Baba Ganoush

I'm a bit late in sharing this recipe with you all.  I had made this several weeks ago when eggplants were still coming in my CSA share, but finishing up the post somehow fell through the cracks. Better late than never I suppose!

Hummus has always been my go to homemade dip, but now that it is pretty much as ubiquitous as salsa, I do tire of it after a while. While baba ganoush is a bit more complex to make (as complex as roasting an eggplant can be...) it makes for a nice change. The ingredients are pretty much the same as hummus, but the eggplant gives this dip a lighter texture and flavor than you get with chickpeas. 

Salsa Verde

I had promised myself that I'd try to do something interesting with the tomatillos, but after another busy week that included a three day business trip to Minnesota, I needed to get these used before they went bad, so I phoned it in with possibly the most common tomatillo recipe out there; salsa verde.

Salsa verde is made using a different technique than other salsas. Instead of dicing up the vegetables and mixing them together raw, all the ingredients are boiled together and then blended to make what is basically a chunky sauce. One of the reasons why its done this way is that tomatillos have a lot of pectin in them which is released by the boiling. Then when the mixture cools the pectin acts as a thickener, giving you salsa instead of tomatillo soup.

Pickled Vegetable Slaw

Fall weather is descending fast around here marking the start of my favorite part of the year. This stretch from mid-September through to the end of the year brings so much of what I love about food and cooking. The big holiday feasts are always the main events of the season, but there are so many smaller events and activities before those that keep me plenty busy. Today’s activity comes from the desire to hold onto the bright, beautiful flavors of summer before they disappear until next year. Already, my freezer is stocked with blanched vegetables (beans, corn, etc.) that take well to freezing, but for those that are best when raw it’s time to break out the pickling jars again.

I read about this technique of pickling mixed vegetable slaw a few months back on Smitten Kitchen, and it jumped to the front of my mind when I did a clean out of the fridge to find a big bell pepper, a lone carrot and a whole bunch of radishes from past CSA shares that have been languishing. To that I added a couple small bell peppers that my backyard plants managed to produce despite looking pretty worn out, as well as a red onion to complete the medley of vegetables for this slaw.

Eggplant Caponata

What a day today! We've had veggies from the CSA slowly building up over the last couple weeks and I decided to put some serious effort to use them up before more comes in this week. First, the remaining cucumbers went into another batch of bread and butter pickles (the first batch of which turned out fantastically by the way). My next target was 3 pounds of yellow squash that I used to make a triple batch of fritters. I used the same recipe as before, but this time mixed in chopped Swiss chard that I sauteed with a clove of garlic and the last of the hot peppers. By tripling the recipe, I ended up with 12 big fritters, most of those will be frozen for a future meal. After all that work, there was still eggplant and several bell peppers left to use, and from that I decided to make caponata.

Caponata is a Sicilian dish centered around eggplant that is cooked until very soft with a variety of other vegetables in a sweet, vinegary sauce. In addition to the eggplant, a traditional caponata should have celery and capers in the mix, but after that there are many other things you could add depending on your taste. Bell pepper was already in for me, and to that I added onion, tomato, garlic and olives. This is a fairly simple dish to make and it gets better with age, which is good because the eggplant I had was rather large, and when all was complete I had close to 2 quarts of caponata. We typically eat this as a snack on chips or slices of baguette, though it can be used as a side dish and will go quite well with seafood.

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Eggplant
Bell Pepper

Ingredients
6 cups eggplant, cubed
1 tbs kosher salt
Olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup green olives, chopped
1-1/2 cups canned crushed tomato
3 tbs capers, rinsed
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tbs sugar
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup fresh basil, finely chopped.

Preparation

Toss the cubed eggplant with 1 tbs salt and then place in a colander over a bowl and let sit for 15 minutes so the salt can draw some of the water out of the eggplant. When the time is up, give the eggplant a quick rinse with fresh water and allow to drain completely. Spread the eggplant on a sheet pan and season with pepper and drizzle with olive oil, toss to coat then roast in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. Remove and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat one tablespoon of oil over medium heat in a large nonstick skillet, then add the onion, bell pepper and celery and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic, season with salt and pepper and cook for another minute. Add the eggplant to the pan and cook, stirring for another 5 minutes, until the vegetables are tender and the eggplant starts to fall apart.

Add the crushed tomatoes to the pan along with the capers, olives, sugar and vinegar. Bring to a simmer then turn the heat to low and cook, stirring often, for 20 to 30 minutes, until the vegetables are very tender and the mixture is quite thick and fragrant. Stir in the basil and season to taste with salt and pepper. Allow to cool to room temperature before serving.

Bread & Butter Pickles

My last attempt at pickling was a reasonable success; great flavor, but less than desirable texture. A bit of post pickling research revealed that the method I used (lacto-fermentation) will typically result in a softer texture. I prefer my pickles to have more crunch to them, and the sweeter "bread and butter" variety are a favorite of mine, so that's what I'm trying to make this time. The brine used here is very different from my previous batch, which was just salt and water. This brine is based on vinegar and includes sugar as well as a variety of spices. One other big difference is that the salt water brine is poured over the cucumbers at room temperature, while this vinegar brine is poured while still hot. Lastly, this recipe goes straight in the refrigerator for a week, while the salt water method sat on the counter for just 2-3 days to complete the pickling process. The recipe I used below is a slightly altered version of this one from Alton Brown.

