100% Juice

I’m not sure what I’m going to do when my CSA is done for the season and I have to go back to grocery store produce. Don’t get me wrong, we live near a really nice grocery store but when there are 12 inches of snow on the ground, you know those tomatoes were not grown locally. Maybe we will just relocate to a place where it is always growing season. My best friend is reading this like “I know a place! I know a place!”

Oh well, winter is coming. But it’s not here yet so I better just keep enjoying the fresh stuff! Today I juiced some farm fresh spinach. I have been juicing for my family for roughly 2 ½ years and although I wish I did, I don’t do it every day because it does take some time. Maybe if I were one of those super organized moms that brings home the groceries and immediately scrubs and preps all produce and stores it all in a gorgeous array of labeled, stack-able containers so all I had to do is feed it into the juicer… But I’m not. We probably have fresh juice about 4 times a week.

Spinach is a pretty common juice ingredient here and I normally buy it at my favorite wholesaler along with our apples and carrots that are also common ingredients for us. When you get it in the bag, triple washed and sealed for freshness, or something like that, it’s ok but there are always broken leaves or leaves that didn’t get enough drying time so they are wet and wilting, etc. Honestly, it never really mattered to me because I was about to pulverize the juice out of it but now I know, there’s better spinach. Once again, the spinach in my CSA box was like food art. The color was perfect, beautifully sized, unbruised leaves of spinach. I almost didn’t want to juice them, like it was a waste of pretty food or something! I’m glad I did though! Even after juicing as long as I have, I still prefer a sweeter juice. Apples add a ton of sweetness and the veggies I used today also have a sweet side. My 1-year old drank his whole cup in like 2 minutes. There are few things more satisfying to consume than something that is fresh, honestly healthy, and truly delicious!

It’s Easy Being Green Juice

2 large crisp apples (crisp is kind of important, soft apples go through the juicer and yield more of an apple sauce than apple juice)

3 small carrots

3 stalks celery

3 handfuls fresh spinach

Clean all produce and cut to fit your style juicer. Process juice and serve immediately.

Nothing to Write Home About

My apologies to any of you who have been waiting on a new post; I know I have been slacking for a couple days now. Honestly, you haven’t missed much. I have only really “cooked” dinner once in the past four days… One night, I asked my daughter what she wanted for dinner and her response was bacon. I think I am creating a bit of a monster here though. When I asked what she wanted with the bacon, “eggs! But just the white eggs.” Yep, my 3-year old has a specific egg order, egg whites only.

We also had pizza delivered one night and tonight I served the kids frozen peas right out of the bag with deli salami and buttered noodles. Frozen peas out of the bag is actually pretty common here. My kids love peas and it must be more fun if they are frozen. But I just haven’t had a lot of creativity to share with the world these past few days.

A contributing factor to my lack of kitchen spunk may be that our refrigerator is still not working. We currently have an old standard refrigerator in our garage to prevent me from having to grocery shop every day while we sort out a little drama with our home warranty company and the repair service. The up side to not having a refrigerator in the house, you just don’t eat as much! I have to go down a half flight of stairs and across the garage to get to the fridge which is just enough of an inconvenience to make me evaluate if I really want a snack, or cream in my coffee, or jelly on my toast, or if I’m just going to skip it this time.

Seriously though, I’m so spoiled. I really just want a glass of filtered ice water! It has been years since I have not had ice and water in the refrigerator door and I so want it back! What is that saying? “First world problems”

Accidental Success!

I wasn’t even going to blog about this soup. I was just trying to use up some veggies and avoid going to the grocery store in the pouring rain and light hail. But as I was devouring my second bowl and thinking, “maybe I should write this one down”, I decided there was no better place to write it than here!

For as much as I love soup, I have only made a handful of soup recipes that live up to my apparent high soup standards. This is one of those; nailed this one!

So even though this soup is from scratch, I only spent about 35-40 minutes making it. I’m really loving the fresh tomato and bell pepper mix. The pepper adds a touch of sweet, which compliments the acidic tomatoes so well, and blending the two together ensures that subtle flavor flows through the whole soup. And equally as important, no bites of hot, mushy pepper trailed by a piece of detaching pepper skin.

