Summer Delight -- Fresh Corn Polenta with Sautéed Cherry Tomatoes

This recipe just popped in my inbox this week.  What perfect timing!  We got corn, cherry tomatoes and basil in this week's share.  I really enjoyed this meal.  First off, there is not enough polenta in my life.  What a great, easy and versatile dish!  This version is elevated with fresh corn kernels which adds a great texture.  Then, that is all topped off with blistered cherry tomatoes cooked in garlic, red pepper flakes and herbs.  I liked the hint of spice the pepper flakes added.  I will definitely be making this again -- and the leftovers heated up great the next day for lunch!

http://www.tastingtable.com/entry_detail/chefs_recipes/14024/Corn_Polenta_Recipe_With_Cherry_Tomatoes_Peter_Berley.htm

CSA Week 10: Great Start to Peak

Wow! This week's share is perfect! Wonderful variety.  Not too much of one thing.  As I unpacked the bag of goodies, I could easily invision what I could make with all of it.

Basil, cilantro, corn, onion, garlic, squash, cherry tomatoes, slicer tomatoes, peppers and carrots.

For the past couple weeks, I have been pretty boring with my cooking.  Not that I haven't been making delicious things, just nothing new.  Hence my lack of recipe posts.  As I have always said, this blog is for more than anything to help me keep track of recipes I have tried and liked.  So I haven been making Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins, Oatmeal Rasin Zucchini Cookies and, one of my absolute favorites, No Bake Summer Lasagna (which I have pictures of below).  With that being said I did try a new recipe this week which I will post later.  Hope everyone is enjoying the start of tomato season!  I know I sure am. :-)

Tomatoes from my raised bed

No Bake Summer Lasagna -- tastes like summer!!

http://www.marthastewart.com/334102/no-bake-summer-lasagna

CSA Week #9

Beets, corn, dragon tongue beans, cucumbers, kale, basil, zucchini, broccoli, fennel, onion and garlic.

This week's CSA seems a little less overwhelming than past weeks.  It's not less food but it's more variety with less of each item.  I still have a few things leftover from last week that I need to use up, such as 10 cucumbers!  I think I will make some more pickles which turned out awesome!  Crunchy, vinegary and a little zesty from the peppercorns and pepper flakes.  I'm also hoping to do a little baking with the zucchini this weekend and post the recipes.  I'm really looking forward to getting heirloom tomatoes soon so I can make salsa, pasta sauce and soup!  For now, I am snacking on all of the sungolds from my own plant.  I recommend getting out to your farmers markets this weekend.  We are in prime season when everything tastes better fresh from the local soil!

A Peck of Pickles - Refrigerator Pickles

Ok so maybe not a peck but when you get 11 cucumbers in the CSA for one week, it can be a little overwhelming.  Luckily there is a lot of things you can do with cucumbers.  Salads, salsas, infused water or liquor, cold soup, Greek salads and of course, PICKLES.  Every pregnant woman's dream!  I haven't found a recipe that I'm in love with yet so I tried a new one, once again.  I did add peppercorns and red pepper flakes to this recipe because I wanted a little heat.  I haven't tried them yet because it is best if they sit a day or 2 but I will keep everyone updated.

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/dill-pickles

CSA Week #7

Picked up our CSA for week #7!  Lettuce, chard, scallions, dill, dragon tongue beans, summer squash, sugar snap peas, green beans, corn and 11 cucumbers!  I think I'm going to make some refrigerator pickles, cucumber salad and cucumber salsa this weekend along with some corn chowder.  Let the vegetable peak begin!!

Also picked a bunch of tomatoes from our garden today.  Num!

And more Spinach -- Florentine Style Chicken

After having spinach in Indian food, spinach salads, and spinach frittatas we STILL had more spinach to eat.  Again, I wanted a recipe that cooked a mass amount of spinach down so this Chicken Florentine recipe was perfect!  B and I really don't eat much chicken.  I'm not really sure why but this was a nice change of pace for us.  In the recipe, they have you serve the creamy sauce on top of the chicken and the spinach on the bottom.  I just mixed the sauce and spinach together since that was how it would end up being eaten anyway.  Also, to make the creamy sauce just a little better, I melted some Parmesan into it. Because why not!?  I will definitely make this again.  We had a little leftover spinach sauce and I ended up using it to top off some pasta one day for lunch.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/chicken-florentine-style-recipe.html

Chicken Florentine

Versatile Pasta - Pasta with Garlicky Broccoli Rabe

Broccoli rabe is one of those things that I have no clue what to do with.  I have seen it on menus and read about in magazines but it's just something I haven't  bought.  Probably because broccoli is not one of my favorite things. I luckily found this recipe for a very tasty pasta dish.  And it's a great base for any ingredients you have in hand.  Nothing better than some olive oil, garlic and red pepper flakes!  -- I added Italian sausage for a little heartiness.

