Chopped Vegetable Pizza

BLUF*:  Chop a bunch of stuff together and put it on a pizza.  Bake it.  Enjoy.

This pizza starts with chopped late summer vegetables, fresh mozzarella, optional meat, and a quirky sauce.  Sounds fairly traditional, yes?  I guess maybe the corn might be unusual unless you're outside of the US.  I ate corn on pizza in Germany, but this particular combination was inspired by my fellow Learn Food Photography classmate, Gaurav Prabhu, during our 30 Days to Better Food Photography challenge.  He shared this photo about making pizza it caught my attention not only because he did a great job of capturing the elements that went into his pizza, but also because of those elements.

Chopped onion, chopped tomato, chopped pepper, and corn?  Sounds like a good combo.  A sauce of Szechuan chutney and mayonnaise? Interesting.  Mild cheese to tie the whole thing together?  Good plan.  I decided to make a pizza using ingredients that I had on hand (corn I'd put up in the summer, red pepper, red onion, leftover Italian sausage and pepperoni).  Instead of a chutney/mayo sauce I scanned the refrigerator door and picked up the bottle of Raspberry Enlightenment.  It's suggested in both sweet and savory recipes, so I used it as a sauce.  It was quirky--pretty good, yet not incredible like garlic scape pesto. I think this pizza would also be delicious with Gaurav's chutney/mayo or even a plain tomato sauce.

I've been putting off this post, in part because I had more seasonal pizzas to share and in part because I really don't care for the photos of this pizza.  The more I figure out how to produce semi-decent photos, or at least not blurry ones, it makes it really cringe-inducingly frustrating to see an older pre-rudimentary skills photo.  Yet the other day I got the most delicious corn in the farm share, and beautiful peppers, and I've still got red storage onions, so it's a good time to suggest this combination.

I just hope yours looks prettier than mine.

Chocolate Zucchini Waffles

I never set out to make zucchini waffles.  I'm such a fan of shredded zucchini pancakes/latkes, with butter and parmesan, that I think of zucchini nearly always as a savory, not a sweet. [Heed the words!  Pay no attention to this cake or these muffins!]

When I get overwhelmed with zucchini in the summer I reflexively grab the Food Processor, slap on the 'fine shred' disc, and shred those puppies up before freezing cups of shredded squash in bags.  I've noticed I get about 1/2 cup of squash back, when it's thawed and I've squeezed all the water out, so this summer I will be packing 2 cup bags, though right now all the garden volunteers are pie pumpkins, not zucchini, so I'm not overwhelmed.  Yet.  

Just another week in Squashzilla-land.

In the dead of winter (see photo below), when even my never-say-die Swiss chard has given up, these bags of green goodness cheer me and make me want to celebrate. With chocolate.  It's good to celebrate with chocolate, right?

Try these now, or shred and freeze some zucchini to have a mini summer celebration this winter.  Either way, you're in for a treat.

Fast Fresh Tomato Sauce

Served over polenta.  Crazy tasty.

When you've got farm fresh tomatoes and are looking for a quick easy no-cook tomato sauce, look here.  A jar of capers lives in my fridge, and if I put up enough, I have a cube or two of pesto left in the freezer until my basil gets going in the summer.  So when I get ripe tomatoes, I'm good to go.
This was fast, easy, and tasty.  Try it!

Green and Gold Basil Tomato Tart

A late summer tart of ripe yellow tomatoes on top of a bed of rich basil and cheese, baked in a tart shell. A decadent vegetarian dish.

Updated in 2015 with new photos!

This dish, more than any other one I make, screams SUMMER! to me.  I first tried it at a party in Hawaii, asked for the recipe on the spot, and have carried that stained sheet of paper around with me for many moves.  I've shared this dish with so many folks but I'm putting it up here too.

More photos, because I make this every year when I get yellow tomatoes!

Even though this is a summer dish to me, I also love it in the early fall, when we still have ripe tomatoes and I'm happy to turn on the oven.  If your family's favorite football team happens to wear green and gold, then making this tart for game night, using yellow tomatoes, would be extra festive.

For more recipes using ripe yellow and or red tomatoes, please see my Red & Yellow Tomato Recipes Collection (not to be confused with the Green Tomato Recipes Collection). For more recipes using up basil or other herbs, please see my Recipes Using Herbs Collection. These recipes are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, and seasonal garden abundance. Want even more tomato ideas? I've got a board devoted to tomato recipes from around the web on Pinterest. Curious how to use this blog? Click here.

