Last year I came up with about a dozen new ways to cook zucchini. I knew it played well with a lot of things but quite frankly I was surprised at exactly how flexible it was. I'd always used zucchini with tomato based dishes. This year, I was hoping to find another great mix of new zucchini dishes. Maybe I've not hunted well enought, but most of them have been kind of re-treads. So, when I found this clipping calling for garbanzo beans, I was intrigued. From the typeset, it looks like it may have come out of Taste of Home magazine. I made a few changes and will make a couple more next time I make it. For starters, I'd mix the garbanzo beans with a little olive oil, garlic and oregano before pulsing them in the food processor. Second, I'd toast the panko before putting it on top and would skip drizzling it with olive oil. It's another small pan but worth the extra effort. I did make one big change this time - I added about a dozen chopped kalamata olives.
Stuffed Zucchini
2 medium zucchini
1 15 oz can garbanzo beans
1 T olive oil
1/2 c diced tomatoes
1/2 c chopped green onions
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
12 kalamata olives, chopped
3 T crumbled feta cheese (don't use the packages of pre-crumbled unless you want it to taste like ground up cardboard!)
2 sprigs fresh oregano
salt & pepper
2 T panko toasted in 2 t olive oil
Halve the zucchini lengthwise and scrap out the centers, leaving 1/4" borders.
Reserve the scrapings. Heat the olive oil in a skillet. Add the tomatoes, zucchini scrapings and garlic and saute until softened.
Put the zucchini in a microwave safe dish and add 1 T of water. Microwave for 2 minutes. Drain. Pulse the garbanzo beans in a food processor (I'd add about 1 T olive oil and a minced garlic clove and a sprig of oregano) Once the beans are well chopped, spoon them into the zucchini boats. Add half the feta to the tomato mixture. Spoon that on top of the garbanzo beans then top with the chopped olives, the rest of the feta and the toasted panko. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.
I believe this is adapted from Taste of Home.
I got this half made and tasted it. YUM! This recipe might never be finished because the first half could easily disappear down the hatch... Again, I was looking for ways to use up the CSA goodies - primarily the dill. The Dilly Potato Salad from The Herb Garden Cookbook by Lucinda Hutson sounded fabulous. New potatoes, great curried vinaigrette and lots of other fresh veggies. The colors sounded like they'd burst out of the bowl. I got the potatoes cooked and tossed them with the vinaigrette. Connie took a taste and said "Yowzer - that's good!" Ditto here. I'd planned on this for lunch a couple of days from now. That meant letting the potatoes marinate in vinaigrette overnight then adding the other vegetables tomorrow. So, I broke down and added the other vegetables and served this for dinner. For those who don't like curry, it doesn't taste like curry. The curry just adds a nice warm flavor. Not that over the top CURRY that screams at you. I did leave out diced green pepper and parsley. Thought they'd take over the flavors. The one change I might make next time is to add a chopped hard boiled egg. This is one I'll make over and over again!!!
Dilly Potato Salad
2 pounds new potatoes, diced
3 T garlic vinegar
1 T minced shallots
2 T di on mustard
1 t curry powder
4 T olive oil
2 T capers
6 gherkins, diced
4 mini carrots, sliced in coins
1 rib celery, finely diced
1/3 red bell pepper, chopped
4 T chopped dill
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Cook the potatoes for about 10 minutes or until they're tender. Whisk the vinegar, shallots, mustard, curry powder, olive oil and capers together for the dressing. Drain the potatoes and toss them with the dressing while they're warm.
Refrigerate overnight. Before serving toss with the other vegetables and the dill.
The new Food and Wine came out this week. It had an article on the best new chefs and their quickest and easiest recipes. Let's just say that most of them I won't make. But, this one intrigued me. I had a pound of green beans. And, a bag of black beluga lentils from Trader Joe's. The original recipe called for taking two cups of olive oil and cooking it with tomatoes to make tomato oil. No way I was going to do that! I love olive oil but couldn't see two cups... My version turned out really well in spite of my liberally changing it. I refrigerated it overnight and we had it for lunch the next day. Connie' comment was that the lentils looked like a bunch of bugs. You can judge for yourself from the photo.
Green Bean and Lentil Salad
1 pound green beans, ends snapped
2 T sun dried tomatoes in olive oil
6 slices salami, sliced thinly
1 T olive oil
1 c black beluga lentils, cooked
1 T garlic vinegar
2 T olive oil
Warm the sun dried tomatoes in one tablespoon of olive oil. Once it's shimmering, add the green beans and saute until they're almost done (about 10 minutes.)
Add the salami and let it brown. Add the lentils, oil and vinegar. Chill overnight.
