Put An Egg On It!

Tonight, I made a dinner which was surprisingly quick, easy and tasty!  I was tired when I got home, so all three were a necessity if we were to avoid ordering delivery.

Here is the cell phone pic of questionable quality:

The above is bow tie pasta, with garlic, mushrooms, spinach and cherry tomatoes, with a soft-poached egg on top.

Here's how to pull it together yourself:

Noodles (I used bow tie, but use whatever shape you have on hand)
1 bunch spinach, washed, dried and roughly chopped
1/2 pint of cherry tomatoes
3 large white mushrooms (or a bunch of smaller ones), sliced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, diced (optional)
lemon juice or balsamic vinegar (optional)
1 egg per person
water & plain white vinegar for poaching
oil for sauteing
salt, pepper and grated parmesan to taste

Start your noodles as per package directions.
In a large frying pan, heat some oil.  If using the onion, add it first, and saute/stir until starting to soften.  Then add your mushrooms and cook for 2-5 minutes.  When the mushrooms have started to get some colour, add your spinach.  When the spinach is mostly wilted, add the tomatoes and a splash of lemon juice or balsamic (if using).  Keep this on low heat, while the remaining items cook.
When the noodles are pretty much done, drain, reserving a little bit of cooking liquid, then add to your pan of vegetables and stir.  Add some cooking liquid if necessary, to keep things from drying out.  Keep this on low heat/warm, while doing your eggs.
If you know how to poach eggs already, awesome!  I'm not great at it, and if you don't know how, you probably shouldn't learn how from me.  If you know how, soft poach your eggs.  If you don't, a soft boiled, sunny side up or over easy egg will work too - or you could search for a good tutorial.

Serve up your pasta, top with your runny egg, and sprinkle with parmesan, salt & pepper to taste.
When you bust your egg open, the yolk will run everywhere and help make a delicious coating on your noodles.

Enjoy!

Random Stuff from the Last Few Months and a Sandwich

I realized today that it has been longer than I thought since I've posted anything.  Several months in fact.  Oops.  I haven't really been doing anything interesting (other than growing a person), which has contributed to the lack of posting.

Here's a little summary of what I've been up to recently:

The garden also went in really late this year - we kept having frost warnings right through the end of May!  It also hasn't really stopped raining, which hasn't helped getting things into the ground.
This year's garden is much smaller than usual, since I don't plan on spending too much time out there near the end of this pregnancy.  The only things I've planted are:
Black Plum Tomato
Lipstick Pepper
Cantaloupe
Cinnamon Basil
Rosemary
some flowers out front that the munchkin picked out

The tomato plant is a very prolific (and very tasty!) variety, and I'm looking forward to re-supplying my stash of salsa!

The sage, chives, thyme, spearmint, rhubarb and strawberries all survived the winter, which was also pretty convenient.

The two books that I have read since my last update, which have stuck out to me are: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (slow moving, but very atmospheric and sadly sweet) and The Acolyte by Nick Cutter (this one is a distopian novel where the science-denying, Evangelical religious right have taken over and instituted a sort of dictatorship.  Very creepy read!).

Finally, I'm very happy the seasonal farmer's markets are back!  There is a year-round market not too, too far from us, but I am fond of the seasonal market that is much closer.  When my finds at the market are combined with what we get in our produce delivery box, some very tasty meals can be had!
I've ended up making this sandwich for lunch the past two days in a row (I only have a cell phone pic, so my apologies if you can't view it well)

Delicious Sandwich!

What you see in the photo includes:
Herb & cheese sourdough from De La Terre Bakery
Garlic & chive fresh chevre (goat cheese) from Fifth Town Artisan Cheese
Spring mix from one of the veggie vendors at the market (I can't remember which one!)
Sweet Russian Mustard from Kozliks Canadian Mustard (I prefer the spicy Russian, but we ran out!)
and then tomato, cucumber and radish from the produce delivery.

Do you have a market nearby, or a favourite sandwich?

