Baked Spaghetti Squash with Mushrooms, Fontina and Spinach

The Recipe

1 3lb (ish) Spaghetti Squash
Olive oil
1 10oz box mushrooms, preferably cremini, quartered
1/2 lb. fresh baby spinach
6 oz (1 1/2 cups) shredded fontina cheese
1 minced clove garlic
1/2 cup, about, good bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 375. Pierce the squash several times and place on cookie sheet; roast until tender, about an hour or so. Let cool a little. Maintain oven temperature.

Meanwhile, sauté shrooms in about two tablespoons of olive oil. When they are almost finished exuding liquid, add the spinach, toss and turn off the heat. We want the spinach wilted, not cooked.

Cut the squash in half and use a spoon & fork to remove the seeds. Pull the spaghetti-like threads out of each half, separate and toss in a 9x13 in. baking dish. (It will be pretty wet, no reason to oil the pan.) Add the spinach & mushrooms and the garlic; toss well, then add 1 cup (4 oz) of fontina. Mix well , adding a pinch of salt.

Top with the bread crumbs and the remaining fontina. Bake about 20 minutes or until the crumbs are nice and brown and everything is nice and hot.


The Story

We get A LOT of spaghetti squash from our farm this time of year, and I'm getting tired of the same ol' squash recipes. Invented this the other night and we all absolutely loved it. A keeper.

Nutty Kale Slaw

The Recipe

1 bunch kale

1 Medium onion

1/3 c. cider vinegar

1/3 c. XV olive oil

1/3 c. natural peanut butter

1-3 tsp hot sauce

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 c. raw walnuts

Shred the kale into strips approximately ¼”. Halve the onion and slice thin. Use a mandolin for this if available.

In separate bowl add vinegar, olive oil, peanut butter, and hot sauce and whisk to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Combine mixture, kale, and onions and mix thoroughly. Cover and chill for at least one hour.

Toast walnuts and add to slaw just before serving.

The Story

We have been getting bunches and bunches of kale from our farm share this year. Love kale though we do, we are starting to tire of the few recipes we have and are dreaming up new ones. Andrew made this up, and now the kids ask for it every time we get kale.

The dressing gets a creamy texture from the peanut butter. We always have chunky peanut butter, so that adds additional interest. 

I can't tell you how well it keeps. We eat the whole bowl every time. I bet if you let it sit overnight, the kale will soften somewhat. If you end up with leftovers, let me know how they are! 

Blueberry Jam (no pectin)

The Recipe:


7 cups blueberries, divided
3 cups sugar
juice and finely grated zest of two lemons (need about 1/4 cup of juice)

Mash about 3 cups of blueberries in a much larger pot than you think you'll need. Add sugar, lemon juice and zest, and the remaining blueberries. Bring to a boil; turn down to medium heat and boil about 18-20 minutes, or until thickened. Keep stirring and take care not to let it burn on the bottom. Skim off any foam on top; pack into jars.

The Story:


Really, that's it.


I do this as a refrigerator jam, as I don't can. If you do can, I'm sure you have sources which can tell you how to do that safely.


We've picked 40 lb. of blueberries so far this season. I just realized that we ran out today; we've frozen or eaten everything (or baked, or jammed, or what have you.) We've just decided to go back out tomorrow and pick more. I get the feeling that I'll be making a lot of blueberry jam with frozen berries this winter!

What is CSA?

CSA, or Community Sponsored Agriculture, is a great way to support local farmers, encourage a greater variety of local plantings, and get high-quality really fresh food for your family.

It's simple to do. For most farms, you pay for a share (up-front, so the farmer has money for seed and such) and then each week during the growing season, you pick up your portion of the farm's harvest. Some farms have a half-share option for smaller families; most farms have a swap area, so if your portion has something you don't like, you can leave it for someone who does and maybe you can pick up something you want instead. Many of the farms are organic (or headed that way.)

Friends of ours who have done this for years say it's cheaper than the grocery store in the long run, especially when compared to the price of organic produce. I'm just excited to get the really fresh food and support my local farmer.

Our farm has a winter option this year, using unheated greenhouses and certain crops. Our first week's harvest: 2 bins of potatoes (about 6.5 lbs worth), 9 fat lovely onions, 2 huge bunches of broccoli rabe, 2 bunches of Asian salad greens, and all the parsley and oregano we could cut. The salad greens were the star of dinner last night, and one of the broccoli rabe will go with some chickpeas & garlic for dinner tonight. I'm thinking potato pancakes and a fritatta later in the week for some of the potatoes. That's one big advantage of a CSA: eating seasonally. We get what is picked now, and we have to make meals based on it.

Our farm is Mendies Family Farm in Roosevelt, NJ. http://mendiesfarm.com/ So far, we just love it.

Strawberry Muffins

The Recipe

3 1/2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup half-n-half or milk
1/2 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups chopped strawberries
1 tsp cinnamon mixed with 2 tsp sugar

Preheat oven to 375; oil (or line with paper) 2 12-cup muffin tins.

Mix first four ingredients in large bowl; set aside. Whisk eggs in medium bowl until light; whisk in half-n-half or milk, oil, and vanilla until thoroughly combined. Toss strawberries with flour mixture. Add liquid to dry, stirring just until most of the flour disappears. DO NOT OVERMIX! Spoon batter evenly into muffin tins. Carefully sprinkle cinnamon-sugar over muffin tops.

