Family Brunch

Every once in a while we have a confluence of family in the area. A few weeks ago this happened, and we decided to host everyone for Sunday Brunch. With nine adults for brunch, I knew we'd need a spread. Being my usual self, I decided to have fun with this!

Menu:

+ Fruit Salad

+ Monkey Bread

+ Biscuits with Homemade Peach Preserves, Homemade Plum Preserves and Honey Maple Butter

+ Sausage, Egg and Cheese Casserole

+ Smoked Salmon Pinwheels

+ Shrimp Cocktail

+ Mimosas (of course!)

Obviously some of these items were store-bought and required little effort on my part, but it was fun to put together the whole spread, and boy was it yummy! I bought the shrimp and the salmon pinwheels, and in the interest of time baked biscuits from a can. One fun feature was that my homemade jams were made with fruits from my CSA last summer, and I had the last few frozen peaches to put in the fruit salad!

It was such a yummy and relaxing way to end the weekend, and I loved everything!

Fruit Salad with Mint and Honey

Peach Preserves, Plum Preserves, Butter and the Little Lady (hiding my Honey Maple Butter!)

Shrimp Cocktail and Salmon Pinwheels

Monkey Bread and Egg Casserole

The Sausage, Egg and Cheese Casserole was easy - I put it together the day before and just popped it into the oven on Sunday morning. Here's how I did it - it's based on a Cooking Light recipe for a Sausage and Cheese Breakfast Casserole, but I made a few adjustment of my own!

12 ounces sweet Italian turkey sausage

2 cups skim milk

2 cups egg substitute (like Egg Beaters)

1 tablespoon dry mustard powder (like Colman's)

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon ground pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 eggs

16 slices of bread, crusts removed

1 cup shredded low-fat cheddar cheese

1/2 teaspoon paprika

Brown the sausage, stirring to crumble it. Remove from heat and drain any excess fat. Allow to cool.

Stir together the milk, egg substitute, mustard powder, salt, peppers and eggs in a large bowl, whisking gently.

Cube bread slices. Add bread, cheese and cooled sausage to egg mixture.

Spray a baking dish (I used a lasagna dish, which is a little deeper, and is about 8x12) with cooking spray, and pour in the mixture. Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours, up to one day.

When ready to bake, pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Remove casserole from fridge and let stand at room temperature for 20-30 minutes.

Sprinkle top of casserole with paprika. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until top is lightly browned and eggs are set. Let stand for at least 10 minutes, and serve. It's also great at room temperature!

Happy Spring!

Now that it's finally warming up again, I'll get back in the saddle and post more food (and fun!) here! I'm excited about some new things I've been trying, some new cookbooks that I've been reading and the impending return (two months isn't long!) of my beloved CSA! Keep your sets tuned in here for coming adventures and an occasional recap of some lovely meals over the winter... Enjoy every last bite!

A Love Letter for My CSA

This Wednesday evening was both happy and sad in my kitchen...it was the end of the season for my CSA with Bull Run Mountain Vegetable Farm.  It's been one heck of a run, as you can see by perusing the posts over the summer.

I am incredibly glad I tried it.  I am even more glad that I did all the research on local CSAs available to me.  The Washington Post Food Section publishes a list of local CSAs every winter, usually in February.  When the 2010 list came out, I narrowed it down to those that deliver in Virginia, then began by looking at all the websites.  I will confess that one didn't get considered because it didn't have a website, even though the description sounded great.  I narrowed it further to those that offer fruit shares, because I wanted to get fruit as well.  I researched and read and explored online and then took a plunge - I emailed Bull Run to inquire about shares.  I got a pleasant email response from a person, Leigh, within a day and a half - and decided that response was enough to make me commit.  A real person was on the end of the line there, and that means something.  I may not go to the bricks-and-mortar bank often, but when I do, I still bank with the same inconvenient credit union because of the people.  I figured this CSA would work for my first run.

