Chicken Pizza with Strawberry Salsa and Garlic Scape Pesto

Strawberry salsa-tossed chicken layered with cheeses on a garlic scape pesto-sauced pizza crust. A pizza recipe straight out of my edible back yard (exceptions chicken, peppers, and cheese).

I was thinking about starting a "What is Edible in the Yard This Week" sidebar column, but then I looked around the yard and realized that the chickweed growing up between the bricks on the patio is about it. [FYI, chickweed tastes bright and lemony, if you're wondering, and Robert Barker snacked on it for me. But he snacks on everything.]

Sure, the garlic is growing well, the raspberry canes have leafed out, and the peach tree bloomed beautifully. Burgeoning piles of mint, rosemary, and thyme are spreading out in the sun. The sugar snap peas, chard, strawberries, and parsley have begun to grow. I've even spotted volunteer pumpkins [or mutant squash] and cilantro sprouting their first true leaves.

Despite the lack of current edible items in our garden, the pizza I'm sharing today shows how I put up food when it's ripe and then eat it year round. Strawberry salsa and garlic scape pesto came right from my little back yard, and I open jars/thaw cubes when I want some Spring flavors. With a stove and a freezer [and a food processor or blender is nice as well--and power too, since I'm blogging from the library because a transformer blew and our power is out] eating pizza like this is well within reach for you, too.

Seeing an albino squirrel in the back yard [photo by my lightning-reflexed spouse] I'm feeling the absence of the composting pigs this Spring. After nearly 5 years with them, my spouse finds himself plucking dandelions before he remembers there are no pigs to wheek their pleasure at the treat.

PSA:  If you're in the market for another family member, consider rescuing a pair of guinea pigs. Keep their large cage in a common area [ours lived in a corner of the living room atop the dog crate] and these social creatures will not only brighten your day and let you know when it's dinner time, they'll eat up any unwanted Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share produce. [Thus I termed them the 'composting pigs', as guinea pig poop is perfectly fine for your compost bin.] I'm glad of my worm bin to take up the slack, but the worms aren't very interactive. Not like our beloved pigs. [Will we get more? Not at this time. For me, 3 dogs are plenty of animals to care for.]

For other recipes using garlic scapes or garlic scape pesto, please see my Garlic/ Garlic Scape Recipes Collection. For other recipes using strawberries, please see my Strawberry Recipes Collection. These are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. I even have a Visual Pizza Recipe Index, because I have a thing for indices.
I've pinned more garlic scape recipes to my Garlic Scapes Pinterest board and more pizzas to my Friday Night Pizza Night Pinterest board. Wanna know how to Use This Blog? Click here.

Double Pepper Double Cheese Grilled Cheese

Two kinds of peppers--fresh sweet and pickled banana--with two kinds of cheese in this creamy vegetarian grilled cheese sandwich.

I've not been one to follow food holiday trends [who came up with National Blueberry Pancake Day in the wintertime?] but I get why grilled cheese sandwiches are popular in Spring. It's sunny, yet it can be cool. A grilled cheese sandwich is the perfect lunch.

This easy vegetarian sandwich would be terrific for a Meatless Monday supper, too. Shoot, if you slice the peppers during weekend food prep it's ready in minutes. If you don't slice the peppers ahead of time it's ready in minutes+2.

I made a batch of these sandwiches one sunny-yet-cool Saturday lunch. I used both my Multigrain Sourdough bread as well as my spouse's German dark rye--it's good on both. The whole family appreciated the warm cheesiness. I'd say we all liked the peppers, but my daughter merely tolerated them. 

I got the idea the same lunch I head about Havarti & Chutney grilled cheese. At Tanks Bar & Grill I had the 'don't even think about asking for substitutions' grilled cheese. It had mayo, mustard, pickled banana peppers and some other stuff--but those listed parts resonated with me and I had to try them at home. 

For other grilled cheese sandwich ideas, plus a lovely tomato soup to dunk them in, please click on a photo below. This is one of my Clickable Collages of Recipe Suggestions--yet another way to give you ideas for what to do with your produce. 

Please refer to my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient for further recipes by produce item, and follow me on Pinterest where I'm pinning cool things I find around the web.

Mediterranean Chopped Salad Concept Recipe

Fresh vegetables chopped together, tossed with a vinaigrette, and garnished with feta cheese.

