Mediterranean Chopped Salad Concept Recipe

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

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

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

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

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

Braised Turnips with Potatoes and Sausage

Turnips and potatoes, braised with sausage in broth.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

When I lived in Germany I attended many outdoor festivals. I loved the winter markets the best--what an experience! New-to-me sights, smells and foods. Once, when my folks were visiting we went to an outdoor market in Cologne. My mom walked up to a group of Germans who were sharing a paper cone of freshly roasted nuts and asked for a taste.

I was mortified. My mom enjoyed her spiced nut.

Now I've turned into my mom. While shopping at the base commissary* I got in line behind a cute little old lady buying turnips. I'd never seen anyone buy turnips before. We frequently get them in our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, so I was intrigued. Channeling my mom, I asked the lady how she liked to eat her turnips. She said she braised them with potatoes and sausage in a bit of broth. Here's my take on that conversation.

For other recipes using turnips, please see my Turnip Recipes Collection. For other recipes using potatoes, please see my Potato Recipes Collection. These are both part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For even more ideas, I've got an assortment of boards on Pinterest you're welcome to check out if you need a time suck!

Corned Beef, Cabbage and Dubliner Pizza

A St. Patrick's day pizza: corned beef & cabbage smothered with creamy Irish cheese.

I will probably be all over the place in these notes, so I apologize in advance. Squirrel! At least I'll try to break them up with official-looking subheadings.

The pizza

Since we eat pizza every Friday--and some Sunday afternoons while I'm working on shooting recipes for my first-in-a-series pizza ebook--food holidays are a great way to explore new flavor combinations. We've enjoyed 'Tremendously Green' cabbage and potato pizza and Irish cheddar, chicken, leek and potato pizza already, so I thought a corned beef & cabbage pizza was the next logical step. I like how this Irish cheese melts, so that addition was a no-brainer.

The behind-the-scenes photos

After my spouse returned from Afghanistan he bought a camera. While he was deciding if it fit his hand, I'd attempt to use it for photos. Once he determined that it wasn't right for him, he'd return it and buy a different one. He repeated these actions over the course of the winter, eventually settling on one. [The camera that I am still, a year later, attempting to use for photos!] The common thread--through the camera shopping and the marriage--is that I adapt to whatever works best for him. Adaptability is an excellent trait in a military spouse.

On the day I made this pizza we happened to have 2 cameras in the house--and a hungry assistant eager to get the photos taken so she could dig in. My spouse was using the new camera to take photos of me doing my thing with the previous new camera. The distraction is probably why I left an unfolded napkin in the corner of the photo, but at least it provides a place to overlay the recipe title.

Don't ask me which cameras he went though before ending up with his final choice. It doesn't matter because it's not the camera that takes a great photo, it's the person pushing the button. Whatever fits your hand and is easy for you to understand and use is the right camera for you. The brand name, the numbers on the lens--they are secondary to how it feels to you. Just make sure that something in the photo is in focus! There's no reason to have digital photos that are blurry. It's pizza, not a gazelle bounding away causing you to snap quick before the moment is gone.

There is nothing to disclose

I realized that there are an awful lot of brand names visible in these photos. Thanks to my spouse's hard-earned money I was able to buy everything at a variety of stores, and I'm choosing to share what I bought because the items worked really well in this recipe. There are plenty of times that I'm just not that into making pizza dough in advance, nor do I have any pizza crust yeast (Amazon affiliate link) to make a fast dough. I've tried a bunch of prebaked crusts and know what we like best. Use whatever products work best for you.

For other St Patrick's Day-inspired or 'any random day' pizzas, please see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index. For other recipes using cabbage, please see my Cabbage Recipes Collection. For other recipes using leeks, please see my Leek Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Fast Pasta with Slow-roasted Tomatoes

Pasta sauce sourced locally from ingredients put up in summertime to be enjoyed during wintertime: slow-roasted tomatoes seasoned with hot turkey sausage served over ricotta-feta tossed fettuccine.

