Layered Summer Veggie Appetizer

When you think about appetizers, do you throw a bone to the healthy contingent and include some carrot sticks and hummus?  Is your conscience soothed by adding celery sticks to your Buffalo chicken dip?  Do you pick up a veggie tray at the store and call it good?

Are vegetable appetizers an afterthought?

I want to change that.

I'm on a quest to create awesome vegetable appetizers--ones that are demolished before the cocktail weenies or cheese balls, because they are just damn good.  I've got a Pinterest board, Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks, and as I find new ways to turn vegetables into desirable appetizers I'm pinning them there.  Please leave suggestions in the comments so I can add them--thanks!

Cherry tomato confit, cucumbers, banana peppers, artichoke hearts, olives and feta

Last winter, I started things off here with a Slow Cooker Salmon Swiss Chard Artichoke Dip and a Skillet Mushroom Dip for Two.  In the spring I started a craving for Five Layer Mediterranean Chicken (or Chick Pea) Dip that continues today.  Lately, I've been kinda dippy, with Fattoush Dip with Kale and Sumac Hummus and Indian-spiced Eggplant Yogurt Dip.  Today I want to share another delicious way to incorporate seasonal vegetables into your happy hour, cook out, tail gate, or indulgent dinner for one:  the Layered Summer Vegetable Appetizer.

While the autumnal equinox is weeks away here in North America, the mood has shifted to autumn.  The kids are in school, football marching band season is in full swing, and the sled hockey gear is back out. However, the garden and the farm share are packed with late summer vegetables--peppers, eggplant, tomatoes and squash are filling up my weekly box.  I created this layered appetizer to show off the best of late summer produce.

Grilled red peppers, grilled red onion, grilled yellow squash, artichoke hearts and feta

Discerning readers will say "hey, that looks like the Fattoush Dip she posted 3 weeks ago" and you'd be correct.  Other clever followers will think "what, another Wednesday eggplant dip recipe?"  Right again.  However, I'm sharing this recipe now, not next summer, for a few reasons:

• the base of this appetizer, roasted eggplant, is still very much in season and you might be looking for new ways to enjoy it
• I think this is a party-worthy appetizer, and while I'm not hosting anything until Fall, you may be looking for new appetizer recipes
• with the variety of special diets around, vegetables are a great way to create a dish that nearly everyone can enjoy

Plum and Whey-Soaked Oat Muffins

A slightly sweet, multigrain muffin made with oats soaked in whey (or buttermilk, if you don't have buckets of whey to use up) whole wheat flour, and ripe plums

Subtitle:  On Walking and Whey

What's your favorite song that's got a good beat for walking?  I'm looking for new tunes, and I'd appreciate any suggestions in the comments below.

Next month I'm walking a half marathon for no particular reason.  That's a lot of miles to walk, all at once, for the heck of it, you know?  My favorite walking partner got sent on an all-expense paid working trip to an exotic foreign locale, so I'm training with my second-favorite walking partner, Simon.  On longer walks (to me right now that's over 4 miles) he slows me down with his endless sniffing and assorted dog-on-walk behaviors.  For shorter jaunts (and yes, walking one mile to buy a quart of freshly-roasted Hatch chiles or a gallon of milk is now a short jaunt, and a gallon of milk isn't that heavy when you carry it for a mile) he's a good walking buddy.  

[Not as good as my walking buddies in Virginia--you guys are awesome and it was a joy

to get out of bed at 5:40am--even in January--to walk with you all.]

On one of our walks recently Simon and I came across a plum tree, with ripe fruit spilling out all over the street.  Being a frugal scavenger at heart I snagged a handful of ripe plums.  I'd been wanting to try a soaked-oat plum muffin.  It wasn't until I arrived home miles later that I realized I didn't have any buttermilk.  We were heading out of town though, so I didn't want to buy buttermilk before the trip.  Instead, I decided to experiment with some of the whey.

A Pair of Peach Pizzas

Fresh peaches paired with brie and basil, or pepperoni and fresh mozzarella, for a savory summer pizza.

Luscious, ripe summer fruit . . . blah blah blah . . . nature's candy . . . blah blah blah . . . summer on a slice . . . yada, yada.

Look, I could attempt to wax eloquent about peaches, again, but I won't.  The point I'd like to make here is that your local fruit, in season wherever you live, tastes amazing.

Go eat some.

If you happen to live in a region where peaches grow, and you've already had at least a few fuzzy-lipped, chin-dribbled bites of juicy fresh local peaches this summer, consider this pizza.