My next favorite ingredient here is the Swiss chard. Now, this is my first time having chard and I didn’t even read up on it before I concluded it would work in soup. This stuff is gorgeous though. It came in my CSA box and half of the bunch had a vibrant yellow stalk and the other had a burgundy stalk. All of the leaves were such a deep green color with burgundy veins running into them; seriously, they were like food art. Not knowing anything about chard and what kind of texture that stalk would have, I cut the stalk out and ran it through my juicer with some apples, carrots and romaine. Another tasty treat and those stalks gave the juice a fantastic red color. As for the soup, I cut the leaves in to manageable bites and threw them in right before I served. Perfect! They held up better than spinach does but they still wilted nicely and had no bitterness at all!

I’m telling you now, if there is Swiss chard in next week’s box, this soup is on next week’s meal plan!

Tomato Veggie Soup with Andouille Sausage

3 garden tomatoes

1/2 red bell pepper 

2 cloves garlic

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 Andouille sausage, sliced

½ leftover grilled chicken breast, chopped

    (I was just trying to use it up, turned out delicious)

1 clove garlic, minced

3 carrots, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

2 leaves Swiss chard, stalk removed

   and cut into 1 inch pieces

2 cups water

1 beef bouillon cube

1 chicken bouillon cube

1 Tbsp dried basil

1 bay leaf

1 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

Small pasta of choice, cooked per package directions

Blend first 3 ingredients until smooth, set aside

Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add Andouille and allow to brown, about 3 minutes

Add carrots and celery, allow to sweat about 5 minutes. Add minced garlic and cook 1 minute more

Pour in water and season with bouillon cubes, basil, bay leaf, salt and pepper

Bring to a simmer and add tomato purée. Cook until carrots are tender. Add salt if needed. (If using, add grilled chicken and heat through)

Remove from heat and stir in chard. Serve over prepared pasta

Looks are not Enough

You may recall a post of mine not so very long ago when I discussed making food look appealing in order to help my kids enjoy it. Yeah, that doesn’t always work.

This past weekend, my sweet neighbor and new friend brought over some produce that her family wasn’t going to eat and she thought I could put it to some good use. She had bought red cabbage and rainbow carrots in hopes of the color enticing her little girl to eat some more veggies. Sounds like the purple color wasn’t enough at her house either.

The rainbow carrots were pretty simple to get my kids to eat. Where have these things been all my life? Have you ever cut open a purple carrot? These were yellow on the inside! I sliced one, told my daughter it looked like a flower on the inside and ta-da! It was a cooler way to eat carrots!

Red cabbage was not so easy… I decided to make some braised red cabbage and serve it with bratwurst. Both of my kids love brats so should have been an easy sell. I’m thinking “what little girl doesn’t want to eat something purple?” My little girl is thinking “that is new and I’m not touching it with a stick”.

I rather enjoyed the braised cabbage. The first time I had braised cabbage, my mom had made it and I was hooked right away. It is a really simple recipe but it takes about an hour to cook the cabbage down. During that hour, the cabbage comes to this perfect blend of sweet and tart and it just melts like butter without being mushy. The apples and onions all but disappear, just leaving their delicate sweetness behind. It really is tasty and so colorful! It looks great on a plate!

I think the way I made it is pretty standard for this relatively common dish but here’s what I had just in case:

1/2 head red cabbage, cut in thin strips

1 Braeburn apple, peeled, cored and cut in thin strips

1 yellow onion, cut in thin strips

1 tbsp butter

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp ground allspice

Salt and pepper

Melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes.

Add apple slices, cook 1 minute more, then add cabbage. Sprinkle cabbage with allspice, salt and pepper then pour in vinegar. Stir to coat cabbage then cover and reduce heat to low.

Simmer 1 hour. Add additional salt if needed. Serve warm.

Pickled Pink

Well, eggplant finally did it! It found a way to make me want more. Pickled Eggplant, who knew?!

I’m thinking this might be the most unique appetizer ever served at my house. It seems exotic and a little sophisticated. It is extremely easy to prepare; you just have to wait… All the flavors need time to saturate those little eggplant pieces.

