A Darn Nice Squash

So, there I was working at my Co-op job a month or so ago, helping one of my favorite local growers, Wheatfield Hill Organics, unload a mound of pumpkins. Among the pumpkins was this beauty of a squash that I at once swiped. The farmer told me it was a Long Island Cheese Wheel squash but I think it may have been a Muscade de Provence - both varieties I have admired in the Seed Savers catalog in the past and I was very excited to try one. Weighing in at 17 pounds it was HUGE and I couldn't wait to get it home as a lovely object d'art. As you can see by the picture it was quite sizeable:

Last week it started to seep sugar around the stem. It was time to cook it.

It was super orange inside, and oh so full of flesh. It took about 2 hours to bake the pieces and they barely all fit into my oven. It yielded 23 cups of sweet sweet puree. That's almost enough for 12 pies.

It was a bit stringy but the cusinart took care of that. I froze most of it for later use and made some of it into a crustless pumpkin pie...which is maybe more accurately described as a pumpkin custard. It turned out very orange, like a carrot pie, and I swear it has a bit of carrot flavor but maybe that's just my eyes playing a trick on my brain.

I used the Joy of Cooking recipe and a Clay Coyote Cazuela Pot (A great gift for the foodie in your life...a clay pot that can be used on the stove as well as in the oven).

The Best Chocolate Ever

It was recently brought to my attention that the most delicious chocolate bars ever are made right here in the Twin Cities. I've had the good fortune to try the Salty Dog (dark chocolate with coarse sea salt) and the Chile Limon (my all time favorite). They are made by Minneapolis' BT McElrath and I buy it right here on Grand Ave. at the Golden Fig, a must-stop for all of your local/regional gift food treats.

At the Golden Fig They're big on samples, too, which justifies the purchase of a $5 chocolate bar or $7 box of crackers. Sort of. The salted carmel sauce you can sample by the spoonful? Tortilla chips grown, processed and packaged in MN paired with local salsa? I think they even have a special cupcake day. Sold!

Baby Bok Choy Stir Fry

Happy Solstice!

Summer is finally here and we have a fridge full of fresh produce waiting to be eaten. Our CSA started last week and it is super fun. Since I know a bit about CSAs already I have quite the "game plan" for dealing with our weekly share:

1. I will bring some shopping bags to each weekly pick-up site and fill them up, leaving the box out of our cluttered house.

2. I plan on washing and trimming all the produce before putting it away. It is being stored in tupperware and reused spinach clam shells (you know, the huge rectangular plastic containers that spinach and salad greens are packed into).

3. There shall be no rationing. All of the produce is so delicious fresh that it's best to gobble it up. There has not been a problem thus far of running out since I've also been volunteering at the farm for some extra stuff. It would be much worse to have something spoil.

4. Salads for lunch every day.

That's all I have so far. The biggest difference so far between joining a CSA and living on a CSA farm is that I have this urgency to use everything up. When we were living at the farm, it was like,

"Oh, half a head of lettuce left? Just feed it to the chickens and we'll pick more tomorrow. "

and now it's,

"Use every bit, rehydrate that fallen leaf and it will be as good as new."

Here's a pre-CSA baby bok choy stir fry that I was cooking up after snagging a boxload of greens after an afternoon of volunteer hand weeding a couple of weeks ago. It's so pretty.

Heating Up the Kitchen

I am growing tired of cooking as evidenced by the last few meals of bread, cheese, avocado, and salad.  That still sounds good, actually, but I know the boy(s) in the house enjoy the casseroles.

  

OK, I like them too, it is comfort food after all. 

Tonight I have the kitchen heated up with a couple big pots of food bubbling away.*  These should last a few days (or longer since I got a little creative on one recipe and that's not always the best idea...it may be in the fridge collecting fuzz for a couple of weeks).

Curried Lentils

I make this often.  The boy likes it and you can throw all sorts of veggies in it.  He likes the curry.  Go figure.

1/2 large onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 carrots, cubed 

1/2 head cauliflower, cubed (baby-sized chunks)

1 white potato, cubed

1 large sweet potato, cubed

olive oil

salt

2 tablespoons curry powder

2 tablespoons tomato paste

4 or so cups of broth (chicken or veg)

2 cups red lentils

frozen peas

Saute onions in olive oil until soft, add garlic and carrots and saute another 5-10 minutes.  Add curry and saute a few seconds.  Add tomato paste, potato, sweet potato, broth, lentils, and plenty of salt.  Bring to a boil and then reduce and almost fully cover with lid.  Simmer for a good 20 minutes or until veggies are soft and lentils have turned into a good mush-consistency.  Mmmmm, mush...great word choice.  Add peas.  

Split Pea Quinoa Casserole

1/2 large onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 head cauli, chopped

olive oil

2 tablespoons herbs d' provence

splash of plum vinegar (or another tasty vinegar)

1 cup uncooked quinoa

1 cup uncooked split peas

5 cups broth (chicken or veg)

1 can wild salmon

salt

saute onions and garlic in olive oil until browning, add cauliflower and herbs d' provence, and salt and saute another 10 minutes.  Add the splash of vinegar.  Mix mixture with quinoa, split peas, and broth in a 9x13 (or comparable round) baking dish.  Evenly distribute sections of the salmon throughout casserole.  Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes, covered, checking and stirring half-way through.  

I think next time I'll add mushrooms and maybe asparagus.

*It is now out of the oven and quite tasty. 

Cake

I did not bake this cake, the bakers at Wuollet Bakery did (and my MIL brought it over).  It is beautiful.  I had a bit of a mishap in my own kitchen, so much of a mishap that I chose not to even show it on my blog.  My cake for the husband looked like a pile of vomit.  Really!  True, the WB cake is full of gluten, which certainly helps when baking.  I used a mix (I already threw out/recycled the packaging so I'm not sure what brand) which SHOULD be full proof, even without gluten.  I blame my oven.  I left the cake in the oven for at least 20 extra minutes and when I cut into in today it was a little too fudgy...aka undercooked...not a GREAT feature in cake. It was chocolate, so it had that going for it.  I was going for German Chocolate so I made that frosting with the coconut, pecans (I only had almonds which worked well), evaporated milk, vanilla , and butter...a HALF POUND OF BUTTER.   Needless to say, it was tasty.  Tasty, but a little nasty when your house is 83 degrees, humid, and the frosting is starting to turn back into butter, a little droopy on the too-short raw-ish cake.  Mmmmm.  The vomit similarity came from the texture of the frosting and also the fact that I had much more frosting than cake, but I used all of it and just kept piling it on until it looked like a big puddle.   I blame the heat.  One can always blame the weather, right?

Sharbidar-badingdong

The new breakfast staple in our house is the Sharbidar. We first had the concoction at Amore Coffee House on Grand Ave. here in St. Paul. I think's it's their own invention, but I haven't done much googling about it. It's Earl Grey tea, milk, and honey. For an extra badingdong we add a few cranks of "Sloth", a fancy grinder full of chocolate, cinnamon, and sugar -a gift from the Reids at Christmas. There is a whole line of the seven deadly spice grinders at the Chelsea Shop.