Fresh Tomato Pesto & Fresh Mozzarella Pizza (Pizza night!)

By May, I am eagerly anticipating the first tomatoes of the season.  I cannot wait for the taste of a summer tomato with mayo, salt and pepper and good bread. Or in a panzanella.  Tomatoes just taste SO GOOD when you haven't eaten a fresh one in ages!   By September, however, I am usually over the taste of fresh tomatoes.  I'll still save out a few from the farm share for sandwiches and burgers, but the rest of the tomatoes will get canned or slow-roasted and put up for winter.  Last fall, however, a happy coincidence changed my mind and caused this delicious pizza to come about.

This is the taste of tomatoes at their peak, and it's simply awesome.

The sauce for this pizza came from a recipe that Heather at In Her Chucks posted.  Her recipe was for Cherry Tomato Pesto, using cherry tomatoes and salted almonds.  When I got yellow tomatoes in the farm share, I decided to try it.  I didn't have almonds, but I did have some salted cashews in the freezer so I swapped for them.  I also used less oil because when I went to scrape down the food processor bowl I found the sauce consistency to my liking without the additional oil. I made so much fresh tomato pesto that it deserved its own post--here's how to make it and put it up. Since there is no cheese in this pesto, the pizza crust and sauce combo contain no animal products.  Topping your pizza with soy cheese would result in a vegan-friendly pizza.

I found fresh mozzarella marked down at the grocery store (snag it when you see it, it freezes/thaws well when you're using it for pizza) and the mental image of the bright yellow sauce with the white circles of cheese appealed to me.  Giant pepperoni slices added a final pop of color, as my kid would say, and the whole family loved this pizza.

Fresh Tomato Pesto: How to Make, Put Up, and Use It

I hate to waste food, and I'm pretty sure that you hate to waste food, too.

As I get to know the people who grow my food, I also hate to waste their time and the literal fruits of their labors.  When I decided to start a blog, I did so because I'd had success figuring out ways to take the farm share produce (that came into my house between May and November) and feed it to my family during the off season as well.

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

I know you like to eat tasty food (you're reading a food blog, so this is a guess, I'm not stalking you or anything) but it's just common sense not to enjoy composting or throwing away something you paid for that could have benefited you, your family, or hungry folks in your community had it been consumed in time.

So I need to share today a lesson in putting up a food which you may think couldn't ever be wasted:  a garden fresh tomato.

As soon as you have fresh (yours or someone's garden, CSA farm share, or farmer's market--not grocery store) tomatoes, please make this.  You'll thank me!  I've been thanking Heather! Not Simon, who photobombed the shot.

I know you're thinking "What, is she crazy?  I look forward to tomatoes from my garden all winter long!  I start them too early in the Spring because I can. not. wait. to eat fresh tomatoes!"

Sure, sure. You're saying this in May.  In June.  But what are you saying in September? October?

The fresh picked tomato has less of an appeal then.  That's the time I am canning tomatoes, slow roasting tomatoes, doing anything but simply enjoying the fresh flavor of a tomato allowed to ripen naturally and picked at its peak of flavor.

Why am I nattering on about this?  To put you in my mindset last fall when Heather posted her Cherry Tomato Pesto recipe. I had all the ingredients so I thought I'd give it a whirl (pun totally intended), but I was not expecting my reaction to my first taste of it.

It's broke da mouth good.

I was licking the bowl of the food processor when my spouse walked into the kitchen.  I sheepishly gave him a taste, and then he understood why.  Not content to make the recipe once (and in the interests of science and/or this blog), I made it multiple times, shown here.  I've used your basic red tomato, yellow taxi tomatoes, indigo rose tomatoes.  I've used cashews and almonds, and Leanne suggests it's great with macadamia nuts for a more dairy feel--without dairy.  I've used fresh basil, fresh parsley, and, when the fresh stuff ran out, I've made it with put up Arugula Pesto and Basil pesto right from the freezer.  I froze a bunch of tomato pesto in November, and thawed the final bag in April (shown above, after I learned to take a slightly better photo of it, even though the dog photobombed me).  I'll go so far as to say that you could make this pesto with any kind of tomato, nearly any kind of nut you have available, and nearly any kind of flavorful leafy green or herb you have available and it will taste great.


For other recipes using yellow or red (or orange, or purple--the variety of tomatoes in the farm share continues to astound me), please see my Tomato Recipes Collection. [I have a separate one for recipes made with Green Tomatoes]. 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?