This is not a post for a tentative cook, though honestly I have no idea how many of my readers aren't assertive in the kitchen. I mean, someone adventurous* enough to sign up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share has got to have some confidence in the kitchen, right?

I made this salad to serve alongside a Lebanese-spiced ground beef and lentil dish. We ate this as shown, with hummus, yogurt, and warm naan bread. The fresh crunchy salad was the hit of the meal. Over the summer I threw together versions of this quick salad to serve alongside grilled chicken, alongside a dinner of hummus & chips, and as a snack. [Apparently I never bothered to label any other photos of it in the thousands of photos taken last year.]

Why should I include such a simple recipe idea on this blog? Easy. The whole point of the blog is to give you ideas for what to do with produce from your farm share, your garden, the farmer's market or store. The more ideas, the more successfully you'll use your produce. If the photos do a decent job of conveying how fresh and crunchy this side dish is, then my work here is done.

This recipe will appear in the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient as well as the Cucumber Recipes Collection and the Pepper Recipes Collection. If I remember to snap a photo of it with other combinations of veggies, I'll update and add it to additional collections. You can also find this, and other ideas for using Colorful Veggies [that grow] Above Ground on my Pinterest board of the same name.

Chicken & Roasted Vegetable Couscous Salad

Sautéed chicken and a blend of roasted sweet potato, broccoli, corn and peppers combined into a main dish salad with couscous.

I thought I'd share a bit about how my cooking style changes once our weekly Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share has ended for the season.

First, I give a big sigh of relief because I know I've made it through another season. I've nurtured my family with food grown by our farmers, our garden, our friends and a rogue compost bin. We have tried new foods with both successes and failures [the failures appear on my FB page, not on the blog].

Second, I'm still doing some vegetable triage. The remaining greens and root veggies in the crisper have priority over the squash and potatoes of the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve (SWSR) in my cold basement. When the fridge is cleared out (celeriac, a red cabbage and kohlrabi are the last holdouts) I'll plan meals based on the items in the SWSR and the freezer.  That's the key--plan meals.

Instead of winging it based on what needs to be used up NOW, I could take stock and thoughtfully plot out meals, thaw meats and vegetables, and work to eat down the supply of food in the house.

As if I will thoughtfully plan anything beyond what's for dinner tonight.

Even if I forget to plan ahead and end up just winging it for dinner, having bags of frozen chopped vegetables sure makes things easier. I can make quick soups using put up stocks and frozen chopped vegetables. The other night my girl wasn't feeling well [she claims she has the plague as she coughs daintily into her hand] and within an hour I had a turkey & wild rice soup, with curry and ginger, ready to eat thanks to my freezer.

This main dish salad works along the same lines. Using prepped and frozen CSA farm share vegetables (broccoli, corn and bell peppers) along with some sweet potatoes from the SWSR and a red onion I fixed us a hearty meal without too much pre-planning. Eating local vegetables while the frozen backyard turns into the muddy back yard--that's a Good Thing. [Three dogs and a muddy back yard? Not so much of a Good Thing.]

With luck, the foods I've canned and frozen will last until next summer, just in time for the CSA season to begin [note to self, mail check out this week to the farm!]. In the meantime I will be shopping for fruits, mushrooms, fresh salad and whatever else looks good or is marked down.
I'll keep blogging, too, sharing seasonal recipes all along the way.

Bacon, Beef and Beet Chili

A hearty chili of beef, beets, and tomatoes--flavored with bacon.

Chili is good for hockey season. When I have an afternoon available I'll make a pot of chili on a back burner while processing vegetables or making another dinner. The chili goes into the fridge for later in the week, then on the appointed day hangs out in the crock pot on Warm.  All day.  I just need someone {my sled hockey player} to grate the cheese and set out the fixings, and it's time to eat.

See the bowl in these photos? I got it at Hot Soups for a Cool Cause, a fundraiser for the Dayton International Peace Museum. My folks and I attend the twice-yearly events since their visits happened to coincide. With my donation I not only got an assortment of delicious soups and excellent conversation--I got to keep the bowl! I was amazed to learn that the potter lives a few blocks away--small world. I did not have this chili at the fundraiser (though I had a tasty borscht last month at the Cool Soups for a Hot Cause event). Instead, I pulled it out of my ear--doing a bit of a riff on my Acorn Squash, Beet and Sweet Potato Chili.