There is also the fact that I cannot resist a fresh French Baguette... I LOVE crusty fresh bread! And the baguette soaks up all the spicy, garlicy oil the eggplant has been bathing in.

The recipe I used, I found on Chowhound.com by Ali LaRaia. It is so worth a try if you are looking for a little appetizer adventure!

Nice Butt, I mean Shoulder… Wait, What?

Where do I begin? Pulled pork. That’s it, nothing more needs to be said…

When it is done right (and there is more than one right way), I love this stuff! Can’t get enough! To the point that I don’t need anything on the side, just pile that tender, savory meat on a bun and away I go!

Pulled pork was not originally on the meal plan this week but when the refrigerator stops cooling and you have to clean out the freezer to defrost the whole thing… well, you can’t throw away 7 and a half pounds of awesome!

Most often, I buy my pork shoulder at my favorite wholesaler in a twin pack, boneless. I always vacuum seal and freeze one and the other one I do in my slow cooker. It’s so simple; I rub it with dry rub, pop it in the slow cooker on a bed of onion slices, clove of garlic and beef bouillon cube, add a cup of water and we are only 10 hours away from succulent pork! I really think the secret is to not open the slow cooker, for any reason, for 10 hours. The one we enjoyed tonight had cooked overnight, worked perfectly. This pork shoulder came from a big sale at our local grocery store and had a bone. It literally slid out of the meat when I picked it up… SO tender!

Once the meat is cooked, I pull it with my fingers. I love what cooking the shoulder with the fat on does for the flavor of the meat but I do not want to bite a chunk of that… So I discard as much fat as I can while I’m shredding the meat. And of course there is all that meat juice! I run the cooking liquid through a fine mesh strainer and put it back in the slow cooker. Keeps the meat nice and juicy for serving. Doing it this way, I was able to pack a small thermos of pork for my husband’s lunch and the kids and I were able to enjoy it for dinner.

After her third plate tonight, my daughter says “Can we have this again the day after this day?” (which means tomorrow in sweet little girl language). And the answer is, ABSOLUTELY! Because we started with 7 ½ pounds of meat! This stuff reheats wonderfully! A couple of my favorite uses for left over pulled pork; Cuban Sandwiches and Pork Tacos. If you’ve never had a Cuban Sandwich – they are delicious! I like to do mine panini style on artisan bread with ham, provolone, pulled pork, sweet pickles and spicy brown mustard. Sweet, tangy, salty, melty, spicy… hold please, have to clean up some drool. My pulled pork tacos are topped with shredded mozzarella and homemade coleslaw. The crunch is awesome! And there is something about the cold, creamy slaw mixing with the warm salty pork… oops, more drool…

Failed Experiment: Eggplant Barbecue Sauce

I know, you read that heading and thought, “well obviously that failed, gross!” But here’s the thing, it was good, it just wasn’t barbecue sauce!
 

A few weeks ago, I had a surplus of zucchini (because who doesn’t in August) and I had already baked four loaves of zucchini bread. So I decided to toss my last zucchini into the blender with my other tomato sauce ingredients. As I simmered my tomato sauce, the zucchini really helped to thicken it and didn’t seem to change the flavor much.

When I had a spare, almost ready to expire, eggplant laying around (go figure…), my logic was; zucchini and eggplant go well together, they cook similarly, maybe it will work to put eggplant in barbecue sauce! I sent my husband a text message at this point; “This will either be genius or disgusting – eggplant barbecue sauce!” He did not respond :)

Experiment: Eggplant Barbecue Sauce

Question:

Can I use eggplant to thicken barbecue sauce?

Background Research:

I read various barbecue recipes because I have never made it completely from scratch. I found that a lot of them call for ketchup, which is what I have used as a base for some Tennessee Whiskey BBQ, but I didn’t want the thickness of ketchup for this – that’s what the eggplant was for! So I also read a handful of ketchup recipes to get some seasoning suggestions.

Hypothesis:

Adding eggplant to homemade barbecue sauce with thicken the sauce without significantly altering the flavor, resulting in a smooth, thick sauce to be used on various grilled foods, wraps and sandwiches.