For the last two weeks, Maria has included a bunch of dill in our CSA box. Now, I'm not just talking about a couple of sprigs. I'm talking about a BUNCH of dill. So, the challenge is to use all of it. Try not to waste anything from the CSA box. What plays well with dill? Eggs. Swiss cheese. Shrimp. Potatoes. I sat down the all of my herb and vegetable cookbooks and hunted for new recipes. Found what looks to be a great potato salad recipe. That'll be fun because it has all kinds of the stuff we love in it: gherkins, capers... But, I just had to go back to an old faithful - shrimp salad with swiss and dill. It's so much better with fresh dill. It's also better if made the day before it's served. When I opened the refrigerator this morning to get out some eggs to scramble - yes, with dill - I saw the container of the shrimp salad. Betcha that'd be yummy with the eggs. It was.
Shrimp Salad with Dill and Swiss
2 heaping cups peeled shrimp
4 oz swiss or gruyere cheese
2-3 good sized sprigs of dill
2-4 T mayonnaise
Use a scissors to cut the shrimp into small pieces - about 1/4".
Dice the cheese very finely - about 1/8".
Chop the dill finely. Toss the shrimp, cheese and dill together. Add mayonnaise just until it all sticks together.
Fabulous served with scrambled eggs, on crackers or as a sandwich spread.
It's Sunday and we're at the office trying to get things ready for the next week. My cooking equipment is relatively limited here. A microwave, a toaster oven and a refrigerator. I try hard to prepare meals with enough leftovers so we can just reheat for lunch the next day. But, that doesn't always work. Sometimes I wind up actually cooking a meal here. Today's one of those days. Last night while hunting for the Red Wine and Cherry Sauce Steak recipe, I found one for a chicken sandwich. It had a broiled chicken breast, melted mozzarella cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. I had half of a roasted chicken in the refrigerator. It was intended for sandwiches. I also had a wedge of Dubliner Cheese with Stout that I found at Trader Joe's. And, an open jar of sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil. So, this morning I tossed all of that in a bag and schlepped it to the office. Connie's comment when he ate the sandwich? "You could serve this in a restaurant. That's one of the best sandwiches I've ever had." Score!
Sun Dried Tomato and Chicken Melts
2 onion rolls
sliced roasted chicken
1/4 c sun dried tomatoes in olive oil
6 slices of Dubliner Cheese (either regular or with Stout)
2 T Hellman's mayo
1 T dijon mustard
2 t Penzey's Mural of Flavor
2 handfuls greens (arugula and fresh lettuce)
Toast the rolls. Mix the mayo, mustard and Mural of Flavor. Smear all four toasted sides of the buns with the mayo mix. On the bottoms, pile the chicken. On the tops, scatter the tomatoes then cover with the slices of cheese. Put them under the broiler until the cheese melts. Put a handful of greens on top of the each of the chicken sides and cover them with the tops. Serve warm.
No recipe today. Not because I ran out of new recipes to blog about. No, just because these raspberries deserve to have ALL the attention. Several years ago when I lived at the old house, I ordered some golden raspberry plants via mail order. I had a huge garden there. It had the equivalent of about eighteen 4x8 beds. So, I had plenty of room for all kinds of new and different things. I'd never had a golden raspberry. So, what the heck, what's the worst that could happen. Well, it was love at first bite. I remember the first time there were enough to actually eat almost a handful. mmmmmmmm. The flavor was so perfect that they needed nothing else.
The time came to move. I dug up 500 starts from the old yard. Yes, you read that correctly. 500 starts. Hosta, peonies, roses, daylilies, daisies, lillies, ferns and a few of my incredible raspberries. Into the new yard they went. The raspberries had their own bed. On the north side of the fence on the south side of the yard. The first year they were happy. The four starts grew into nice, strong plants. The second year it was a race between the critters and us. The critters won and we had about two raspberries each. Last year, we got a couple apiece several times. We may have even gotten three or four each. Then, there was tonight. We took a couple of glasses of wine with us while we wandered the yard. The back yard was last. Actually, the raspberry bed was last. I'd finished my wine so we put the raspberries into my wine glass. Then, we wandered toward the screened porch and savored each and every one of those incredible berries. Amazing flavor.
Many years ago I lived across the street from a gal named Sue. She wasn't much of a cook but had one specialty that everyone loved. She called it Mexicali Scoop. I just call it really good salsa. This is the kind of stuff that you can sit down with a bowl of salsa and a bag of Tostitos and call it dinner. I know because I've done just that many times. You can change it out by adding cilantro like my friend Stacy does. Now, Stacy is a FABULOUS cook. Dinner at her house is always a treat because she likes to try new and different things. So, when she says she's tried something new with a recipe and likes the change, I normally try it the same way. The cilantro's great but I like it better without. Make sure you don't drain the tomatoes because they'll provide some liquid. In fact, if you don't mind your salsa pretty dry, you can leave out the oil and vinegar. And, even if you don't like ripe olives, don't wimp out and leave them out. This is ever so much better than that crud they sell in jars and call salsa. And, it's almost as easy as opening a jar of the crud!
