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.

Frugal Refrigerator Bran Muffins

The tops are cracked open already because I just nestled in the butter to melt.

Having a bucket of muffin batter in your fridge is a happy thing.  It means that warm, tasty goodness is 15 minutes + oven preheating away.  It's been a while since I've done a Monday Muffins post, so I wanted to give you an inexpensive, long-lasting recipe that just does a body good.

I first tried these muffins when Debbie, of Salmon with Oranges fame, gave me a hot one oozing with a pat of butter.  Oh goodness, that was delish!  Of course, I asked for the recipe.  It involved buying a name brand bran cereal and soaking it in hot water until the cereal turned into mush.  So--I'd first pay to have that bran processed into a cereal shape, then in order to use it in the recipe I'd undo the processing I'd already paid for?  Must be a more frugal way, I thought.

And there is!  Buying a box of unprocessed bran saves a bunch of money on these muffins.  Making your own buttermilk saves a bit more!

Jill's Very Veggie Pizza

I don't have a 'finished' photo of this pizza, and there's a very good reason for it.

I worked at a restaurant during college, but I never created dishes from scratch.  I just followed recipes, opened cans and cartons, and spent a lot of time cleaning up with my buddy Hobart.  When I bring foods to other people, it's usually a recipe I'm comfortable with--though not always.  Never before had I made a unique dish and just hoped it would turn out OK as I delivered it to someone else.  I didn't eat this pizza:  Jill did. [And I didn't snap a quick photo of the finished pizza because I was racing to get it to her while still hot.  I like to think I've got the 'make a pizza at home' thing down, but I'm hopeless with the pizza delivery part.]

When I offered to bring supper to her family one Friday Night Pizza Night, I asked Jill to tell me exactly what kind of pizza she liked.  I know exactly what I like on a pizza and I wanted to give Jill what she wanted.  She said "oh, I love veggies."  With no "I hate mushrooms and onions" or "I'm sensitive to gluten" guidelines, I was pretty much free to do whatever I wanted.  I figured I'd play a little bit by starting with a spinach crust, but keep it not too crazy extreme.  Spinach, feta, pesto, mushroom and artichoke all play well together, so that's what I did.

Double Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

I know, you're not used to seeing dessert recipes here.  But you're at the right blog!
Sometimes you just need a cookie, you know?

Have you ever noticed how the size of 'miniature' candies is increasing?

When I was a kid, my favorite "miniature" chocolate bar was the Special Dark bar.  Perhaps I was ahead of my time in recognizing the value of dark chocolate?  I just knew I'd trade about anything (I'm talking about you, Bit O' Honey) for Special Dark bars.

When I'm shopping at the grocery store and see Special Dark chips I cannot resist picking up a bag.  These chips find their way into muffins, cookies, and my kids' mouths.  I love chocolate and cherries,
so when I needed to bake some cookies I figured I'd combine some of my pantry stash of dried Michigan cherries in a basic oatmeal cookie recipe to make some magic.  I made this twice--once for a sled hockey tournament and once for my spouse's work event.  They were well-received each time, so I thought I'd share them here.  Here ya go:

Now I'll share the recipe, so you can enjoy them with your mouth, not your eyes.  The past few days have been painful and we could all use a cookie. I know chocolate always helps me.

Veggie-Pumped Picadillo--Tax Day Meat Stretching

A flavorful hearty main dish of ground meat and vegetables, seasoned with raisins, olives and sherry. Served over rice, this is a family-friendly way to stretch a pound of ground meat and use loads of vegetables.

My spouse eats a lot of olives during his deployments.  He tells me it's a combination of wanting to eat more vegetables yet not trusting the safety of the raw veggies available.  He returns from deployments dumping Tabasco on everything and asking me to fry eggs (only powdered "scrambled" eggs in theatre) and buy olives.  Lots of olives.

If you had asked before my spouse ever deployed to the Middle East if I liked olives, I would have told you a resounding "No!".  I'd tried but not liked black olives on a pizza, and I'd avoid green olives on a relish tray because I tarred them with the same olive branch brush.  So it surprised me, when he returned and ordered a pizza* with green olives on it, that I actually loved green olives on pizza.  In fact, I liked eating green olives off a relish tray.  I do like green olives after all.

Insert your own Dr. Seuss reference here.  I've already done a Dr Seuss-themed post. 

With my new-found love of green olives, their use in a recipe from my mom's old cookbook caught my eye.  I thought I could change it up (brown 1 pound of ground beef in 1 cup of oil?  really?) and it would be an excellent way to throw in extra put up veggies to stretch meat.  The result is sort of like "weird sloppy joes" according to my kids.  Unusual, but tasty all the same.