On my CSA's website, the farm has a link to an opinion piece about CSAs not being for everyone.  I read all of those details, that you can't always know what you'll get because of the weather and animals eating the greens and onions that refuse to grow, and I thought "I'll try it - I think this is for me."  I know folks who have gone the CSA route and had a wonderful season, but hated the bureaucracy associated with that particular CSA.  I know folks who have had a poor experience with a CSA.  It truly runs the gamut, and you can never know what to expect.  Feeling a little unsure about what to expect from Bull Run, I was relieved that the CSA folks acknowledge that not everyone enjoys the CSA experience.  Thus I entered the experience thinking it would be okay if it was terrible, too - I would just know it's "not for me."

The first day, I showed up, gave my name, got a bag, and walked down the row of bins picking up my vegetables.  Leigh was the guy there checking names, the farmer, the delivery guy - the one-man wonder who served as the face of Bull Run to me.  He was pleasant and full of information about the vegetables and ideas on how to use them, but only offered advice when asked.  He was honest, telling us a few weeks into the season, that the onions weren't growing, and he was going to pull them and give us baby onions.  When I missed my first of two weeks of plums, he gave me extra plums the second week to make up for it because I told him I LOVE plums.  He told us not to saute the sorrel, as it would turn into a gray blob.  Other than that first week, I don't think I told him my name again, but Leigh became a part of my weekly routine.

Now at the end of the summer, I realize I won't be stopping in Alexandria every Wednesday to pick up vegetables, apples and eggs, and I will miss it.  I still have two dozen eggs in the fridge, a bowl full of apples, and - an end of season treat! - honey from Bull Run's bees.  I ate one of the sweet potatoes and an apple from this week's haul already, and as it dwindles down, I'll look back at my pictures of the summer's bounty and smile.  For now I get to eagerly await next spring, when I return to that parking lot, to the fresh eggs, to the wonderful vegetables, and to summer's fruit...when I return to my Bull Run Mountain Vegetable Farm CSA - I can't imagine a better CSA for me.

Curry-ing Favor

So I recently cooked for two, after a long spell of cooking for one.  My proportions seemed a bit off (I had way too much rice!), but the dinner was fun - and it's so much easier to cook for two!

I had some lovely sweet potatoes, some peppers, a load of garlic, some frozen shrimp, canned coconut milk, canned pineapple tidbits, a lime and some jarred Thai red curry.  All the ingredients necessary to concoct a lovely curry...except Jasmine rice.  I did have some sushi rice, and while the short grain is not ideal in my mind, it certain serves the grain's purpose in a curry dish, soaking up some flavors and serving as a conduit of the mixture.

I started by sautéing the peppers and garlic in a little bit of sesame oil.  While these heated and began to soften, I popped the sweet potatoes in the microwave.  While this is a little cheat, it cuts out so much time, making it very appealing for hastening dinner to the table.  They cooked in the microwave, then I peeled and chopped the hot potatoes, and added them and the canned pineapple to the pan with the peppers and garlic.  I also added approximately two teaspoons of the red curry paste.  Stirring and heating, this was making the kitchen smell so yummy!

After most of the water had evaporated from the addition of the pineapple, I added in the frozen shrimp, stirred and let heat for a few minutes.  Then I added in half a can of coconut milk, stirred, and let it cook and mingle the flavors.

I salted the rice, put it in bowls, and topped the rice with the curry.  What a lovely way to use the sweet potatoes, as they took on some of the heat, but maintained their rich flavor and consistency.  A wonderful, and fairly quick, weeknight dinner!

Plums Galore!

This summer I missed a week of my CSA while I was away.  That week there were PLUMS in the fruit share.  I simply adore plums.  The following week, I expressed my excitement about the availability of plums that week, too, as I had missed the first week.  My wonderful CSA farmer exclaimed, "Oh you missed them last week?  Let me give you more!"  And thus I went home with 30 plums.

I am not kidding when I say I love plums, but a person can only eat so many plums in a week, before they start to go bad and get a little soft.  However, finding myself newly interested in making jams, I decided that plum jam could be a lovely adventure!

I pulled peels from the plums, and measured out how much fruit I had, then used a little over one part sugar to two parts fruit (it was about 60% sugar to 100% fruit).  I added some lemon juice and let it cook down.  Those plums broke down quickly into a soupy, sweet, fruity compote, but still required some intensive cooking time to take on that jammy consistency.