Fresh Tomato Pesto Sauce 

(very slightly adapted from Heather's Cherry Tomato Pesto)

Ingredients

• 4 medium or 2 large tomatoes (tops to the composting pigs!)
• 1/2 cup packed basil, parsley, or arugula leaves
• 1/3 cup salted cashews, almonds, or macadamia nuts
• 1 clove garlic (or use some roasted garlic, if you like)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

Instructions

1. Throw everything in the food processor.  Pulse a few times to chunk it up, then puree on high several seconds until smooth.  
2. Scrape down sides and puree a couple moments more to get that last pesky piece of cashew incorporated.  
3. Store in the fridge a few days, or in the freezer at least up to 6 months.
4. This makes enough for 2 pizzas plus an appetizer for a hungry spouse who walks into the kitchen while you're licking the bowl because it tastes so amazing. We enjoyed this on pita chips, tortilla chips, carrot slices, baguettes, and pasta.

I've used it on a few pizzas, too:
Not-So-Simple Cheese Pizza
Five Cheese Pizza with Indigo Rose Tomato and Almond Pesto on a Butternut Squash Crust
Broccoli Rabe, Mushroom, and Roasted Garlic with Fresh Mozzarella and Fresh Tomato Pesto
Beef, Mushroom, and Fresh Tomato Pesto FFF-boli
Buttermilk Crust Pizza with Pepperoni and Fresh Tomato Sauce


This post is bopping around to What's Cookin' Wednesday, waving "hi!" to Heather, who first shared this recipe, at What's In The Box,  the From The Farm Blog Hop the Clever Chicks Blog Hop , Tasty Tuesdays, and the Wednesday Fresh Foods Link Up, Real Food Fridays.

Chicken Adobo Summer Rolls (A repurposed leftover)

Even though I live with people who are happy to eat leftovers 90% of the time, I love recipes that transform a leftover entree into an entirely new dish.  One of these repurposed leftover ideas is to make summer rolls.  You can stick just about anything in a summer roll!
I wrote this post the second month of my blog, since the chicken adobo we repurposed was from this post, my 11th post.  I've been sitting on this recipe for months, since by the time I was ready to post we were fully into the Fall season and it would not have been appropriate. There's a lot of sat upon posts appearing this week on the blog.  Something about the beginning of June marks summer eating for me, even if we won't hit the solstice for a few more weeks.

I love summer rolls but shy away from planning to make them because I often think they require too many fresh herbs that I don't have in my garden.  (This year I've planted a stealth herb garden with mint near the downspout by the driveway, and rosemary nestled under the dogwood. I'm attempting to fool whoever has been "going out to eat" in my raised beds, decimating the first round of parsley, dill, and fennel I've planted thus far this spring.)
The basic ingredients for a summer roll, however, are shelf-stable.  Once you've stocked your pantry with rice paper wrappers and rice noodles, you're set when the right herbs, vegetables, and even protein collide in your farm share, garden, or farmer's market.

Buttermilk Crust Pizza with Pepperoni and Four Cheese Topping

Do you keep buttermilk in your fridge?  I do.  Sometimes I make my own, sometimes I find it marked down at the grocery store and buy it.  Once I saw a half gallon for 15 cents (on the sell-by date).  You bet I snagged that bottle in a hot minute. 15 cents!
What do I do with all this buttermilk? I'm glad you asked.  I use it in a bunch of different muffin recipes.  The key recipe is here, and there are many more variations to the right ------> in my Recipe Index by Category.  I also use buttermilk in waffle batter such as this one.  I'm encouraging my son to pick up the skill of biscuits, so he'll be following this recipe.  And this summer, once all the bottles on the door of the fridge are used up, I am going to make this Buttermilk salad dressing.  But today, because it is Friday, I want to talk about pizza dough.
Buttermilk in dough makes a tender crust.  It's also got subtle tang that works great with sweet (ok, more like sweeter, I have yet to make a dessert pizza) and savory toppings, as you'll see today and in the future.  My recipe is from my favorite pizza book, The Best Pizza Is Made at Home (Nitty Gritty Cookbooks), by Donna Rathmell German.  I kept it basic this time, but there are more variations on tap (and currently in my fridge!  Check my FB page for the pizzas we're eating tonight using a whole wheatier Buttermilk Pesto Dough).

Generally, when I am sharing a new dough variation, I tend to keep the toppings pretty normal.  I mean I didn't want to freak you out like I did with the beet crust dough for vegans, vegetarians, or omnivores.  Today is no exception--as you can see by the title, it's a pepperoni pizza.  Like my Not So Simple Cheese Pizza, this pizza uses the wonderful Fresh Tomato Pesto I discovered when Heather put it up on In Her Chucks.  Since I spent fall and winter figuring out how to make, put up, and subsequently use many variations of that pesto, it has earned its own "how to" blog post which will be coming out next week.  Around these parts, that's before the fresh tomatoes show up--but don't run out and buy a well-traveled tomato.  Wait.  Patience is a virtue. Local tomatoes, like local strawberries and local celery, just taste better.  Life is too short to eat tasteless food.

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sunflower Seeds and Coconut and Sled Hockey

I'm delighted to say that this evening I will be picking up my first CSA farm share of the season.  Soon I'll be blogging about fresh local veggies--but in the meantime, how about a cookie?