Normally at this point I'd insert a rant about store-bought peaches, but not today, not this time.  The local grocery store I walk down to every 36 hours to buy a gallon of milk?  We had a tour of their produce section the other day, and as part of the tour my daughter got a local peach, a local pepper, a local early apple, a packet of local herbs, and an ear of local sweet corn.  A store that makes a point to source local (to them, that's within a 2 hr drive, with family-owned farms they've been doing business for generations) is a store worth patronizing in my book. Getting a 2 mile walk for me and the dog, freshly roasted Hatch chiles, and keeping the car in the driveway when we're out of milk are all excellent reasons too.  The peaches used in these pizza were not from that tour, though.

Indian Spiced Eggplant Yogurt Dip

Roasted CSA farm share eggplant seasoned with Indian spices and tempered with yogurt for a spicy, tangy kid-friendly appetizer.

Eggplant in the CSA farm share, as I have admitted recently, is something that requires thought on my part.  It's not like carrots or broccoli, familiar enough to eat any old way.  It's not like a tomato that can be delicious on a sandwich or put up when we get too many all at once.  It's not like beets, that I hog all to myself enjoy in a myriad of ways (check the Visual Recipe Index for recipe ideas by vegetable).

Eggplant is in a (very small) class of vegetables that the kids will eat, and happily, one particular way.  This summer I'm trying to change that.  When I made my Baked Eggplant Chips for the same-named Pizza the kids were not big fans.  I tried an Indian-spiced eggplant chip and the texture put my daughter off, but I was on to something--keep the flavor, use the food processor.

Slow Cooker Squash and Beef Masala

Indian spices, patty pan squash and ground beef comingle in this slow cooker supper.  A tasty way to feed the family from the farm share on a busy afternoon.

With school starting I feel like I'm supposed to say our days will get busier, but more than the busier Fall days, I am looking forward to the structure of the coming weeks.  Without any structure to each week (my activities have been irregular this summer), meals and meal times have really been fluid.  We'll eat lunch at 2 pm, then not really be hungry for dinner.  Having the kids up at ___ time, out the door at ___ time, with evening activities at ___ time will give me a framework on which to hang meals.  Then my spouse will return, and we'll soon be in the swing our our family routine again.  I'm looking forward to that.

I use my slow cooker year round, but not often enough for it to get Pride of Place in the kitchen.  It lives in the basement Active Storage area.  Technically I have 3 slow cookers, so they live in this area.
[My spouse has an engineer brain, so we have an Active Storage area and a Cold Storage area--which doesn't store food, but does store less frequently accessed items like Christmas decorations.]  I primarily use my ancient 3-4 Quart Crock pot, but I love to heat spaghetti sauce in my little one (for the days when my son is in charge of boiling the noodles right before the rest of us get home) and make Kalua Pig or soup stock in my large one.

I developed this recipe from a desire to use some of the cow in the freezer and the patty pan squash from the CSA farm share in a form that my kids would enjoy over multiple meals.  They loved Rebecca of Foodie With Family's Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala when I riffed off it to make my Slow Cooker Chicken and Chick Pea Tikka Masala.  I figured I'd do something similar.  Since tikka = chicken it makes no sense to title this dish "Tikka" anything as there's no chicken in it, but since masala = a sauce, usually with tomatoes and spices and cream, I'm good with my title.  This makes a lot, and the leftovers are good in a thermos for a school or work lunch.

Pizza with Raspberries, Goat Cheese, and Balsamic Syrup (Pizza Night!)

A savory-sweet combination of raspberries, goat cheese, and balsamic syrup on a tender buttermilk pizza dough.  An excellent light pizza for a summer evening.

Pizza, for me, is a way to incorporate what we've got handy from the farm share into a hand held cheese-topped delivery vehicle.  Since I make pizzas most every Friday night, it's a routine around here.

Marching band season will throw a wrench into this scheme, but we like our pizza too much to let that stop us--I'll keep posting pizzas on Fridays even if we're not eating our newest pizza (and I'm not posting the fresh shots on my FB page on the same day.  The Spirit of the Friday Night Pizza will endure while I'm volunteering at the concession stand doling out . . . ahem . . . Marching Tacos.

[As an aside (can I do an aside within an aside?) I really would not consider myself a Foodie or a food snob (two different terms to me).  I've never tasted truffle oil, or Scharffenberger chocolate, or other high falutin' ingredients I can't think up right now, though if you want to feed me some I'll happily try anything.  

