2012 Christmas Meal Memories

As the activities of January have taken over, I am fondly remembering the time during our winter vacation to plan and savor family meals together.  Before the holiday is too distant of a memory, I want to post about all the yummy food and new recipes using as many ingredients as possible from our Open Oak CSA we tried for our family Christmas meals.

Christmas Eve Dinner--We were joined by my husband's family for Vegetable Chowder from the Moosewood Cookbook, Butternut Squash Risotto from The Cook's Illustrated Cookbook, and bread from Noisette.  I don't know if I can gush enough about what a delicious meal this was!

The chowder was a perfect soup for a dark winter evening especially topped with a little parmesan cheese.  My husband found the risotto recipe and took on the challenge to make it.  It was good to eat the first day and for leftovers for several more days.

Vegetable Chowder (adapted from Moosewood Cookbook)

1 T olive oil

1 onion chopped (Open Oak CSA)

6 cloves garlic minced (Open Oak CSA)

1 t salt

1/2 t thyme

2 t basil

1 medium potato diced  (Open Oak CSA)

2 medium carrots, diced  

2 c chopped broccoli  

2 c chopped cauliflower  (Open Oak CSA)

2 c corn

2 c chicken broth

1 c milk (I think I even added heavy cream to the recipe!)

pepper

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil with salt, thyme, and basil until soft.  Add vegetables and saute for a few more minutes.  Add broth and cook until all vegetables are tender.  Add milk and puree part of the soup with an immersion blender.

The delicious food did not stop on Christmas Day either when we had my mom's Poppyseed Roll (it over rose, but still tasted great), a Paula Dean Pumpkin Cheesecake (made with delicata squash--I could live in this), Cornish Game Hens with wild rice dressing (my husband also took on this challenge and created an amazing main course dish for our holiday dinner, and Roasted Vegetables with Green Parsley Dressing (yumm! from my new favorite cookbook--thanks, Jessi!).  

Roasted Vegetables with Green Parsley Dressing (from Eating Close to Home)

The green parsley dressing is from my new favorite cookbook about eating locally grown foods seasonally in the Willamette Valley.  The color was fantastic on a bed of roasted beets, parsnips, garlic, and fennel from Open Oak CSA.

2 clove garlic Open Oak CSA

1/2 t salt

1/4 t pepper

1/2 t whole fennel seeds

1/2 t dried taragon

1 c parsley Open Oak CSA

2T lemon juice

1 c olive oil

Blend everything together and serve over salad or roasted vegetables.

Delicata Squash Cheesecake from the Food Network
Graham Cracker Crust
1 3/4 c graham cracker crumbs (I was even able to find a brand without high fructose corn syrup!)
3 T brown sugar
1 t cinnamon
1/2 c melted butter

Mix all ingredients together and press into the bottom a springform pan (in this case a brand new pan I purchased on Christmas Eve, just so I could make this dessert).

Filling
 3 8-oz package of cream cheese
2 c cooked and squashed delicata squashed (from Open Oak CSA)
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1/4 c sour cream
1 1/2 c white sugar
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/8 t cloves
2 T flour
1 t vanilla

Beat cream cheese until smooth.  Then add additional ingredients until well combined.  Carefully pour into crust.  Bake 350F for 1 hour.  Remove from and set sit at room temperature before covering with plastic wrap and refrigerating for 4 hours.

Rich Swedish cream dough with Poppyseeds From Amy Vandegrift collection- a holiday favorite!  Nothing from our CSA here, ties with the Christmas Blueberry Roll for my favorite Christmas treats.

You can make this dough in advance and keep it for up to 4 days in the refrigerator. It works best when thoroughly chilled

1 envelope active dry yeast
¼ cup warm water
1 cup heavy cream (have been known to use regular milk)
¼ c evaporated milk
3 eggs yolks, slightly beaten
3 1/3 cups flour
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup butter or margarine at room temperature (although mine always comes right out of the refrig)

In a small bowl, stir yeast into warm water to dissolve. Allow to grow about 10-15 minutes.
Add and mix well the dissolved yeast cream, milk and egg yolks, and set aside
In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar and salt.
Into the flour mixture, cut in ½ cup butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Stir yeast mixture into flour just to moisten. (a light hand so as not to break down the butter too much)
Spread dough with a light film of butter to prevent drying, place into a buttered bowl. Cover bowl with plastic and refrigerate overnight or up to 4 days.