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Cucumber

Ingredients
1/2 of a sweet onion, thinly sliced
2-3 medium cucumbers, thinly sliced
1 cup water
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 cups sugar
Pinch of kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1/2 teaspoon pickling spice

Pickling spice is a blend of spices that add a lot of subtle flavors and aromas to your brine. The spices in the blend are whole and the type and ratio of spices can vary with the different blends that are available. I went with McCormick Pickling Spice that contains cinnamon, allspice, mustard seed, coriander, bay leaf, ginger, chilies, cloves, pepper, mace and cardamon (whew!). I'm sure that serious picklers make their own blends, but store bought is fine for me!

Preparation

Combine onion and cucumber slices into clean mason jars (I needed two 24oz jars to fit everything). You want the jars full, but not packed too tightly. In a small saucepan, combine the water, vinegar, sugar, salt and spices and then bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes to allow time for the spices to infuse into the liquid. Carefully pour the hot pickling liquid into your jars with the cucumbers and onion slices, completely filling the jar. I always make a mess when trying to pour slowly out of a pan, so I first transferred the hot liquid to a quart sized measuring cup so the spout would make control of the pour easier. Allow the liquid to cool to room temperature before closing the tops of the jars. Refrigerate the pickles for a week before trying. They should keep for about 2 months in the refrigerator.

The brine smelled fantastic as I poured it in the jars, and I have a good feeling that these bread and butter pickles are going to be really good. Check back in a week or so and I will update with the results.

Homemade Sour Dill Pickles

My local farmer's market (which I'll admit I spend much less time at now that I get most of my produce from a CSA) has a pickle vendor that's been there for years. They sell all manner of pickled vegetables as well as olives, all made from scratch in their local pickle factory (factory?...now I can't help but picture a Willie Wonka style building with rivers of brine flowing through it. Weird) Anyway, I had never bought anything from this vendor until a month or so ago when my wife and I were chatting with a friend we bumped into that was in line to buy pickles and we ended up trying a couple samples. 

Wow! Instantly I was hooked. What an amazing difference between these fresh, homemade pickles and the name brand pickles I've been eating forever (you know the ones, with the goofy Groucho Marx impersonating stork). I bought some to take home, but they were not cheap and I knew that if I was to enjoy fresh pickles on a regular basis then I better start making my own. The pickled scallions I made a while back worked out very well, so I was confident that I could start churning out fantastic pickles in no time! Of course, I then promptly forgot all about it until last week when my wife emailed me a link to an article in the New York Times that described a method to make basic sour pickles in only a few days with a minimum of work and ingredients. The stars completed their alignment when my week 11 share included a trio of plump pickling cucumbers. To the pickle factory!  Oompa loompa doopity doo.....

Adapted from the New York Times.

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Pickling cucumbers

Ingredients
1 pound freshly picked pickling cucumbers
1 clove garlic, sliced thin
3 sprigs fresh dill
2 tablespoons kosher salt

Preparation

Bring two cups of water to a boil and add the salt, stirring until completely dissolved.  Remove from the heat and add two cups of ice then stir until the ice melts and the brine has cooled to at least room temperature. While the brine cools, clean the cucumbers well then slice a little off each end. Cut cucumbers into spears. You can also leave them whole or slice them into chips as well.  Whatever you prefer. Place the cucumbers into one or two clean glass jars along with the garlic and dill sprigs. Pour the cooled brine into the jar(s), covering the cucumbers completely. Discard any remaining brine. Loosely cap jars and place in a bowl on your counter to catch any leaks during fermentation. Fermentation should start within 24 hours and the brine will turn cloudy and start making bubbles. During this time, the garlic may turn a greenish color but don't worry as that is just the way it reacts to the brine and it will not harm you or the pickles. Let sit on the counter for 2 days before tasting. If you want them to be more sour, leave them for another 1-2 days. When you are happy with the taste, place in the refrigerator to stop the fermentation. They should keep for up to a month in the refrigerator.

July 21 - Update on the results. The picture below is how the jar looked after about 20 hours, and after two days the pickles were sour enough for my taste. I discovered that this recipe does not result in pickles that are very crunchy, in fact they were a bit too soft for me even though the flavor was very nice; slightly sour with a hint of dill and garlic. Seems that soft pickles is what you get using this fermentation method and to get crisp pickles, a more involved process is required involving hot pickling brine and actual canning equipment. Maybe a bit too involved for me, but we'll see... There's a nice article on npr.com that talks about how to make crisp pickles with several links to other resources as well.

Zucchini Fritters

Mid July and the zucchinis have started their annual campaign to take over the world. I still had a couple left from the week 10 share and then the week 11 arrives with bonus extra zucchini! And I thought I could avoid the zucchini stampede by not planting any in my garden...silly Ben. Anyway, it is what it is and to keep up with the influx I need recipes that use up a lot of zucchini at once, so my thoughts on the topic quickly turned to fritters. 