Fish Taco Enchiladas

My dining room table is a battlefield.

I don't mean the battle over homework, though that also occurs at the dining room table, the breakfast nook table, and the Lego table.  I also don't mean the battle for Europe, or orange train cars, or vending cart cards, or goats for women.

Though as an aside, if you want to add more board games to your Game Nights I highly recommend the Board Game Family's recommendations. My spouse, with that site's advice, kickstarted our twice weekly FGNs after years of trying and failing to get a FGN routine going. And these games we play?  Great for adults without kids, too--they are just plain fun, unless you're malicious like my daughter playing Spot It--she always wins.

No, in fact I mean the How To Fold A Burrito Properly battle.  There are 4 of us eating, and we each fold our burritos in a different way.  And of course each one of us thinks we're right.  (My spouse is.) You'll notice in my Mu Shu (ish) Chicken Burrito post that I completely sidestepped the folding debate.  I'm sidestepping it again here, this time by making enchiladas! (I'm sure this says something about my personality or birth order or whatnot, but perhaps it's just that in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter to me how you fold your burrito.  Your sushi rolling is a different story.) I'm sharing this now because it is a tasty recipe and helped me to add variety in the proteins that we eat.

It just makes sense that eating a variety of foods in our diet is best, you know?  My family is fortunate that eating seasonally from our CSA farm share means that the produce in our diet (and that of the composting guinea pigs) is naturally varied.

I mean, I'm not going to the grocery store on Saturday and buying a head of lettuce, a package of tomatoes, a bag of carrots, and a bunch of bananas each and every week all year 'round.  Instead I'm yearning for tomatoes amidst the greens in May and overrun with squash and eggplant in August.  Such is the life of a CSA subscriber!  And that's the way I like it--eating from my CSA farm share appeals to me in ways I never considered when we started 8 years ago. I thought it would be similar when we got part of a cow for our freezer.  And it was, in part--we tried beef tongue tacos and ox tail stew for the first time.

What I didn't realize was that we'd end up eating more beef than we usually do, just because we have it in the house.  I have to work at eating protein sources other than beef--which is why I was tickled to see frozen Swai (aka Pangasius or Basa) fillets for $1.99/pound at the store.  Swai is a white fleshed fish in the "Good Alternative" category on the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch website.  Protein that is a Good Alternative, that is a great price, is good for me.

But what to do with the Swai fillets?

I had some leftover shredded cabbage/coleslaw mix, cilantro, Greek yogurt, some of my home-canned salsa verde made with farm share tomatillos and roasted Hatch chiles from the grocery store down the street, and enchilada-size tortillas, so you can easily see why I went in the direction I did here.  While it is technically an enchilada, it's not covered with a ton of cheese and a rich sauce.  The cabbage still had a bit of crunch to it, the fish was firm, the whole dish just worked.  If you have Swai or any firm white-fleshed fish (tilapia, cod, perch and whitefish are all on the approved list of the website) try this twist on the traditional fish taco, avoid the burrito-folding battles, and add variety to your plate.

Salsa Verde, Pork Steak, and Oaxaca Cheese Pizza (Pizza Night!)

For other recipes using Hatch Chiles, please see my Hatch Chile Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. This is a resource for folks like me eating seasonally from the farm share, farmer's market, or garden abundance.

There really is a pizza recipe in this post. It's Friday, and you're at Farm Fresh Feasts, right?

I've always liked to play with my food and try new things, I guess my daughter gets it from me.  A while ago we got part of a cow, including the tongue and tail.  I made beef tongue tacos with the tongue and, while they were interesting, the real star of that meal was the salsa verde.

Oh salsa verde, [I lamented] where were you when I was cluelessly trying to coax something edible out of my CSA farm share tomatillos??  Ah well, at least now I knew what to do with the tomatillos!  Sorry, food bank, I'm keeping them this time--have a jar of peanut butter and a couple cans of tuna instead.

Last season I had the happy coincidence of my local grocery store roasting fresh Hatch chilies at the same time that the farm share blessed us with tomatillos (something Aubrey of Homegrown & Healthy commented on--produce that is in season at the same time generally pairs well together). I quickly canned a batch of salsa verde using the Ball canning book recipe.  I wasn't quite sure what all I would make with it--we really didn't want to experience tongue again, though I wish cattle had 4 tails each because ox tail rocks.  Try Elise's Oxtail Stew recipe, and you'll see what I mean.

