Cabbage Rolls

It is a cop-out, I admit, to make cabbage rolls. It's basically a trade: I will eat this single cabbage leaf. in return, I expect a mouthful of meatloaf to be inside. To me, this can be a nice trade. Especially if the cabbage is tender and the meat is awesome.

These rolls achieved that.

The meat of the loaf was hot Italian sausage. some onion, carrot and panko for filling. The idea was to get some fennel in as well, but that did not happen.



The sauce was heirloom regular and cherry tomatoes, peeled, squeezed and cooked for an hour or so, along with the mirepoix of fennel, onion, carrot and garlic. I took a stick blender to the sauce, as not only were the fennel and carrot as you'd expect, but those heirloom tomatoes were quite sturdy!




The sauce got a bit thick and dry, and the filling a bit hard on the second day. But the flavor was spot on. Wonderful.

Quinoa Summer Salad

This was roughly this Southwestern Summertime Quinoa Salad recipe, though there were a couple of differences.



No bell pepper, because it sucks.



And I'm glad I left the dressing on the side. I roughly liked it, and Aud liked it a lot, but I'm just glad it was on the side, is all.



Plus, the scallions had been used, so I just finely diced a yellow onion.

It all worked out; this was fantastic.

Potato Kohlrabi Ham Gratin

Growing up, my Busi would make – (to my understanding) entirely for my pleasure – ham. Large, wonderful, Farmer John ham. I never got the instruction, but I understand that there was some brown sugar in the glaze.

The ham was fantastic on its own. But, often, a couple of days later would result in a ham potato casserole. It is as wonderful as it sounds.

The recent pork portion of the meat share provided a truly wonderful hunk of ham. And, of course, that dish came to mind. Combining it with my go-to recipe for kohlrabi (with potato in a gratin with nutmeg and sharp cheddar) ended up with a wonderful dish.

Share, 2010-08-17

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

I have been meaning to make these for a while, and today's farm share bounty was motivation. These are just some of the veggies picked up today, which also marked the return of one of my summer favorites - the purple carrot!












The ingredients for these spring rolls: carrots, peanuts, cucumber, green pepper, spinach, tofu (for vegetarians), and pork (for meat eaters). The pork and tofu were marinated and cooked in a mixture of hoisen and soy sauce.
















Years ago, a friend of mine gave me spring roll wrappers. They are very easy to use - just soak in warm water until pliable and then fill with foods and wrap like a burrito.

Enjoy!

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

...is amazing.



Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

# some tomatillos
# 3 garlic cloves roughly chopped
# pinch of fresh cilantro
# scallions coarsely chopped
# half of one white onion
# pinch of salt
# juice of one lime
# some pickled jalapenos

Roast your tomatillos. Peel the papers off, cut them in half and stick them under the broiler for 5-8 minutes, cut sides down on a foil-lined cookie sheet.

Take 'em out and toss 'em in a food processor with everything else on the list. Blend. Blend again.

Snarf.

A Twist on Meat and Potatoes (or, Tofu and Potatoes...)

Whenever we pick up our farm share, it is always exciting when the red potatoes are in season. We try to grab as many of the small ones as we can for this recipe:


Olive oil heated in the skillet, with Full Moon Farm dill (dried and chopped) - potatoes are boiled and placed cut side down...














Potatoes are cooked until the cut side is very crispy - so delicious!!



Local beef sauteed in a mixture of marinades (this one here is beef marinade, yellow mustard, hot sauce, and maple syrup, along with red and green peppers) and tofu sauteed with Full Moon Farm swiss chard - a perfect compliment to red potatoes!

Corn-Tomato-Chicken Salad

A quick-ish dish for a week night.

Beautiful tomatoes (thanks Erica!)



Combine with barely-cooked corn, chicken (leg rather than breast, for flavor), and scallions.





There's a dressing, and it didn't emulsify quite right, so I didn't dress the salad proper, but it's actually quite good and important for the dish.

This is the tomato experience I'd hoped to have last year, but was *robbed* from me due to blight. This is a really great salad.

Broccoli Cabbage Tofu Noodle Stirfry, 2010-08-10

As I'm apt to do, this is kinda a hodge-podge of recipes when searching for "broccoli tofu stirfry".



The tofu was pressed overnight, marinated in soy sauce for a half-hour, then baked for like 30-45 minutes.



Broccoli steamed with some soy sauce and water. Napa cabbage sliced thin and stir-fried. Carrots grated and sliced. Some amazing garlic. Scallions at the end. Vermicelli noodles for a base.



In the middle, a wonderful thing happened.



I tried two sauces: our go-to garlic/ginger/sesame/coriander/peanut butter/rice-wine vinegar/siracha/maple syrup sauce and a sesame-oil, rice-wine vinegar/ground ginger sauce.



I did like the latter a lot, but for the left overs, I headed back to the peanut sauce for convenience and tasty-tastiness.

Share, 2010-08-10

Yay for the share this week. Ham! Sausage! Chicken! Spinach! Cuckes! Corn! Potatoes! Tomatillos! Tomatoes. And cherry tomatoes. And Willow Hill Farm Brebis. And some Magic Hat hI.P.A., which isn't part of the share except that Magic Hat's always been great to Full Moon Farm, and our pickup is in the Magic Hat parking lot, which gives me a great and convenient excuse to grab a growler while I'm there.

Nom nom nom.

Share for the week of August 3rd

Watermelon, kohlrabi, beets, carrots, onions, tomatoes, tomatillos, corn, scallions and feta. Aww yeah.

Broccoli and Corn Frittata

Audrey was out of town for part of last week, so I was looking for recipes that were both simple, and that she otherwise wouldn't want. Eyeing some broccoli and corn, I threw together a quick frittata.

Corn:



Scallion:



Our favorite Cabot Sharp Cheddar:



Some eggs and milk for volume:



Light cooking:



Egg-milked, baked, bound and broiled:



I'd have liked to steam or blanch the broccoli to get it a wee bit softer, while leaving the scallions and corn as fresh and crisp as baked for 25 minutes would allow. Regardless, this was a fine quick dish.

carnitas with black-bean and corn salad

From



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to



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with



is yummy. Dogs know this:



More photos on flickr.