If you've waited until the last minute to file your taxes because you are not anticipating a refund, consider this recipe as a different way to stretch a pound of ground meat.  It works with beef, chicken, lamb, turkey, probably even venison.  Please note that this recipe calls for marinating the meat for a couple of hours before cooking.  You could do this in the morning and leave it in the fridge for the day, or throw it together in the afternoon if you are around.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fried Rice with Greens and Chicken [Cooking with Teens: Episode One]

Yes, two rice dishes in a row.  I've broken a food blogging rule, but you only become a teenager once.

After a call to action to help fight hunger in my last post, I'd like to share something hopeful:  kids are being taught to cook with Bok Choy in school.  Is that a stretch on the hopefulness scale?

I don't think so--I sure didn't learn about Bok Choy until I was an adult. When I hear about folks who desire to improve their health by including more vegetables on their plates, part of the stumbling block is just plain not knowing about different kinds of veggies.  And, if you get a CSA farm share box, chances are excellent that it will contain items you've never seen before much less know how to incorporate into your meals (sorrel, I'm talking 'bout you).  So yeah, kids being taught about Bok Choy is a hopeful sign to me.

I am now the mom of two teenagers, so in honor of that momentous occasion I made slave-drove encouraged assisted my newest teen while she fixed supper.  In school, she'd made Chicken and Bok Choy Fried Rice, and she was forced planned to duplicate that for the family.  We only had cabbage, however, so there's the first lesson in cooking:

Use what you've got.

My girlie couldn't remember the exact specifics of the recipe, so we turned to technology--specifically the How To Cook Everything iPad app by Mark Bittman.  If you're interested in encouraging kids to cook, I recommend this app--it's $10 and I don't see a dime of that--because it's very thorough, easy to use, with clear illustrations, and has that cool techno-thing going for it that all the kids like these days.  Writing that made me feel older than being the mom of two teenagers already makes me feel, so I'll just leave it as "easy to use".

One of my goals for this summer (hey, helps to have something to look forward to) is that both kids pick up at least a meal a week, and in addition to cookbooks from the library and food blogs, the Bittman apps (we also have How To Cook Everything Vegetarian) are part of my strategy.  Guess what else, kids?  Lawn care!  You're beyond old enough and have had 2 summers w/ Dad doing the work for you.  Time to step up.

If you have Bok Choy, Chinese Cabbage, Savoy Cabbage, Napa Cabbage, Plain Old Ordinary Green Cabbage*, or what my farm shares term "Asian Greens", try this recipe.  Save the kale, mustard, collard, beet or turnip greens for other uses (see my visual Recipe Index by Ingredient for ideas).

*I have a fear of radicchio after attempting to make grilled radicchio, so you'll not see it on this blog.

Spam Musubi Chirashi Sushi [Food Bloggers Against Hunger]

I started this blog because I've picked up a number of clues for what to do when you're overwhelmed with fresh produce--from your CSA farm share, your garden, your neighbor's garden, or a deal at the store you couldn't pass up.  Got too much of a certain vegetable, say, kohlrabi?  I can help you.

The flip side of the coin, having too little food, is what we're on about today.

I have never truly experienced food insecurity.  I had weeks in college where I couldn't afford to buy food and pay rent, but I worked at a restaurant so I managed to eat on the days I worked, and even take home a doggie bag for my days off (and I was only responsible for myself and my dog).  That's not food insecurity.
The Feeding America website defines food insecurity as not always knowing where your next meal is coming from.  As a person who has the skills, supplies, and space to put up whatever my garden decides to grow, it's very troubling to me that nearly 1 in 5 children in America, and more than a quarter of all kids here in Ohio, live in households with uncertain nutritionally adequate and safe supplies of food (source).

I'm happy to join with Food Bloggers Against Hunger to dedicate today's post to bring awareness and inspire action to end childhood hunger.

What can you do?
Well, certainly donating to Scouting for Food, or Stamp Out Hunger (coming May 11th), or your community canned food drive helps. Buying a few extra super sale items during your regular grocery shopping and dropping them at the food pantry helps.  Donating your excess garden produce helps. Teaching gardening at your kids' school, and donating the excess produce at harvest time, helps (and is so fun!).
If your CSA farm share provides you with something you just can't find a way to like (have you checked my Recipe Index By Ingredient?) please donate that item to your local food pantry each week when you get your box.  I remember I was surprised to learn that fresh produce can be donated directly to many food pantries.  Last year my local Foodbank distributed 1.2 million pounds of fresh produce (source: Feedwire Spring 2013) to hungry folks in a 3 county region--more than double the previous year's distribution!

When my young daughter said one December, after seeing all the holiday-time donation barrels at her school, "what do the people eat next month?", I realized that seasonal charity is not enough.

Help end hunger on a national scale.