When I thought about the idea of taking some leftover pork steak home from my in-laws, I lay awake dreaming up this pizza.  I figured the pork would go nicely with the salsa verde.  I just wasn't sure what type of cheese would be best.  So the pork sat in the freezer and the salsa verde sat in the pantry and both patiently waited until this week.  My family has recently become enamored of fresh mozzarella on pizza, like this or this or this.  I love to get perfectly edible food marked down, so I've added a pass by the fancy cheese area when I'm making twice daily occasional milk runs.  If there are no marked down balls of fresh mozzarella, I make a mental note when the balls on display are due to be sold by, and try and swing by the day before when they'll have the magic stickers.  Did you know you could freeze marked down fresh mozzarella, thaw and slice it, and use it on a pizza?  Now you do.

It was during one such pass that the marked down sticker on this cheese caught my eye.  It wasn't quite shaped like mozzarella, but it looked and felt similar.  I whooped(!) because I felt like I'd scored getting mozzarella marked down.  The cheese monger (a brilliant lady--she can even pronounce the name of this cheese without sounding like Ben Stiller's character trying to say Brett Favre's name in the movie There's Something About Mary or Ellen Degeneres' character reading in Finding Nemo) told me that the cheese I was whooping about was in fact not mozzarella and started to describe it's characteristics to me.  Here's what the Murray's Cheese Oaxaca label says:

"Resembles mozzarella in terms of style and make process, but flavor-wise, Oaxaca cheese deserves its own dance floor.  Of Mexican heritage but made in Waterloo, Wisconsin by our friends The Crave Brothers, it's pure white and semi-hard, with sting cheesy texture and a salty milky zing.  It's best used for the melted implementation in its country of origin:  nachos, tacos, or quesadillas, or as a substitute for queso blanco in cooking."

We agreed this pizza would go perfectly with this cheese.  If you don't have access to Oaxaca and are too shy to ask for it because you're afraid you'll mispronounce it, I think queso blanco, shredded Mexican blend, or fresh mozzarella would do fine.

The last comment I need to make before getting to the recipe is this:  next time I won't make this pizza the way I did.  I'll make it the way I wrote it up here.  I think it would be better to toss the cooked meat on at the end, like in this pizza, not in the beginning.  What can I say?  I was making 4 different pizzas, 2 to deliver to a friend, and I was way distracted.  On Friday nights I put the 'as it's happening' pizzas up on my Facebook page so you can see how crazed I sometimes frequently get in the kitchen.

Pasties--A Meat Pie for Pi Day

Most of my cooking is done within my comfort zone.  Granted, my comfort zone is pretty broad thanks to my life experiences, but still.  It's not my typical style to make a dish when I've never even tasted anything remotely similar to it before.

However, I am a lifelong learner and I love my spouse.  And my spouse, to his credit, is a sucker for a book with pretty pictures.  So a long time ago, when he presented me with America: The Beautiful Cookbook by Phillip Stephen Schulz and asked me to make him pasties like he ate while growing up, I reached outside my comfort zone and gave it a shot.  He's glad I did.  I'm glad I did.  The kids are glad I did.  And you will be too.

Since that first episode many years ago, I've traveled up to the Upper Peninsula and tried a real pasty.  I've grown quite comfortable making them, and because pasties are a frequent visitor to our table I've even branched out a bit.  Today I wanted to share my basic pasty, because we've got a cow in the freezer, carrots, onions, and some potatoes that are not getting any younger.  When I have turnips from my CSA farm share they always appear in this dish, though the primary impetus was a good deal on pie crusts from Aldi.

Yes, Meghan says that this one is an easy crust.  Julie says that this one is an tasty crust.  Alanna says that this one is the best pie crust. You ladies are pie crust rock stars.

I am still scared about the whole 'cut in chilled butter' thing, too many opportunities for failure there, so for now, if I can buy pie crust for 99 cents I'm going to stock up.  Besides the fact that Pi day is right around the corner, I know that pie crust freezes just fine and with my unexpectedly defrosted fruit and vegetable freezer (see my FB page for the Lemons to Lemonade details) I had room to store.