Our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farmers are great at growing beets.  The family is just not that into beets, despite 8 years of exposure to this delicious vegetable. No matter. If we get beets in the farm share, we get beets in our bellies. We eat what is in the fridge. Or else!

This time, bacon was my vehicle to facilitate the beets' acceptance. A little bacon goes a long way, flavor-wise, so I am glad to incorporate some into this chili. I'm gratified that the kids like chili--it's easy to cook, reheats well, and can assimilate a bunch of vegetables.

I've updated my Visual Recipe Index--for more recipes featuring beets, check out my Beet Recipes Collection!

Beef and Venison Sloppy Joes with Yellow Squash and Peppers

aka Butch and Bambi Bought the Farm-Fresh Vegetables

Ground beef and ground venison sloppy joes, combined with yellow squash and purple peppers from the farm share, with a kick from Korean hot red pepper paste.

I've bumped the recipe that was scheduled to appear today at the request of my spouse. He told his coworkers I'd have the recipe from last week's sloppy joes luncheon up on the blog, and who am I to refuse him? [Don't answer that one.] It was ugly food, though, and I'm always happy to bump ugly food to a later date in hopes I can remake it and get better photos.

The clever subtitle is also courtesy of my spouse [wish he also edited the photos--it's hard]. Since half of the meat in this recipe came from a cow named Butch and the other half from a deer skillfully obtained by his colleague . . . . the spouse's colleague not the cow's . . . it seemed an appropriate title. Adding some of the fresh vegetables from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share is just bonus. Flavorful bonus.

The basis for my recipe today is Pioneer Woman's Sloppy Joe Recipe. As in my Very Veggie Sloppy Joes for a Crowd I jumped right off in a "use ALL the vegetables" direction. Since I added ground venison, however, I didn't want to get too wild with the seasonings--ketchup and mustard is pretty tame I think. However, instead of all the chili powder and hot sauce I used some gochujang (Korean hot red pepper paste). Once opened, it keeps for a while in the fridge--I've included a photo of it so you know what to look for in the Asian section of the grocery store or an Asian market or here [Amazon Affiliate link].

I tend to throw leftovers at the family for weekend lunches because I usually fix a big breakfast, and my brain is percolating something good for dinner. Such a pain when they want to be fed again in the middle of the day, you know? Before taking the Joes to work for the luncheon, though, my spouse saved out just enough for the 4 of us. I was delighted to realize we could have one of my childhood comfort foods: sloppy joes on a bun with a slice of cheese and mustard, potato chips, apple slices, and milk. Perfection for a Saturday afternoon lunch.

If you're lucky enough to get some venison, please try this recipe. I'll even share my gochujang, since I don't foresee sticking it into waffles or anything . . . though a pizza is in the creative ideas stage, and it's been delicious in grilled recipes and with bok choy.

Want other recipes for ground beef? Here's a round up of 106 of them. Want other recipes using yellow squash? Look here.  Need other ideas for bell peppers--any color? Try this collection.

Colorful Roasted Butternut Squash with Potato, Pepper and Leeks

Cubes of butternut squash and potato roasted with pieces of pepper and seasoned with leeks. A colorful side dish for a holiday meal or for a simple family supper.

The other day I talked about my Appetizer recipes, tooting my own horn about my ever-growing list of vegetable (and now meat and fruit) appetizers. Today I'm focused on side dishes. I can could make meals out of side dishes. Back when we lived near a Boston Market restaurant I was happy to skip the chicken or meatloaf and instead feast on greens, squash, stuffing, potatoes, corn, beans . . . whatever looked good and could be plentiful on my plate.

The suck part of desiring a variety of colorful side dishes is having to make them all. For this recipe I decided to combine a few veggies--the most colorful ones on hand--and roast them together. One cooking session that would result in a plentiful pile of color on my plate. It not only looked good--it tasted terrific, especially alongside a roasted chicken.

Over the past few weeks I've been gathering all the ingredients for a repeat of this side dish (first made--and photos shot last winter). Fall crops from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share generally keep well over a long period. In a cool dark place you can store winter squash, potatoes, and onions for months. Peppers and leeks hang out in the crisper for a few weeks--and can be frozen to use in soups and stews as well. So even if you're getting the fresh local produce in October [and you celebrate Thanksgiving in the US in November--I won't rant this time] with proper storage your produce will be ready when you're ready to cook.

I've revamped my Visual Recipe Index! For more ideas on what to do with your butternut squash, click here.