As a food blogger (a tiny squee when I type that), there are a couple of signs you are overextending your creativity and need to step away from the kitchen, sit down, and catch yourself up with what you've been doing.

The first sign is when your spouse, the chief photo downloader/cropper/color corrector (when he's not deployed), checks the camera on Thursday night and notes that you've 228 new photos since he last emptied the camera on Sunday morning.

In my defense, I'd like to point out that was before breakfast on Sunday morning.

The second is when you pull a sheet of cookies out of your oven, look at them expecting to see oats but see none, and wonder what's in them instead.  Silly blogger, you baked Monday's Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chip Oatmeal cookies on Wednesday for your spouse's work function on Thursday.  These cookies were baked on a Friday, therefore I was baking the Chocolate Chip with Sunflower and Coconut dough. (Why aren't these recipes highlighted with links to the posts?  Patience, I've got scads of notes and photos to turn into posts.  Did I mention the need to catch myself up?)

Conveniently, these cookies, along with some stretched taco meat, were for the Saturday night team dinner during a sled hockey tournament, so I had some enforced time away from my stove. (I need more, though!)

There's no farm fresh ingredient here--I'm in between egg shares at the moment though if I lived near The Tipsy Gardener I'd be all set.  Instead, since I needed a dessert, I rooted around in my freezer stash and chose a couple of add-ins which looked like a good idea.  It was.  I'd tell you the team loved them, but this is a sled hockey team and sled hockey players are like all other hockey players--they'll eat anything.  At least that's been my experience. Hockey, and this dessert, really is for everyBODY*.

Roasted Potato Salad with Crème Fraîche Sauce

I couldn't decide which post to put up today, so I put up a poll on my FB page.  Roasted Potato Salad with Crème Fraîche beat Thai-marinated baked tofu. Stay tuned for that one.

The second year we belonged to a CSA farm share something shifted in my brain.  I embraced the concept of not knowing what I'd get in the box until CSA day.  Now I thrive on the challenge of using all the produce (by eating it fresh or putting it up for later) before the next CSA day.

This mental shift in my thinking did not come easily, and it has spilled over into the rest of my cooking. Now I keep my eyes peeled for marked-down grocery items and buy those instead of full-price ones, then figure out what to cook after I get home.  It's serendipitous when a recipe I've thought about matches an ingredient that has been marked down.

I'm very lucky to have a Danish sister-in-law.  In addition to loving my brother, raising wonderful kids, and being a talented designer (don't get me started on the hand-me-downs my daughter's gotten from her cousins) she's also a great cook and the best sous chef I've ever had.

Technically she's the only sous chef I've ever had, but she set the bar very high.  Once during a deployment I hosted Christmas and in my little kitchen, with Christine's help, we churned out an American-style Christmas breakfast (complete with overnight yeasted sticky rolls--that's the pan in the corner photo) followed by a full-on Thanksgiving dinner several hours later.  Christine chopped, stirred, and washed up like we'd been doing this together for years. And the tablescape?  Amazing!

Once, while I was visiting Copenhagen, Christine made a simple sauce for our steamed fingerling potatoes.  She combined crème fraîche, a little mayo, garlic, salt, and pepper and served a spoonful of it alongside the potatoes.  It was, obviously, memorable and every time I make it I think of her.

As the weather warms up, my family starts asking for potato salad.  What they are asking for is my Confetti Potato Salad.  However, my celery isn't ready to harvest yet*, and I don't want to buy any when I know I'll be filling my crispers in a few days with our CSA farm share.  Kicking around in my brain was the idea of taking Christine's sauce and tossing it with crispy roasted potatoes for a potato salad.  When I saw crème fraîche marked down at the store, that's exactly what I did.

This potato salad is like a Little Black Dress--it works on fine china alongside a steak or piled onto a paper plate next to a hot dog.  It's tasty hot, or simply warm, and even chilled (my daughter scarfed all the leftovers, so I'm taking her word on that one).  I roasted my potatoes, but if you have the grilling skills you could easily do this dish on the road--simply mix up the sauce at home and carry it to the event in a cooler, then when the potatoes are grilled, toss the whole thing together and serve.

Chicken/Blueberry/Hummus vs Pepper/Peppadew Pizza (Pizza Night)

Last Friday Night Pizza Night, I shared with you a poem I wrote to my pizza stone.

You probably thought I was a bit addled.  Correct!

In the interest of adding value to the post, I also shared my Roasted Garlic and Herb pizza dough, a dough that I think is not a copycat but better than Trader Joes Garlic Herb Pizza dough.

I promised this week that I'd share what I'd done with that dough, and I provided you with a teaser photo:

The pizza on the left has hummus, chicken, blueberries, goat cheese and red onion.  The pizza on the right has colorful bell peppers and Peppadew peppers.  Totally not clear to me if I need to put a ® or ™ symbol with that, so there they are if necessary.