Experiment:

Ingredients:

1 eggplant, peeled and cut in 1 inch cubes

1 green pepper, cut in 1 inch pieces

2 stalks celery, cut in 1 inch pieces

1 large carrot, cut in 1 inch pieces

1 medium onion, cut in 1 inch pieces

3-4 tomatoes, quartered

2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

Juice of 1/2 lemon

3 tbsp Worcestershire 

1 cup Tennessee Whiskey

1 cup apple cider vinegar

1 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp paprika

1 tbs garlic powder

1 tbsp onion powder

1 1/2 tbsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

I roughly chopped all of the vegetables. I started by heating a tablespoon of oil in a large pot and sweating my vegetables. I actually let them brown slightly, hoping to get a depth of flavor into the sauce. Next, I added the rest of the ingredients and brought it all to a simmer. After 30 minutes or so, I transferred the sauce to a blender and blended until smooth. Then I returned the sauce to the pan and continued simmering for about 90 minutes.

Analysis:

The sauce tasted good. It had a nice mix of sweet and tang to it. The consistency was thick, but pureed soup thick, not as smooth as a bottled barbecue sauce. I did not notice an eggplant flavor, however, my husband said he could taste it. My husband and I agreed that it tasted exactly like sloppy joes. And that is exactly what I made with it!

Conclusions:

When you make homemade barbecue sauce, don’t you want it to be like the most amazing sauce you have ever tried because you just spent like 2 hours and a piece of your soul trying to get it just right? Yeah, this sauce failed to become the barbecue sauce dreams are made of. Turned out to be a good way to get my kids to eat eggplant though! They were some good sloppy joes!

Teaching Kids to Play with Their Food 

Ever heard the saying, “you eat with your eyes first”? I think that saying rings most true for small children. The simplest things like which direction the sandwich is cut or the color of the plate the food is on, can make or break meal time.

The saying is true for adults too. We want things that taste good to look good and we are drawn to fun presentations of food. Football parties with football-shaped cheese spread, fruit salad in a watermelon basket, cupcake towers, I mean seriously, Pinterest is exploding with food presentation ideas!

My husband and I have received numerous compliments on how well our kids eat. Sometimes they say we are lucky, and we are lucky, but that’s not why our kids eat well. It has taken a lot of effort, time and playing on our part to help them learn to try and enjoy their food. On many occasions, we had to convince them to try the same food like 6 times, despite the fact they liked it the first time. And there are still battles from time to time (see “Rat Patootie” – colored zucchini). Overall, both of our kids are good eaters and we continue to work with them keep them eating well.

That’s where “flower plates” come in. The first time I made my daughter a flower plate, we had battled over nap time. I knew she needed a nap and I was tired from being up with her baby brother all night. The process of going to sleep was not relaxing. So once she finally did go to sleep, I got to work designing her a flower plate. She adored it and asked for a flower plate every day for lunch for about a week after that.

Flower plates are fun for me to put together. I really enjoy picking out foods for their color to arrange on the plate. It is easy enough to put together a balanced meal and it doesn’t really take a lot of time – nothing needs to be cooked. And honestly, there is nothing better than watching my daughter get excited about something I made for her!

The Bounteous Box

I know I have been a little rough on my CSA box for giving me so much eggplant. I still have unused eggplant with no particular destination in mind… But there is far more in the CSA box than eggplant!

My family’s journey to joining a CSA started with our chiropractor. My husband and I started seeing her for back pain and at that time, I thought that was all chiropractic helped with, back pain. I was quite under informed on that front. I learned a great deal about how regular chiropractic care helps your entire body function better and I also learned a ton about in nutrition the process.

Now, I’m not an expert and I do not only eat foods for their nutritional value. I still have a thing for butter. And bacon. And chocolate. And… well, you get the idea. However, I try to take nutrition into consideration ultimately because I want to teach my children to do the same. To be healthy is such an amazing gift and it is one I want to teach my children to take care of.

Joining a CSA was the next step in eating a little bit better. Not to mention, the adventures it was going to inspire in the kitchen! We are 4 weeks into the CSA (we joined half way through the season due to us relocating this summer) and it has been fabulous! The tomatoes alone have been something to write home about (or blog about…)

There have been pickled green beans, braised collard greens, roasted beets and eggplant dishes galore coming out of my kitchen. The best part is, there are still 6 weeks to go! My whole family has been trying dishes we have never had before and I have done more online research on preparing and storing fresh vegetables that ever before. I love it!

