After a long week of doing things mostly outside of the kitchen, I got back in the swing of things today. Here's my kitchen, with mock apple cobbler to the left of the stove, sauteed zucchini on the stove, tomato pie to the right of the stove, and pickles-in-process in the front.
Earlier this week I signed up for a "Pesto Party" with our CSA. I wasn't sure whether I should plan to go or not. I had a job interview on Wednesday for a job that would have started tomorrow. I had a second interview on Thursday. I started to regret having signed up for the Pesto Party on my last day of summer vacation, but then on Friday evening I got a voicemail from the Principal saying they'd chosen a different candidate who was "more what they were looking for in a candidate." They always pick that person. Some day I will be that person, right? Not getting the job was both good and bad. I wasn't sure how I'd handle the 90 minute commute each way (without air conditioning. In Summer. Driving into the sun both ways), I didn't want to leave our current house, or our current neighbors, or my little job at the museum. I didn't want to have to find a new grocery store. Seriously. That thought crossed my mind. I don't even like shopping at the grocery store anymore.I did find myself at the grocery store this morning, though. (First I stopped at the farm stand, which did not have any large yellow onions. The vendor said the truck would be coming by in half an hour, so I stopped again on my way home and bought two. And a cantaloupe. Because you know what happens when I look for cantaloupe at the farmers' market.) I needed flour, sugar, Parmesan cheese, and milk. I did not need eggs, nor do I prefer to buy them at the grocery store (although I will buy their organic eggs when necessary) but I was relieved (?) to see that the eggs that this particular grocery store sells are from a DIFFERENT farm (CAFO) in Iowa, and are thus not affected by the egg-normous recall currently affecting the Midwest.
While I was home from the store by a little after 10 (and I'd even already taken Oliver for a walk), I didn't really have time to do any of my major projects for the day before heading out to the Pesto Party. So I ate breakfast, read a little bit of my newest book club book - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - and started a loaf of bread in the bread machine.
Michael decided to go to the Pesto Party with me, so we headed out to the CSA together, working on a New York Times crossword puzzle on the way. While they have had "come hang out at the farm" events in the past, we have not been able to make any of them. So it was the first time we saw the actual farm, rather than the shed where we pick up our share each week. We picked two ice cream pails full of pesto on the farm, with one of their "worker share" employees. (You can work four hours a week on the farm and get paid with a full-sized share, plus all the extras you want. I may do it next year, depending on what life looks like then.) Then we proceeded to make pesto with a bunch of other members of our CSA. We were instructed to bring a recipe, and all the ingredients we would need, except basil and garlic. They provided the food processors.
I brought a recipe that I discovered and enjoyed last year. At first I could not remember where I had found it, but then I checked Diary of a Locavore because it seemed like the kind of thing she'd write about. Elspeth posted this recipe last summer. (Let's just ignore the fact that I was probably interested in particular recipe, as opposed to so many of the others she posts, because I was excited to see her talking about her upcoming wedding - since I also had wedding on the brain last summer.) I think I made pesto mostly because I had extra basil from the farmers' market and wasn't sure what to do with it. I made a small batch, half of which I froze and enjoyed sometime last winter. Today Michael and I made three batches of her recipe. I froze two containers, and we dug into the third for dinner.
Washing the basil and picking the leaves off the stems.
Freshest Pesto Ever! (We did all of the work outside, so the pesto was literally warm to the touch when I packed it into the containers.)When we got home, the bread was almost done and the house smelled delicious.
I had taken chicken legs out of the big freezer for dinner (thereby destroying any sort of order that was in the freezer, since they were the first thing I put in it when we got it and I have been haphazardly layering things on top of the package of legs since then) but realized they would still be frozen at dinner time, so I rearranged our dinner menu again. (The original plan was grass-fed beef stew with carrots, onions, and potatoes from our CSA but this plan occurred to me on Saturday morning at work. After I invited my parents to dinner and asked Michael to take the roast out of the freezer I realized it was already Saturday morning - not Friday, as I must have been thinking - and there was no way the roast would be ready to put in the crock pot this morning.)We ended up having tomato pie for dinner, and the last zucchini in the fridge.
(We had our first tomato pie of the summer earlier this week:
I didn't have much cheese, but there were a few tomatoes that really wanted to be eaten. I'd planned to make tomato pie the week before, but never got around to it - because I stopped by the farmers' market in search of a cantaloupe.)My tomato pie recipe is my own unique creation, so I'll share:
(Some day I am really going to make a real pie crust, since I am the proud owner of a rolling pin and all. But I must have had a hunch, on my way to buy a cantaloupe at the farmers' market last week, that I would really appreciate having a Pillsbury pie crust in my fridge, so I bought a box. Then I bought canning tomatoes and you know the rest of the story. I could have made my own crust this week, but the rectangular red box was still in my fridge, making me feel guilty for caving to the processed food empire. It was easiest to just get rid of the darn things.)
