Pot Luck Tabbouleh with Feta and How to Chop a Lot of Herbs Easily

Feed a crowd at a summer gathering with this vegetarian salad that shows off the flavors of summer. Packed with herbs, tomatoes, cucumber, feta, and chewy bulgur wheat grains lightly coated with lemon juice and olive oil this side dish can sit on a buffet table and keep its flavor.

For other recipes using a massive bounty of herbs, please see my Herb Recipes Collection. For other recipes using Cucumbers, please see my Cucumber Recipes Collection. For other recipes using ripe red tomatoes, please see my Red & Yellow Tomato Recipes 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, or the garden abundance. For another kitchen hack please see my Sun Gold Tomato Panzanella.

Normally I'm just cooking for our family of four so when I go bigger with a recipe that works for a crowd, and also uses the produce from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, I want to share with the rest of the class. I've done it before with my Pot Luck Asian Chicken Cabbage Salad.

The First Tomato of Summer [yes, worthy of capitalization if you're like me and just don't buy fresh tomatoes November through June] needs something worthy to celebrate its arrival [then you can move on to the weekly Summer Tomato Sandwich]. I'd been eying my unruly mint patch and craving tabbouleh--oh, my mommy pronounces it tah-BOO-lee so that's what I say--so I picked up a package of bulgur and gathered my goodies. I followed the directions on the package and used Bob's Red Mill Red Bulgur (Amazon affiliate link). No sponsorship--I tell you the brand name because the recipe I started with came from the back of the package and because I'd never tried red bulgur before. Usually I buy it in bulk somewhere, and since I know the company name I thought I'd share. The product did work great, though, if you're looking for bulgur. I picked mine up at the grocery store down the street.

That tabbouleh was all I'd hoped for--bright and fresh with all the herbs, tangy but not gloppy from the dressing, crunchy from the cucumber, chewy and filling from the wheat. Plus the flavor of a local tomato picked when ripe and grown for flavor, not travel ability. /rant.

After the success of that tabbouleh I thought it would be good with feta, and with loads of herbs still to use I was looking for an excuse a reason to make more. Lots more. Cue marching band camp--filled with hungry teens, who arrived promptly at 11:30 each day and, like polite locusts, left the serving area decimated 10 minutes later. The band has both vegetarians and kids with sophisticated taste, as well as my kid (I shouldn't rag on him, but he's delighted with leftover concession stand hot dogs . . .). I knew it would not be ignored. One musician came back for seconds 3 times! That's probably not called seconds, but you know what I mean.

Sun Gold Tomato Panzanella with Mozzarella and Capers

Cherry tomatoes tossed with cubes of bread to soak up the luscious juices, seasoned with capers and marinated mozzarella. This salad is an excellent, fast, and easy addition to summer entertaining.

This tomato bread salad with mozzarella and capers makes a terrific meatless main dish in the summertime, as well as an excellent addition to a summer cookout or potluck.

It is easy to throw together at the last minute. Why? Here's a kitchen hack for you:

If you have unsliced bread--from your oven, your bread machine, or your local bakery--you know how hard it is to slice the last couple of inches? STOP DOING THAT. Cut it into cubes instead, and store those bread cubes in the freezer. 

Having bread cubes on hand comes in pretty handy. In the winter I make Panade, in the summer I make panzanella, and one of these days my son is going to make croutons on the grill. Or so he claims. Teenagers.

Besides the bread cubes in the freezer, this salad also uses cheese, capers, and vinaigrette that can all hang out for weeks in the fridge. This means it's an excellent last minute recipe--when I've got onion, basil, and of course the star of the show--cherry tomatoes.

When I get a pint of cherry tomatoes in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share I usually snack on a few bunch on the way home, then my spouse snacks on them if he's around--and otherwise they need a job. The kids aren't snacking on them. Throwing together a salad like this takes care of a pint quickly, though you can always use chopped regular tomatoes if that's what you've got. 

Now the photo above is this week's pint from the farm share. The tomatoes in the salad were from last week's share, and were all Sun Gold tomatoes (like the lil' orange one in the photo above). I just didn't get an ingredients shot since I was throwing the salad together minutes while a cake was baking and we were fixing to go to a cookout. A very last-minute dish, but since the cake took longer than I expected I snapped some photos of the completed dish.

What is Tomato Pesto? Why Put it on a Pizza?

A vegetarian's delight: pizza with marinated artichoke hearts, kalamata olives and pickled banana peppers on fresh tomato pesto, topped with salty feta crumbles and creamy burrata cheese, finished with fresh summer savory.

