Stuffed Zucchini for Two

Lots of zucchini in the CSA box this week, eight medium I think, and there are only two of us, so first plan of attack - stuff them. I have a stand-by recipe from a cookbook I bought on the bargain rack more than twenty five years ago. I decided to change it up a bit to make it grill-friendly and include some quinoa.

INGREDIENTS

2 small to medium zucchini

1/2 large onion (white or yellow)

1 ear of fresh corn

1/4 - 1/2 jalapeno pepper

1 small plum or large grape tomato

1/3 cup walnuts
1 cup cooked quinoa

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

olive oil

salt & pepper

PREPARATION

Heat up the grill.

1. Slice the zucchini in half length-wise, brush with olive oil, and place on the grill.
2. Slice the onion and brush or toss with a little oil. Place the slices on the grill with the zucchini.

4.  Cook over high or med-high heat, turning once or twice until nicely browned and cooked through.

5.  While the veggies grill, cook some quinoa according to the package directions (don't forget to rinse it before cooking).
6. Meanwhile, cook the ear of corn in your usual way. This time I tried a method recommended by my dad - put the whole, unhusked ear into the microwave in high for 4 minutes, then cut off the end opposite the silk, peel back the husk and pull off the silk.
7. Cut the corn from the cob and place in a bowl.
8. Chop the tomato and add it to the bowl.
9. Dice the jalapeno and add it to the bowl.

10. Check on the veggies on the grill and turn them if needed.

11. Toast the walnuts in a heavy pan over medium heat for 5 minutes or so, then chop them.

12. Grate about 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese.

13. When the zucchini are nicely browned and cooked but not mushy and the onions are soft, remove the veggies from the grill and let them cool a bit.

Then, chop up the onions and scoop out the flesh from each zucchini half to make a "boat"

Chop the zucchini middles and add with the quinoa, walnuts, cheese, and chopped onion, to the bowl. MIx well. Add salt and pepper to taste. Mound the mixture into the zucchini "boats" and serve.
I served this with a fresh tomato and basil salad (tomato, basil, tiniest bit of EVOO, balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper).

Dessert....

fresh peaches and home-made vanilla ice cream from Alsetde Farms

Veggie Burgers and Kholrabi Salad

I worked all day today and it was pretty hot and humid when I came home, so we wanted a simple supper that didn't take long to cook or generate much heat. I had frozen a few burgers from the Guy Fieri recipe I made a few days ago ( a note about that - I froze this batch before I cooked them and when I took them out of the freezer tonight and browned them in the pan, the stayed a little softer (mushier) than I like, The batch that I cooked first and then froze had a much nicer texture when re-heated).

I sauteed some button mushrooms and a small yellow onion in 1 tsp olive oil to top the burgers - they were still incredibly tasty even though they were a little mushy.

We made the Kholrabi Salad from a recipe on Epicurious.com (my favorite recipe site) - with some modifications.WE had one small Kholrabi bulb so we made a smaller salad.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Kohlrabi-and-Apple-Salad-with-Creamy-Mustard-Dressing-10693

Ingredients

1/42 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/2 tablespoon coarse-grained mustard

3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley leaves

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 kohlrabi bulb peeled and cut into julienne strips

1 Granny Smith apple - seeded and diced (we did not peel it)

In a bowl whisk the cream until it holds soft peaks, it doesn't take very long. then whisk in the lemon juice, the mustard, the parsley, the sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the kohlrabi strips and the apple, peeled, cored, and diced, and combine the salad well.

We also had our first Donaldson's Farm Market corn of the season at this meal - just picked and sweet as sugar. I hear people are buying corn at the supermarket, but I can't imagine why..

For dessert - Donaldson's peaches (also first of the season), south Jersey blueberries and vanilla ice cream - heaven.

Day 29: Black Bean & Polenta Casserole

I like one dish meals. This one has many variations, depending on what is in the house at the time. You can make this with the polenta that comes in a roll, or the "quick" polenta mix in a box, or you can make your own polenta. There are also many versions on line. Here is tonight's version.

Black Bean and Polenta Casserole

1/2 a leftover yellow onion - chopped
4 "spring onions" from the Thanksgiving CSA share - chopped
1 medium zucchini - chopped
1 cup chopped green pepper from the freezer
1 cup corn from the freezer
2 cans black beans (Goya organic)
1 can chopped tomatoes with mild green chilies
1 clove garlic - chopped
olive oil
chili powder, salt, pepper to taste
1 polenta "roll" - purchased - sliced into 12-14 rounds
shredded cheddar cheese  - 1-2 cups - depending on how cheesy you like it - and calorie count

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F. Saute the onions and garlic in about 2 tsp olive oil for about 3 minutes, add the zuchinni, cook about 5 minutes more, add the frozen corn & peppers, cook 3 minutes. Add everything else except the polenta and cheese. Add about 1/3 can of water with the tomatoes. Let this cook together over med-high heat while you prepare the pan & polenta. Spray a casserole with olive oil spray. place half of the polenta slices in the bottom of the casserole dish (or 8 x 8 baking pan) sprinkle half the cheese over the polenta. You can either put all the bean and veggie mixture over the cheese, top with the remaining polenta slices and the remaining cheese OR put 1/2 the beans & veggies, then the polenta slices, then the other 1/2 of the beans & veggies,& top with the remaining cheese (which is what I did tonight). Cover and bake about 1/2 hour at 350 F. This makes about 6 good size servings.