Potato Cup Things With Eggs & Veg

Earlier today, this recipe quite literally landed on my doorstep, as part of today's newspaper.  They call the recipe Potato Nest Frittatas, but to me a frittata is more of an egg pie/cake sort of thing.  This is more like eggs in a nest.

So, I gave the recipe a bit of a spin for supper, except that I substituted a bit (and by a bit, I mean a lot).  I only made 5 egg-potato cups, just for reference.

I didn't have any russet potatoes, and the recipe calls for baking them in the oven and then letting them chill overnight.  I think this animated gif sums up my feelings this instruction:

I instead scrubbed two medium yellow potatoes (and one sweet potato, just to see how it would fare in the recipe) and microwaved them until they were cooked.  Then I stuck them in the freezer for 5 minutes, until they were cool enough to handle.  I probably should have left them in the freezer longer, as I discovered a few rogue pockets of steam while grating them.

The sweet potato was not as firm as the regular potatoes, so it was more half grated-half mashed, but they still made nice potato cups (I got 2 sweet potato cups and 3 yellow potato in total).

I put finely minced red onion, mushrooms, yellow sweet pepper and cream cheese in the potato cup, before cracking the egg in.  They only just fit in my standard size muffin tin.

Getting them out once they were done baking was a bit of an adventure.  I definitely did not grease the sides of the muffin tin cups enough, and the bottoms were still a little soft.  So, definitely check that your muffin tin is very well greased.

In the end though, they turned out to be delicious.  They went really well with buns and spinach salad for dinner.  Even munchkin gobbled her share right up.

Recent Food Stuff Ending in Crock-Pot Potato Soup

This is the last really big haul I did from the garden at the end of August.  I've since brought in even more tomatoes and quite a few carrots.  The carrots are still going strong, so we bring some into the house every few days.  The Lipstick peppers were super-flavourful, and I'm sad I couldn't encourage the plant to put out any more of them before the weather turned.

This is the result of our most recent visit to the local farmer's market.  Clockwise, from left to right we have eggplants, cheese & herb sourdough bread, nectarines, eggs, sweet long peppers, artisan pork sausages, wild blueberries and strawberries.

In addition to this, we are still receiving our local produce delivery basket.  In short, we are still drowning in produce, even though it is now fall.   Root veggies are starting to appear as well, and we have had a surplus of potatoes.  I haven't even bothered to dig any of the potatoes I planted earlier this year, since we've been getting so many in our deliveries, although I'm going to have to do it soon.

Combine the abundance of potatoes in our life with the fact that both partner & I have managed to get ourselves the first colds of the season at the same time, and the end result is crock-pot potato soup.  I did not take any photos, because I didn't think to do so before dinner, and there was none left afterward.

To make some yourself, you will need:
3-4 large potatoes, washed & cubed
1 large carrot, diced
1 medium handful of chives, finely chopped
1 vegetable bouillion cube
1/2 tsp ground rosemary
salt & pepper to taste
milk (approximately 1-2 cups)
sour cream & more chives to garnish, should you so desire

Put everything in the crock-pot except for the milk.  Add enough water to cover the vegetables, turn the crock-pot to low, and walk away.
When you return home from work/errands/lounging on the couch/etc, 6-8 hours later, blend the soup up (I have an immersion blender.  If you are using a regular blender, be sure to do it in batches and keep an eye & a hand on the lid).  Add milk until you get the consistency you like.  If necessary, warm gently until heated back to your desired temperature.
Serve with the garnishes of your choice.

I know it is similar to the potato & leek soup I've posted previously, but this version requires so much less effort.  I hope you enjoy!

Grilled Garlic Scape Pesto

Our produce delivery has been really lovely the last while.  Part of that, I'm sure, is that things are coming into season here, so we're getting lots of super-fresh, local items!

Not too many baskets ago, we received a pile of garlic scapes.  For a long time, people thought of them as compost, since you need to snip them if you want nice, fat garlic bulbs.  However, in the last few years, they've come back into fashion, which means that they are often quite expensive at the farmer's markets!  It was lovely to get some in our basket at no extra charge.