Have you made Fresh Tomato Pesto yet? It's one of my most popular posts every summer, and with good reason. This flexible dairy free recipe uses ANY type of tomato (I've tried cherry to Roma), assorted nuts--or sunflower seeds--and whatever herbs you've got handy. I prefer a combo of flat Italian parsley and basil, but I'll be experimenting with cilantro this year.

This is after thawing!

Eat it fresh, and if you've got a bunch of ripe tomatoes--put some up for later by freezing! I like these reusable storage caps for freezing (Amazon affiliate link) and freeze my pesto in half pint size jars. I use a piece of clear tape to write down the contents so I don't get mixed up--for example between arugula pesto and  garlic scape pesto. The lids wash up fine and only break when you swing the freezer door open too quickly and everything falls out and rolls on the floor to the delight of Robert Barker. [I'm sure that only happens to me, though].

I like to dip a variety of veggies and crackers into my fresh tomato pesto, but I really like to use it on pizza. I thaw a jar a day or so in advance, in the fridge, and drain off any water that rises to the top [For use as a pasta sauce I just stir it in.] Then I've got a flavorful sauce that adds a homemade touch to pizza.

Go make Fresh Tomato Pesto. My tutorial is here. For other recipes using tomatoes, please see my Red & Yellow Tomato Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks, please see my Pinterest board. For more vegetarian pizzas, please check out my Visual Pizza Recipe Index and my Friday Night Pizza Night Pinterest board. Wanna know how to Use This Blog? Click here!

Zucchini Pancakes for Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner

Patties of shredded zucchini topped with buttery spread and cheese. Make these small for hors d'oeuvres or large for a side dish/vegetarian meal. A terrific way to eat an abundant vegetable.

I've been eating zucchini pancakes for over 30 years. Whoa. That's a long time for a staple dish like this. High time I put it on the blog.

Growing up, my folks gradually turned our backyard into an edible space. The old small in-ground pool was filled in and used for rhubarb and other perennials, and I distinctly recall having the responsibility of a hammer (!) to break up the concrete patio that became a strawberry patch. My dad grew up on a farm and with his skills we grew beans, corn, chard, squash and tomatoes. In addition to the strawberries we had cherry and apple trees. Urban homesteading before it was hip.

Although we grew up with a glut of vegetables at different times of the growing season, I don't recall my mom stuffing zucchini into endless loaves of zucchini bread. Perhaps like me she hadn't wanted to turn on the oven. She made these savory pancakes instead. In Mom's curling cookbook, where I found this recipe by Lois Robertson of the City View Curling Club in Ottawa, ON, the title is Zucchini Crepes but we always call them zucchini pancakes. These are similar in preparation/use to my Turnip Fritters and to Meghan's Kohlrabi Fritters. 

Use any summer squash you choose--just shred them as fine as your technology allows you and squeeze as much liquid out as you can. You can also freeze shredded squash for out-of-season pancakes. Freezing the squash breaks the cell walls so that when thawed the liquid seeps out and you get a nice dry squash. Since you lose more moisture after thawing, I generally freeze 1½ times the amount of zucchini that I'll want to use after thawing.

For more recipes using zucchini all day long, please see my Zucchini Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. I've also got a Summer Squash Recipes Collection in case you've got a mixed bunch of summer squash and don't know what to do with it. I pin squash recipes of all seasons to my Squash Pinterest board, and share seasonal recipes and round ups from around the web on my FB page. For info on how to use this blog, click here.

Grilled Kohlrabi Leaf Chips on a Stick

Kohlrabi leaves, massaged with oil and seasoned with salt then grilled until crispy. You can eat these.

If you like kale chips and you've got kohlrabi, you should like this.

I'd been thinking that kohlrabi leaves could be grilled and eaten like a kale chip and I tested the concept last week. It works. Don't eat the 'stick'.

Yes, I also grilled the kohlrabi chunks. This bowl made quick work of the leaves.

I feel like that's a no-brainer, but my spouse missed the pre-dinner briefing [why yes, we are a military family, why do you ask?] and manfully chewed through his kohlrabi stems before I noticed.

Don't do like he did. Compost the stem instead. Or feed it to the dog. He may puke it out later.

Just nibble on the leaves while holding onto the stem.

It's like when you're at a summer festival in Japan and you get squid on a stick.
Manfully chew through the squid and leave the stick uneaten.
Don't ask me how I know.

Perhaps obesity in America would be helped by replacing chocolate-covered deep-fried twinkies on a stick with . . . squid. Or kohlrabi.