If you’re not familiar with the CSA process, each week I pick up a box of freshly picked produce right at the farm. The box is filled with whatever is ready now so contents vary week to week. Here’s the list for this week; an overflowing pint of cherry tomatoes, 8 tomatoes of various types, 1 large zucchini, 4 Thai eggplants, 1 Japanese eggplant, 1 bunch broccoli, roughly ½ pound green beans, 5 golden beets, 1 bunch collard greens, 2 heads garlic and roughly 3 pounds of red potatoes. All organically grown as well.

Remember how I said I still have a thing for bacon? This list is begging me to go buy pound! Blanched green beans thrown into a pan of hot bacon grease and fresh minced garlic, topped with crispy bacon bits! Braised collards with smoky bacon, not traditional southern style as I understand it but still delicious! Broccoli salad with cauliflower, red onion, cheddar cheese and bacon bits, covered in creamy, sweet-tangy dressing! Oooooo, I bet those red potatoes would play nice with bacon too!!! A box of bacon friends, this one is.

Despite my grumbling about the eggplant surplus, the possibilities that come from the CSA each week are endless. Who knows, the next thing I try might make me beg for more eggplant! And those golden beets; I’ve never had golden beets. I am about to learn and taste something new!

For the Love in Soup

The reason I made chicken noodle soup yesterday and the reason I didn’t get this posted yesterday are one and the same; my 3 year old daughter has a cold. She’s a trooper though. Other than some difficulty sleeping and quite a bit of snot, you wouldn’t even know she was sick.

Never the less, when she woke up all congested, that was enough motivation for chicken noodle soup.

It seems most everyone, or most everyone’s grandmother, mother, aunt, etc. has a recipe for chicken noodle soup. I just wanted to bring up the main ingredient in a homemade chicken noodle soup – LOVE! We don’t make chicken noodle soup for ourselves when we are sick. At least I don’t. Standing over a pot of soup, wiping snot on your sleeve and trying not to cough just takes away from the “feel good” power of homemade soup. But we make it for those we love.

It also makes those we love feel loved. My little girl told me that she loves chicken noodle soup. She loves it, because it is filled with love.

Yes, the savory broth helps to soothe a sore throat and hot bowl can chase away chills. Chicken noodle soup physically makes us feel better when we are sick. But there’s more to it than that. When someone takes the time to make you soup, they are showing you that they care about how you feel; that it is worth their time to help you feel better. And there is love in the soup they made!

I can remember my mom making chicken noodle soup when I was a kid. She always used "kluski" noodles. Very thick noodles and quite perfect for holding up in a broth based soup. They were always my favorite part as a kid. Thank you mom, for making me chicken noodle soup!

My recipe varies based on how much time I have and what I have on hand. Most often, I boil some dark meat chicken with the bone in and use the cooking liquid to build my broth. The particular batch pictured above has grilled chicken breast (delicious in soup) but the broth is bouillon cube based, rather than from stock.

No matter how you make it, make it with love and it will warm someone's heart!

“Rat Patootie”

If there are any die hard Disney fans reading, did you catch it? “It sounds like “rat” and “patootie”, rat patootie! Which does not sound delicious.” (Disney’s Ratatouille, 2007).

May not sound delicious, but as is the case in the movie, I discovered that Ratatouille is indeed delicious!

You’ll never guess what was in my CSA box… yep, eggplant! It’s starting to grow on me (but hopefully it’s almost done growing for the season… hopefully). But I think the person packing my box this time was thinking Ratatouille because there was also zucchini, summer squash and bell pepper, all common Ratatouille ingredients. So really, I had no choice!

From my online reading, Ratatouille is a French stew. It is often made and let to simmer until the cubed vegetables soften and more or less become one. Then served as a side dish. Well that didn’t entirely work for me. First of all, this approach was not going to result in something that looked like what is served in the Disney movie and I was really banking on that as a tool to get my daughter to try it. Second, if I was putting in the time to make this look like a Disney movie, I wanted a whole meal, not just a side so in comes some andouille sausage (drool).