Grilled Butternut Squash & Peppers--a side, a main, or a meal.

Chunks of grilled butternut squash and bell peppers as a side dish, tossed with grilled sausage for a main dish, and/or combined with pasta for a complete meal.

Just because school is back in session and the leaves are turning it's no time to put away the grill. In fact, grilling winter squash when it looks like Fall and the calendar says it's still summer seems like a good idea. If you want to get all-season about it, I even made this recipe in the Spring, using the tail end of my Strategic Winter Squash Reserve.

What's a Strategic Winter Squash Reserve? I'm glad you asked. It's one of the ways I feed my family from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share all year long. During the season (approximately late May-ish to early October-ish) we eat some of the share and put up the rest for later. One of the easiest vegetables to put up is winter squash. Winter squashes (acorn, buttercup, butternut, pumpkin and spaghetti are most common) are terrific long-storing vegetables. In a cool dark place (the cold corner of my breakfast nook once it stops hitting 90 outside) the squash will keep for months. Many months. Just be sure to look over your squash every few days and use them in a timely manner.

I've revamped my Visual Recipe Index! For more ideas on what to do with your butternut squash, click here.

This recipe follows the Bus Stop method of cooking I've used in previous posts, such as the Potato, Beet and Leek Soup (and How to Make Vegetable Stock). Depending on how far you take this 'bus', you'll make a vegan side dish, a paleo/grain free main dish, or a complete meal for omnivores. Or all three--with a single cooking session.*

Teriyaki Peppers

Colorful bell peppers coated in a teriyaki-seasoned sauce

Peppers are such a useful garden vegetable.  They can be thrown into meals all day long, from breakfast scrambled eggs to supper spaghetti sauce.   They can be eaten raw as a vehicle to convey dip into the mouth,  or baked as a container for additional filling. They can be frozen [rinse, dry, chop, freeze on a tray like a berry before transferring into a bag/jar] and used in baked dishes year round.

Rarely, though, do peppers shine on their own.  In my continuing quest to add vegetable side dishes to my repertoire I'd like to share these easy Teriyaki Peppers. The sauce can be customized to meat-eating or vegetarian meals, and you can use whatever alliums you want. I used leeks, but I'll make them next with shallots since my garden shallots are abundant.

Easy Cheesy Vegetable Rice Enchiladas

Another Fast from the Farm Share meal, combining shredded summer squash, peppers, onions and rice for a vegetarian enchilada that is wonderfully satisfying

If it looks like I'm not going to be able to use the vegetables from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share in a timely manner--I get busy.  Well, my freezer gets busy. For summer squash, and zucchini, I shred and freeze in 2 cup portions. [I've found once thawed and squeezed dry that the bulk of shredded squash is reduced by half, so if I want a cup I freeze double.] For peppers and leeks I chop into small pieces and freeze on a tray before transferring to a bag for storage. This way I've got vegetables handy year round and I reduce the amount of wasted food that our farmers grow. Yes, I do require an additional freezer--it also serves as a microwave stand so everything fits in my little old kitchen.

While I am capable making my own Slow Roasted Tomato Enchilada Sauce, when I want to get dinner in the oven quickly it's nice to grab a can of prepared sauce, some prepped vegetables, and just get going. I had my daughter cooking the tortillas and my son shredding the cheese while I made the filling. These assembled very quickly. Adding cooked rice to the vegetable mixture gives a nice "chew" factor, which I am sure isn't really a thing, but no matter.  These are delicious.

Colorful Greek Chicken Salad Plate

Greek yogurt seasoned with herbs, vegetables, chicken and cheese served alongside a colorful bed of vegetables, hummus, and pita chips for a simple summer salad plate

Eating my colors makes me happy. Combining tasty food with colorful piles of vegetables is a terrific way to eat a variety of colors. I wouldn't normally say that chicken salad is a colorful dish, but when you serve it with gorgeous vegetables, well, even on a white plate this would still be a riot of color.

I've been throwing together some easy summer mixed plates using a variety of cool and warm ingredients lately.  For a glimpse, head to my FB page to check out this photo.

Greek Stew Meat Tacos

Beef cubes, marinated in artichoke, lemon, and olive juices served taco style with avocado dip.