Easy Artichoke Arugula Pesto Burrata Pasta

A fast-to-fix vegetarian pasta dish using farm share greens, marinated artichokes, and creamy burrata cheese. Putting up pesto is one way I keep from being overwhelmed when the farm share greens are in abundance.

I forgot to take finished, plated, photos of this dish. I also had the grill going and it just slipped my mind. I debated sharing this recipe today, seeing how it's the first day of the the farm share season and I had the potential for new and returning readers arriving on the blog and did I want to start off with less than my best foot forward?

I decided that I did. Hope you understand!

The idea that you don't have to Eat All The Greens in a Week was a revelation to me when I adjusted to eating from a CSA, and putting some items up for later use is one of the ways I feed my family from our seasonal farm share year round. We're starting our 10th year enjoying the fruits of CSA farmers' labors, and recipes like this are one the tips and tricks for farm share success. For other tips, please check out this post. 

When we get a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box filled with assorted greens I am emphatically not looking to throw them all into salads. There are only so many salads we can eat in a week. Instead, I'm looking to turn anything not expressly salad-like into a recipe ingredient, and I give myself bonus points if it becomes a long-storing ingredient. I've shared a concept recipe for incorporating farm share greens into pasta dishes here, which is a terrific quick use for a bunch of greens. If you've got a bit of time to do some prep work, though, you'll be reaping the benefits for months by putting up some of your greens as pesto.

Arugula pesto fits the long-storing ingredient category--typically we're getting arugula in the farm share side by side with a bag of salad greens and other cooking greens. It's useful to be able to put up a batch of pesto. I store mine in the freezer in half pint jars, with a splash of olive oil on top, using these terrific lids (Amazon affiliate link). I don't just want to share how I put up this stuff, though--I want to show you how I use what I put up.

This pasta dish is my second version of a fast burrata pasta meal. The first one, that I've made three times now [unheard of in my family] uses meat and winter squash so it will debut in the Fall. Oh, so worth the wait. I wanted a vegetarian and summer-friendly version, good for a quick supper, so I took the burrata pasta concept and here we are. Adding in artichokes just elevates a simple pasta dish into a snazzier one, though we are in danger of the kids becoming artichoke fans and eating all the leftovers. The same thing happened to us with take out Indian food, and now my picky eater tells me the spaghetti sauce needs more eggplant. Educated palates. Harrumph.

Burrata cheese was new to me, and my spellcheck keeps trying to change it to burrito. When I first bought it I thought it was just like fresh mozzarella and was sorely disappointed when the creamy center oozed all over my pizza dough. Once I embraced the gooey center I came to appreciate it for what it is (creamy), not for what it's not (solid). I've found burrata cheese at the fancy cheese counter of my local Kroger. It's pricey but perishable, which means whenever I see it marked half off/quick sale I pick it up. [Yes, I cruise the fancy cheese counter looking for magical markdown stickers--I'm married, I don't cruise bars anymore.] I know we'll enjoy burrata pasta dishes so it's worth the splurge--at half price at least.

For other recipes using arugula, please see my Arugula Recipes Collection. For other recipes using marinated artichokes, you're looking for the Recipes Using Veggies In Jars Collection. These are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for ideas when you're facing an unfamiliar ingredient. You can also find me sharing ideas via my Pinterest boards and my FB page. Want to know how to Use This Blog? Click here.

Green Garlic Hummus with Green Garbanzo Beans

Freshly harvested mild green garlic and green garbanzo beans make a colorful and flavorful dip.

We are all hungry. My spouse is bike commuting these days and comes home starved. My kids get home from these last weeks of school and are starved. I think about making dinner and get peckish. Having an easy appetizer on hand, one that is protein-packed like hummus, is such a time- and appetite-saver for us all. I'm not worried about mindless snacking when I know what went into the dip.

Sometimes I'm buying the giant vats of Sabra from Costco to get our hummus fix. Sometimes I'm looking around at the contents of our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box for hummus ideas. I've done quite a few for the blog--here are some of them:

In the spring we sometimes get fresh green garlic in the farm share. I like to play with it and try new things--I grow my own garlic but I've never harvested it as green garlic. Susan of Luna Cafe has a Fresh Primer on Green Garlic and Garlic Scapes--check it out here. [The garlic scapes, however, are something very worth harvesting--here's what a brand new baby scape looked like on my tallest plant the other day]. 