Day 21: Vegetarian Chili - My Version

It probably would not win a chili cook-off, but this recipe is one of our family favorites. It is comfort food to us, a favorite cold weather dish. Some of us are sensitive to spicy things, so I usually keep a dish of hot peppers or salsa on the side to mix into my portion.

Karen's Vegetarian Chili

Olive oil - 2-3 tsp
1 onion - chopped
1 small or medium zuchinni  - chopped
1 bell pepper (any color) chopped
1/2 - 1 cup fresh, canned or frozen corn
1 can of tomatoes with jalapeno peppers or 1-2 cups chopped tomatoes and chopped jalapeno pepper
3 cans of beans, rinsed and drained (Kidney, Pinto - or a combination of both- or just black beans)
chili powder, cumin, coriander, salt & pepper to taste
Water - about 1 cup
optional additions: Cashews, or Morningstar Farms "crumbles" or crumbles sausage patties
Grated cheddar cheese for topping

Heat the oil. Add the onion and cook a few  minutes. Then add the zuchinni and cook 3-5 minutes more, then the peppers for another 3 minutes. Then, add everything else (except the grated cheese) to the pot, cover, bring to a boil, then lower the heat and cook over medium for 30-60 minutes (depending on how much time you have - the longer you cook it the more the flavors blend - but you can do a quick version in as little as 20 minutes). I serve this over brown rice, or cous cous, or crushed tortilla chips - or all by itself. It is even better the next day and leftovers can also top a baked potato or be made into another family all-time favorite - Chili-Mac (see below). On this particular day, I used chopped green pepper and corn from the freezer (from the CSA share - frozen in the summer), the rest of the leftover chopped tomatoes from the Thanksgiving soup, and a hot pepper (I have no idea what kind at this point) from the hot pepper in vinegar jar in the refrigerator (I learned about the hot peppers in vinegar at a food preservation class I took with Leda Meredith (http://ledameredith.net/wordpress/) and decided to try it out when my CSA share included 6-8 hot peppers of various varieties for two weeks in a row - we just don't eat that much spicy food around here and I hated to see them go to waste). The instructions were to cut the peppers up into quarters or slices, pack them in a jar and cover with white vinegar. I did that in August, the pepper jar is in the refrigerator (with the Verdurette) and I have been using them whenever I need to add a little zip to something. They are holding their color nicely.

To make Chili-Mac:
Mix the leftover chili with an equal amount of pasta sauce (your favorite) in a microwave-proof dish or sauce pan and heat until it is hot but not boiling. Cook some spiral pasta al dente and mix with the chili-sauce mixture, in an oven or microwave-proof dish. Use just enough pasta so thing look very saucy - about equal parts pasta and chili-sauce mix. Cover the top with a healthy layer of grated cheddar cheese. Then cook on 70% power in the microwave for 10  minutes - or in the oven at 350F or so for about 35 minutes. the pasta will soak up the sauce and get fat and soft and yummy,  tucked in between the tasty pasta will be beans and bits of vegetables, and the melted cheese sends it over the top. This has been one of our favorite quick suppers for about twenty years.

Day 4: Black Bean Chilaquile

I was too tired to type when I got home from work last night, so here is last night's entry.

I am a book person. I love them, and I have a lot of them. I have a bookshelf full of children's books in the guest bedroom even though my kids are grown. I have a full set of the "classics" given to me by a favorite aunt and uncle, all the books from my french literature class at college, two shelves of books on Jewish topics, and lots of paperbacks (including the full Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovitch).  I have forty-seven cookbooks on a little blue bookshelf in my kitchen, a dozen more on the top shelf of one of the cabinets and six or seven more that I never use (but can't seem to part with) on a shelf upstairs (in the guest bedroom with the children's books).

Everyone tells me that books are obsolete. I know I could put more books on one of the new electronic readers than I have on every bookshelf in my house. I know I can find just about every recipe in every cookbook I own somewhere on the web, but I like books. I can't part with the books I read to my son and my daughter in the rocking chair, I really do re-read the books I love every once and a while (have I mentioned my notoriously bad memory? Sometimes it's like reading them again for the first time).  I love to read the inscription that tells about the typeface, I love the way a new book smells, I love the way a book feels in my hands.

I have a lovely wrought-iron cookbook stand and when I cook from a recipe I prop the book up on the stand. My kids bring their laptops into the kitchen, put the recipe up on the screen, play some music from their i-tunes library, and look up the definitions for cooking terms they're not familiar with. I'm not there yet. I'm stubbornly old fashioned, yes, and I don't have laptop. Instead, I have two college educated children and four cars. Maybe by the time I can afford to buy the laptop, I will be ready to give up the cookbook on the pretty wrought iron stand...maybe I'll get a Kindle too.

The long awaited point here is that I followed a recipe for last night's dinner. I made Black Bean Chilaquile from the MooseWood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites cookbook. Of course the recipe is available on the web (http://www.food.com/recipe/black-bean-chilaquile-43471 - here's one place, I'm sure you can find more). I used spinach from this week's CSA share, CSA corn I froze in August, Garden of Eatin' baked tortilla chips and low-fat instead of fat free cheddar. I used store-bought salsa. I took the chilaquile out of the oven just as I was leaving for work; took my portion with me and re-heated it in the microwave a couple of hours later, it was a little jumbled together but tasty. The family verdict was that I should make it again sometime - and I can do that - because I pretty much followed the recipe for once.