However, I will say that, as an example, a strawberry that is built to cross multiple state lines does not taste like any strawberry I like to eat.  To paraphrase A Chorus Line, Looks 10, Taste . . . well 3 is generous, but I'm feeling generous).  I am more a proponent of fresh local food which invariably tastes better, all falutin'ness aside, and life is too short to eat food that doesn't taste good.  How did I get from 'cheese in a bag' to local food?  Where was I? Pizza.]

I'm still not ready to create a dessert pizza, but I'm leaning towards it with today's pizza.  It's a combination of sweet raspberries and tangy goat cheese, on top of a soft and tangy buttermilk pizza dough, with a sauce of reduced balsamic vinegar syrup because this blog post got me craving it and showed me how to make it.
It's a change of pace for us, a nice light summery pizza, good with a glass of wine on a shady porch.  If you're interested in other fruit-on-pizza options, I've got some suggestions after the recipe.

Chocolate Zucchini Waffles

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

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

Just another week in Squashzilla-land.

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

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

Mediterranean Tomato Tart (artichokes, green olives, arugula, feta)

A savory tart of tomatoes topped with an artichoke, arugula pesto, and green olive mixture with plenty of cheeses.

I know I've been about the Mediterranean lately, with my Fattoush dip, the slow cooker Greek chicken tacos, and the five layer Mediterranean dip.  Is it my subconscious calling for a vacation?  I took a vacation last week (and thankfully did this post all up well beforehand so I didn't have to rush around and write in the post-endless driving/massive laundry doing/when do I get to kick back? phase).  The pictures are not as good as some I've taken since I learned how to take better ones, but the flavor of this tart is delicious.

I created this recipe from a desire to have a less 'cheesy rich' version of the Basil Tomato Tart.  It has the tasty combination of artichoke hearts and green olives.  I first tried that on pizza and wow!  I'd never cared for olives until I had an artichoke and green olive pizza.  Now I love them and can eat them any way.  If you don't have arugula pesto, any pesto would substitute.  But if you're overrun with arugula, try this pesto.  I got the pesto recipe from Farmer John's The Real Dirt on Vegetables.  It's a great cookbook I bought through my CSA back in Virginia, Blenheim Organic Gardens.
Hey guess what?  Store bought pie crust still.  One of these days . . . but no, first things first.  Since I've been reading Cooked by Michael Pollan with the HOMEGROWN book club I'm more interested in sourdough bread and kimchi than in pie crust.  This morning I start my sourdough starter, so in a week I'll be rolling in the dough . . .

Baked Eggplant Chip Pesto Pizza

Cheesy, crunchy, breaded eggplant slices on a pesto pizza crust spread with extra pesto and topped with shredded Italian and crumbled feta cheeses.

If you've been or known a picky eater, could you ever imagine that picky eater to say "this spaghetti sauce needs more cowbell some eggplant"?  

My kids were picky, or at least not game for any vegetable, when we first started getting a CSA farm share.  Ever since I figured out that I could take the farm share eggplant and puree it with other vegetables to make spaghetti sauce (my first ever posted-on-the-internet recipe, at Tasty Kitchen, is here) I haven't had eggplant the way I love to eat it--breaded and covered with cheese.  Since the kids will eat eggplant in spaghetti sauce, that's what we do with our farm share eggplant.  Period.

Until this blog happened along, which probably coincided with me thinking that, just this once, I'd like to eat eggplant as the star of its own show, not as a bit player in an ensemble.  I've been all about treating myself this summer, making foods that I want to eat, and this is another one of those.  It's my hope that you'll also benefit from my self-pampering.

This is the third time recently that I've posted a recipe-within-a-recipe, and I hope I'm not violating some sort of blogger laws or setting up some unrealistic expectations.  Just like you don't need to make pizza with your Sun Dried Tomato Pesto, nor do you need to use Kale Hummus in your Fattoush Dip, you don't need to make Baked Eggplant Chips the way I describe below in order to make Baked Eggplant Chip Pizza.  You can make them another way.  The first eggplant chip recipe I ever had was from my CSA in Virginia, Blenheim Organic Gardens, and you can find Becky's tasty eggplant chip recipe here at the Washington Post.

I wanted a breaded cheesy crunchy sort of eggplant chip, and I had a hunch, when I got a great coupon for Kraft Fresh Takes (not sponsored, I bought this because it was a good deal and I wanted to play), that instead of coating chicken or fish I could coat slices of summer vegetables.  I tried it with zucchini,  patty pan squash, and eggplant.

I got a little carried away.

