Barley with Veggies

This was just something I threw together to serve the dual purpose of being lunch and cleaning out the fridge a little, but it ended up being really tasty. I normally don't like any application where feta cheese becomes warm, so I'm not sure why I put it in, but it definitely worked.


Barley with Veggies
3 tblsp olive oil
2 tblsp sliced onion
1 clove chopped garlic
1 zucchini, sliced into half moons
1 small bunch spinach, chopped
1/4 tsp fresh basil
crushed red pepper
3/4 cup leftover pearl barley
2 oz feta cheese, crumbled
salt
Heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add onion, garlic, and zucchini. Cook until zucchini begins to get tender. Add spinach, basil, and red pepper (to taste) and cook until spinach is wilted. Add barley and cook until warmed through. Remove from heat and add feta and salt to taste. 

Herbed Lamb Loin Chop

Lamb is Kevin's favorite, but I've never actually made it at home. These were quite tasty, but next time I will try to marinate the chops in the herb mixture before cooking. I served these with a pearl barley and green beans.


Herbed Lamb Loin Chop
2 lamb loin chips
2 tblsp olive oil
2 tblsp chopped parsley and oregano
1 clove minced garlic
salt and pepper
Mix all ingredients but lamb in a small bowl. Heat an additional tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over high heat. Slather a quarter of the herb mixture on one side of each chop and place it herb side down in the skillet. Cook for approximately 3 minutes. Slather the remaining mixture on the chops, flip the chops, and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook to desired doneness. 

Eggs Benedict

I made the most beautiful, picture perfect eggs benedict for Kevin for his father's day breakfast. I so wanted to take a picture because I never make anything that's picture perfect, but my camera batteries were dead. So were the backup batteries. Sad.


Hollandaise
4 egg yolks
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
pinch cayenne (I actually used a bit more than a pinch by accident, but it was quite tasty)
2 tsp warm water
1 stick butter, melted
Add all ingredients except butter to a food processor. Turn on processor and slowly drizzle in melted butter. Serve warm over toasted english muffins topped with canadian bacon and poached egg.  

Vegetable Pie

Hmm... I don't have much to say about this one. I was basically looking to use up some veggies and some pie crust. Exciting, right?


Vegetable Pie
1 pie crust
2 tblsp olive oil
1 small onion, sliced
1 large zucchini, sliced
2 cloves garlic, smashed
3 bunches spinach (I'm guessing this is about one bag), chopped
1/4 cup leftover pizza sauce (or, you know, any tomato option you like - I was going to go with chopped tomatoes and some fresh herbs, but the kids had other ideas)
1/2 cup fresh peas
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Heat olive oil over medium high heat. Saute zucchini and onion until onion is softened. Add garlic and saute for a minute. Add spinach and cook until wilted. I then set about trying to dry out the veggies. First, I dumped everything into a colander and let it sit for 20 minutes. Then I dumped all of them out onto some paper towels and let them sit while I rolled out the pie dough and fitted it to a 9" pie plate. Spread spinach and onion as the bottom layer of the pie. Layer zucchini on top. Drizzle pizza sauce on top of zucchini. Sprinkle peas on top of that. Top the whole thing with cheddar and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

Crazy Green "Pesto"

I've been hearing all about garlic scapes for a while, but since they've never appeared at my farmer's market, I had never tried them. That all changed this week. I picked up two bunches since I think they're only available for a short period of time and I wanted to take a stab at more than one preparation. Tonight, I went with a "pesto" sauce. Wooey! These guys are pungent. Since I have the baby to consider, I tried to tone down the bite of the scapes, but no dice. Here's hoping the baby still wants to talk to me tomorrow!


I think I'm going with roasting the next batch of scapes. What do you think? What do you do with your scapes?


Garlic Scape Pesto
1 bunch scapes (7 in my bunch), cut into 1/2 inch chunks
leaves of one stem of basil (about 10 leaves)
leaves of 3 stems of flat leaf parsley
5 large leaves of spinach
1/2 cup romano cheese
1/2 cup reserved starchy pasta water
extra virgin olive oil
salt
Place scapes, basil, parsley, and spinach in food processor. Pulse until everything is lightly chopped. Add cheese and turn processor on. Stream in pasta water and olive oil until desired consistency is reached. Salt to taste and serve on warm pasta.