I thought I would choose one to share today.

I try to balance meat-including pizzas with suitable-for-vegetarian pizzas, but to be perfectly frank, I've been kinda distracted lately.  My spouse is embarking on his Asian/Greater Middle East adventure du jour  d'année, my kids each had a concert to perform, and we were fortunate to have both grandmas and my dad in attendance which means I've had company for 4+ days.  So instead of writing up all about a pizza, with links all around, I've just realized that Friday's blog post should go live in 6 hours and I've not written spit!  This is not my usual M.O.. (should there be a 2 punctuation marks there?) Normally I write it all out in longhand, research where I want to link to, type it up, and days/weeks/months later, the night before it goes live, I double check everything and hit publish.  And I'm drinking tea while I write, not hard cider while I type.

Imagine my surprise when I realize that I don't have a pre-written pizza post at 8 pm on Thursday night!  I do, however, have great kids--one's walking the dog, the other is cleaning up from dinner, so I can grab my photos and dump out the contents of my brain so that you've got a pizza inspiration. Some day I'll share about the lovely man at the fancy cheese counter who gave me a sample of Peppadew peppers, thereby inspiring me to actually purchase some Peppadew peppers to have on hand for this pizza. Another time I'll share about the inspiration for this pizza, Heather's Strange But Good flatbread.  But after I finish typing this, since I've been up visiting until midnight for several nights in a row, stick a fork in me--I'm done.

If you have a hankering for pizza and do eat meat, grab some blueberries, hummus, goat cheese, chicken and red onion and make the pizza on the right.  If you're not into meat (these days), grab some bell peppers and Peppadews (Peppadews?  is that even a word?) and make the one on the left.  As always, please check out my Pizza Primer for really well-thought out not off-the-cuff-hard-cider-influenced pizza making instructions. Guess what? My folks' flight is now delayed, they are heading back here to spend the night, so perhaps Mom will proofread--she's great at that--and this post will be better tomorrow after an update.

Mexican Chicken Lentil Rice Bake (Salad?)

Most home cooks, and even the professionals down the road at Dorothy Lane Market, know the value of turning to a Kitchen Sink type recipe when faced with a fridge full of dinner building blocks.  I'm pretty sure a lot of classic Hot Dish combinations came about because a cook looked to his or her fridge/freezer/pantry for a substitution instead of trekking to the store.  Even though my local store is only a 1 mile (Map My) walk away, complete with a water dish for the waiting Simon, I'd rather use what I've got on hand.  Sometimes, the result is good enough to be written up and appear here.

I was mulling over what to call this dish while working a Hunger Study 2014 survey site.  My fellow volunteer, Bob, kept offering title ideas that were more general.  I kept coming up with very specific titles.  This was our compromise--it's got the Mexican Chicken Bake part from Bob and the Chicken Lentil Rice part from me.  You know, in case I do a Mexican Chicken Bake using garbanzo beans, Maui onions, zucchini, butternut squash, and orzo next. Or something.  Who knows?

Because I only used 2 large chicken thighs to feed 6-8 servings, I'd say this qualifies as a meat-stretching meal.  The chicken flavors the lentils, which add fiber and more protein to the dish.  Using leeks, corn, and salsa verde all put up from my seasonal CSA farm share pumps up the vegetable content, the rice binds it together, and the cheeses make it all tasty.  We ate this the first time a bit like we eat Taco Farro:  with tortilla chips, sour cream, salsa, and lettuce.  Leftovers went into thermoses for school, onto salads for lunch, and scooped up as a pre-dinner snack by a tortilla-chip-weilding hungry spouse.

Keep this Kitchen Sink idea in mind if you want to create a "less meat, more fiber" flavorful meal for your family.  It appealed to all of us, and I hope it appeals to you.

Sweet or Savory Yeasted Waffle Sandwiches

“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley.” 

― Robert Burns, The Works of Robert Burns

The cover story in yesterday's Parade magazine was all about the winner of the 2013 Armed Forces Chef of the year competition, Senior Chief Derrick Davenport.  As a side bar, there was a "By The Numbers" section that showed what the US Armed Forces consumed in 2012.  Guess what was glaringly missing from that list of milk, bacon, ground beef, and soy sauce?  Eggs!  Fresh eggs aren't commonly found in a war zone.  I knew that already, thanks to my spouse and my brother.

One night my spouse said to me "could we have eggs for breakfast?"  Of course I'm indulging the guy--he's going to be eating powdered eggs, if he's lucky, for a long stretch so I'm happy to fix over easy eggs for him while I can.  But what to serve with the eggs?  If you've checked the breakfast section of the recipe index up there ---------------->  to your right, you'll know I am a waffle fan.  I like how I can easily make up the batter at my convenience and then take Simon for a walk.  When I'm back, I fire up the waffle iron, keep the first few rounds of waffles warm in the oven, and then sit down to eat with my family.