With the leftover eggplant (because it's frequently about the leftovers around here) I decided to toss it onto a pizza.  This was a good call--the breaded eggplant slices retained their crunchy cheesy eggplant goodness.

Fattoush Dip with Kale Hummus

Subtitle:  A Fast Farm Share Dip Dinner

Freshly chopped summer produce and preserved vegetables layered over a bed of kale hummus and topped with pita chip croutons.

The other day I shared how I can or freeze summer produce to enjoy during the winter.  Today I'm sharing how I can take the fresh farm share bounty and make a fast supper (for one) or appetizer (for two) in minutes.

I've travelled across the middle of the US recently, and many non-highway roads I've been on have had farm stands.  These stands are selling tomatoes, melons, corn, peaches, cucumbers, squash--the bulk of the summer produce is ripe and ready from Michigan to Delaware (and probably other places, but I haven't been to them this week).

A CSA farm share haul from a few weeks back.

With all this ripe fresh goodness at your fingertips, making a quick and delicious dinner is easy.  I brought home the farm share box, realized we had plenty of leftovers for the kids to scrounge dinner, and decided to treat myself to a riff on my Five Layer Mediterranean Chicken Dip.  I'd first made that dip before cucumbers and tomatoes were in season, and I'd thought the concept (base of dip topped with goodies and eaten with pita chips) was a good one. Mine started with a base of Kale and Sumac Hummus (recipe below) but any hummus will do.  I also keep a few jarred vegetables on hand (olives and artichoke hearts) to add some layers of flavor to the fresh produce.

As an aside, in my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient (a page on the bar above) I have a category for Veggies in Jars where I index my recipes that use artichokes and olives, as well as capers and sun dried tomatoes and probably something else.

All I needed to do was grab a cucumber, a banana pepper, a couple of tomatoes, and after a few minutes of chopping I had a fresh crunchy cool zingy dinner ready to go.  When I realized that I'd unwittingly combined many elements of Fattoush into an appetizer, I decided to call this Fattoush Dip with Kale Hummus.

Only one problem--I was at the end of the bag of pita chips.  So I quickly regrouped (I am a military spouse, after all, and plan F or U or B or R is my specialty), used the pita chip crumbs as croutons, and turned this into an appetizer eaten with a spoon.

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!

Sun Gold Tomato Pesto Pizza

A vegan, nut-, and gluten free Sun Gold cherry tomato pesto sauce that is great as an appetizer or dip, a pizza sauce, or pasta sauce.  It freezes well, too.

One of the near-guarantees, if you're in a summer Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) or farm share subscription, is a lot of tomatoes.  Quite possibly more than you can cope with in a week.  This week, for example, I got four quarts of tomatoes.  Four!  I had a quart of cherry tomatoes, 2 quarts of slicing tomatoes, and a quart of heirloom tomatoes.  (And I'm the only human around who likes to eat raw tomatoes.)

However, I'm not the only household member who's thrilled that Sun Gold season is upon us.

Some people like to gobble up cherry tomatoes like candy.  Others like their tomatoes cooked, never raw.  Still others grow into almost liking tomatoes.  I recall I first tried a summer tomato sandwich, as a non-raw-tomato-eating adult, thanks to a food writer at The Washington Post--her description of the flavors sounded so good that, even though I wasn't a fan of raw tomatoes, I toasted some bread, grabbed the mayo, salt and pepper, sliced a tomato from the garden and discovered a wonderful taste sensation.  That still remains my favorite way to enjoy tomatoes in the summertime.

What choice do I have other than to Deal With All these quarts of tomatoes?  Next week will bring a new box, and sooner or later my own tomatoes will ripen.  I've got to get these tomatoes put up.  

If you're curious, I slow-roasted most of the slicing tomatoes overnight, following Alanna's excellent tutorial, and I put up 4 half pints of heirloom tomato & cashew pesto in the freezer, then I gave a couple of slicers to my neighbor, and the pigs and I snacked on the rest of the cherry tomatoes.  I'm all set.  This week.  I'm lucky they'll just keep coming until frost.

Since I used primarily slicing tomatoes when I made and put up Heather's Fresh Tomato Pesto, I decided to use the Sun Gold cherry tomatoes and my kitchen scale to provide a metric weight-based recipe for this delicious sauce.  I noticed that I needed less oil for these juicy summer tomatoes than I needed for the late season tomatoes.  I threw the sauce on a pizza, so I could get this ever-so-seasonal post up for Friday Night Pizza Night. For real--the dishes are still in the sink, this recipe is that fresh!  You'll be reading it while I'm still cleaning up the mess and the kids are fighting over the leftovers.