Please take a moment, using this link, to tell Congress you support Federal nutrition legislation.  I just did, and it took me under 3 minutes and I even personalized the heck out of my message. Try it!  Now!

I'll get the recipe ready while you do.

There are some foods that seem to sharply divide the population.  For example, you love cilantro or you think it tastes like soap.  Me, I think it tastes like soap and love it anyway. Trend bucker.

Spam seems to be one of those foods.  Growing up I don't think I was much aware of Spam.  As an adult I observed it was an item that was often ridiculed:  called "mystery meat"or "poor people's food", Spam was definitely not the kind of food fit for a Discerning Palate.  Even recently, when I was helping pack boxes for the mobile food pantry at The Foodbank, I heard comments belittling a can of Spam that was unloaded from a donation barrel.  Why?  It's an inexpensive protein source that is shelf stable, doesn't require special tools to open or prepare, and can be used in a variety of ways.

My thoughts on Spam changed when I lived in Hawaii.  In the convenience stores across the US, you can find hot dogs, sausages, and taquitos hanging out under heat laps, ready to eat if you've got the munchies.  But in Hawaii, in addition to those usual suspects, there's this sushi-looking thing.  Spam musubi.  It's a slab of marinated cooked Spam (in place of fish) seatbelted onto a pad of rice with some nori.  I had to try it (I've never had to try a tacquito) and it's good eating!  Heck, even Martha Stewart likes Spam (browned in butter and put between thick slices of good bread, according to an interview I heard on an NPR show).

Because I'm happily inundated with veggies when I get my CSA farm share, I add vegetables to as many things as I can.  I once happened to have a kohlrabi burning a hole in my crisper (hey, it happens) when my son asked for Spam Musubi, so I made these rolls.  But if we're not needing a portable meal, or I have less time to prepare supper, it's fun to make Spam Musubi Chirashi style.  My friend Lasar introduced me to this scattered style of sushi, and I've expanded on her technique (though her original recipe card lives in a stack clipped on my fridge--for 3 moves/4 fridges now!).

Yes, my kohlrabi is naked.  I used the greens in this pizza.

Most of the ingredients should be available at your local grocery store, all except furikake and you don't even need that.  If you're in an Asian market getting supplies for this, look around for furikake.  It's a rice seasoning blend.  It keeps forever and is delicious on popcorn, though, note to vegetarians, it frequently contains bonito flakes or dried egg.  There are many different flavors of furikake.  I've tried 3, and my favorite remains the one that Lasar handed to me before she moved to Europe:  Katsuo Fumi Furikake.  My son and I sprinkle this on our plated servings.  My spouse and daughter do not.

Like cilantro, you either love it or you don't.

If you have preconceived notions about Spam, but have never even tried it, give this a try.  Listen to some Hawaiian music (Home In These Islands by the Brothers Cazimero is playing now) and transport yourself.  It's technically Spring and this taste of the islands 'ohana style helps me to feel the balmy breezes.

Sunset Pizza: Mango, Pepperoni, Red Onion and Yellow Pepper (Pizza Night!)

Crystal is on the left, Quartz on the right--pre-manicure.

If you've ever spent time around guinea pigs you know they are quite comfortable expressing their preferences.  My female guinea pig, Crystal, loves cantaloupe.  [Her cage-mate, Quartz, will eat anything.]  Because I have a tender spot for these pampered spoiled rescued pigs, I keep an eye out for cantaloupe out of season.  When I saw a marked down container of mixed cut fruit, heavy on the cantaloupe, I picked it up for Crystal.

Why am I blogging about this?  The container also had mango in it, and I wanted to try mango on a pizza.  Sorry, Quartz.  That stuff is mine.

 I've wanted to try mango on a pizza for a while now.  I find banana on a pizza delicious, and pineapple on a pizza is commonly accepted, so why not mango?  Because we are living in the midwest, tropical fruits are not part of our CSA farm share.  We get strawberries, blackberries, and pears.  So I shop my grocery store for seasonal fruit and put up the amazing deals that I can't pass up.  Usually, though, mango is not a regular purchase, so I was thrilled with this opportunity.

So was Crystal.

Since I've been making some crazy pizzas for the family lately (2 words:  egg. nog.  and not for dessert) I decided to keep this one pretty standard.  A standard half white flour and half whole wheat flour crust.  A standard pizza sauce.  Standard cheese.  And a bit of pepperoni.  But I am all about using what I've got, and what I've got today is yellow pepper and red onion, so they are going on this pizza too.  All these red and yellow ingredients make us (the moms at wheelchair basketball practice where I am writing this up on Saturday morning) think of a sunset.  So, Sunset Pizza it is.