Permission and Encouragement in today's post.

Did you put up a bit of summer's bounty in your freezer or pantry last year? Perhaps you dabbled a bit in freezing some strawberry jam, pesto, or tomatoes? If so--have you started to use what you put up? If yes--I should have made a flow chart--good for you. If no--what are you waiting for? Now is the time! It's cold enough to crave hearty homey hot dishes but the lengthening days tease you with the promise of seasons to come.

If you didn't put up any of the bounty from your garden, your neighbor's garden, your Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share or farmer's market--no worries! Let this recipe plant itself like a parasite in the back of your brain so that, when the days become shorter and the tomato plants are laden with ripe tomatoes, you'll think about trying your hand at putting some up. Then, through the magic of Pinterest (link to my Pinterest page where my first board, Farm Fresh Feasts, is all the posts I've ever posted on the blog) you can find this recipe next winter and enjoy your own homegrown tomatoes. In the meantime, a can of good crushed tomatoes will do.

About a year ago I shared a recipe for Creamy Tomato Soup with Home-canned Tomatoes. It was one of my most popular recipes of 2014. In that posted I planted the seed about canning your own tomatoes. It worked in at least 2 folks that I know of, and I couldn't be more delighted. Your turn?

Today I'm going to share a recipe for pasta with a slow-roasted tomato sauce, and I'll nag you to roast some tomatoes in the Fall. Oh, I mean plant the seed [forget the parasite analogy now] that you should consider slow-roasted as a method of preservation. Slow-roasted tomatoes require an oven, a rimmed baking sheet, and a freezer. I am fortunate to have all 3, and according to the results of the Hunger Study 2014, most folks in my area have access to the same kitchen appliances. No excuses!

Consider slow-roasting some tomatoes this year. Head to Alanna's excellent tutorial for step-by-step info and photos. For other ideas on how to use slow-roasted or fresh or canned tomatoes, please see my Tomato Recipes Collection, part of my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. I pin interesting tomato recipes to my Tomatoes Pinterest Board.

Honey Banana Oat Muffins

Soaked oat and whole wheat muffins sweetened with honey and a banana.

When I was a kid, my mom would sometimes whip up a last minute dessert that consisted of a bowl of sliced bananas topped with a spoonful of brown sugar and a generous splash of milk. It was fast, sweet, and used stuff she had on hand.

Making something out of nothing is a learned skill in the kitchen. 

I don't mean literally nothing, this is not a Stone Soup type post. No, I'm talking about some of the items I consider kitchen staples:  bananas, oats, and baking powder*. I don't add buttermilk to this list because if you were to run the stats [I've been working on getting my info ready for my wonderful tax preparer so stats are on my mind] buttermilk cannot be found in my fridge as often as bananas, oats, and baking powder can be found in the pantry.

Once you've got buttermilk to use up, though, you can assemble several sets of the base of these muffins and store them in the fridge for up to a week. You could make buttermilk pizza dough or roasted garlic & pesto buttermilk pizza dough and store that in the freezer for a month. You could make a double batch of Butternut Squash Waffles and freeze the extras for weekday breakfasts or waffle sandwich lunches.

These muffins are my version of mom's frugal dessert. They are easy to throw together out of stuff I have on hand, sweet enough for a mid-afternoon snack at work, and healthy enough for me to give my kids for breakfast.

For other recipes using bananas, please see my Banana Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other muffin recipes check out the drop down menu on the right sidebar and let this serve as a kick in the pants to update that, or just tell me to put all the banana muffin recipes that are piled up on the dining room table into an ebook so you can grab that when you're in a muffin mood.

Horned Melon Waffles

Classic buttermilk waffles with a freaky fruit twist--horned melon in the batter. 

Happy Birthday, Dr Seuss!