Once you shred the zucchini and remove the excess water (more on that below), a pound of them will yield only 7-8 small fritters, so if you are cooking for a group you can easily use up a couple pounds of zucchini. They also freeze well, up to 3 months if well wrapped, so double or triple the recipe and you'll be set with a quick snack or side dish for weeks. Just pop them in a 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes or until they are heated through and crisp.

The recipe I used below is from smitten kitchen.

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Zucchini (I had yellow ones, they taste the same as the green)

Ingredients
1 pound zucchini, shredded
1 tsp kosher salt
2 scallions, sliced thin
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

Salt and pepper to taste
Oil for frying (I used olive oil)

Preparation

Heat your oven to 200 degrees and place a sheet pan inside. Wash the zucchini and trim off the ends. Using the shredding disk in your food processor or the coarse side of a box grater, shred the zucchini. 

Place the shreds in a colander and mix with the kosher salt, then set the colander over a bowl for 10-15 minutes to allow the salt to draw out some of the excess water. Transfer the zucchini to a clean tea towel then roll up the towel, trapping the zucchini inside. Over your sink, wring the towel as hard as you can to squeeze out more water. You'll be amazed how much will come out (zucchini is mostly made up of water) and this is essential to good fritters because if you skip this step the final result will be very mushy and not as flavorful. 

Remove the zucchini from the towel and place in a clean bowl with the scallions then season to taste with salt (go easy as there will be salt remaining from the water removal) and pepper. Mix in the egg, then combine the flour and baking powder, add to the zucchini and mix well. Heat the oil over medium heat in large, heavy skillet until it starts to shimmer. Place 3 or 4 dollops of the zucchini mixture in the pan and flatten them slightly to form rough disks around 3 inches in diameter.

Cook for 3-4 minutes until nicely browned then flip and cook for another 3-4 minutes. Move to a sheet pan in the warm oven while you cook the rest of the fritters. Serve hot with your choice of dipping sauce.  I mixed some sour cream with salt, pepper and a bit of lemon juice for a cool, tangy accompaniment. Use your imagination as the fritters will go well with spicy or sweet sauces also. 

Mango Salsa

Because everybody likes to say salsa! More importantly, everyone likes to EAT salsa, everyone I know at any rate.  Personally, my favorite salsas have a sweet element to them and when shopping for a jar I tend to look for a mango or pineapple variety. Since I was looking for a way to use the fresh onion in my last share and mangoes are plentiful at the store lately, it seemed that the time was right to come up with my own recipe for mango salsa. The ingredients here are all pretty standard for salsa.  The red and yellow bell pepper I had on hand, but you can use any color, though I suggest that no more than half the pepper be green. I used a Serrano chili as I am a bit of a wimp with spicy salsa, but if you prefer more spice go for jalapeno or habanero if you dare!

Those of you who have ever tried to peed and chop a mango know how slippery they can be. A trick I've learned to help hang on is to stick a corn holder into one end of the mango.  That way you always have a easy to hold handle that will make peeling and cutting the flesh off the pit much easier. And as a bonus, you can hold it like a popsicle and eat any remaining fruit right off the pit!

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White onion
Tomato

Ingredients
1 ripe mango, peeled and diced
1 cup Diced bell pepper
1/2 cup Minced white onion
1 small Serrano or jalapeño pepper, minced
3/4 cup fresh tomato, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
Fresh lime or lemon juice to taste

Preparation

Combine everything in a bowl and allow it to sit for at least 30 minutes for the flavors to meld.

Kale Chips

I guess I've been living under a rock with respect to the kale chip fad that has been going on for the last few years. I sampled some at a Whole Foods a couple weeks back and they were quite tasty but also cost more than my car! Okay, bit of an exaggeration there, but at $6.99 for a bag, they must be very complex and time consuming to make, right? WRONG! Couldn't be easier. The process boils down to four steps: clean, tear, season, and bake (maybe 5 steps if you count eat). I’m not sure why they cost so much in the store, but if kale chips are something you enjoy, then you should try making them yourself. Spend $2 on a bunch of fresh kale and put the $5 you saved towards some other overpriced food fad that you can’t quickly make at home.

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All the kale

Heat your oven to 300 degrees.  Wash and dry the kale, remove and discard the stems and then tear the leaves into bite sized pieces.  Toss the leaves with just enough olive oil to give them a light coating.  You want them covered, but not dripping with oil.  Toss the oiled leaves with salt and/or other seasonings (see below) then spread in a single layer on a sheet pan.  Bake for around 20 minutes, or until crisp, keeping an eye on them to ensure they don't burn.  Once cool, store in an airtight container.

Here are the other seasonings I tried with this batch in addition to the salt.
Garlic powder
Chili Powder
Cider vinegar (add with the oil before baking)

My personal favorite were the garlic chips, but they all had nice flavor to them. Go easy on the salt and seasonings, as a little can go a long way. An added bonus was that my almost 3 year old daughter seems to like them as well. Anything to get her eating more vegetables!