My Favorite Grilled Cheese Sandwich: Cheddar, Pickled Turnips, Shredded Vegetables, and Hummus

Grilled cheese with hummus, shredded carrots & radishes, pickled turnips and lettuce.

When I shared a photo of a grilled cheese sandwich as the centerpiece of a lunch collage in this post on how to eat more veggies, I felt like I was teasing you. So I'm sharing a bit more about my favorite grilled cheese sandwich to inspire you, and hopefully make you hungry. I know I'm getting peckish.

Long on photos, short on words because honestly, this is just a simple grilled cheese sandwich.

Or is it?

If you're ever in the Cincinnati area and hungry, I recommend paying a visit to a Tom+Chee restaurant. They've got amazing grilled cheese sandwiches and delicious tomato soup.  My friend Holly told me about it, and whenever we can we swing by for a meal.  My favorite sandwich is the Hippy Chee.  It's got hummus, cucumber, tomato, and lettuce with your basic grilled cheese.  Tom+Chee manages to keep the bread toasty and warm, the cheese melty and hot, and the veggies cold and crisp.  It's addictive.  I'm still figuring out their technique--it involves a long spatula to fry both slices at the same time before lifting them off the heat, adding cold veggies, and mashing together--and I've found a way to incorporate my farm share veggies which delights me with the results.  Try it yourself!

Taco Farro

When I was a kid, back when a spade was called a spade in the breakfast cereal realm, there was a cereal called Sugar Smacks.  A jumping frog would do a double 'low five' with kids and their outstretched hands would then be filled with a bowl of cereal.  I'm sure I ate it, though my favorite aptly named cereal was Sugar Pops.  When my family would go camping and get those individual serving cereal boxes [which have increased in size since then, I observe] I always schemed to get the Sugar Pops over the Sugar Smacks or the Sugar Frosted Flakes, though really any of them were a rare treat. 

This memory has nothing to do with tonight's dinner except for one thing:  cooked farro looks exactly like Sugar Smacks to me.  I'm tempted to coat it in a honey glaze, bake it like granola, and call it DIY Homemade Whole Grain Sugar Smacks.  But my kids did not get the we-want-to-eat-breakfast-cereal gene, so I'll leave that to someone else.  

Some time between my non Sugar Pops-filled childhood and present day, I saw a post about cooking with farro.  Recently I saw another one, and put farro on the Trader Joe's shopping list.  An hour after returning from the store with my lil blue bag of farro I saw this farro salad with sun dried tomato, spinach, and cashews.  Since I'd already thawed leftover taco meat for dinner, I decided to switch it up and make Taco Farro instead.

As I mentioned, I bought the little blue bag of precooked farro from Trader Joe's.  The Nutrition Facts state that it serves 3, and the bag is so small I had some concerns.  However, once cooked (10 to 12 minutes in a pot of beef broth for me, since this is not a vegetarian dish--that will come on Wednesday) the farro swelled to 5 cups of cooked grain which was way more than enough for the four of us.
[If I cared to, I'd insert my observation here about the increase in size of single serving cereal boxes, paired with the observation that 1 2/3 cups of cooked farro is a huge serving size.  Just sayin'.]

I learned of the technique (combining leftover taco meat with a cooked grain, and salsa, to make a repurposed leftover meal) from my friend Lee-Ann.  When I stretch a pound of ground meat with my CSA veggies and refried beans, the four of us eat about half the concoction the first night, so we always have leftovers.  Thanks to Lee-Ann we all look forward to this re-purposed dish--it's delicious.  I am making it here with farro, but you're welcome to substitute any kind of cooked rice, or branch out to quinoa, barley, amaranth, bulgur, or whatever floats your boat.

What I love about this dish is how easily customizable it is for each member of the family.  I cooked one skillet of food, and everyone got to fix their meal their way.  Here's a shot of each of our plates:

Can you guess which are parent plates and which are kid plates?

(Leftover) Ham and Sweet Potatoes on a Butternut Squash Crust (Pizza Night!)

I was really torn as to when to put this pizza post up.  Yes, on a Friday, of course, because around here we eat pizza on Fridays.

But when?  Easter ham leftovers?  Fall sweet potato season?  I looked at my calendars . . .

Is it weird that I print out a calendar, a month per 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, and jot down all the recipes that I'm planning on putting up here?  It helps me see what I'm doing easier  than the long list on Blogger, and helps me see if I'm getting a good balance of vegetable-centric vs more meat-oriented pizzas, entrees, etc.  Perhaps living with my spouse the Planner for so long has rubbed off on me.

and decided to just make this entire week Leftover Ham Week on Farm Fresh Feasts.  There are other uses for leftover ham that I recommend (like fried rice or yakisoba).  If you do not have ham in your fridge, check back next week for Taco Farro, My Favorite Grilled Cheese Sandwich, and something else that's also good--maybe a Sunset Mango pizza.