Horned melon is not a fruit that was grown by the farmers in my community supported agriculture (CSA) farm share. In a G+ food bloggers group Melissa's Produce offered to send cases of FreakyFruits to anyone interested. I said yes. This is my second recipe from that case of fruit. Passionfruit Banana Muffins was the first. I think the next one will be pizza or curry.

When I lifted off the protective bubble wrap I had no clue what I wanted to do with these fruits--but I like that challenge just like I like the challenge to use the kohlrabi in the farm share! Inspiration struck one morning when I realized that those people who live with me remain keen on eating first thing in the morning and all day long. [I need to be up and about for several hours before I feel peckish.] I used one melon in the waffles and had my daughter use another in a smoothie with banana, vanilla yogurt, and ice.

Horned melon looks like something out of a Dr Seuss book. It makes me wonder about the first animal to eat it, because I'm sure the first human to try it did so because she saw a fellow animal chowing down. [I wonder the same about artichokes and several of the other FreakyFruits that Melissa's Produce sent me.]

I don't know what my deal is with Dr Seuss' birthday and breakfast. If you wanted to make a Dr Seuss themed brunch to celebrate his birthday, March 2nd, please consider these waffles with a side of Green Eggs No Ham [a vegetarian eggs Benedict with easy spinach Hollandaise--link]. For other recipes using FreakyFruits, please see my FreakyFruits Recipe Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Loaded Miso Soup

Garnished with roasted tofu croutons and stuffed with roasted shiitake, tender kohlrabi and soba noodles, this miso soup is a hearty meal in a bowl.

On my Facebook page and my G+ page, I have been sharing links to food blogger recipes that catch my eye. While all of the recipes I've shared are ones I'd be delighted to eat, some are ones I actually want to make as well as eat. When I shared Easy Miso Soup by Christine of Cook The Story, I had visions of taking some shrimp from the freezer, rolling up a bunch of sushi, and serving the miso soup as a starter with a sushi meal.

Then reality hit, along with a polar vortex, and the idea of sushi wasn't half as appealing as the idea of a big bowl of soup. I veered away from quick and easy into the direction of turning a bowl of miso soup into a full meal. This is not vegan because I used fish sauce, but if you have a fish sauce substitute, this would be a vegan meal.

If you want an easy version of the classic miso soup, please check out Christine's recipe. If you want to pump {clap} it up, read on. I remembered my mom's BBQ tofu (a recipe I took really bad photos of so I've never shared it here) and used half of a container of tofu for that. I had a really fugly looking kohlrabi from the community supported agriculture (CSA) farm share and some soba noodles we never seem to eat and figured they'd go well with the broth. Then I spied some shiitake mushrooms with a magical markdown sticker, and I decided it was time to stop shopping and get into the kitchen.

There are a lot of balls in the air for this one, but the end result was slurped down by the whole family so I'd say it was a win. For other recipes using kohlrabi, please see my Kohlrabi Recipe Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index.

Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagna {Small Family Size}

A hearty meatless lasagna with butternut squash and spinach filling in between layers of uncooked noodles. This meal is a great way to enjoy farm share produce year round.

I did not get good photos of this lasagna for you. My spouse thinks that means I merely need to make it again. While I do have some community supported agriculture (CSA) farm share butternut squash left in the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve, I have other ideas for them. Moving forward, always often, to new recipe ideas, and it seems silly to avoid this tasty recipe just because I don't have the food stylist's knack for making a piece of lasagna look good.

I like lasagna filling more than I like noodles, and I hate trying to keep track of all the boiled noodles without losing the little ruffled edges. Therefore I make lasagna that has a higher filling to noodle ratio--and use oven ready noodles so I don't have to stress about separating cooked noodles or having them tear off their petticoats or go diving out of the colander into the sink.

Plan to assemble the lasagna earlier in the day and chill it until you're ready to bake. It could probably be assembled the night before, but I didn't try it that way. This make ahead dish makes a 'small family' size pan (9 inch square) of lasagna, great for a couple of leftovers but not weeks of leftovers. 