Poppy seed braid roll
One 12.5 oz can of Solo poppy seed cake and pastry filling
In a bowl, stir one egg white into the poppy seed mixture

Roll out dough into a rectangle
Cut on dough the long way in three even parts. I find a pizza cutter works best
Working with one strip at a time
Put 1/3 of the filling down the center
Draw the edges of the dough together over the filling and pinch to seal seam. Sometimes some seeds
escape
Repeat for the other two strips

On a greased cookie sheet carefully place each strip side by side so that you can braid them. I do find
that the dough is long enough to do this on a diagonal of the cookie sheet. Fold under at the top, braid
the strips and fold and pinch the bottom.

Beat the remaining egg white slightly and gently rub a thin layer of egg white over the top of the
roll, (discard the rest). Let the braid rise in a warm place free from drafts until double in bulk ( 50–60
minutes)

Bake in a preheated 350 oven for about 25 minutes.

Scorzonera Brunch Fritters

After a long blog hiatus, I am excited to try several new recipes for our Christmas weekend celebration using an extra large weekly CSA share from Open Oak Farm.  Today, I'm starting with using scorzonera to make fritters with a recipe recommended by our farmers from The Guardian for Sunday brunch. 

Scorzonera Brunch Fritters
6 scorzonera roots peeled and chopped (from Open Oak Farm)
1 clove garlic minced (from Open Oak Farm)
2 T butter
dash cayenne pepper
1 t coriander
1 egg
1 T flour
salt and pepper
olive oil

Cook scorzonera in butter.  Remove from heat and add to bowl with other ingredients.  Add olive oil to pan and pour batter into 5-6 fritters.  Bake approximately 4 minutes per side until golden brown.

 
They were delicious, easy to make, and a fun way to try this novel winter perennial root.

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!

Pan Bagnat

I love it when we manage to drive in our car on Sunday evenings so we can listen to  The Splendid Table on OPB!  I always turn off the car in my driveway inspired to try something new in the kitchen! I am so glad that we got to hear Melissa Clark describe her Pan Bagnat Recipe from her book In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite.  This time, I'm equally glad that my husband loved the idea too, rounded up all the ingredients, and orchestrated the sandwich creation.  Calling Pan Bagnat a sandwich does not really do justice to this tuna, basil, cucumber, tomato, garlic, anchovy, olive oil, mustard, onion, red wine vinegar, olive, hard boiled egg deliciousness.

On the bread, layer cucumber and onions in vinaigrette.  Then add tomatoes.

Next, add slice hard boiled egg.

Followed by basil leaves.

Next, add in olive halves.

Put the cucumber-onion vinaigrette on the other half of the bread.

Lastly, add canned tuna.

Carefully roll in foil and balance a heavy cookbook on top.

The best part of her description of making the sandwich is that it needs to be smooshed by 7-year old child or heavy skillet for 7-10 minutes on each side.  We substituted our 4-year old. 

It really does flatten!

And all the juices mix into the bread.

Served with fresh local cherries, strawberries and artichokes.

Next time, oh and there will be a next time for Pan Bagnat in our house, we will use a more substantial bread than the hoagie roll that we used that just didn't stand up to the smooshing.   But there is no denying that the flavor was amazing!  I can't wait to try this at the height of our local tomato and cucumber season!

Spanakopita

Our first Open Oak Farm CSA bag of the season included beautiful spring spinach.  This year we have been enjoying cheeses from Ochoa Cheese Factory in Albany, Oregon including a very mild feta cheese that they produce.  These two ingredients seemed like a perfect paring to make the spanakopita recipe in the Moosewood Cookbook.  I like that the mini title is "Heavenly Greek Spinach Pastry."  This is a great description!

It has been years since I made this recipe, but I have always remembered that it was well worth the time investment to work with the filo dough.  Unfortunately, there was not quite enough spinach from our CSA to make the right ratio to cheese for the filling so I included one 10 oz package of frozen spinach from Stahlbush Island Farms.  The garlic that I was fortunate to include was unbelievably fresh--the skins around the individual cloves were still soft.

The recipe was well worth the effort yet again.  It made a nice dinner for the whole family and has been delicious heated up or cold as leftovers with salsa on the side.

Spanakopita

Olive oil
1/2 onion chopped
1/4 t salt
1 T basil
1 T oregano
~ 1lb fresh spinach chopped (Open Oak Farm) 

10oz frozen spinach
3 cloves garlic (Eugene Local Foods)

1 lb crumbled feta (Don Froylan Queso Fresco)1 c cottage cheese
Olive oil
1 package whole wheat filo pastry (18 sheets) defrosted. 