Since I made 2 crusts worth of this shredded butternut squash crust, I figured I'd play around with the second pie.  My mother-in-law serves ham paired with sweet potatoes (when she's not being treated to someone else cooking her dinner in her own home).  The combination is so pretty--and tasty--on my plate that I thought it would transfer well to a pizza.  I was right.  It did.
Thanks, yet again, to my friend Heather for turning me on to the garlic-oil-as-a-pizza-sauce because that's what I used as the base.
Ok, technically the shredded butternut squash crust is in the base, then the garlic oil on top.  Even though I get a head of garlic nearly each week in my farm share, I'm so glad I roasted my own garlic crop and put it up in the freezer.  A thawed clove just smushed down into warmed oil and makes a simply delicious sauce.

(Leftover Ham Week) Ham and Broccoli Stem Quesadillas (Quick Take)

I can appreciate the head-scratching that a vegetarian would do upon seeing me wash the farm share broccoli, remove the cabbage white caterpillars that had been feasting on it, escort them outside--away from my garden but with a leaf so they won't starve--then head back inside to dice ham.

What can I say?  I love food, and currently have no medical reason prohibiting me from eating all of it.  Not all at once, of course.  And I love that my farm share doesn't use pesticides on the food my family and I eat.  I can escort a few bugs outside knowing that the food us critters are eating is safe.

I'm happy to say I've finally mailed in my check for this year's summer CSA.  I'd been meaning to for weeks, but now it's a done deal.  Let the countdown begin!  I don't know how we'll handle a large farm share with only 3 eaters, so expect a lot of posts about the 'putting up' of anything that I can put up.  Thanks to Tammy of Agrigirl I've got ideas for lettuces, but today, we're talking about broccoli stems.

You know I hate to waste Swiss chard stems, and broccoli stems are no different.  While living in Richmond I learned how to make a delicious black bean soup that called for diced broccoli stem, and ever since then haven't looked at them as an afterthought.

Note to self--make that soup and blog about it.

After I wrote up this post, I saw this post by Karen of Soup Addict about making an open faced quesadilla with a fried egg on top.  Next time, I'm totally trying that--ham and eggs and broccoli? Yum!

Leftover Remake: Ham and Bean Soup--No Salt Added + Slow Cooker option (Leftover Ham Week)

My spouse took this photo.  This flower that has sprouted in a seam between the tiles on the roof of the Believer's Palace in Baghdad, which was actually a decoy building to hide a bunker that was built underneath the palace.  On my FB page I've shared what it looked like just to the right of the photo.

Bloom where you are planted.

To me, this quote exemplifies the best of military spouses.  Due to our spouses' careers, we often find ourselves re-creating our lives every few years as we move across the globe.  So many military spouses I know are enthusiastic, energetic people genuinely interested in exploring what makes this new location different than the last home.

It was with this spirit of adventure that I joined the local military spouse group for a tour of Dorothy Lane Market.  DLM is an amazing grocery store less than one mile (according to Map My Walk) from my home.  You may know of Wegman's--the Northeast US chain of grocery stores known for amazing customer service, happy employees, and terrific products.  DLM is a 3 store midwestern version.  During our tour of DLM, the thing that struck me was how similar to my kitchen the store is run.

Stores, they're just like us.

I make no secret that I'm partial to marked down produce, day old bread, and discounted meat and dairy products.  I'd noticed that I never saw magical markdown stickers at DLM, and during the tour I learned why.  Primarily, most of the baked goods and dairy products are picked up by different shelters each day.  But the rest of the stuff?  Tom told us it gets made into soups for the hot foods area, into salads, and into prepared foods sold in the ready-to-eat section.  Have you ever looked at your fridge and thought, "well, I need to use up that half onion, that baked potato, that bit of chard, that ham . . ."?  Can you imagine having an entire produce section/meat department/dairy department at your disposal?  Wowza.

During our tour we went from the top of the store to the basement, checking out different departments along the way and enjoying samples--including amazing fresh mozzarella made by the very talented Tracey.  Wow, that on a pizza, with some cherry tomato pesto and CSA farm share spinach?  We checked out the kitchens--does anyone other than Hobart make commercial dishwashers?  I really appreciated the chance to peek behind the scenes of a place I shop at frequently--all because of a curious military spouse's initiative.  Thanks, Aileen!

When we moved in to our home, our neighbors welcomed us with a box of cookies and Killer Brownies® and I was just blown away.  Seriously amazing goodies.  I'd known that we could walk down to Graeter's ice cream before we moved in, but this DLM store was new to me.