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One way to be a meat-eating local food eater is to buy a cow, or part of a cow.  We did, and that's how I got the cow that lives in the freezer.  One of the cool things about going in on a cow (ok, technically he was a steer), like I've mentioned, is that you get a LOT of cow parts that may be new to you.  And in cooking them, you learn new dishes that you love. Like tail.  I love me some tail!  You also get meats you may be less desirous of--thanks Dawn for bringing over the liver your family isn't fond of--we use it in meatloaf.  When you get a portion of cow all at once, you can find yourself with a package of stew meat tucked away in the corner of the freezer when you're not really interested in fixing a stew.

Just because a package says "stew meat" doesn't mean you need to make stew with it.  It just means that the meat needs tenderizing, either by long slow moist cooking, or by a long soak in a tenderizing marinade.  I opted for the latter this time.


This goes back to my mom wanting to use up the liquid left in the olive and artichoke jars because she never throws anything away without some sort of reuse.  (See where I get it from?)  When I made the Slow Cooker Greek Chicken Tacos the artichoke/olive juice marinade made for tasty meat--so I did the same thing with beef.  Note:  this has an overnight marinade!

For more recipes using avocados, please see my Avocado Recipes Collection. For more recipes using carrots, please see my Carrot Recipes Collection. For more recipes using olives, and artichokes, and other veggies in jars, please see my Recipes Using Veggies in Jars Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.


I'm sharing more recipes on my Pinterest boards, follow me there. If you like a good peek behind the scenes like I do, follow me on Instagram. Need a good read? I'm sharing articles of interest on my Facebook page, follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Creamy Avocado, Bell Pepper and Hatch Chile Enchiladas

A rich vegetarian dish, these avocado, bell pepper, and caramelized onion enchiladas are spiced with roasted Hatch chiles and covered in plenty of cheese.

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My New Years Resolution to add more avocados to my life continues.  [Ya think, since I've posted 2 avocado appetizers in the past month or so?] Since we like enchiladas I wondered about using avocado as the filling for a vegetarian dish.  Low fat or skinny this is not--it is rich!  Instead of a tomato-based enchilada sauce like I've used most recently in Confetti Turkey Enchiladas, or a tomatillo-based salsa verde, like in my Fish Taco Enchiladas, I made a spicy white sauce with Hatch chiles. 

Simon and I walked down to fetch freshly roasted Hatch chiles last summer.

In this dish I used bell peppers from my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share plus roasted Hatch chiles from my local grocery store.  Both of these peppers can be frozen when they are harvested and thawed for using in baked dishes like I've shown here.  It's another way I feed my family local foods all year long. The caramelized onions are also freezer-friendly flavor boosters. I use both Dorothy's Slow Cooker Method or Alanna's Flavorful Slow Cooker Onions.

This is an involved dish, with multiple steps, so I'll skip any further chitchat and get to the chopper recipe.

Wait--one note--next week I'll share my recipe for the Cheater Margarita Smoothies shown in several of the photos. I rarely suggest wine pairings with my recipes, but I can say with confidence that a Cheater Margarita Smoothie--or two--goes well with these enchiladas.

Another note--if you want to boost the structure of these enchiladas, feel free to add 1 or 2 cups of cooked grains (rice, faro, quinoa, etc) to the vegetable filling. We ate ours with rice on the side.

For more enchilada ideas, vegetarian or with fish, chicken, or pork--hey, no beef, yet, huh--please enjoy my newest Clickable Collage of Recipe Suggestions below.  As always, Anyonita taught me this party trick via this tutorial.

Click on the top 6 photos to be taken to the recipe, the bottom row are "coming soon"!

Fast Creamy Honey Wheat Pizza Dough

Use prepackaged 'pizza yeast' with your own additions of honey & cream cheese to make a quick and flavorful whole wheat pizza dough.

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This is a teaser post, and I utterly own up to teasing you with a delicious-yet-unattainable-today pizza.  See, the sauce is made of garlic scape pesto, and you can't find fresh garlic scapes right now.  Not in the grocery store, not in the farmer's market, not off the internet.

Garlic scapes are one of those items that are only available for a brief time, and after that:  poof.  Unlike asparagus (another actually seasonal item that's nowadays available in the grocery store year-round because it's shipped from other countries during the off-season) garlic scapes are a get-them-before-they-are-gone item, else you're out of luck.  One of the reasons I enjoy eating seasonally is because I get to look forward to different foods throughout the year.

So why am I sharing this pizza while my garlic bed out in the garden looks like this?