For other recipes using butternut squash, please see my Butternut Squash Recipe Collection. For other recipes using spinach, please see my Spinach Recipe Collection. They are part of the recently-updated Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Irish Cheddar Chicken Potato Leek Pizza

Chicken, blue potatoes, and leeks under a blanket of Irish cheddar cheese. Irish pizza? Cockaleekie pizza? Colorful pizza with chicken, leeks and potatoes? You choose the name that works.

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A community supported agriculture (CSA) farm share is not typically a source of exotic produce. Although turnips, kohlrabi and celeriac were novel and exotic to me--and Swiss chard may be new to some--these crops have been around.

When we got purple potatoes in the share last year it was a surprise and a delight. I've played with blue potatoes from Costco before, and it's also fun to make colorful food straight out of the farm share box. For this pizza I wanted to punch up the color of a chicken, leek, and potato pizza. Yes, that's practically cockaleekie pizza, but according to Google Trends no one searches for that. So you get a boring-yet-descriptive name. I've got a Corned Beef & Cabbage Pizza coming up, but to help mentally shift gears from Valentine's day/Mardi Gras/Chinese New Year to St. Patrick's Day I'd like to share this pizza now.

Why am I sharing St Patrick's Day recipes when I'm Scandinavian/Scottish, not Irish? Advertising, folks . . . it works on me. Cabbage goes on sale shortly after I've finished up the farm share veggies and had my fling with mushrooms from the store. We like corned beef and potatoes and eat them despite not being kissable due to our heritage. Shoot, we eat a bunch more seafood because it's also on sale. Speaking of ads, I'm playing around with Amazon ads in my sidebars. Please let me know if they are intrusive, thanks.

For another Irish-themed pizza, please check out my Tremendously Green Pizza (talk about a non-SEO friendly title!) that has bacon, cabbage, and potatoes. You can find other pizzas for your Friday Night Pizza Night at my Visual Pizza Recipe Index.

Pork & Leek Dumplings

Asian-inspired pork and leek dumplings simmered in seasoned stock and served with rice. Leftovers were also good served in the stock as a dumpling soup.

This is not Polish pottery. This is from the Inker pottery in Croatia. I got it while I was deployed.

When I get leeks in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share they usually come in big bunches. I can't use them all up in a week, so I will chop them in half long ways, then chop into a useful dice, soak to remove grit, and spin in my salad spinner. After they are clean I spread them out on a tray to freeze before popping them into a zip top bag. During the winter I'll add leeks to whatever looks good. Like these dumplings.

This post is an example of letting go of the quest for perfection, because less than perfect-looking food still tastes good. Sure, I'm going to try and get a photo that looks as good as I can style it because you can't smell or taste through the screen, but I'm also going to show you how we really ate these dumplings--off plastic plates, without a healthy green vegetable side dish in sight.

Where to start? I suppose with the dumplings. I picked up a package of dumpling wrappers without a plan. They got shuffled around the fridge, stuck into the freezer, forgotten then rediscovered during a freezer reorganization. Finally I got the idea for dumplings. This recipe comes primarily from Mark Bittman's app How To Cook Everything. I won the app years ago in a giveaway from The Naptime Chef. I have the app on my phone, and if I'm sitting waiting for a kid and dreaming up recipe ideas I can search for inspiration to fan those flames. I had some Thai turkey stock on hand, so I figured I'd give the dumplings a Thai twist then simmer them in the turkey stock.

After mixing up the filling, my son and I spent an enjoyable afternoon assembling the dumplings. [Ok, it wasn't the entire afternoon, but it wasn't 10 minutes of work. There's a big reason I don't list preparation times on this blog--I AM SLOW IN THE KITCHEN. If I read that it takes 10 minutes to prep the ingredients for a recipe, I can guarantee that it will take me easily 30 minutes. I'm just slow, and I'm OK with that.] We chatted about life, as folks typically do when working together towards a common goal, and didn't really focus on creating the perfect photo-worthy dumplings. We weren't in a hurry, it was a Sunday, and we were just enjoying the moment. The dumplings don't look perfect, and that's OK. After all that time crimping and chatting I just wasn't into fixing a side dish, so we ate these dumplings with rice my daughter started in the rice cooker. Not every meal has to meet the perfection of whatever meal ideals are currently in vogue.