I was delighted when my daughter went Christmas shopping at Dorothy Lane Market.  No, she did not give me a Killer Brownie.  Instead, she gave me a container of beans + a recipe for Heavenly Ham® Bean Soup.  Recently she helped me make the soup--and her interpretation of the seasonings turned it into a delicious soup without any additional salt (the ham is salty enough, we think).

I used to buy the bags of Ham Been soup that contained such a pretty array of beans plus a seasoning packet.  I'd follow the recipe, using my leftover ham bone, and make a delicious soup.  Then I read the contents of that seasoning packet and resolved to make my soup without it, and it never really turned out right.  Something was just off.

I'm so glad I had my daughter help me make this recipe I'm sharing with you today.

There are 2 cool things about this recipe.  First, the recipe includes the amounts and kinds of dry beans*, so if I wanted to make up quart jars of my own pretty bean mix for gift giving I could.  Second, I got to use a jar of crushed tomatoes that I put up in the fall (which, come to think of it, would make a good pair of jars to give:  a jar of crushed tomatoes plus a jar of dried beans plus the recipe to use both to make soup).

*If you want to make your own pretty bean mix, here's what the recipe suggests:  1/2 cup (dry) each of lentils, split peas, black-eyed peas, pinto beans, navy beans, black beans, red kidney beans and lima beans.  Four cups total of mixed beans.

Easter 2013 Recipe Round Up

I was so focused on plotting out Leftover Ham Week on the blog that I didn't really leave myself room for a post about Easter recipes.  Newbie blogger mistake, I'm sorry.  So, on a rare departure from my Monday, Wednesday or Thursday, and Friday (pizza) posting schedule, I'd like to share a special Sunday post.

It's kinda crazy, because we're actually joining my folks at the dining room of their temporary March residence for Easter this year.  However, because my family loves ham (and I'll soon share some of the awesomeness that can be made from leftover ham), I will instead share what I've recently made, or seen around the food blogs, that would make up a tasty Easter or Spring meal.

First, a comment about portion size.  Most of my plated dinner photos are taken on our usual plates which measure 8 inches across (20 cm).  For special meals, like above, we use these slightly larger 9.5 inch (24 cm) plates.  We moved to these smaller plates years ago when the airlines put that liquid restriction into place, and I truly believe it makes a difference in our family's overall food intake.  There's no correlation between the liquids and the plates, it's just that my brother brought me the plates from Austria as the airlines were cracking down and it was an eventful journey so I always remember when we got them.

Back to food.  We love ham, so I'll pick up a spiral sliced ham at Costco during the final sled hockey practice of the season.  I used to just use the glaze packet that came with the ham, but this glaze from Deborah at Taste and Tell Blog looks delicious.   If you don't want animal meat but wanted a fancy fish dish, this Grapefruit and Pistachio Salmon from Aggie's Kitchen looks really appealing to me.
To keep things thoroughly veggie, I love the looks of this Vegetable Invasion Quiche from Kristy at Gastronomical Sovereignty and this Leek and Goat Cheese Quiche from Heather at In Her Chucks  looks perfect for the CSA farm share leeks I've still got put up in my fruit and vegetable freezer.

Since eggs symbolize Spring and Easter so nicely, this Pennsylvania Dutch Green Beans and Bacon from Alanna at A Veggie Venture provides a pretty egg-topped side--and a good use for leftover hardboiled eggs.  Since Easter is so close to St Patrick's day this year, and I picked up a few cabbages when they were cheap, a side of simple sautéed cabbage wouldn't be out of place.

Another pretty side are these Maple and Cardamom Glazed Carrots from Alyssa at Everyday Maven. I love their color--it would pair nicely with the green beans and eggs, like the orange of my V8 bread in the bread machine (no link because I copied the recipe from somewhere onto the inside cover of a bread machine cook book long ago--let me know if you want it).  Instead of that bread, I think these Rosemary Drop Biscuits from Meghan at Clean Eats, Fast Feets would be just delicious.  My family would go on strike if I didn't include a crock pot full of my friend MA's Irish Mashed Potato Casserole.

For dessert, I really can't decide between these Chai-Spiced Carrot Cupcakes from Lauren at Gourmet Veggie Mama, or too many choices from Carla at Chocolate Moosey and Karly at Buns in My Oven.  I've really got a hankering for a homemade Peanut Buster Parfait, triggered by Julie of Texan New Yorker's Tin Roof Ice Cream, and I am tempted to make it healthy using Heather of Kiss My Broccoli's Healthy Chocolate Sauce, though I may have a jar of Graeter's sauce in the pantry . . .

Everything in moderation, though I wish that Spring would go all out, instead of the snow storm we've got brewing today.  What are you planning for and Easter/Spring menu?  I'm always looking for new ideas and will be enjoying a deluge of veggies from our CSA farm share in less than 2 months.  Please share here, or on my FB page.