Sweet and richly purple, this jam was not very chunky with fruit, but was still very thick and amply fruity.  I quickly used the funnel to pour jam into the sterilized jars.  I sealed them, processed them and let them cool until they made that lovely little POP that told me they had sealed.  One jar went away as a gift, but the other is awaiting opening for some lovely hot biscuits, or perhaps with some pork tenderloin.  I can't wait!

Veggie Chowdah...

So the bounty of late summer left me with a drawer full of veggies in my fridge, and I was thinking about creative ways to use all of them, perhaps even in a manner that I could enjoy later this year!  My mind turned to soups, and I smiled.  I love chowders (or chowdahs, as New Englanders in my life like to say!), so decided I would make a non-traditional veggie chowder.

I started by cutting up all my veggies.  I used potatoes, corn, mushrooms (not from my CSA, but I love mushrooms!), bell peppers, a couple hot peppers, some onions and some garlic.  I started by boiling the potatoes until they were relatively soft.  I then drained them, added some fresh water to the pot, and pureed some of them with my immersion blender.

Separately, I sauteed the mushrooms, then added those.  I then sauteed the onions and garlic together, then when they began to caramelize I added the bell and hot peppers.  I added all of this to my potato mixture, pureed a bit more, and added my corn.  At this point, I added a bit more water and let it cook down a while as the vegetable flavors melded.  To this point, the only seasoning was the hot peppers adding a nice bite to the soup. 

After another quick puree, I added a bit of salt, stirred and cooked.  Then I tasted again, added a bit of cream to make it a touch richer, and stirred.  It was spicy, fresh and rich, with only a touch of cream to make it less healthy. 

I poured most of the soup into freezer containers, and have it in the freezer for later in the fall, and even winter!  Some of it, though, I had to have for dinner then.  It had a nice, slow heat to it, and tasted like a garden of fresh vegetables.  I am excited about enjoying it in the cold weather, too!

Preserving Summer

This summer I enjoyed some of the best peaches EVER.  However, toward the end of the summer, I started to get a little sad about the fact that they would soon be no more.  I pondered how to save them in such a manner that I could enjoy them later in the year - especially when it's cold and dark and there is no fresh, local fruit available!

Some peaches simply got peeled, cut into chunks and frozen.  These will be yummy either in smoothies or just thawed and eaten as-is.  However, I still had a lot of peaches.  Having never experimented with making jams, I figured I might as well!

The experiment began with some exploration of recipes and methods.  I found the University of Georgia's National Center for Home Food Preservation to be very helpful; it had instructions on how to do the actual canning, complete with times for sterilizing jars, processing the jars and how long it should take to cook the jams, even.  For recipes, I trolled the internet and looked through a few cookbooks, too.

Ready to begin, I started by peeling and cutting up my fruit.  I dumped it, along with the sugar and lemon juice, into a dutch oven over medium heat, and stirred as it slowly degraded the fruit.  I used about two parts fruit to one part sugar, with the juice from half of a large lemon (it was a juicy lemon).  This cooked down and cooked down, filling the house with the smell of fresh peaches.

In the meantime, I had the jars boiling to sterilize them.  When the jam seemed ready, based on my using a spoon and seeing how gelatinous the mixture was, I pulled the jars out of the boiling water.  I then used a funnel to dump the jam into the jars, capped them, and quickly put them back in the boiling water to process.

After processing, I removed them and let them sit on the kitchen counter.  A bit later, I was rewarded with a reassuring POP as they sealed.  They are now in the cabinet, awaiting slightly cooler days that call for warm corn muffins, maple butter and fresh peach jam...I can't wait!

Winning Produce

My most recent haul from the CSA brought in lots of  the usual goodies - tomatoes, Thai and Italian basils, zucchini, squash, eggplant, potatoes, garlic and peppers.  

This garlic really is phenomenal - I'm planning to roast a head of it to make some garlic butter - perhaps I'll freeze that to bring me the flavors in the winter.

This week also brought, of course, more peaches!  Every week I keep looking at them, thinking "I'll try a new recipe with the peaches this week."  And every week, I simply cut them up and eat them just as they are.  They've been wonderful with no additions at all.