The quote above, and the reason for this post, came about because I ran out of baking powder.  I can handle running out of all purpose flour (I've got whole wheat, bread, and cake flours as well), running out of pumpkin (I've also roasted and put up butternut, acorn or mystery winter squash in the freezer), running out of honey (what about molasses, maple syrup, or sugar?), or running out of spinach (kale, swiss chard, turnip or mustard greens?).  But not baking powder.  I NEED that stuff!

Without baking powder, I needed to use something else to give that "lift", so I grabbed my jar of yeast and fired up the computer.  I found a recipe at the King Arthur flour website.  Since you only need to let it sit an hour, it fits in with my usual waffle M.O. and I went for it.

But sometimes your plan goes awry, or agley, and your end result is not as expected.  Which is where my creativity kicked in.  The waffles turned out kinda flat.  Instead of despairing over a failed fluffy waffle recipe*, because life is too short to despair over still perfectly edible food, I seized the opportunity to make some waffle sandwiches.  Enter the well-stocked pantry:  I grabbed some cheeses, some put up peach preserves, some 'too runny for sandwiches' blueberry jam, and some leftover chopped meat and veg from a pizza you'll be seeing soon.

Ode to a Pizza Stone and Better Than TJs Roasted Garlic Herb Dough

The title of this post has been kickin' around in my head for a while.  I started making pizzas after I became a stay-at-home-mom because the price of delivery pizza was more than our budget could handle, yet my spouse loved his Friday Night Pizza Nights.  Having the right tool for the job is important to him, in work and at home, so when we decided to take the plunge on pizza-making-at-home supplies he did some research.  That's how he rolls.  My records only go back to 2000, but I think we purchased our stone and pizza peel in 1999 from the King Arthur flour website. (I get nothing from putting this link here, King Arthur Flour doesn't know me or know I'm writing this, I'm just sharing where I think we bought the tools because they are good quality and continue to serve me well.)  These tools crossed an ocean, spent a few years making pizzas in Hawaii, crossed back and spent a few more years working on the East coast, then traveled overland to the midwest.  The stone broke some time ago in Virginia and is blackened with age.  Like a well-seasoned cast iron skillet, this stone works faithfully for me week after week.  It is not pretty, except to me.

Somewhere along the way I stopped making pizzas at home because it was cheaper than delivery, and started making pizzas at home because they were better than delivery.  Any time you start with fresh, local ingredients (from your garden, the farmer's market, or your CSA farm share) your end result is going to be tasty (Ok, almost any time.  Spectacular failures are shared on my FB page since they won't be appearing here.  Ever.).  Any time you make pizza exactly the way you want it, with the crust, sauce, toppings, and cheeses of your choice, the end result will satisfy your belly and your soul.  And when your soul is satisfied, you don't need to keep eating.  I've found my family and I eat more moderate portions when our meals nourish our souls as well as our bellies.

My kids tell me that an ode is a lyrical poem, so I quickly threw together one for you:

O, sooty stone 
Your faithfulness delights
O'er the miles you doth roam
Effecting my family's Friday Night Pizza Nights
On your cracked and scarred surface
Farm fresh vegetables find their purpose
Others may not see your beauty
Yet you are radiant to me


Let's have a recipe, shall we?  This is my take on Trader Joes Garlic Herb dough.  I used my own roasted garlic and used half whole wheat and half unbleached all purpose flour, so it's not an exact copycat recipe.  I think it's better. I make my dough a few days before Pizza Night, because older dough doesn't fight me like fresh stuff does.  It keeps easily 3 days in the fridge.  If you know it will be longer, you can freeze the dough and move it to the fridge to thaw the day before you want to use it.

I'm not sharing a sauce/topping suggestion for this pizza dough.  I'd got some ideas for sauces and toppings in my Pizza Primer post, you're free to look around and get inspired.  Here's what I did with mine, which I will share next week have shared right here.

Maple Teriyaki Salmon Sushi w/ Apple and Carrot (Quick Take)

Sushi and summer rolls are a great way to take a small amount of leftover protein, some farm fresh veggies, and a carb like rice or rice noodles to make a quick, interestingly packaged snack or appetizer.  My family loves to eat something so visually appealing and it comes together super quickly if your pantry is stocked.

We eat rice a lot, so I always make a full pot in my 3 cup version of this rice cooker (the 3 cup size is great for our family, therefore 95% of my rice cooking needs.  It makes no sense to me to buy a giant rice cooker for the handful of times a year I need to cook more than for us).  We never finish the pot, however, so I wrap up the extra rice in single serving patties and save it in the freezer.  That way, I nearly always have cooked rice on hand.  With leftover rice, this rolls up fast and easy.  Get it?  Rolls up?  Back to the sushi, Kirsten.