Brown Sugar Glazed Ham

So, I got cabbage at my CSA pick up last week and that always leads to ham in our house. Alas, I was out of honey, so I set out in search of a different glaze and came up with this very basic, but tasty option. Not surprisingly, I served the ham with sauteed cabbage.


Brown Sugar Glazed Ham
1 3-4 lb. ham roast
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tblsp brown mustard
1/8 cup water
Place ham on roasting rack. Bake at 350 for full cooking time less 30 minutes (so, assume 30 min per lb). While the roast is cooking, combine sugar, mustard, and water in a small saucepan. Stir until combined and then simmer to thicken. Slather all over the roast and return roast to the oven for final 30 minutes of cooking. Once ham is to temp, remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

Small Birthday Cake

It's even crooked!

So, it's the little guy's birthday and there are only three of us and there's a party in two days for which I'm already baking cupcakes. I'm no baker, but I know you're not just supposed to half a baked good recipe and call it a day, so I set out in search of a recipe for a small cake. I found this one. Again, I'm no baker, but I started out to make this and had a heart attack. 1 1/2 sticks of butter?? 1 cup sugar?? The full size cake I made for MDH last month didn't have that much butter and just had that much sugar. But, there I was with the oven preheating and so I did what I always do when I disagree with a recipe and adjusted it as I saw fit. Remember, I'm no baker, so I was a bit terrified.

The result was really quite tasty. The crumb was a little dense, but it was delicious. I can't really figure out how I screwed up the icing. It should have just been a simple buttercream, but it turned out too thin. That part I know how to fix. The weird thing was that it was also a bit gritty. I don't know how something becomes gritty with butter, milk, powdered sugar, and vanilla.

Thoughts? Save me from the internet research - What did I do to my frosting that would make it gritty? Do you have a recipe for a small cake? Have you seen an uglier cake?

Small Birthday Cake

1 cup AP flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

approximately 1/3 cup milk

Butter and flower two 1 quart round Pyrex baking dishes. In a small mixing bowl, sift flour, baking powder, and salt. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter. Add sugar and mix until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time (At this point, I needed to stop and scrape down the side of the bowls) until well incorporated. Add vanilla. Add the flour mixture slowly (don't be like me - turn down the speed on the mixer before you start). Once I had the flour incorporated, my batter looked more like a dough, so I started adding milk a little bit at a time until your batter looks battery (yeah, battery. What else would I call it?). Split batter between the containers and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Check with a toothpick. Let cool for five minutes in the baking dishes and then remove and let the cakes cool on a cooling rack before icing.

My Year of Local Food

First, for the record, I have been cooking - I've just been having a lot of problems getting time to post recipes. Today, I've given the older child to my mom and ditched my cleaning responsibilities so that I can post here while the little girl is sleeping. I'll regret this later, but oh well. Moving on...

Since the community garden is underway again, my CSA starts this weekend, and I've already been in the kitchen prepping and freezing lovely produce, I figured I had hit the end of one year of local eating. Last year, I joined our community garden, bought a full share in a CSA, and did my best with my own pitiful garden with the goal of buying no veggies from the grocery for an entire year. Here's how it went:

• I hear you saying, "Surely you didn't actually go all year without buying anything!" Well, you're right. I ran out of frozen carrots incredibly quick, so I had to buy a few of those. Also, there's no way to freeze lettuce and I can't go too long without salads. And, of course, I have a little munchkin who loves bananas and cucumbers. So, yes, I was in the produce store for things, but the majority of our stuff came from my frozen local supply.

• The Good:
• Zucchini. Who knew? The folks at the garden told me to shred it and freeze it. I also took a stab at slicing and freezing. Both worked great. 
• Tomatoes. I knew the plum tomatoes would work, but I also froze some cherry tomatoes and some of my heirlooms. They all worked out fine.
• The Bad: Butternut and Acorn Squash... at least the batches that I tried to freeze cubed. The stuff I pureed was awesome.
• The Ugly: The freezer. So disorganized. So bad. So cold. So very, very cold. Since it was disorganized, it took forever to find things and my fingers froze. Must organize and wear gloves next year!
• What's left: Two bags of zucchini, one container of peppers, one container of blueberries, some basil, and some beans. Two bags of cubed squash got composted.  Not too bad.

I'm not looking forward to another summer of blanching veggies every weekend, but it's worth it!