Baked Swai with Pesto and Ricotta

A simple sauce of prepared pesto and ricotta cheese makes a moist and  flavorful coating for fish, pasta, or roasted vegetables

If you follow me on Facebook, you may have seen the photos of my first cheese-making efforts.  I got a gallon of milk marked down and made 2 balls of mozzarella with a cheese making kit I bought from Standing Stone Farms.  With the leftover whey (boy howdy there's a lot of whey) I made a bonus batch of ricotta cheese.

There was still a lot of whey leftover after making the ricotta and mozzarella, and I've been experimenting with it.  So far whey-soaked oven oatcake is a hit, and pizza crust using whey instead of water is also a winner.  Details to come.

Here's the thing, though--normally I'll use ricotta in something hearty, like my Quadruple Roasted Mock Lasagna.  This summer has been gloriously--and unusually--cool, but not cool enough for that.  I decided to use up the very last cubes of last fall's pestopalooza with the ricotta cheese, and play around.

All of the recipes I'm sharing today involve the oven or stovetop, but when it's really hot I think it'd be great to toss freshly grilled items (chicken thighs, fish fillets, eggplant or zucchini) with this ricotta-pesto mixture and keep your kitchen cool.  It would be delicious as the dressing in a pasta salad, with cherry tomatoes, onion, cucumber, and squash.  It's probably good on a cracker.  Since I thawed my put-up pesto to make these dishes, I'm positive this idea will work with winter fare (peeled, sliced, roasted sweet potatoes or delicata squash?).

Fresh Peaches and Cream Muffins (Monday Muffins!)

When my daughter was 9 years old, she wanted a peach tree for Christmas.  The logistics of finding and wrapping a peach tree in December in Virginia aside, we were renting our townhouse and knew we'd be moving in another year-ish (given the standard "military future uncertainty" spin on things).

No peach tree that Christmas.  However, after we moved here and became homeowners,  we set about making our back yard a more edible landscape.  Thanks to my spouse's hard work, part of the patio became a strawberry patch and raspberry canes went into a back corner with blueberry bushes and recycled raised beds along the fences.  My daughter got her peach tree--two of them, in fact, one dwarf variety and one not-so-dwarf variety.  In the spring the trees have beautiful blossoms, in the summer their thick foliage provides a dense patch of shade.

My daughter carefully tends the trees--removing diseased leaves, thinning the branches and then the fruit, so that each peach has plenty of room and air circulation.  But her dream of harvesting her own peaches has not borne fruit, so to speak.  Apparently the fauna of our backyard can read the Certified Wildlife Habitat sign and think that the peaches, and blueberries for that matter, are for them.  It's OK, they are eating unripe peaches, and we can get fresh ripe peaches nearby to make these lovely muffins.

If you've been making ice cream lately, you may have half a cup of heavy cream left over.  (If not, go out and buy a pint of heavy cream and use 1 1/2 cups for a batch of ice cream so you'll have a leftover.)  Use it in these muffins!  They taste so rich "almost like peach poundcake" my daughter said while polishing off the leftovers on the second day.  I used more sugar than I usually use in a muffin (1/3 cup vs my usual 1/4 cup, when I remember to add the sugar) and only 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour, but this muffin recipe remains one that I'm happy to offer my kids as a snack or breakfast, not just reserved for dessert. 

Grilled Veggie Ciabatta Pizza

This was a fun, fast, and easy pizza to make--and to eat.  I'm sharing this today in part because while I find it pretty easy to throw together pizza dough most weeks due to near-constant practice, I know that making your own dough can seem very intimidating (pie crust intimidates me).
That's a big reason why I brain-dumped my Pizza Primer blog post, to demystify the whole thing.  But I don't always make my own dough--or buy a ball of pre-made dough from the store.  Some times I get pre-baked pizza crusts, like here or here.
And sometimes, I'm in the mood for pizza without all the pizza crust foolishness.  Plenty of folks rave about naan or pita pizzas--they sound great to me, if only my kids would save me some naan.  Milk and naan--they don't stick around in our house waiting to be consumed.  Reminds me--I'm thinking the Indian-spiced slow cooker patty pan and beef dish to appear on Monday? Yes? No?  Back to pizza . . . I like to experiment with different breads for our pizzas.