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/04/pasta-with-garlicky-broccoli-rabe/

Pasta with Garlic, Broccoli Rabe and Italian Sausage

Easy Work Week Dinner - Spinach and Mushroom Frittata

There are a few key dishes that are great ways to use up lots of veggies, especially when you are trying to finish up everything in your fridge.  I always rely on pasta bakes, pizzas and stir fries.  Easy, quick meals that you really can make every week and not get bored because you can change up so much of it.  Now I need to add frittatas to that list! What a great way to use up a 1/2 a bag of spinach.  And fairly healthy!  This frittata had spinach, garlic, mushrooms and parmesan.  Num!

http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1014523-mushroom-and-spinach-frittata

Spinach and Mushroom Frittata

First Attempt at Indian Food - Palak Paneer

So. Much. Spinach!  With getting a giant bag of spinach I knew I needed to find a recipe that would cook it all down. I decided to take a stab at making my favorite Indian dish, Palak Paneer.  For anyone who hasn't had it, palak is a spinach curry sauce which covers rice and paneer, a soft Indian cheese.  Paneer is supposed to be very easy to make but since this was a weekday meal for us, I opted to buying the paneer from Whole Foods.  The palak sauce turned out with the perfect amount of spice but I will say I felt it was missing some depth and salt.  I don't blame the recipe for it.  I think it is really due to me taking some shortcuts like using butter instead of ghee. I will definitely attempt this recipe again but may need to make a couple tweaks to perfect it.

http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/palak-paneer/

Palak Paneer with Garlic Naan

Here We Go Again! + CSA Weeks 1-4

Wow!  I have been a terrible “blogger” for the last 4 weeks.  Well, to fill everyone in.  Yes, I am still getting my CSA this summer.  As we have for the past few years, we get a weekly standard share from Ridgeland Harvest in Viroqua, WI.  This year the early shares have seemed larger in than in the past.  But with that, our plants in our yard seem larger than normal too so we must be getting the perfect combo of humid, sunny days and rain.  Along with our vegetable CSA, we are also getting a dozen farm-fresh eggs each week through a different CSA that gets delivered to my work.  This has been great so far since fresh eggs taste so much better than store bought.  Plus B has been taking hard-boiled eggs to work each morning so I’m not too concerned about getting through the dozen each week.   We are once again getting the salmon CSA through Sitka Salmon Shares, which starts up later this month.  We are getting more than we have in the past so I may need to get a little more creative with my recipes.   AND on top of that we split a quarter cow earlier this Spring with our friends.  The beef is from Highland Spring Farm which raises Scottish Highland cows, the ones with the long horns and super long hair.  The beef is awesome and very lean.  

Besides all of that, we have our raised bed again this year.  We have already gone through our early spring vegetables and planted new ones for the rest of the season.  This year we have Sungold tomatoes, arugula, bell peppers, Bulgarian carrot peppers, serrano peppers, and jalapeño peppers.  And we have a mystery tomato plant.  It sprouted from a tomato that fell last year so I’m not sure if it will be another Sungold or the purple ones I had last year.  The suspense!!  We have already harvested our baby bok choy and baby turnips which were both delicious.  And over the weekend we planted more arugula, radishes and green beans in their place. 

As you can see, we have been busy!  And along with all of this, I am pregnant!  The theme of this summer is getting ready for baby as I am due at the beginning of October.  We are very excited but it all makes for a very busy summer. 

As for the blog, now that I am writing again, I will honestly try to be more consistent, AKA weekly.  I am going to set it up again like last year where I will post the shares we get each week and post a new recipe I tried.  I have a backlog of new recipes from the last couple weeks so you should expect those to be posted soon.  Next week we are going to Portland, OR and Seattle, WA so I will probably post pictures of our food adventures, as well. 

I’m so happy to be getting back into the swing of things.  Earlier this spring when we didn’t have the CSA yet, I realized I have become accustom to working my meals around what we get each week.  I was having a hard time coming up with meals where I get to pick my own ingredients.  It’s so interesting to see how my thought process has changed over the years, as I remember how hard it was the first 2 years to think this way. 

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer and farmer’s markets so far!!   Eat fresh and eat local!

CSA Week #1 - Spinach, strawberries, rhubarb, radishes, baby turnips and broccoli rabe

CSA Week #2 - Baby turnips, radishes, beets, spinach, saute greens, rhubarb, and garlic scapes

CSA Week #3 - Cilantro, kohlrabi, broccoli, radishes, baby turnips, garlic scapes, spinach, beets and lettuce

B put away the CSA so quickly last week that I didn't have time to take a picture by CSA week #4 included broccoli, chives, cilantro, garlic scapes, kohlrabi, butter lettuce, napa cabbage, sugar snap peas and bok choy.

Our raised bed before the last harvest -- sungold tomato, baby turnips, baby bok choy, mystery tomato plant, lots of peppers and arugula

Our herbs this year!  Green onions, chives, thyme, cilantro, basil, parsley, oregano, dill, rosemary and thai basil

And I will leave you with my adorable dog hiding in our bushes -- one of his favorite places in our backyard