Bake 18-20 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. Makes 24 muffins.

The Story

So far we've picked 26 lb. of strawberries this summer at Lee's Turkey Farm. We've frozen a lot and eaten a whole lot!

I searched around on the interwebz for good strawberry muffin recipes, but there are wide variations. This is my version, the way I like them. I had half-n-half sitting around and I used it up here, it was awesome, but milk works just as well. (Just not fat-free half-n-half, it has no place in a diet for humans.)

Enjoy the end of strawberry season! Blueberries are coming on strong!

"Help! My Garden Is Exploding!" Tabbouleh Salad

The Recipe

1 cup bulgur wheat
2 cups water
1 cucumber
3 (large) - 6 (small) tomatoes
handful of chives OR 1/2 bunch scallions
1 can chickpeas, drained
bunch of flat-leaf/Italian parsley
bunch of mint
5 Tbsp. XV olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
S&P

Bring water to a boil; add bulgur. Bring back up to boil; reduce to low heat and simmer about 10-15 minutes, until water is absorbed and bulgur is tender. Turn out into bowl to cool, occasionally fluffing with a fork.

Remove some of the cucumber seeds. Chop cucumber and tomatoes either fine or medium, as you like it; set aside in a bowl. Finely chop parsley and mint; finely slice scallions or chives (I use a scissors for chives. Makes life easier.) Drain chick peas. Whisk olive oil, lemon juice and cayenne together in small bowl.

By now, the tomatoes and cukes have exuded a lot of juice; drain it off. The bulgur should have cooled, too. Toss all salad ingredients together gently, then pour dressing over and toss lightly again.

Let cool in refrigerator at least one hour before serving. Is good while still a little warmer than fridge temp, but is also fine when cold for lunch tomorrow.

Serves 4-6 as dinner, 8-10 as a side dish.

The Story

This is the first meal I ever made for my husband, who was just some guy I was dating at the time. It worked out great for me! I've changed it over the years, but he still seems to like it.

By "bunch", I mean the approximate amount of parsley sold in a grocery store bundle. If you're inclined to measure, you want at least 1/2 cup of each finely chopped herb; more is good, especially when the mint is taking over because you forgot that you should always plant mint in a pot, not in the ground.

The last time I made this, I used a combo of red and yellow tomatoes, and it looked very pretty. Use what you have. I don't like to peel my cucumbers, but this is up to you. The salad will still have lots of green color without it, if you should feel it necessary to peel.

The chickpeas add a small element of texture as well as nutrition. If you want, a cooked chicken breast can be substituted; chop it up and mix with an extra 1 Tbsp olive oil and 1 Tbsp lemon juice. Keep in the fridge while you prepare the rest of the salad, then toss in at the end. You can skip 'em both and just have a nice side salad.

In my grocery store, bulgur is both with the Latin American foods (Goya brand) and near the rice. You can use couscous if you can't find or don't like bulgur. Personally, I don't like couscous; but as always, it's your dinner and you should enjoy it.

Too much of a good thing

The raspberries are back for fall, but I'm throwing out three for every one I pick.

Why?

It's been raining for a week. Everything's rotting.

I'm losing tomatoes at the same rate. I rescue them as quickly as I can, but they split quickly in weather like this.

I have plans for the raspberries. Once we have enough saved in the freezer, I want to make a raspberry-ginger mead (technically, a melomel.) I just hope the weather, and an upcoming vacation where I won't be picking for a while, don't ruin that plan.

Summer fruit

The last of the early summer raspberries are on the bushes. I've been getting a pint or two every two days for nearly a month, but it's almost over. It's been a very good year for them.

We picked up the first of the summer peaches on Saturday at Terhune orchards. They're cling peaches, which make them a bear to work with, but it's always such a treat to get the first fresh peaches.

Must get to the grocery store today- I need some fresh cream. Also must remember to freeze the ice-cream maker...

Truly fresh food

Mother's day weekend means gardening for me. I spent most of Sunday putting in my tomatoes and beans, as well as planting the radish and carrot seeds. The peppers take a long time to get estabished from seed, it seems to me, so I'll have to put them in next weekend.

The perennials have come back in force, however. The raspberries have taken over their alotted spots and are spreading rapidly, as are the blackberries. The strawberries are loaded with li'l green berries too. I picked all the cherries off of the cherry tree, since I just planted it last year; apparently that makes it branch out more and produce more fruit in the future. We'll see.

The herbs on the deck are exploding, too. The chives are in beautiful (edible) flower, see above. The sage, tarragon and thyme all came back as well. The rosemary died over the winter even though I brought it in, so I got a new one for Mother's day. I'll pick up some annual herbs this week to fill in the gaps.

There's nothing like walking outside and picking our food fresh. Deciding what to have for dinner based on what's ripe, or adding a handful of truly fresh herbs to any sauce or dish. Why bother even bringing it inside- sometimes we'll just stand in the garden eating tomatoes or throwing down raspberries with abandon. I know what went into the growing of this stuff; no pesticides, no herbicides, no waxes to keep it looking "fresh".

Not even a farmer's market can equal the taste of growing your own.