Unexpected Christmas Salmon

For our Christmas dinner this year, we planned to have salmon prepared using a simple wine poach. After a phone call with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, who eight time zones away were just finishing their dinner, we completely changed our salmon recipe to something new and fantastic!   They had just finished a Salmon en croute recipe from the BBC. We had most of the ingredients and improvised the rest.  We used a simple salad oil pie crust as the crust layered with PNW Chinook salmon, Emmer (Lonesome Whistle Farm), shallots (Groundwork Organics), and spinach.

Pie crust for the top and bottom.

Pesky bones to get out of the fillet.

Pre-baked lower pie crust layer.

Lemon, dill marinated salmon on a bed of Emmer, shallots, and spinach with a dash of 3 Horse Ranch Vineyards 2013 Vivacious and plenty of butter.

Thanks PDT&B for both the recipe inspiration and lovely pan in which to bake it! This is a great Christmas treat. Even with all of the ingredients, this went together quite easily and was enjoyed by all ages.

Leek and Shitake Mushroom Quiche

My Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook list the formula to create quiche = vegetable + custard + cheese. I made this one with leeks, shallots, and shitake mushrooms from our Open Oak CSA, which turned out to be quite similar to the mushroom quiche recipe in the Moosewood Cookbook (one of my favorites). It was really tasty!

Leek and Shitake Mushroom Quiche

Crust

6T butter

1 1/2 c flour

1/4 c milk

Blend ingredients in the food processor and press into pie pan. The pour in filling.

Filling

3 leeks (from Open Oak CSA)

10 shitake mushrooms (from Open Oak CSA)

2 shallots (from Open Oak CSA)

1/2 t thyme

4 eggs

1 1/2 c milk

2 T flour

1 c shredded swiss cheese

Put cheese on the pie crust. Saute vegetables, and pour over cheese. Mix eggs, flour, and milk and pour custard over vegetables and cheese. Bake 350F for 40 minutes. Eat warm or cold at any time of day.

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.