For 150 some other food blogger recipes using ground beef, please see my Ground Beef Recipe Round Up. For other recipes using carrots and potatoes, please see my Carrot Recipes Collection and my Potato Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

2018 Pi Day Update: I made a video today while making our supper. Check out how I make my pasties!

Creamed Swiss Chard with Back Bacon--A Lovely Leftover to Have

When my first child was around 6 weeks old, my in-laws came to visit and meet their first grandkid.  They took us out to a steak place.  A Very Fancy steak place.  The kind of clubby, dark wood, tuxedo-shirted server place where you can't see much less hear other people in the restaurant.  The kind of place where the steak has its own price, and the side dishes each have their own price and the prices are . . . well let's just say my in-laws took us out for dinner. And the food was delicious and the company was convivial.

I will not tell you how, because he was our first, we were unbuckling the giant rear-facing carseat and lugging that giant monstrosity into the fancy steak place. (No, not the kind that snaps into/out from a base with a handle so that you can sling the sleeping baby, still buckled, over your arm like a basket.  The other kind of rear-facing car seat that can eventually be turned around and used as a front-facing car seat. We were dumb.  First kid.)   Let's just say that I felt exceedingly out of my element.  And the food was delicious and the company was convivial.

I had creamed spinach as my side because, even though I was ravenous all the time, I couldn't see paying that much money for a baked potato.  Baked potatoes I can do at home.  But creamed spinach . . . that was something I hadn't made before.  I always like to order things I don't try at home.

I love creamed spinach.  My mom used to make a cheater version with a box of frozen spinach and a can of cream of mushroom soup that was da bomb.  If creamed spinach could be da bomb to a kid.  Well, the taste memory of it is da bomb to me--it wasn't too rich like most creamed spinach I eat these days.

It surprises me that, as much as I grow Swiss chard and get Swiss chard from my farm share, therefore I've got piles of Swiss chard waiting to be used at any given time, I never thought about making creamed Swiss chard.

But for some reason--um, I'm blogging about how I feed the family from the farm share, that's the reason ;) --I decided to try my hand at creamed Swiss chard.  I got inspired by this recipe but veered off course a tiny bit to use what I had on hand.  As usual.

The recipe is pretty easy to make-I worked it so that I cooked everything in one saucepan, which kept the dishes down.  We ate it alongside a flank steak and rice because I remembered that fancy steak dinner.  We don't normally eat steak.  The interesting thing to me was what I did with the leftovers.  I'll blog about that in another post, but let me just say 'mock lasagna' and leave it at that. Well, I'll tease you at the end.

Rainbow Pizza (Pizza Night)

This pizza was more an exercise in How Many Colors Can I Put On The Blank Canvas of Alfredo Sauce & Dough than a real taste combination inspiration. It started because I saw Alfredo sauce marked down and thought that would be good on a pizza, and continued when the yellow Bright Lights Swiss chard was calling to me from the garden.  Then I started looking around and noticed the red tomatoes, the mushrooms . . . and finally a purple pepper.  Just be grateful I didn't grab the beets or blueberries.  This time.  While it made for a pretty pizza, and it tasted good, I don't usually prefer sliced tomatoes on my pizza so next time I'd leave them off.  If you love them, go for it.

And I can see red, and yellow, and green, and purple, and brown, and . . .

Beet & Goat Cheese Spread

New photo, same delicious recipe!

I love beets but my family doesn't.  I continually look for new ways to present beets so that everyone will discover how good they are.  One of my favorite ways to eat beets is this soup.  The family will eat it, especially if I puree it, but they don't love it like I do. That's why I was delighted to get this recipe from a friend.  She got it from her CSA farmer!  The inspiring recipe was for crostini, but I use it on crackers, on bread in a sandwich--good with radishes, cucumbers, sliced cheese and lettuce, and as a dip for sliced veggies.  This keeps for at least a week in the fridge.

For other recipes featuring beets, please see my Beet Recipes Collection, part of my Visual Recipe Index.

Try New Things-Radish Sandwich (Quick Take)

One of the neat things of being in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm share is the seasonal influx of new-to-me veggies.  I'd known that radishes existed of course.  I'd seen them on salad bars or on salads I'd order in restaurants. I assumed, based on that brief taste, that I didn't care for radishes.  The first year we got radishes in a farm share, I gave all of the radishes to my dad.  The second year, at the spring "welcome to our CSA" gathering when we picked up the first box of the season, I sampled a French Breakfast radish dipped in salt.

Hello!  That's good eating. After that I started sharing the radishes with my dad.

My favorite way to eat a radish remains the simple radish sandwich.  Take a slice of good bread (La Brea Bakery Whole Grain loaf from the store or Costco remains my favorite).  Spread with butter or buttery spread.  Top with sliced radishes.  Sprinkle kosher salt over top.  Delicious!