I had a bit of salmon left over from this dip, and carrots, but right now I'm waiting for the CSA season to start and I had no cucumber or kohlrabi for crunch.  I like a bit of crunch to my sushi, don't you?  Looking through the crisper, I decided to try apple slices.  Why not?  I admit the thought crossed my mind that, if it worked, this could be a candidate for Laura at Sprint 2 the Table's weekly Strange But Good party.  I'd baked the salmon very plainly, with only a bit of Pampered Chef dill mix as seasoning.  That left it a blank canvas, so I mixed up a maple-teriyaki dressing which paired nicely with all 3 elements.

Very Veggie Sloppy Joes for a Crowd

Sloppy joes are a kid-friendly meal. Add finely shredded vegetables to the beef and you'll be boosting the nutrition of this crowd favorite!

Lesson #4 in action.

I went through a long stretch of adulthood without eating sloppy joes.  All Lunch Lady joking aside, I have no idea why that was.  I like my joes.  That long stretch was finally broken one lunchtime when a bunch of moms gathered with their kids at my friend Miho's house.  She served a big pot of sloppy joes and all of a sudden I remembered loving them as a kid.  My kids tried them for the first time and thought they were pretty tasty.  I started making them for my family, and I'm pleased I can stretch a pound of ground meat into multiple meals.


When I signed up to bring lunch at the thrift shop, I wanted to make something that would appeal to a variety of meat eaters (I knew there were no vegetarians that day).  I also wanted something with veggies, and something that could sit in a crock pot unattended all morning while I was busy out front.  Very Veggie Sloppy Joes fit the bill.  I fixed this the afternoon before and brought my crock pot and rice cooker in to the store to provide everyone with options*.

*I am all about the options, I realize.  Even the composting pigs get a choice of sleeping compartment each night when we put the Pigloo, the Woodland Hideaway, and the SnackShack into their cage.  Two pigs, three bedrooms.  Back to the topic at hand.

My friend Cathy mentioned that her family enjoys the Pioneer Woman's sloppy joe recipe, so I used that as a jumping off point for this recipe, but added more veggies since I've put them up from my CSA farm share.  We like our first round of joes on buns, with a slice of cheese and a squirt of yellow mustard.  The leftovers get served over rice, with an optional cheese slice sandwiched between the joe and the rice.  My kids enjoy this in a thermos at school, or come home for lunch and eat it here.

Arugula Pesto Focaccia with Artichokes, Feta, Goat Cheese and Green Olives (Pizza Night!)

Foh-KAH-chee-ah.  Foke-ah-CHEE-ah.  No matter how my spouse chooses to pronounce it, you need to try this.  Now. It's that good.  And if you've got arugula going to town in the garden?  More better.

I'd noticed that every time I was out of town on a Friday night (for sled hockey tournaments) my spouse would order a focaccia pizza.  The leftovers I'd have after my return were pretty tasty, so I was eager to try it out myself.  I consulted my personal pizza resource, The Best Pizza Is Made at Home , for inspiration on the crust as well as baking directions.  I had some arugula pesto, made using the recipe out of Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables, so I decided to try that.  If you don't have asiago cheese, try Bryn's easy arugula pesto recipe instead, or the arugula pesto of your choice.
I was comfortable jumping into a flavored dough but needed to try the method on a barely-topped bread first, just to make sure I set myself up for success.  The last spectacular pizza failure, seen on my Facebook page, of my deep dish spinach pie on eggnog crust is still too fresh in my mind.  Such a great idea in theory, so bad in execution . . . ah well.  That's why I call it recipe development.  If at first you don't succeed . . .

Making focaccia this way calls for a 12 inch round deep dish pizza pan.  I don't have one.  Since I never know what size kitchen we'll be living in at our next house, I try not to collect single-purpose items (hello, asparagus steamer, I'm talking 'bout you!).  I do have a 12 inch cast iron skillet though.  That's what I used for this focaccia, and I recommend using one if you also have one.  The resulting bread was thicker than my usual pizza crust, crisp on the bottom like my cornbread, delightfully chewy on the inside, and topped with a flavorful combination suggested by my spouse from items we had on hand in the fridge/freezer.  The toppings added to the flavor of the base, but didn't overpower it.  I've said in my Pizza Primer that less is more, and it sure is true here.  You really don't want to glop on heavy toppings or sauces here.  At least, not the first time you make it.

Who knows what I'll do next time, though clever blog readers may think I've already done it with this Salmon, Goat Cheese, and Arugula Pesto pizza--though that is baked and topped differently, and even a bit different ratio of flours for the dough.  All good, though, and yes you are quite bright!

Chicken Salad By The Ounce

I love roasting a chicken.  I get multiple meals from a single cooking session, and I can toss the chicken carcass in a bag in the freezer next to my Soup Packs if it's not a good time to make stock.  I had some leftover chicken meat after these Mu Shu Chicken Burritos, and a chicken salad sounded like a nice lunch for my daughter.  Me,  too!