Bake a pie crust, according to your directions. (I baked mine at 425 for 12 minutes according to the package.)
While your crust is in the oven, slice some tomatoes. I used six Roma tomatoes today. Earlier this week I used four random tomatoes that were sitting on my counter. One was a canner that wasn't quite ripe last week. Two were Romas, and I honestly don't even know what the other was. You can blanch them and peel the skins off if you want, but it's not necessary, and I think it makes them much harder to slice. Sprinkle them with salt and let them drain while the crust is in the oven. (Draining them longer is always a good thing, if you have time.)
Shred some cheese. I usually use between one and three cups. The original recipe my mom used called for Gruyere cheese - which is yummy but pricey. I have used Swiss, mozzarella, muenster (pictured), and Farmer cheese (also pictured). Using a blend is best. If you have some good Parmesan cheese, sprinkle a little on top. (I used all of ours making pesto earlier.)I didn't take pictures, but I also sliced up a small onion and minced two small cloves of garlic. If you have fresh basil, that is always a yummy addition. Today I used our freshly-made pesto. I spread a thin layer over the bottom of the pie crust after I took it out of the oven and let it cool a little bit.
Then I put a layer of veggies, followed by a layer of cheese. Repeat the layers until you run out of ingredients. When I was short on cheese earlier in the week, I only used one layer and it was fine. I like to put the cheese on top. But if you are in a rush and can't drain the tomatoes before putting them in the pie crust, put them on top of the cheese so some of the moisture can evaporate. Sprinkle a little bit of freshly ground pepper on top.
Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until brown and bubbly on top. Let cool for at least 5 minutes before serving. Seriously. If you can keep it around long enough, it is also good served at room temperature.
While I have definitely been enjoying my zucchini harvest, it does take up a lot of space in the fridge, and I'm not sure we need another loaf of frozen zucchini bread. Fortunately, Michael and I both really like sauteed zucchini. Usually we eat it as our whole meal, but tonight it was a side dish. I like feta on mine, but didn't have any, so I copied Michael and covered it in farmers' cheese. Okay, so I might have gone overboard with cheese on this dish - I got a little carried away while shredding the cheese for the pie.
My last raw zucchini. (For a few hours, anyway.)
Yum.Oliver loves to stand near me while I am chopping/shredding zucchini. I think it is his favorite vegetable, and I always drop some on the floor - usually accidentally. Today I also dropped a piece of cucumber on the floor around the same time, while I was getting the pickles ready, but he was completely uninterested.
Here he is waiting for me to drop some of my dinner:
While Oliver was discovering that he's not interested in cucumbers, the other two zucchinis that had been occupying the bottom shelf of my fridge were happily bubbling away in the oven, as Mock Apple Cobbler. I got the recipe from our CSA and had to try it. I admit, I was a little bit nervous at first. But I decided to go for it. The worst thing that could happen would be the loss of some flour and sugar. I couldn't really count the zucchini as a loss, as there is plenty more in the garden.
As it turns out, we really like mock apple cobbler. If you didn't know it was made with zucchini, I think you'd believe that the filling was apple. I passed the recipe along to my next door neighbor.While dinner and dessert were in the works, I was also working on another batch of pickles - this time I actually canned them. I had gotten a recipe off of the internet, but it worried me because it called for six large cucumbers and two large onions. I have to be honest, folks: I really dislike pickle recipes that call for a number of vegetables. Who's to say that my idea of a "large" cucumber is the same as the author's? A lot of the pickle recipes I've looked at call for numbers of cucumbers, and many of them don't even give a ballpark figure as to how many pints/quarts the recipe will make. Very annoying. Consequently, since I had the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving that my mom bought for my dad and me sitting in my kitchen (my dad brought it up when we canned the tomato sauce), I looked for their recipe for Bread and Butter pickles. It called for four pounds of cucumbers and two pounds of onions - and estimated the yield at 7 pints. Now we're talking.
I only had six usable pint jars, but I wasn't too worried.
I sliced the cucumbers and onions, layered them with salt, and let them sit for an hour and a half, covered with ice.
I got my canning supplies in order, and started cooking the vinegar, sugar, and spices.
When the liquid boiled, I added the cucumbers and onions and waited for the fun to begin:
I actually did the whole canning thing myself, except Michael took a few pictures, and he got me a cloth to wipe off the jars.
The picture that I have of the six finished jars shows one jar not sealed, but since I started writing this blog, the lid popped. So apparently my first attempt at canning on my own was successful. But the recipe says to wait 4 to 6 weeks to try the pickles, so they can attain their optimum flavor.I'd say it was a good day in the kitchen.
Oliver wants to know when he gets more zucchini.
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