes from Open Oak Farm.  But then I realized that for several years I have wanted to make a mezza dinner with many of the recipes identified in the Moosewood Cookbook.  The pesto was just a start.  I also made tabouleh, walnut-green bean-egg dip, and hummus (made with rio zape beans from Lonesome Whistle Farm).  Each recipe was very easy to make and they all went well together especially served this with fresh bread from Eugene City Bakery and with fresh strawberries for dessert.

Pesto
1 bunch basil (from Eugene Local Foods)
3 garlic scrapes (from Open Oak Farm)
Olive oil
2 handfuls parmesan cheese
2 handfuls walnuts

Put everything in the food processor and blend until well mixed.  Serve over pasta.  The pesto was just a gorgeous brilliant color and so amazing!

Tabouleh

1 c hull-less barley (from Lonesome Whistle Farm)3 c water
1 bunch parsley (from Open Oak Farm)
2 garlic scrapes (from Open Oak Farm)
lemon juice from 1/2 of a lemon
1/3 c olive oil
1 tomato chopped
salt
pepper 

Cook barley in water.  Chop parsley and garlic together in the food processor, and then mix with olive oil and lemon juice.  Fold in barley once cooked and added in tomato, salt and pepper to taste.  Cool before serving.

The last item I made was a Walnut Dip from the Moosewood Cookbook that I have been wanting to try for years...but never seemed to have all the ingredients at the same time.  I don't think that it tasted like chicken liver pate (like the description says it would), but it was very tasty.

Walnut-Green Bean-Egg Dip 

1/2 onion chopped
Olive Oil
1 1/2 c green beans (from Thistledown Farm)
2 hard boiled eggs peeled
2 t lemon juice
1/4 c walnuts
handful parsley
salt and pepper  

Saute the onions in oil and then add green beans until softened, and then put them in the food processor with rest of the ingredients

Everything can be eaten together like this on a plate.

Or it can be eaten all mixed up like this mixed up on a high chair tray.  She seemed to especially like the pesto pasta.  However, dipping her fingers into all of the dips was great fun too!

Sunday Yumm! Bowls

My friend Jessi introduced me to the best "fast food" in our community.  We are lucky that Cafe Yumm! serves the most tasty Yumm! Bowls which are both healthy and delicious.  The bowls have rice with a variety of bean and vegetable toppings--and are always topped with Yumm! sauce. Fortunately, the restaurant also sells their Yumm! sauce in large take-home containers.

My son and I had created our own Yumm! bowl (for me) and plate (for him) for a sunny afternoon picnic.  We used beans (they weren't labeled so I don't know the variety) and purple barley from our last Lonesome Whistle Farm CSA grain share of the spring.  I am trying to get into the habit of cooking up large batches of these so we can use them throughout the week.

My four year old son says about his lunch, "I loved it!  I liked everything.  I had apples, barley, beans, cheese, and broccoli."   He was able to eat all of the ingredients separately just how he likes them.

I took those same ingredients and added Yumm! sauce, salsa (from local Salsa de Casa), cilantro, and garlic stems.  The garlic stems came from our Open Oak Farmers, and we purchased them at the Springfield Farmers Market last week.  I have been missing our CSA vegetable pick-ups so I was very glad to see them at the market.   I mixed everything together so each bite had all of the wonderful flavors.

Our picnic was even complete with a crawling ear whig, which we moved far away from the picnic.

Arikara Bean Hummus

Our recent Lonesome Whistle CSA included Arikara Beans.  I cooked them in the slow cooker like I have with Calypso and  Rio Zape Beans; however, I found that these are very mild and even a little bland in flavor when eaten plain.  We ate them in soup and burritos, but my favorite way to eat these beans was in a delicious batch of hummus I made.

Everyone in my family eats and enjoys hummus--especially immediately after it has been made.  We ate it on tortilla chips, carrots, bread and just plain by the spoonful.  My recipe is adapted from the Moosewood Cookbook for the ingredients; however, I never measure any of the ingredients--just add them to taste--and the recipe varies each time based on what we in the kitchen.

Hummus 

2 cups cooked Arikara Beans (from Lonesome Whistle CSA)
1 lemon juiced
cumin
4 cloves garlic
salt
parsley
tahini
olive oil 

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until the beans are completely mashed and mixed with the other ingredients.

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.

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.

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.