The pigs have heard the peeler, and are ready for a snack.

Before my girl was due home for lunch, I was playing around in the kitchen and had my scale out.  I knew I wanted a carrot in the salad, so after I peeled the carrot (peels, top and tip to the composting pigs who start wheeking when they hear the sound of the peeler) I tossed it on the scale for grins and giggles.  It was exactly one ounce.  I grabbed the red onion and sliced off what I thought would be a good amount.  It too was exactly one ounce.

At this point, I resisted the temptation to get on the scale and see if I, too, weighed exactly one ounce.  Best not to press my luck?

You know I had to measure out exactly one ounce of celery.  Ditto the sunflower seeds.  The chicken? Eight ounces.  Since I had it out already, I figured I'd chop everything with the food processor.  I'd previously chopped dates for these muffins, and I estimate there was about one tablespoon of chopped dates left in the bowl.  I ate this over chopped romaine with a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette, and my daughter turned hers into a sandwich.  I'm just glad I grabbed the camera and got one photo before we dug in!

This chicken salad has plenty of crunch from the carrots, celery, and sunflower seeds, plus a hint of sweetness from the dates.  It's delicious as lunch, on a cracker or pita round for snack, or even for a warm weather supper. I like all sorts of chicken salads, and I'm happy to add this version to my repertoire.

Creamy Dark Chocolate and Banana Muffins (and they're Whole Grain!) (Monday Muffins)

My spouse took this photo.  I think it rocks.  He does, too.

I have a confession to make:  I don't get bananas in my farm share here in Ohio.  I know I started this blog to share how I use seasonal produce--usually from our CSA farm share--to feed the family year 'round.  Sometimes, however, I get good deals on produce that is not part of any farm share I've ever known.  Like 49 cent pints of blueberries in July.  Or speckled bananas for 27 cents a pound.  Because I'm feeding my family from this seasonal abundance, I like to blog about it, too.

There, I'm glad I got that off my chest.  My CSA farm share will be starting up next week, so I'll be sharing more and more farm share recipes in the coming months.  But this is too good not to share.

I think bananas are one of nature's perfect foods.  We planted a banana tree behind our home in Hawaii, and it grew fast and furious despite neglected soil.  Then it flowered a gigantic flower and soon baby bananas appeared.  We never ate any bananas from that tree--apparently someone else was watching the growth and development of our banana bunches as well, because once they got about big enough to harvest, the stem would disappear without a trace.  I guess someone else needed them more than we did.  Just like the local fauna appear to need the blueberries and peaches and strawberries in our backyard here . . . though we managed to snag 13 raspberries last year.

I love that bananas don't fully ripen until after you cut them off the tree.  Not like all the basil threatening to go to seed when you're not ready to make pesto, or the zucchini growing from 4 inches to 18 inches when you turned your back to weed the tomato bed.  When I get a good deal on speckled bananas, I save some on the counter for immediate use and freeze the rest.

And just how easy is it to freeze a banana?  Carefully pick it up by the stem, open your freezer, and set it inside.  Then carefully close the freezer--you're done!  Sure, the skin turns dark brown on a frozen banana, but that same skin did a rockin' awesome job protecting the fruit inside while it was on the tree and that protection continues in your freezer.  I usually set a frozen banana on the counter for 15-20 minutes before easily scraping off the peel with a paring knife.  Forgetting about the banana for an hour means you can just cut off one tip and squish the banana into whatever you're preparing.  Yum, that's a lovely image.

Now that you've snagged bananas when they are perfectly good for baking and cheaper, and stored them properly until you're ready to use them, let's make a muffin.  This recipe is a variation of my favorite soaked oatmeal muffin.  It's best to start it the night before, but letting the oats and buttermilk soak for just an hour is nearly as good.  See NOTE below.

Pickled Pepper and Pepperoni Pizza (Pizza Night!)

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers and placed them properly on a pizza."   --my daughter

I love pickled peppers on submarine sandwiches.  They add just a little pop of zing which really perks up even the plainest meal.  It never occurred to me to put peppers on a pizza, however.  I can credit that to Jodi at the thrift shop where I spend money volunteer.  I really don't know if the banana peppers on the pizza we ordered were pickled or not.  I just knew after having a single bite that I had to try my pickled peppers on a pepperoni pizza.

The members of my family are not huge hot pepper eaters, and when a hot pepper plant is producing, it's going crazy.  In most of the farm shares I've joined, we either got no hot peppers or a pint a week.  I used to use a few fresh farm share hot peppers in salsa and donate the rest of the week's haul to the food bank.  Then I tried pickling my own hot peppers.  My spouse took a jar in to work, and I was rewarded with even more hot peppers to pickle!