This hummus marks my first foray into green garbanzo beans. I saw some at my local spice shop and couldn't resist. I had no clue that spice shops existed before I moved to Dayton, and now I'm aware of 3--although I primarily shop at Spice Paradise where I got these beans. You can also make this with regular dry or canned chick peas. Whatever's easiest.

Green garbanzo beans and green garlic seemed like a good idea--so I made a hummus. We enjoy hummus with carrots, pita chips, pretzel chips, and even piled up in a plate with other summer eats for an easy dinner.

For other recipes using garlic, please see my Garlic Recipe Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. Want to know how to Use This Blog? Click here. For other vegetable appetizers, please see my Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks Pinterest board. To see what's up in the garden, feel free to check out my FB page. And, for more clickable collages of recipe suggestions like the hummus above, click here. 

Turnip Enchiladas

A vegetarian enchilada stuffed with salsa verde-tossed turnips from the farm share. Also good with a turnip, kohlrabi and potato blend. A Meatless Monday fiesta.

I stumbled across turnips as an enchilada filling by accident. I'd peeled and boiled a bunch of root vegetables from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share then tossed them onto a grill to get a crust. I thought they'd be a side dish.

We had enough other food that after a taste the root mix was pretty much thrown over for the Green Tomato Bacon Jam Burgers and the Confetti Potato Salad.

It's OK, I'm a master at repurposing leftovers. I tossed the mix with salsa verde, added cheese, rolled it up in a tortilla and made enchiladas. That tasted like a blog-worthy recipe right there, let me tell ya.

I'm not going to suggest that you peel-boil-grill a bunch of root vegetables just to stuff some enchiladas, though. I made them again, 4 months later, just to be sure. This time just with turnips and skipping the grill tangent. [Don't worry, I've been grill-tangenting all over the place lately and mmmm, there are some awesome grilled CSA vegetable recipes coming up.] Again the recipe tasted blog-worthy, so here it is.

[Curiously, I grabbed the exact same plate 4 months later, which is completely unplanned. We eat off these plates, so I'm usually just opening the cupboard and grabbing whatever's on top. My daughter carefully stacks the dishes so the 2 stacks are even when it's her turn to unload the dishwasher. My son just piles all of them in the closest stack unless there's no more room, then he shifts a few over. In that instance, she'll come after him and even them out.  The little darlings.]

For other recipes using turnips, please see my Turnip Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other enchilada ideas, I made a Clickable Collage of Enchilada Recipes which is on my Clickable Collage of Recipe Suggestions page.

Grilled Cheese with Cheddar, Havarti and Apple Fig Chutney

A grilled cheese sandwich with creamy havarti and sharp cheddar set off by grainy mustard and apple fig chutney.

You get by with a little help from your friends. This was probably as true when the Beatles sang it as it is today. Interactions with my friends--either online or in person--give me physical and emotional support that keeps me going some days. I don't need much--a phone call here, a morning walk there, meeting for coffee or lunch--or chatting late at night on FB. It all lifts me up and makes me appreciate my friends.

When my spouse is deployed my friends help me get through. At this stage of the game, it's less about physical support--though my friend Dawn's spouse's weekly weed whacking is an act of kindness I will never forget*--but the need for emotional support remains strong. I hope I give back to my friends as much as I take from them.

I'm writing about friends and grilled cheese because the idea for this recipe came via my friend Melanie. To know her is to know she's a rockstar ninja. A group of us were enjoying lunch to celebrate her birthday and I ordered grilled cheese. [My interpretation of that will appear on the blog in another week or two--my friends voted to share this one first.] Melanie told me about a great grilled cheese sandwich she'd had--havarti, mango chutney, and fresh spinach leaves. It sounded good enough for me to pick up a package of havarti slices at Costco and try it out with my Apple Fig Chutney for my girl.

*If you are in a position to provide routine lawn care to a woman whose spouse is deployed--please do so. Don't wait for her to ask, just offer and then show up and do it. Thank you.

Scrambled Egg & Beet Greens Pizza

Farm fresh eggs and farm share beet greens celebrate Spring on this vegetarian pizza.

I have a friend who celebrates the equinoxes with black and white meals. While I'd love the creative challenge, I'm more inspired by the themes of the upcoming season. All over the yard I'm seeing signs of rebirth--the daffodils my dad several years ago are peeping though the leaf mulch, the buds on the peach and dogwood trees are swelling, and I figured out which one of my raised beds has our garlic growing. [I'd forgotten where I planted it.] You can see that photo on my FB page.