Simply because, again unlike asparagus, you can put up garlic scapes when they are plentiful and enjoy them later.  Garlic scape pesto freezes well, and provides a lovely mild garlic flavor and gorgeous color any time you use it in a dish.  I'm partial to pizza.  

Now, I've already written (and scheduled for Spring, in anticipation of garlic scapes in our Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] farm share) a post about how to make the pesto I used in today's pizza.  Instead I'll share the recipe for dough.

Yes, yes, I know I said in my Pizza Primer that I make my dough days ahead.  I usually do.  But not always--sometimes it's Friday afternoon and I've got nothing prepared.  That's when I grab a packet of pizza crust yeast [This is not a sponsored post, I buy my own packets--with coupons, always--and Fleischmann's doesn't know I exist. I'm just sharing the name of a product that I buy, use, and love--and if it inspires you to be successful in making pizza at home I'd love to hear it in the comments below.]

The inspiration for this pizza crust came from my friend Kim, who said she often makes a honey wheat pizza on her family pizza nights.  Never having tried honey wheat dough, I decided to adjust the recipe on the pizza crust yeast packet to make my own fast honey wheat dough.  I also threw in some cream cheese in lieu of oil just because I had some sitting on the counter from my son's post-braces removal Everything Bagel after school snack.  I can't call this a fat-free dough because I used regular cream cheese, and I can't call it oil-free dough because I did put it in an oiled bowl and used oil on the parchment paper.  So Fast Creamy Honey Wheat Pizza Dough it is.

Roasted Winter Squash Tacos

Strips of winter squash, roasted with peppers and onions, for a seasonal, vegetarian twist on the classic Taco Night

I wish I could be more precise about the kind of winter squash I used for these tacos.  It looked like a cross between a pie pumpkin and an acorn squash, so I am positive both of these types of squash will work.  Ditto butternut or delicata squash, as they'd roast up the same way (and you wouldn't need to peel the delicata). I just got a buttercup squash in the farm share but haven't taken time to play with it yet, so the jury is still out on that one.  If you have a spaghetti squash, I recommend you try Julie's Spaghetti Squash and Black Bean Tacos, as that recipe inspired me to look at the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve with an eye to making a vegetarian/vegan and bean free taco night dinner.

This is a Play With Your Benriner meal.  After laboriously halving, deseeding (more fun in next year's compost!), and peeling the squash, I thinly sliced it with my Benriner (link to Alanna's tutorial, or use a mandoline, or a sharp knife).  I gave the ends to the worms in the worm bin in my son's closet, as the composting guinea pig is not a fan.  Nor do pigs like the onion I thinly sliced next.  However, guinea pigs do like peppers and cilantro, so this meal wasn't an entire waste in a composting pig's eye as those were used in abundance.  Putting your seasonal abundance to work, that's what I'm all about.

I chose to roast the squash slices because I wanted a fajita strip shape (since I was using a bag of fajita size tortillas) and it was fun to layer the jalapeño, onion, sage and peppers on top of the squash to finish the whole thing under the broiler.  Only one pan to clean up, which I appreciate!

NOTE:  I created this recipe to be gluten free through my choice of ingredients. Check labels to confirm that your products are also gluten free. Good sources for determining that your products are gluten free can be found here:

http://knowgluten.me/2012/03/31/other-names-for-gluten/

http://glutenfreedoctor.com/gluten-free/

http://www.celiac.com/categories/Safe-Gluten%252dFree-Food-List-%7B47%7D-Unsafe-Foods-%26amp%3B-Ingredients/

Roasted Winter Squash Tacos

3 small winter squash, peeled, gutted, and sliced ~ 1/8 inch thick (about 7 to 8 cups loosely packed)

1/2 to 1 teaspoon ground cumin (depending on how spicy you like things)

1/2 to 1teaspoon ground coriander (ditto)

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon chili powder (as above)

1 onion, peeled (skins to the soup pack!)