First thing I learned while making this, there is value in the right size pan, which I apparently don’t own for this particular dish. To have the concentric appearance from the movie, I started with a 9” round casserole. When I finished layering that and still had a mountain of sliced veggies, I added a 11”x7” baking pan. And we are still having stir fry with the lesser mountain of left over sliced veggies.

As I mentioned earlier, the end result was indeed delicious! Served over couscous and topped with a touch of shredded Parmesan. At least in my opinion. Despite letting my daughter watch the movie while I was making this, we still had a battle over trying this new dish. She did end up eating 8 slices of the “colored zucchini” and most of the sausage off of my plate. Overall, mama is happy she tried it.

Ratatouille

1 Japanese eggplant, thinly sliced

1 summer squash, thinly sliced

1 zucchini, thinly sliced

1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced

8 oz andouille sausage, sliced into rounds

2 cups tomato sauce (recipe follows)

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp dried thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

Tomato Sauce

4 to 5 tomatoes, cored (I used a variety of garden tomatoes from my CSA box)

2 cloves garlic

½ red onion, chunked

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp oregano

Dash red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

For the Sauce: Add all ingredients to a blender, process until very smooth

For the Ratatouille: Preheat oven to 375°F

Pour tomato sauce into bottom of large baking dish (I believe a 14.5” oval dish for concentric pattern would work or a 9”x13” rectangle to do lines would be great too. It is probably possible to layer the sliced vegetables closer together than I did, allowing more to fit in a smaller pan)

Line the top of the sauce with the vegetables and sausage in a continuous pattern (i.e. zucchini, eggplant, summer squash, bell pepper, sausage, repeat) starting at the outside of the pan and moving inward to the center (or left to right if using a rectangular pan). There will most likely be vegetables left over

Drizzle olive oil over the top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and top with thyme leaves

Cover with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside the pan. You want the vegetables to cook through without browning

Bake in preheated oven until vegetables are tender, about 45 – 60 minutes

Serve with couscous, brown rice, or crusty bread

Adapted from The Comfort of Cooking

Does this happen to anyone else? When you set your laptop up next to a platter of homemade chocolate chip cookies, do they disappear?

What did you say your name was?

My name is Samantha. Just a brief introduction in hopes that at least someone reading this doesn’t know me yet.

I am in my late 20s (very, very late. In fact, it doesn’t get a whole lot later than this in your 20s…) and I am blessed to be a wife and mother of two. I also have the wonderful gift of being able stay at home with my babies and I can think of no other place I would rather be.

Cooking is my hobby, my outlet, and my passion (right up there with eating!) I am currently reading the book Start by Jon Acuff and roughly in the middle of that book, Jon asks “What can you not stop doing?” Cooking. I can’t stop cooking! I don’t just cook out of necessity to feed my family, I experiment, I tweak, I play, I lovingly labor over cooking. Cleaning up, on the other hand, not so much…

I do a fair amount of research when attempting a new food. Sometimes I try more than one recipe and many times I read half a dozen and make a hybrid of them all. A lot my experiments consist of substitutions for ingredients (mostly so I don’t have to make another trip to the grocery store) and it often takes 2 or 3 minor adjustments before I’m completely satisfied.

It is always fun to bring my kids into the kitchen with me. I let them sit at our island, especially while I bake. Any measuring cups, spoons or recyclables I am done using, I pass their way and let their creative little minds invent new ways to cover the whole room in flour.

Most of the time, I am not afraid of how much work goes into a recipe. Although, the real involved ones I save for the days my husband is home to entertain the kids. When time allows, I am happy to “work” in the kitchen for hours on one meal, such as Thanksgiving, or up to 20 meals when I do freezer cooking. The time and effort I put into cooking is less like work and more like therapy (and tastes better than both of those).

A love of food is really at the core of all of this cooking. Eating out at a good restaurant (or even the guilty pleasure of a drive through butter burger) are tops in my book. However, I believe there is value in eating at home. There is money to be saved, nutritional needs to be met and memories to made with family and friends in a home kitchen.

I have begun writing this blog for many reasons, some I haven’t even gotten to the bottom of yet. But this is another way for me to enjoy cooking. This allows me to share recipes, failed experiments and hopefully some of the happiness that cooking brings me.