I'm currently fermenting some shredded radishes into relish on my countertop.  What are you doing with radishes?

Red Russian Kale, Baby Bella, and Feta with Roasted Garlic Oil (Pizza Night)

Sautéed baby bella mushrooms and Red Russian kale on a roasted garlic oil-brushed pizza crust.

It's Pizza Night again!
This time I had a hankering for mushrooms, and conveniently found some baby bellas marked down at the grocery store.  There's frequently milk marked down there too, which is also convenient as my kids can drink a gallon in the time it takes me to dance around the kitchen Gangnam style.

Pay no attention to the bacon in the foreground.  Or do, your choice.

If you ever tried kale chips, you'll know that lovely frizzled kale melting on your tongue feeling that you can get eating some soon after they've come out of the oven.  This pizza tastes like that to me.  I also like the earthiness of the mushrooms combined with the garlic and kale.  Crazy good.

I posted about how I put up my garlic.  On the advice of my friend Heather, I used a clove of roasted garlic to flavor olive oil and tried that as the pizza sauce. Delicious!

For other ideas using Red Russian kale, please see my Kale Recipes Collection. For other recipes using mushrooms, please see my Mushroom Recipes Collection. These are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other pizza ideas, please see the Visual Pizza Recipe Index and my Friday Night Pizza Night! Pinterest board. Would you like to learn How to Use This Blog? Click here.

Stretching Meat, Part 2: Burgers

Make a pound of ground beef go further in these hamburgers stuffed with shredded vegetables, breadcrumbs, and cheese.

For other recipe ideas for a pound of ground beef, please see my Ground Beef Recipe Round Up--106 recipes from food bloggers using my favorite freezer staple. [Because let's be honest, while roasted beets are always in my freezer, they are not my favorite freezer staple.]

When I get an abundance of onions, celery, carrots, bell peppers, and/or summer squash in the farm share, or from my garden, or on super sale at the store, I will fire up my new food processor and make bags of veggies.  I'll finely chop the onions, celery, and peppers, then switch to the fine shred disc and finely shred carrots and summer squash.  Then I'll pack 1/2 to 1 cup of each veggie in zip top bags.

In a perfect seasonal world, the veggies would all be ripe and overabundant at the same time.  Reality for me is that I'll have an excess of squash, peppers and onion one time, or carrots and celery another time.  So I make up bags with what I've got, and use however many bags I need to get the mix I desire.  I store these in my freezer.

Previously I showed how I stretch a pound of ground meat by combining it with an assortment of farm fresh veggies to make taco meat.  But there's more that you can do with a pound of meat and a couple of cups of vegetables.
I recently had a coupon for Fresh Takes* seasoned breadcrumbs and cheese and decided to try making burgers with it.  Here's how it turned out.

Confetti Potato Salad

New photo, same salad!

I know everyone has their own version of potato salad.  I love many kinds--bright yellow with mustard, chock full of hard boiled eggs, hot with bacon and vinegar.  Still trying to make one that tastes like my memories of Octoberfest at the Tobacco Company in Richmond, VA.

This is my version.  I like the color and crunch that the veggies give, balanced with the tang of vinegar and the sharpness of the celery seed.  I prefer it freshly mixed, still warm.  My husband prefers it cold.  The kids gobble it up either way.  It works with new potatoes, old potatoes, really anything but large baking potatoes.

Sometimes I use red onions, sometimes green, sometimes white or yellow.

For other recipes using potatoes, please see my Potato Recipes Collection. While you're at it, the Carrot Recipes Collection, the Celery Recipes Collection, the Radish Recipes Collection . . . heck, you may as well just check out the entire Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. I've got even more ideas from around the web on my Pinterest board for Potatoes. 

Would you like to better Use this Blog? Click here.

Smoked Salmon, Cream Cheese, Cucumbers, and . . . sushi?

Smoked salmon, cucumber, and cream cheese in a homemade sushi roll.

It helps me to divide up all my ingredients by the number of rolls I am making.

My family isn't crazy about cucumbers.  But our farmers have always provided us with farm fresh cukes.  So when I'm not pickling them, or donating to the food bank, or keeping it simple, I do like to make sushi.  It keeps the kitchen cool on a summer day, it's a great portable lunch when we're out on an adventure, it makes a terrific lower-fat and messy hand free snack for watching football, and the whole family loves it.

For other recipes using cucumbers, please see my Cucumber Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. Want to know how to Use This Blog? Click here.