I don't know if it's Easter or longer days and happier chickens, but eggs seem more abundant in Spring. I like to put my seasonal abundance on a Friday Night Pizza. I wasn't thrilled with the stress of cracking a raw egg atop a pizza, in my Ham, Asparagus, Leek & Egg Pizza. I worried about burning the crust before fully cooking the egg.

Instead, I figured I would partially cook a scrambled egg and add that to a pizza. Since beet greens and eggs are an amazing combination, I figured I'd give it a try on this pizza. I used a vegan hickory bacon-flavored seasoning salt, and sharp cheddar topped the whole pie. The whole family got on board this one, and I had no daytime leftovers to photograph in natural light.

Reminder to us all--save your eggshells to grind up and add to your garden bed. This will boost the calcium available to your tomatoes and help prevent blossom end rot. Nobody wants a rotten blossom end, especially on a tomato.

For other recipes using beet greens, please see my Beet Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other vegetarian pizza recipes please see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index or my Friday Night Pizza Night Pinterest board.

Savory French Toast with Avocado and Egg

An easy meatless meal, a savory breakfast for dinner, a new twist on Fat Tuesday. No matter what occasion you prefer, this savory French toast with avocado and egg will be delicious.

My octogenarian parents tell me that Toast is a Thing. I really don't get the concept of high end artisanal toast [I mean decorating a cupcake takes skill, but making a piece of toast?] but I do like a nice piece of toast. I've never gone out for fancy toast like my trendy folks have, but I think I can say with certainty that

this is not high end artisanal toast.

This is my answer to Pancake Tuesday, or Fat Tuesday, or an easy meatless Monday meal, or a twist on Breakfast for dinner. Instead of using the milk & eggs to make pancakes [and whatever else it is we're supposed to make when everyone runs to the store at the threat of snow--have you considered a Finnish Oven Pancake?], why not make French toast? Who says French toast has to be sweet? If I'm not using eggnog in the batter (like my Pumpkin Eggnog French Toast recipe) then the components are just as savory as a fried egg sandwich.

A fried egg sandwich is one of the perfect comfort foods, and one of the first meals I fixed both my spouse and my brother upon their respective returns from Iraq. You know someone who needs some TLC? Fix 'em a fried egg sandwich. Or if they are of the canine persuasion, make this.

Using the magic of blog-time I made this last week. On Fat Tuesday, like darn near every Tuesday night of the school year, I'll be shuttling my daughter to sewing and hanging out writing/reading/knitting/playing solitaire on my phone. I will not be making this.
You could, though.

Roasted Sweet Potato Nachos

Layers of roasted sweet potatoes seasoned with salsa verde, black beans, salsa and even taco meat if you've got it--all tucked under a blanket of cheese and baked until bubbly. Serve with tortilla chips for a tasty vegetable appetizer, another Awesome Veggie App {link to my Pinterest board}.

It's time for the Game!

In our family, that could mean Ticket To Ride, Sushi Go!, Qwirkle, Timeline or our newest find, Black Fleet (all game links are Amazon affiliate links). Several years ago, after repeated failures attempts we became a family who plays games together.

We don't play Candyland or Monopoly. To be honest, I never found those games particularly enjoyable and thought I just wasn't the type of person who liked to play games. I was wrong. It wasn't me--it was the games we had. If you'd like to have a blast playing games together, read on. If not, jump down to the nachos.

How did we become a game-playing family? My spouse. His engineer brain took on the task after my efforts failed, and he has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Over the holidays we had 12 people around the table, 3 generations, ages 14-86, laughing to the point of bladder control issues while playing Telestrations.

Telestrations is a combo of Telephone and Pictionary. Each person gets a drawing pad and a list of words. You read a word, draw a picture to describe the word, then pass your pad to the next person who writes a word based on your drawing. That person passes it to the next, who draws a picture based on the word they see, and so on. We bought 2 games so we'd have enough drawing pads for everyone--it's great for large group.

The Board Game Family is the blog where my spouse discovered our first successful games. Check them out here. Once you know the style of game that you like to play, you can find new ones yourself. We've had great success with Spiel des Jahres winners, and now enjoy cooperative as well as competitive games each week. It's great fun--yes I'm saying this about sitting around the dining room table playing games with my teens--and good for our mental and emotional health as well.

We don't feed our games, so the table gets cleared off, hands washed, and food put away before the games come out. If you're interested in another sort of game--say, you wanna watch football while eating these nachos--be my guest. They're certainly yummy and would work for that sort of game too.

For other recipes using sweet potatoes, please see my Sweet Potato Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index for this blog.