You know French bread pizzas?  When I make them, from a loaf of day old French or Italian bread (I still call them all French bread pizzas after Stouffer's started the trend for me) they are usually too thick and too hard to bite after baking.  I do love how easy it is to make them, though--no dough skills or extra time necessary--so I keep on trying.  When I saw take & bake ciabatta bread marked down, I initially wasn't thinking pizza, but when a recent Friday afternoon loomed and I didn't have dough made, inspiration struck.

Using the par-baked bread means that the crust is just crisp enough when the toppings are warmed and the cheese is melted.  This crust is an excellent vehicle for a wide range of toppings--but to keep it on the easy side, check your refrigerator.  You've grilled veggies this summer, right?  Got any leftovers?

I tossed my leftover veggies (zucchini, yellow squash, bell pepper, radish and red onion) with goat cheese, fresh parsley and a bit of cooked sausage and used that as one of my toppings.  Just plain cheese on the other half for those in the household who aren't embracing the grilled veggie concept.  Yet.  I'm working on them her.

I think this would make an excellent appetizer, or an excellent pizza for a party--you throw it together in minutes, shoot, it takes longer to preheat the oven--and each half can be its own blank canvas to decorate as you desire.

Simple and Satisfying Green Beans

Subtitle:  Oops, I did it again*

I recently realized that I don't have any peach recipes, or green bean recipes, on the blog.  I've joined a group of food bloggers who love recipe round ups, and when someone was looking for peach recipes I consulted my Master Spreadsheet and . . . crickets.

There are no peaches in this green bean recipe, if you're wondering.  I'll happily stick kohlrabi and Spam in a sushi roll, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

 We got green beans in last week's CSA farm share so I could remedy one deficiency.  Yes, if you're my mom following the blog closely you will note that I call for (leftover) green beans in my Thanksgiving Leftover Remake Shepherd's Pie.  Until this past weekend, Shepherd's pie was the only way my kids would eat green beans.

I know--they don't eat cereal and they don't eat green beans.  They are such weird interesting kids!  Perhaps all the 'we've got all this kale, here, drink a green smoothie' of this summer has rubbed off on them, because they ate these beans right up.

They (the beans now, not my kids) are delicious (duh, otherwise I wouldn't be blogging about them) and the perfect side dish to serve to a gathering of folks with different dietary needs because they are vegan and gluten free.

Pick a Veggie Sushi Rolls

This is the third time I've written today's post, and no matter if it's the charm or not I'm going with it.  First, I was going to share kohlrabi, egg, and Spam sushi rolls.  Then a post about gyro sushi rolls, then unagi, green onion, and salad mix rolls.  Finally I just decided to combine a bunch of sushi photo collages and call this Pick A Veggie From The CSA Farm Share Box and Roll Your Own Sushi.  However, many of the food porn photo sharing sites I submit to have character limits on post titles, so a bit of editing happened.

I started sharing sushi posts soon after I started this blog, with a smoked salmon, cream cheese, and cucumber sushi.  Later I shared my #strangebutgood maple teriyaki salmon sushi.  Today I'm going to illustrate how I take a (usually leftover) protein and combine it with on-hand vegetables to make sushi.  Sushi makes a great portable lunch when you are outside enjoying nature during warm days.  It's a real treat to open up your lunchbox and pull out more than a squashed sandwich.  I love to send my kids a 'disposable lunch' on field trips (disposable required by the school) using up leftover containers filled with whatever I had on hand, rolled up sushi style.

If you're looking for recipes featuring sushi-grade raw fish, look at some of my links below--I'm in the middle of the country and cooking for my family--you will not find me buying blocks of sushi grade tuna, though if you'd like to send me where it is, I'd be delighted to eat it. :)

My daughter and I have enjoyed lunch together a lot.  When she was a preschooler, she'd have school a couple of mornings a week and come home for lunch/nap.  Later, it was lunch before getting on the bus for afternoon kindergarten.

We'll gloss over the crowded, noisy cafeteria and lunch starting at 10:40am in our last district.  Here in Ohio the kids get an hour(!) lunch break and my daughter usually comes home for lunch.  My son usually finds something worth staying for  at school.

 My favorite lunches-with-my-young-daughter were in Hawaii, picking up a to-go order at Aloha Sushi.  There, my daughter would get tekka maki and I'd have unagi hand rolls.  The warm grilled eel, warm sushi rice, and delicate nori wrapping utterly satisfied me in a way that no store-bought box of sushi can.