1 Tablespoon finely chopped jalapeño

1 teaspoon fresh sage leaves, sliced into ribbons

2 cups sliced bell pepper, colors of your choice

Arizona Dreaming or other taco seasoning, a few shakes worth (probably 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon)

tortillas

Optional

1/2 cup packed cilantro leaves

guacamole

shredded Mexican blend cheese

sour cream

salsa verde

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Toss squash slices with seasonings, then spread out on a piece of parchment paper on a rimmed baking sheet.  Roast for 30 to 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes, until soft and tender.  Add onion, jalapeño, sage and pepper strips on top of squash.  Shake a bit of seasoning (Arizona dreaming, or a taco seasoning) on top of the onion and peppers.  Turn on broiler, and broil for 5 to 8 minutes, about 4 inches from the heat, until the vegetables get some color.  Gently combine all vegetables in bowl to distribute the seasonings evenly.

One of the things I like about Taco Night is how everyone can customize their meal.  I liked to spread the tortilla with guacamole, then layer the roasted vegetables, cilantro, cheese and sour cream.  My spouse preferred to add salsa verde on his roasted vegetables for more spicy flavor.  The kids had some squash with their cheese and sour cream.  How would you top your taco?

This post is shared on the Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Tasty Tuesdays, What's Cookin' Wednesday, the Wednesday Fresh Foods Link Up, From the Farm Blog Hop

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Vegetarian Antipasti FFF-a-boli Rolled Pizza on Sweet Potato Dough

A cheesy mix of mushrooms, artichokes, pickled peppers, pesto and olives rolled in a sweet potato crust

It's been a while since I've shared a rolled pizza.  I started with a Basic FarmFreshFeasts-a-boli, then later a Beef and Mushroom FFF-a-boli.  Coming next Friday I'll have a tasty turkey 'boli using Thanksgiving leftovers.  But today, I am all about the vegetables.

The base of this rolled pizza is a Roasted Sweet Potato crust I shared here. [Can you tell that I make multiple batches of dough in one go, so I can play around with the toppings?]  Since I usually have an antipasti bar going on in my refrigerator door I grabbed a bunch of jars for pizza topping ideas.  I put back the grape jelly, peach jam, sriracha and lemongrass but kept the stuff you see below.  Starting with a base of sautéed mushrooms, I added some pickled peppers, then olives and artichoke hearts, with pesto to tie the whole thing together.  Three cheeses make this extra gooey and yummy.

If you eat turkey for Thanksgiving, but will be serving vegetarians in your post-Thanksgiving Eat All The Leftovers period, keep this pizza in mind.

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.

Green Pork, Corn and Zucchini Enchiladas (Can you can? Yes, you can!)

Ground pork sautéed with zucchini and corn makes the filling for these green salsa verde enchiladas. Home-canned sauces enjoyed all year long.

Do you can?  I've made jam over the years, but I really need to give a shout out to Marisa of Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round because a year ago, through her wonderful blog, she gave me permission to can 'just a little bit' of something without making a Big Production out of it.

Last summer, when my local grocery store was roasting fresh Hatch chilies in the parking lot and the farm share had tomatillos every single week, I decided to try my hand at canning salsa verde.  I first tried salsa verde the previous winter when I made tongue tacos from the cow in the freezer.  My family tolerated the tongue, but we all loved the salsa verde and I resolved to learn how to make it when the farm share tomatillos overwhelmed me appeared in the box.  I followed the Ball® Blue Book recipe, subbed the roasted Hatch chilies, and this was the result--six lovely jelly jars of salsa verde.

Since I had the canning pot up from the basement and hot water anyway, I figured I'd make some peach jam from peaches that had been hanging out in the freezer, awaiting a canning day and some pectin.

But what to make with it?  We haven't finished up the first cow, and most cows only have 1 tongue [not that we were pantingly eager to experience those tacos again].  We are loving enchiladas these days, so I figured an enchilada recipe would be a neat way to take my salsa verde for a test drive.  I found some ground pork marked down at the grocery store and grabbed a bag of zucchini out of the freezer.

Freezer?  Yes, I wrote this post up during the snowy winter, dreaming of temps above the single digits while sharing how I feed my family from our garden and CSA farm share all year 'round.  If you're overrun with zucchini this summer, shred some up--I love my food processor because it has a fine shred disc which is perfect for zucchini, carrots, or cheese.  I freeze bags of shredded zucchini flat in 1 cup portions.

But I digress . . .  where was I?  Oh, right. Ground pork, zucchini, and you know what else would be good stuffed into that tortilla?  Corn.  Grabbed some of that, too.  You'll notice that this enchilada recipe serves 6, but only uses 1/2 pound of meat.  We are omnivores, but I like to serve less meat and more veggies, so this is another way to stretch a pound of meat.  And tasty, too!