Savory French Toast with Avocado and Egg

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

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

this is not high end artisanal toast.

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

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

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

Taco Turnip Tamale Pie (Stretching Meat Part 4)

Taco meat, shredded turnips and enchilada sauce make up the filling in this tamale pie.

When I first started blogging, about 2ish years ago, I frequently talked about how I add shredded vegetables to stretch a pound of ground meat. I do this in tacos, in burgers, and in meatloaf. The benefits of this technique are twofold:  I am boosting the amount of vegetables in my family's diet in ways that my family will eat them [because I'll be honest, the kids are not Open-faced Shaved Beet Sandwich fans] AND I'm using the produce from our farm share in a timely manner.

In the long term I want to increase the amount of vegetables we eat [hey, it's part of the reasons we joined a CSA in the first place]. But when I open the fridge and see a crisper full of turnips 2 days before the next farm share pick up, the short term goal of using ALL the produce becomes paramount. I was getting desperate creative, looking for ways to use them, when I came up with this.

Normally if I'm clueless about dinner I'll thaw a package of ground beef and make tacos or taco salad. Because I add veggies to the base of meat often, we don't use the whole amount of taco meat and frequently have leftovers. This was a great way to repurpose a leftover and use turnips.  I've made root vegetable enchiladas [and need to make the photos of that one prettier], so I know the combo of enchilada sauce + turnip is pleasing to my family.  I just pumped it up a bit.

This could be another concept recipe--a way to incorporate a variety of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share vegetables into a dish--like my Fast CSA Greens and Pasta Concept recipe. Just with root vegetables this time.

For other tips to feed your family from the farm share, check out this post. For other recipes using turnips, please see my Turnip Recipe Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index. For other recipes using ground beef, check out this round up of 106 Food Blogger Recipes Using Ground Beef.

Passionfruit & Banana Muffins {Where Do You Get Your Food?}

Where do you get your food? 

Between articles in National Geographic Magazine about the evolution of diet and observations during the 4th annual Montgomery County (Ohio) Food Policy Coalition Summit last year, I think Michael Malone of Hungry Toad Farm sums up the answer perfectly:

"Either somebody brings it to you, or you go get it."

The theme of the summit was Distribution--Connecting Producers to Consumers. I sat in on a few sessions* and it was interesting to hear from Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farmers as small as Michael Malone's couple dozen subscribers on up to Carl Bowman of Bowman & Landes Turkey's multi-state reach.
What I learned was there is romance in knowing where your food comes from (I agree with Dennis Chrisman of Dorothy Lane Market's sentiment). Over the past 9 years I've enjoyed meeting the farmers who grow our food. At first it was 'oh look, kids, this is what an eggplant looks like in the field' but it has morphed into wanting to understand the motivations of folks who want to work so damn hard to feed me.

Ben Jackle, together with his wife Emily, had 475 planting sessions last year at Mile Creek Farm. Holy cow! In order to balance what grows best in the climate and soil of their spread with what their customers want to buy, the Jackles must balance diversity with efficiency. It would be easiest to grow rows of the same crop and systemize the planting/growing/harvesting of a product, but as a CSA subscriber I wouldn't want to get a box of only tomatoes one week or only lettuce another week or only beets . . . ever. I appreciate the extra efforts that crop diversity requires.

Chickens go RVing at Keener Family Farm. Photo taken by my spouse.