This post is shared at The Clever Chicks Blog Hop at The Chicken Chick,  Cookin' Canuck's Easter Recipe Link Up,  What's Cookin' Wednesday at Buns In My Oven, Taste and Tell Thursday, What's In The Box at In Her Chucks, Food on Friday  and the Farm Girl Blog Fest.

Simon likes his Easter ham, too.

Salmon and Goat Cheese on Arugula Pesto Pizza (Pizza Night!)

While I think I'm doing OK on putting farm fresh veggies from my CSA farm share on a pizza, I need to work on my fish-on-pizza skills.  Tonight's pizza was inspired by the leftover 4 ounces of baked salmon filet in the fridge.  Why such a strange amount?  My spouse wanted to eat this dip, and I had a massive piece of salmon and wanted to play with a strange but good maple teriyaki salmon sushi that will appear in a few weeks.
I have been seeing drool-worthy photos of salads on so many of the food blogs I follow, so when I grabbed the bag of arugula pesto cubes out of the freezer I was thinking of Spring, of a dark green peppery arugula salad under my flakes of salmon.  I've seen salads with bacon and bourbon, salads with chickpeas and salmon, and salads with salmon, cucumber, and mushroom. There are a lot of talented food bloggers out there who take amazing photos of salads that are making me drool!

If I were making an arugula salad topped with salmon, creamy goat cheese and cracked pepper would pair very nicely with it.  Red onion would also, but while I had that idea pre-baking frenzy, I didn't write it down.

Often I make up to 3 different pizzas on Friday nights, then post the 'behind the scenes' photos on my FB page, and if I don't write the ideas for each one down before I start cooking, I end up forgetting bits and pieces in the hustle.

So here's a pizza for you to play with--starting with an arugula pesto crust, topped with more arugula pesto, goat cheese and my favorite shredded blend, briefly baked, topped with salmon flakes and then returned to the oven to heat through.  Try it yourself and tell me how you'd tweak it!

Slow Cooker Chicken (And Chick Pea) Tikka Masala (Food Bloggers Change My Life #2)

Have you ever made a recipe for the first time, in someone else's kitchen, for a crowd?

Scary thought, no?  I'd bookmarked this recipe, Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala by Rebecca of Foodie With Family because my family loves Indian food, I love my slow cooker, and her directions seemed clear, easy, and very do-able for me.  I just didn't know when I'd get around to making it.

The wonderful thing about joining a CSA is that you've got seasonal farm fresh vegetables flooding into your kitchen every week.  The annoying thing about being in a CSA is that you've got seasonal farm fresh vegetables flooding into your kitchen every week.

What if you feel like eating tomatoes, the canned ones you've put up, but you've got fresh spinach, Band Fruit Fundraiser citrus, and the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve staring at you reproachfully?

You use the spinach in this, or this, or this.
You use the citrus in this, or this, or this.
You use the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve in this, or this, or this.

You regretfully turn away from your canned tomatoes, knowing that they will be waiting for you when you've dealt with all the fresh stuff.  And then you run away!

You run away to visit your in-laws.  You know that everyone likes to sit down together around the big table and enjoy a meal, and it's awfully nice not to always be the one to make the meal.  So you offer to make a meal one of the nights of your visit.  But what to make?  What will appeal to 4 generations of eaters?

I decided to go for it and make this meal. For the first time.  Not in my own kitchen.  Not just for my family.  Sure, I played it safe and brought with me almost all the ingredients (since I had everything but cilantro on hand already).  I brought my own slow cooker and my own rice cooker.  I even brought my own measuring spoons!

You know what happened?  Thanks to the clear directions, great photos, and excellent recipe it worked out just fine.  It went together easily, the whole crowd ate it, and some even went back for seconds.

This recipe is easy to make.  Click here to read it!  This post is the second in an on-going series about how Food Bloggers Change My Life.  You don't remember reading the first in the series?  Yeah, you're fine, it's not live yet.  I wrote it up after making Chicken Cider Stew from Alanna of Kitchen Parade and A Veggie Venture, but since I'm all about seasonal eating and it's really not cider season, it will be up in the fall.  Meantime, since you've hopefully got jars of crushed tomatoes you put up in the fall . . .