This summer, when your garden, your CSA farm share, or your spouse's coworker give you even a quart of hot peppers, I recommend checking out Food in Jars.  Marisa's blog really de-mystified small batch canning and encouraged me to try just a give it a try and see how it went.  I used to check the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving out of my local library until I found it red-stickered at a Target clearance end cap.  Score!

Back to the pickled peppers for tonight's pizza.  If you haven't put up pickled peppers, pick up a jar at the store--or maybe there's one on the door of your fridge?  Go see!

Because I loved that pepperoni and pepper pizza, I figured I'd try and make it at home.  I kept it simple with respect to the dough, sauce, and cheese.  This time, at least.  I just let the pickled peppers give that little pop of zing which did really perk up the slice.  A perky poppy pickled pepper and pepperoni pizza.

Five Food Photography Lessons I Learned/Sunny Hello Dolly Bars

Subtitle:  What I've been doing for the past 30 days

Sub-Subtitle:  There is a recipe, too, so if you just want to know how to make these yummy treats scroll down to the end since I'm going to be chatty for a while

taken on the floor of my mother-in-law's dining room

If you, like my mom and a few friends, have been reading this blog since I started last fall you may notice something different in today's post--the pictures. (And dessert, that's a rare thing, too).  Today the choice of recipe is less about using the abundance from my CSA farm share and more about a journey of self-improvement I started on April Fool's Day.

If you're going to improve something about yourself, why not start on April Fool's?

In March, my friend Alanna sent me a link for an upcoming 30 Days to Better Food Photography challenge. Since it started after a visit from my folks' and ended before my spouse's departure, I decided to go for it.  And it was free, so I had nothing to lose by signing up.

I should pause here and comment that in our family my spouse is the photographer.  When he's away I am capable of recording our family's events, but I don't envision the photographs then take them like he does.  See that photo across the banner?  His.  Where I see a droopy sunflower that needs to be thrown out onto the compost heap, he sees a photo opportunity, grabs the camera, and snaps away.

Even though my spouse is the photographer, unless you see me in the photo and/or I mention otherwise, I've taken the photos on this blog.  When I asked him once to take photos he got all George Costanza* on me and shouted "worlds collide".  Okay then.  I would dream up the recipes, make the food, take the photos, and write the post.   I'd then hand the camera to my spouse who would get my pictures into the computer via some mysterious magical process that made the photos I'd taken look as good as he could make them.  Since he's deploying soon I knew that mysterious process would fall to me, and that brings me to my first lesson learned.

dishes don't have to be white for food photos

Lesson 1:  People learn better when they are motivated and the timing is right.

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.

Beef, Mushroom, Fresh Tomato Pesto FFF-a-boli (Pizza Night!)

I did warn you mention that I'd tried a couple of variations when I was rocking and rolling in the pizza.

Since my spouse also likes mushrooms, I made a mushroom variation of the Birthday 'boli.  Not one to waste perfectly good browned ground beef, I added a generous cup of sliced mushrooms to the meat left in the skillet from the basic 'boli.  Coupled with a Fresh Tomato Pesto then cooked down until thick, it turned out most excellent.

This got me thinking about more veggilicious 'boli fillings, so in addition to the Thanksgiving Leftover Remake 'boli that's in the can already, stay tuned for more rolled pizzas.  This is fun! Just the way a Friday night should be, you know?

Mu Shu -ish (Leftover) Chicken Burritos (Quick Take)

When I was a little kid, I used to hate Chinese food.  Luckily, my parents' desire to expose us to new foods was undeterred.  My mom would bring a chicken sandwich along in a baggie when we'd go out to a Chinese restaurant.

I wasn't so nice the first time we brought our kids to an Ethiopian restaurant.  I figured they could find something to eat, and they did:  they subsisted on injera and copious amounts of water from their constantly replenished water glasses.  I had no idea how much water they were drinking until we had multiple potty emergencies during the subway ride home.

Eventually I learned to like Chinese food, and my favorite dish was Mu Shu Pork.  I'm not sure if I liked assembling and rolling my dinner or the flavor of the hoisin sauce best, but it was my favorite thing to order.  Now my favorite dish is Ma Po tofu from the Great Wall Szechuan House near Logan Circle in Washington, DC, and when my brother returns from overseas I bet he will pack some in a cooler, hop on a plane, and we'll enjoy some together.

You wouldn't think from the title of this recipe that this is a 'kitchen sink' dish, but it is.  I had leftover roasted chicken, half a savoy cabbage, some mushrooms that were on their last stems, and we needed dinner.  This came together quickly, tasted great, and was a big flavor difference from the original chicken meal--my favorite way to cook once and eat twice.  This is not true a true Mu Shu--the mushrooms are all wrong and there's no egg for starters, hence the addition of -ish to the title.  Consider this if you've got a roast chicken and want to change it up a bit.