Heat olive oil and saute onions until soft.  Add in salt, basil, and oregano.  The add chopped spinach and garlic and steam until garlic spinach is wilted.  Remove from heat and mix with cheeses.   

Oil a 9 x 13 baking pan.  Place one sheet of filo and drape over the edge of the pan.  Brush on olive oil. Repeat until there are 6 layers of filo on the bottom.  Spoon in half of the cheese-spinach filling.  Add 6 more layers of filo.  Then spoon in the remaining filling.  Cover with the last 6 layers of filo.  Fold the edges over and oil well.
Bake 375F for 40 minutes.  Serve hot or cold.

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.

Day Three with Chicken

When I started with the Roast Chicken and then made soup stock, I had in mind that I wanted to make chicken tetrazini. It was well worth the wait and effort! I think it was a good as my mom's!

Chicken Tetrazini

1T butter

2-3T flour

1 c milk

1 c chicken broth

5 mushrooms chopped

1 green pepper chopped

chicken cubed (Either left over from another meal or cook and then cube two boneless, skinless chicken breasts)

1 onion chopped

2 cloves garlic (from CSA)

1/4 c parmesan cheese

salt and pepper

1/2 lb pasta

Boil water to make pasta. Drain and put into oven proof pan. Melt butter and add flour to make a roux. Slowly add in milk and chicken broth to make a white sauce stirring constantly to prevent lumping. Turn off heat and stir in parmesan cheese and salt and pepper to taste. In another pan, saute onions until translucent. Add in green pepper, mushrooms, garlic, and chicken and cook until peppers and mushrooms are softened. Mix vegetables in with pasta and pour white sauce over the top. Bake 350F for 20-30 minutes.

Day Two with Chicken

After we ate our roasted chicken dinner, I removed the meat from the bones and saved the carcass to make a soup stock.

Vegetable and Chicken Soup Stock

Beet peels (from CSA)

Carrot peels

Potato peels

Celeriac (from CSA)

Onion skins

Kale stems (from CSA)

Garlic cloves (from CSA)

Chicken bones (from roasted chicken)

Put everything in a soup pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for a few hours. Remove from heat, drain our liquid and put in the refrigerator until fat is solid. Skim fat off and use stock.

I froze most of the soup stock in 2 c containers, but saved some to make chicken tetrazini and potato leek soup.

Day One with Chicken

I love getting many meals out of one simple chicken! I started with a roasted chicken, then used the bones to make soup stock, and then made chicken tetrazini.

Roasted chicken is very easy to prepare, and I love how the chicken tastes on the flavors of the herbs inside.

Roasted chicken

1 lemon

4 cloves garlic (from Open Oak CSA)

1 inch of ginger root

1 t each of oregano, rosemary, parsley, thyme.

1 whole chicken

salt, pepper

Olive oil

Place chicken breast side down in oven proof pan. Mix the herbs, salt and pepper together and put inside the chicken with the lemon, garlic, and ginger root. Cover the outside of the skin with olive oil. Bake 425F for 15 min/pound + 10 minutes (this one was 75 minutes).

After we ate dinner, I removed the meat from the bones and saved the carcass to make a soup stock.

Escarole, Orange, Filbert Salad

After several attempts at cooking escarole this winter including in soup and pizza, I decided to try one more buch from our Open Oak CSA raw in a salad. I found this lovely salad recipe for blood organes, escarole (from Open Oak CSA), and filberts (from Thistledown Farm) (I left out the cheese included in the original.)

For the dressing I used juice from an orange, olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic (from Open Oak CSA), salt and pepper.

It was a very refreshing salad on a winter day, and stored well in the refrigerator for a few days.

(Not nearly as fancy as the picture from the original recipe, but delicious nonetheless.)

Slow Cooker Bean and Pasta Soup

I am finding it very challenging to find recipes where I can use all of the ingredients from the vegetable CSA and serve something that my non-adventurous-food-eating-four-year-old will eat without a fuss. I thought this minestrone-like soup that I adapted from my Slow Cooker Revolution cookbook to leave out tomatoes and onions would work; I was wrong. We did eventually convince him to eat the beans and pasta by removing them from the offending broth. Sigh. He continues to try new foods, but expanding his palate is surprisingly difficult.

The soup was ok, but it would have been better as a real minestrone with onions and tomatoes.