Molasses Date Oatmeal Muffins (Monday Muffins)

I started posting Monday Muffins when I realized I was accumulating a pile of muffin recipes and I ought to get them posted with some sort of regularity.  So on my old-fashioned paper calendar pages <gasp> I plotted out all the recipes I had in the can.  So to speak.
Some of these were easy to schedule.  Pink Beet and Horseradish muffins?  They go in February before Valentine's day.  Butternut Squash and Ham muffins?  They will go in the fall.  Creamy Banana and Dark Chocolate Chip muffins?  They can go up any time (and will appear in a month, if you're worried the link isn't yet live).
I'd originally scheduled a batch of Nutella and Zucchini muffins to appear here today.  They are the Matt Damon of muffins on the Jimmy Kimmel of this blog--they keep getting bumped!  It's a great recipe, but I've decided that most other people don't have bags of shredded zucchini in their freezer in late winter, and teasing you with the enchiladas was enough, so I've permanently moved Nutella and Zucchini muffins to the summertime.  You can see them here!
Why did I bump those muffins?  Because I could. not. wait. to share this recipe with you.  It's delicious!  I picked up a vat of dates at Costco during sled hockey practice, and after we enjoyed a bunch straight outta out of the container I started thinking about cooking with them.  For my first attempt, I chopped up the dates, ate a few, chopped a bit more . . . and decided that they were so sweet I didn't need to use sugar.  I added extra buttermilk, but it still wasn't quite right.  I knew for the next batch I would process the dates in the small cup of my smaller and cheaper version of this Food Processor, but I was hoping to do another muffin without refined white or brown sugar.  Then I hit on it--molasses!  Sweet, but not too sweet.  Adds a bit of iron, calcium, magnesium, and potassium to go with the whole oats and whole wheat.  And the color pairs marvelously with the dates.

Because I thought of this at suppertime, I was able to soak the oats, dates, and buttermilk overnight.  I like soaking oats overnight, but even an hour helps break down the whole oats into great-for-baking consistency.
If you have fresh dates--eat some.  When you get sick of them, or if you have a package of dried out dates in the back of the pantry--make these muffins!

Mushroom Medley with Caramelized Onion and Gorgonzola on Boboli (Pizza Night!)

I've been sharing a lot of meat-heavy recipes this week, so I thought I'd change it up a bit and share a meatless pizza.  It's inspired by a pizza I had when we got invited out for pizza by some friends.

I will never turn down a chance to share a meal with others, even if it's at a local pizza place and I already make a great pizza, exactly the way I like it, in my own home, nearly every Friday night (sled hockey/wheelchair basketball seasons and marching band season notwithstanding).

Do I sound like a Pizza Snob?  I hope not.  I really love food, especially when someone else makes it for me.  I do think that I make each pizza for my family with more love and care than the machines at the frozen pizza factory or the under-appreciated minimum wage workers at the local delivery place.  You can see it in the finicky way I separate and space my toppings, if not from the farm fresh and wholesome ingredients.

I'm so glad my friend Rose Ann invited the kids and I to join her family out for pizza at Pie-tanza.  I got a chance to scope out some different pizza topping combinations.  My favorite was caramelized onion and gorgonzola.

I was planning to make that pizza for this post--I had caramelized onion packages in the freezer and there was fresh gorgonzola marked down.  But we'd just come in from out of town, had no dough made, and were at the grocery store on a beer/milk/eggs/pizza crust run.

At the store, a box of marked down Gourmet Medley mushrooms caught my eye.  Why not?  To the best of my knowledge I've never had oyster, cremini, or shiiiiiiitake (say it like a penguin) mushrooms on a pizza.  First time for everything.  Glad I tried it--those mushrooms took an already awesome combination over the top!

Pasties--A Meat Pie for Pi Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(48.3% Meat)Loaf Stretching Meat Part 3

(I know this is not meatloaf.  This is the sweet and white potato mash with cottage cheese I plopped on Loaf #2)

You know I'm all about the Frugal Eco Farm Fresh Feasting, how I stretch meat by making tacos, and burgers.  I do not hide vegetables in other dishes.  I am completely aboveboard with my family when it comes to adding additional vegetables in traditionally non-additional-vegetable foods (like eggplant in the spaghetti sauce or spinach in the pizza crust).

Ok, I lied, in fact I've totally been known to slip a beet into a blueberry smoothie, though I try to own up to it if I'm asked a direct question involving specific vegetables.

But when I make meatloaf, the family totally knows that there's more than just meat in that loaf. When I saw ground pork marked down at the store, I knew it was time to make up a batch of meatloaf, Farm Fresh Feast style.

Today, we weighed the ingredients (and apparently didn't take photos), did the math, and in fact, this "meat" loaf contains 48.3% meat.  What's the rest?  I'm glad you asked. Meatloaf for me is more of a concept recipe, as Alanna of A Veggie Venture and Kitchen Parade would say.  I use a mix of meats (usually ground beef and pork), a bunch of veggies, something dry, and some sauce.  Sometimes I add an egg or two if it seems too loose.  Sometimes I add salt and pepper or other seasonings. I make this into 2 small loaves and freeze one uncooked for a later meal.  Luckily I took some photos of the second time 'round.