When my son asked for unagi sushi for his birthday supper, on a night coinciding with our first CSA farm share pick up, I knew I'd be rolling up some farm fresh produce with our eel.  I just didn't know what it would be until I got the box (I've mentioned I like the Iron Chef aspect of CSA subscriptions, yes?). My possibilities were varied--salad greens, kale, Swiss chard, asparagus, green onions, garlic and strawberries.  I opted for onions and salad mix.  My son thanked me for not getting too wild for his birthday dinner.

I got wild later.  Since I had roasted asparagus, leftover roast chicken, and all the sushi fixings out, I rolled up some Roast Chicken and Asparagus rolls.

Leftovers from Gyro night in a sushi roll?  Why not?  Drain the tzatziki sauce really well (overnight in the fridge) for best results.

These meals follow the Theorem of Cooking Once and getting 2 different meals with the result, just like with my Chicken Adobo Summer Rolls.  The Food Blogger Corollary is simple--you've got the camera out and your kitchen is already messy, so why not get 2 blog posts for 1 kitchen clean up?  When I made Spam Chirashi Sushi I saved some slices of meat in stick form to use in these sushi rolls.  My daughter brought them to school for a food sharing event in her social studies class.  If you've never made sushi, refer to this post for more step-by-step instructions.  It's really fun once you get the hang of it, and even your failures taste delicious.

Pick A Veggie From The CSA Farm Share Box and Roll Your Own Sushi

NOTE:  I created this recipe to be gluten free through my choice of ingredients (Spam is GF!). Check labels to confirm that your products (I'm talking about you, soy sauce) 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/ 

Using the recipe in this post for the building blocks listed below, for each 8 piece roll, you will need

1 sheet sushi nori

1 cup cooked seasoned sushi rice (1 1/2 cups if you want double rice inside out rolls)

a thin schmear of mayonnaise

Protein (see NOTE below)

Vegetable (see NOTE below)

With damp fingers, spread the rice across the sheet of nori on an Old Bamboo or the rolling device of your choice (I've got a New Pink Plastic, and while it's easier to clean than my Old Bamboo I like the hand feel of the bamboo better).  Spread a thin schmear of mayonnaise across the rice.  Top with the rest of the components.  Use the Old Bamboo to roll tightly away from you, stopping after one complete revolution to lift the mat so it doesn't get rolled up with your sushi roll.  Squeeze tightly.  Use a sharp knife to cut the roll into 8 pieces, wiping the knife with a damp towel in between cuts.

Serve with soy sauce for dipping.

NOTE:  Protein suggestions are 1/3 cup sliced Japanese Omelette (4 eggs, mixed with 1 teaspoon each sugar and salt, scrambled and chopped); 1/8 can of Spam, prepared per this post; 1/2 cup chopped roasted chicken, dribbled with teriyaki sauce; 2-3 slices prepared gyro meat, fried; 1/4 package marinated BBQ eel, or what else?  Vegetable suggestions are 1/3 cup finely shredded carrot, 1/3 cup peeled kohlrabi, sliced into sticks, 1/4 cup sliced spring onions, 2-3 pieces salad greens, 1/4 cup well-drained tzatziki sauce, or what else?

I've got some other ideas to tempt you:

California Roll at Just One Cook
Chirashi Sushi at Ninja Baking
Dragon Roll at Just One Cook
Festive Cucumber and Ginger Sushi at Ninja Baking
Ginger Cashew Nori Rolls at Spabettie
Jewshi with Caper Mayo at What Jew Wanna Eat

This post is shared on the Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Tasty Tuesdays, Mostly Homemade Mondays, the Wednesday Fresh Foods Link Up Pot Luck Party, What's Cookin' Wednesday, What's In The Box, Food on Friday and the From The Farm Blog Hop.

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Buffalo Chicken on Buttermilk Pesto Pizza

Ever want to let someone else make the pizza for a change?  Yeah, me too.  Sure, there are times when I lay awake plotting what to put on a pizza.  But there are also times that I just don't feel like making the effort.  I happened upon a Buffalo Chicken Pizza at the grocery store (marked down!) during one of those times, and the flavor was a big hit with the males of the family.  Well, the intact males--Simon the pup and Quartz the composting guinea pig did not sample the pizza.  TMI?

One of the reasons I'm delighted that my son enjoys Buffalo Chicken is that he consumes celery when he eats it.  Since I'm like the simple dog about my regrown celery ("Look!  I made FOOD!") I planned to scatter freshly chopped celery leaves over top of any Buffalo chicken pizza I'd ever make.  I knew the leaves would a) look pretty and b) use some of the celery taking over the garden make the taste more authentic.