Slow Cooker Bean and Pasta Soup

1 t onion powder

2 cloves garlic minced (from Open Oak CSA)

2t oregano

2 T grape seed oil

3 c chicken broth

1 beet chopped (from Open Oak CSA)

3 small carrots chopped (from Open Oak CSA)

1 c rio zape beans (from Lonesome Whistle CSA)

1/4 c pasta

1 bunch escarole chopped (from Open Oak CSA)

salt and pepper

grated cheese

Microwave onion powder, garlic, grape seed oil, and oregano for 30 second in the microwave. Transfer to slow cooker. Add in dry beans, beet, carrots, and chicken broth. Cook on high for 4 hours.

Add in pasta and escarole and cook for 30 minutes.

Five Spice Chicken and Wheat Berries

My friend Renee wrote a blog post about the delicious and much appreciated dinner delivery of Five Spice Roast Chicken and Ginger Scented Rice from our friend Katharine. I also was delighted when Katharine arrived at my door with this wonderful meal when my daughter was born.

This week, I finally got around to attempting to make it on my own. The original recipe calls for 8 pieces of chicken, but I had only 2 chicken breasts and scaled the marinade down accordingly. It was the perfect amount of food for my family with a little chicken left over for quesadillas the next day.

I have also been thinking about how our Open Oak Farmers have mentioned that wheat berries (from Open Oak CSA) are a bioregional alternative to rice. I thought I'd give it a try with this recipe. The original calls for grated fresh ginger, but 1t of ground ginger was a reasonable alternative. The wheat berries take longer to cook than the jasmine rice, but it was great!

We also had some bok choy (from Open Oak CSA) so I sautéed some onions and garlic (from Open Oak CSA) in grape seed oil and wilted the greens with some more of the five spice powder.

I'm going to put this recipe in my dinner rotation because it is so tasty, enjoyed by everyone, and easy to make! Yum! Thank you Katharine and Renee!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mushroom Bisque Soup

A shitake mushroom block that I purchased at the 2010 Mt. Pisgah Mushroom Festival from Rain Forest Mushroom Company has sat in the bottom of my refrigerator for the past 14 months. I had already grown the oyster mushroom block, but just hadn't found the perfect time for the shitake block. Last week when I checked on it, the mushrooms were already starting to sprout! So I set up the mushroom block in an old fish tank, and in less than a week we had a full crop of mushrooms. My son thought it was great fun to harvest the mushrooms.

I have two favorite mushroom soup recipes in the Moosewood Cookbook. One is a Hungarian Mushroom Soup and the other Mushroom Bisque soup. Today was a Mushroom Bisque soup day! This the first time that I have made this recipe with anything other than button mushrooms. And I normally use plain old milk, but today used up some half-and-half in the refrigerator. We served ours with additional garlic toast for mopping up the soup and Ninkasi Sleigh'r Ale. Yum.

Mushroom Bisque Soup
2 fist sized potatoes chopped (from CSA)

1 1/2 c water
1 onion chopped (from CSA)

2 T olive oil

several cups of mushrooms chopped (grown at home)

1 t salt

2 cloves garlic (from CSA)

1/4 t thyme

3 T dry white wine

2 T soy sauce

fresh black pepper

1 1/2 c half and half (milk is fine too)

homemade croutons

green onions chopped(from CSA)

spinach chopped (from CSA)

Place chopped potatoes in a pan of water and boil until potatoes are soft.

Saute onions in olive oil until soft. Add in mushrooms and salt and cover until mushrooms are cooked through. Add in garlic and thyme. When soft, drain water from potatoes and add to mushroom mixture. Stir in wine, soy sauce, pepper, and half and half. Reserve part of soup mixture. Blend the rest of the soup with a hand blender or food processor), and then mix again with chunky soup.

Serve with garnish of croutons, green onions, and spinach.

Croutons and Spinach

1 slice of bread per person cut into croutons sized pieces

Garlic

Olive oil

Butter

Spinach

Melt butter and add garlic. Add bread pieces and coat in butter/garlic mixture. Add olive oil and cook until browned. The croutons can be browned more in the oven (we didn't have time to do that and they were just as yummy).

After the croutons have cooked, add more olive oil and garlic and saute spinach until just wilted and bright green.

Happy New Year!

Easy Winter Roasted Vegetables

Only recently have I discovered how wonderful winter roasted vegetables are to eat!

Winter Roasted Vegetables
Parsnips (from CSA)
Beets (from CSA)
Potatoes
Onion
Garlic (from CSA)
Sweet Potatos

Cut vegetables, coat with olive oil and a little salt. Bake 350 F for 45-60 minutes. Enjoy.