I don’t have a road map for this blog, I don’t even know if there is a trail ahead of me, but I am filled with excitement and curiosity as I begin this journey. It would be an honor if you care to join me for the ride!

Eggplant, Faceplant

Hmm… Eggplant… Did you know there is more than one kind of eggplant? The things I am learning from my CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) box.

My first trial with eggplant from my local farm was eggplant chips. I used a Japanese Eggplant, sliced thin, and baked at 225°F for almost an hour, flipping once half way through. They weren’t bad but I had over salted them. I didn’t bother trying to store them… not sure if they stay “chip like” or not.

Experiment number two was with a more common Black Beauty Eggplant. I did a baked version of Eggplant Parmesan.  It was tasty, no complaints but also didn’t run back for another eggplant to make it again…

Third time is a charm, right? This time I had a Bianca Eggplant and the question was, “how do I get the kids to eat this?” Believe it or not, there was a correct answer to this – BBQ Chicken Pizza on an Eggplant Slice. Here’s how it went: Slice Eggplant, salt to draw out moisture, bread eggplant, bake eggplant, grill chicken, shred cheese, top eggplant, bake some more… Spend about an hour and a half making 8 mini eggplant pizzas… 17-month old ate 2… 3-year old ate 1/2 of one. Any time a 3-year old tries something new, the recipe is a success!

I, for one, thought they were really good. The eggplant held up as a crust for a small pizza, had good flavor and was relatively healthy. However, my overall conclusion on eggplant is that it is just too much work to make it taste great… Maybe I’ll stumble upon an awesome, quick eggplant recipe one day but for now, the only eggplants used here will be out of the CSA box.

Eggplant BBQ Chicken Pizza

1 Bianca Eggplant, sliced roughly ¼ inch thick

Salt

1 egg beaten

1 cup seasoned bread crumbs

1-2 chicken breasts, grilled and chopped

½ cup barbeque sauce of choice

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350°F

Salt the sliced eggplant and set aside for about a half hour. Rinse and pat dry before breading

Dip each slice of eggplant in egg then coat in bread crumbs. Place in single layer on ungreased cookie sheet

Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes on each side

Remove from oven and top with barbeque sauce, chopped chicken and cheddar cheese

Return to oven and bake until cheese is melted and chicken is warmed through, about 10 minutes

At the Roots

So my best friend and I share a deep affection for soup. All kinds of soup and at any time of year. A number of years ago, she and her (now) husband spent a weekend at our house and we took a day to make soup. 4 types of soup. We called it “Soup Our Bowl” (aren’t we clever). Each person chose a recipe and we made them all – French Onion, Beef Stew, Tomato Basil, and Root Vegetable. Root Vegetable was a first for me, in fact, it may have been my first pureed soup (other than tomato from a can…) and it was delicious.

And here we are today, in the midst of a new first for me, a CSA! So far, so good! But I don’t typically buy root vegetables, which makes me ill prepared for the turnips in the box (I even had to search online to find out if they were turnips or some type of white radish). Once I found out what they were, I was still not overly inspired until I remembered the Soup Our Bowl.

Some recipe searching and analysis later, something smells awesome in my kitchen! It seems to me that root vegetable soup is a way to use up root vegetables – not the kind of recipe that you run to the store for. So I didn’t, my soup consists of the only roots I have at the moment, turnips, carrots and potato.

As I am taste testing this soup, my 17-month old is grabbing for the spoon… he loves it! It does look a little like baby food once it is pureed… I’m convinced this just needs a loaf of crusty bread in place of a spoon.

Root Vegetable Soup

1 Tbsp. olive oil

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

6 small turnips, quartered

6 large carrots, cut in half inch chunks

1 potato, peeled and cubed

Salt and pepper, to taste

4 cups water

1 beef bouillon cube

½ tsp dried rosemary

In large pot or Dutch oven, heat oil over medium high heat.

Sweat onion and celery, about 10 minutes.

Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.

Add vegetables and salt to taste.

Pour in water and add bouillon cube, rosemary and pepper.

Bring to a simmer and cook about 20 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Cool slightly then blend (use immersion blender or transfer to standard blender in batches)