When I decided to make Wheatier Buttermilk Pesto Pizza dough after my success with plain buttermilk dough I was thinking that it would be a good base for Buffalo chicken topping--after all, buttermilk + herbs is close to ranch dressing, amIright?  I got a little frou frou with the post production of this pizza (that would be after I pulled it out of the oven, not in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Nothing).  My dribbling skills have improved ever so slightly, and I was please not only with the taste but also with the look of this pizza.

Even if you're not The Little Red Hen who grows her own celery and can pop out to harvest the leaves, try this one at home.  When you feel up to it, that is.  It's delicious.

Fast Fresh Tomato Sauce

Served over polenta.  Crazy tasty.

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

Nutella Zucchini Muffins

I'd like to finally welcome Matt Damon to the stage. (Seriously, click on the link for an explanation in my Molasses Date Oatmeal muffin post.  Otherwise I'll just sound weird, OK?)

I realize this is the third zucchini recipe I've posted in a row.  I'm not apologizing, because my goal is to share something new for you to do with the glut of zucchini with which you may be blessed.  However, we're taking a break from zucchini after today's Monday Muffin recipe.  Wednesday I've got a fast fresh tomato sauce, and Friday I'll have a use for any regrown celery leaves you may have--Buffalo Chicken, Spring Onions, and Celery on a Buttermilk Pesto Pizza crust.

In the dog days of summer, when the squash just keep coming in the garden and the farm share, I shred a lot of zucchini.  Some of it gets mixed in with other veggies to help stretch meat for tacos or burgers.  The rest of it gets frozen all by itself, in 1 cup portions, for more zucchini-centric recipes.  Here's one way I'm feeding my family from the farm share all year 'round.

These muffins have a texture almost like a light chocolate cake.  They are delicious as an after-school snack, warm with a bit of butter or buttery spread.  You could easily go all whole wheat for the flour if you choose.

Yes, the bag says Squashzilla.

Zucchini, Corn, and Leek Pizza with Pesto and Feta (Pizza Night!)

The flavors of a summer vegetarian pizza: shredded zucchini sautéed with leeks and corn then topped with feta cheese on a roasted garlic oil-brushed pizza crust. 

Pizza in the summer should be easy.  Not that pizza in the winter should be complicated or anything, but there's something about the bounty of ripe produce coupled with spending more time outdoors doing yard work that lends itself to easy meals.  With such delicious stuff coming in the the farm share box the pizzas practically make themselves (let's be honest, I'm doing the work here) the idea of what veggies to combine in a pizza practically falls into your lap.  At least that's what happened with this pizza.  Sometimes, the ingredients choose you (Meghan is so wise).

Note:  I made this pizza in January.  It's true!  I'd love to show you a photo with the pizza and the 3 inches of snow that fell in the morning, but in fact it was wicked cold and dark so I have no 'outdoor' natural light photos.

Over the winter, while rooting around in the freezer for something else, a bag of shredded zucchini, a bag of corn kernels, and a bag of chopped leeks fell into my lap.  How did I make a pizza using zucchini and corn in the midst of winter?  Easy!  When I am overwhelmed with my crazy garden volunteers, or we get more than my family can eat in the week's CSA farm share box, I put it up.  The zucchini was shredded (love the fine shred disc on my food processor, the smaller and cheaper version of this one) then bagged, and frozen.  The corn was cooked in a cooler, cut off the cobs, frozen on a tray, and bagged.  The leeks were sliced, washed a lot, spun dry, and frozen loose on a tray before bagging.  That way, we can enjoy summer flavors all year long.  And this taste of summer was delicious after shoveling snow!

When I made this pizza, I knew that I eventually wanted to try leeks with corn on a pizza as well.  When I got leeks in my farm share I even did a little happy dance.  Tonight's pizza is very summery in nearly all respects--it's loaded with ripe-in-summer produce, tossed with pesto, flavored with a hint of garlic . . . but I think I may have used an eggnogandbutternutsquash crust.  So here's today's lesson, folks!  Always Label Random Bags of Pizza Crust In Your Freezer.  The crust tasted just fine with the toppings.  In fact, it may have been just a plain butternut squash pizza crust (is that an oxymoron?).  I'll never know, because I didn't label the bag!

If this pizza looks delicious enough for you to want to make it now, not wait until January, just make sure to squeeze the shredded zucchini until it's as dry as you can get it.  If you don't have leeks, substitute onions, shallots, or even green onions--but add them to the skillet at the very end because they burn easily.  At least in my skillets.  Now that my garden is growing some of these ingredients, I'm already planning my next "summer pizza" though this time I will know what dough to use.