This week I also got a few more tomatoes, and combined them with a couple more for a slow roast.  I simply cut them in half, sprinkled them with olive oil, salt, a little thyme and a smidgen of sugar and put them in a hot roasting oven.  Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express includes a recipe for what she calls "Moonblush Tomatoes" that she puts in a very hot oven right before bed, and then turns off the oven and leaves the tomatoes in the oven overnight as it cools.  I'm a fan of her methods, and while I toy with the ratios in her recipe, it offers a nice flavor profile.

These tomatoes are slightly roasted, and get just a bit wrinkly as the flavors are concentrated.  I love eating them on their own, but they also make great additions to salads, and are wonderful sauteed a bit and put over pasta.  This is just a generally fantastic way to enjoy some tomatoes!

Ground Cherries, Take 2

A week or so ago I got some ground cherries from my CSA.  I've never eaten one before, much less cooked with them!  I did a bit of research, but unfortunately it appeared that most recipes were for muffins, and a couple for pies.  I didn't have enough for a pie, and muffins seemed as though they'd disguise the true flavor of the fruit - something I did not want for my first adventure with ground cherries.

In the end, I simply peeled the papery skins away from the berry-like golden orbs, and ate them. Mmm...

Do You Have Any Grey Poupon?

While there may be Grey Poupon in my fridge, my biggest fascination (hence the bad joke) is with the mustard greens I got this week. I've never cooked with them before, so I did a little reading!

In the end, I washed my greens well, added them and a little water to a saute pan, and put it over heat. I added a shake of sea salt, covered the pan, and let it go to town over medium to medium-high heat for about 18 minutes...

And then I ate these greens. They were so good, I only wish I'd had more!

Tortilla Espanola

In concept, a tortilla espanola is a Spanish-style egg dish, similar to a frittata, that has potatoes and onions in it. I understand this very well! This time around, I got all the flavors there, but it wasn't pretty.

I started by cutting and boiling the potatoes - they wouldn't cook enough if put into the egg mixture raw! I also chopped some red onion and sauteed it in some oil.

Once the potatoes and onions were ready to go, I cracked open a bunch of eggs, stirred them together, and added in the potatoes and most of the onion. When my bowl of eggy goodness was combined, I heated some oil in a saute pan and then added the egg and veggie mixture and cooked it over medium heat for 10 minutes.

My troubles began at the 10 minutes cooking mark - when I tried to loosen the tortilla from the pan to flip it. Parts of it came away easily, and some parts stuck like crazy. I ended up not being able to flip it well, so it never looked lovely. I simply cooked the parts of it through to doneness.

While it was NOT pretty at all, the flavors were there. This is a fun dish, because once it's cooked you can let it sit - it is actually meant to be eaten at room temperature. I let mine cool a little while I made myself a side dish.

I also had some young broccoli, so I added that to the saute pan with the remaining onions. I added a little bit more oil and some crushed red pepper flakes, and sauteed the broccoli for a few minutes until the green became more vibrant.

This bright color, contrasted with the muted tones of the tortilla espanola, made a lovely plate - and a yummy dinner.

Dinner - tortilla Espanola and broccoli with onions

The First Summer Corn

One evening this week, I realized I still had an ear of corn in the vegetable bin, and wanted to enjoy those fresh kernels of summer. However, with only one ear of it I also knew that would not be enough to be my entire dinner, so I improvised. I sliced the kernels off the corn cob and sauteed them with a little butter. When they were just a little tender and fragrant, I added in my chopped Tokyo Bekana, which is simply a lovely, slightly curly green. (I'm not too proud to admit that I also ate several spoonfuls of corn kernels at this point, as well.)

Corn and Tokyo Bekana

I also cooked up some little cheese ravioli to add a bit of protein to the plate. When the pasta was done cooking, and the greens were softening a bit, I added a few spoons of ricotta to the pan with the greens and corn. I then dumped in the pasta.

After about another minute of stirring it together, the ricotta began to soften and melt, making a sauce that held the greens and corn to the pasta, melding it into a plateful of light, summery scrumptiousness.

Ravioli with Ricotta, Corn and Tokyo Bekana