"Convenience is a commodity itself"--another gem from Michael Malone. When he says "I don't sell peanut butter or toilet paper" he's right. I don't do all of my shopping in one place, nor would I want to do so. Everyone has skills, and while I appreciate our farm's ability to grow giant kohlrabi and my neighbor's buddy's ability to grow happy chickens and tasty beef, I also appreciate the volume discount on sharp cheddar cheese at Costco.

Keener Family Farm--photo taken by my spouse.

In addition to getting vegetables that have been grown near you by folks you've met, there are less tangible benefits to joining a CSA. George Mertz of Patchwork Gardens reminds me there's an aesthetic value of agriculture. Seeing farmland in production is pleasing to the eye, an having a box brimming with (pre-paid) brightly colored vegetables is so much prettier than a cart full of packages waiting for the final total price.

A typical late summer box: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, corn and greens.

People want local food, and according to Dan Carmody of the Detroit Eastern Market, the breakdown isn't in food production it's in food distribution. Folks all over are developing new ways to connect consumers to producers. In Seattle, Janelle Maiocco started Farmstr. Producers/Farmers can list their offerings on a central site online, and consumers can order the quantities and pick up locations that fit their needs. In Champaign County (Ohio), a Virtual Farmer's Market set up by Pam Bowshier and Mark Runyan meets in a YMCA. Folks order their items over a multiway period, then come once a week to pick up their orders.

Even CSAs are evolving. CSA models don't have to be just vegetables, or meat, or cheese. Heck, there's a beer CSA in Chicago--started by a former intern at our CSA, Patchwork Gardens. I'd love to have to empty my firkin before the next pickup date! According to a recent survey by Local Harvest, farmers are teaming up with other local businesses to sell add-on products (bread, meat, eggs) in addition to vegetables. Multiple payment options and varied length seasons are helping to reach new subscribers. Shoot, back when we started eating from a CSA we stopped getting food in late September. Now we get deliveries into December--and yes, now in February I've still got locally grown squash in the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve as well as put up vegetables in the freezer and pantry.

Beetloaf, a Story about a Meatloaf

Valentine's Day is coming, and I'm sharing pink food. Beets are my go to pink food coloring for that vibrant color that is surprisingly found IN nature.

This story, as all good stories do, starts with a package of beef liver. You may think that's a weird way to start a post entitled Beetloaf. Let me be clear--just because I'm calling this Beetloaf in no way implies a lack of meat. There are many excellent vegetarian loaf recipes out there and this is not one of them. This just happens to be a meatloaf that also contains beets and, as it happens on my FB page, when I post something innocuous sounding like Roasted Beet & Arugula Pizza, my friends nickname it Beet-za. Today I'm skipping the middleman and going straight to the nickname:  Beetloaf.

Now, before Robert Barker arrived in our lives I didn't know what to do with all the beef liver in the freezer. [My neighbors kept bringing me more, slipping it in the house alongside the eggs when I wasn't looking.] I looked for ways to incorporate liver into our lives, much like I look for ways to incorporate beets into our meals. I hit upon an idea--what if I used beets + liver together? I know I like pickled beets in my Open-faced Liver Postej Sandwiches, so it stands to reason that I'd like them together in the same pan. I decided to add a pound of pork sausage and a pound of ground beef to the liver + beets primarily because I'd already done a mostly vegetable meatloaf, my {48.3% Meat}Loaf, and I knew the additional meat would be a hit with the teenagers. It was--my daughter dumped ketchup on it and declared it 'acceptable' (when in doubt, ketchup is my #5 tip to get your family to eat from the farm share). My son went so far as to say it was 'good'--high praise from him--and complain after I started using all the liver for Robert Barker--that he wanted to eat more beetloaf.

BOOM! Liver + beets are in our bellies and out of the freezer. That's a big win in my book.

For other recipes using liver you're going to have to wait until I create additional categories for my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, but there is a search function on the left sidebar in the meantime. For other recipes using beets, please see my Beet Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other recipes using ground beef, please see my recipe round up of 106 Food Blogger Recipes using Ground Beef.