We weren't quite sure what to do with the scapes, and since we were planning on barbecuing the following day, we decided to toss them on the grill too.  We tossed them in a tiny amount of olive oil, with just a light sprinkling of salt & pepper to season and grilled them for 2-3 minutes.
They were not too shabby prepared that way, but we could only eat about one each with all the other items we had grilled.  So I made them into pesto!  (I love pesto, if you had not yet guessed from all the other pesto recipes in this blog)
I think grilling them gave them a softer flavour than if I had just made the pesto straight.

Here is what you need:

A blender
About a dozen grilled garlic scapes
parmesan cheese
olive oil
hulled pistachios (I got mine at the bulk food store)
salt & pepper to taste
maybe some water, depending

Roughly chop your garlic scapes and toss them in the blender (I did not do this, and it took forever to blend everything down.  Don't be like me, and chop your's first!).  Add in 1/4-1/2 cup pistachios (I didn't measure, I just tossed in 4-5 handfuls).  Give a good solid few shakes of parmesan, a little salt & pepper, and pour in 1/2 cup of oil to start.
Pulse away, and add more oil as needed.  I think I ended up using about 1 cup of olive oil, but I also added about a cup of water to mine, to make it more sauce-like.

If you are not using it right away, you can pour it into an ice cube tray to freeze, or stick it in the fridge for a bit.  I had so much, I managed to have a full ice cube tray and a 250ml jar full!

I used some of the jar in tonight's lasagna, and it was quite tasty.
If you find some garlic scapes for a good price and decide to try this recipe, I hope you enjoy it!

The Garden 2014: A Start

The raised planter and some of the pots.  There are so many seedlings in this photo!

Gardening - it is a thing that I do sometimes.  I'm pretty lazy, so I don't always weed when I should, or remember to water consistently, and I have a toddler 'helper', so it is generally not worthy of a magazine photoshoot.  However, it is something that brings me pleasure, especially the bit where the food parts ripen and I get to eat them.  Plus, the toddler seems to enjoy being outside with her little gardening tools, digging holes and yelling "I help! I do it!"

I've planted stuff out back in the last few weekends, laughing (carefully, while knocking on wood, just in case) at the prospect of a late frost.  As gardens are always a work in progress, especially when you inherit a space, we're still working out some placement issues.  This means that there are still seed packets on my kitchen table, and empty pots in the shed.

Here is a little list of what is already in the ground (most seeds and seedlings I purchased from Urban Harvest, although a few seedlings came from one of the convenience stores near my home).

• Broccoli
• Celery
• Mountain Princess Tomato (it is a determinate, so it is in a pot.  We'll see how it goes)
• Isis Candy Cherry Tomato (isn't that a great name?  Apparently, the individual tomatoes ripen in all different colours. Whee!)
• a rainbow pack of carrot seeds (including: Atomic Red, Cosmic Purple, Lunar White, Scarlet Nantes and Solar Yellow)
• Six Week Bush Beans
• Sugar Daddy Sugar Snap Peas
• French Breakfast Radishes
• Watermelon Radishes (not yet planted, but these are neat.  They are green inside instead of white, so they look like little watermelons)
• Lipstick Sweet Red Pepper
• Onions - I planted Evergreen Bunching Onion seeds, but something dug up that patch, so I planted yellow onion seedlings in the same area.  Hopefully, I'll get both!
• A 'Lucious Lettuce' variety seed pack of lettuces
• Dwarf Nasturtium
• potatoes, that I took from our produce delivery box
• French fingerling potatoes 
• A new second blueberry plant (one of the two I planted last year got attacked by local wildlife and did not survive)
• Two new strawberry plants (about half the existing strawberry patch did not survive the winter)
• A sunflower mix (not yet planted)

I also added to the herbs.  The chives, oregano, thyme and lavender all survived the winter.  New is:

• garden sage
• spicy globe basil
• dark opal basil
• cinnamon basil (what can I say? I'm apparently a sucker for basil) 
• and an additional bit of lavender.

Are you planting anything this season?

Garlic-Spinach-Tomato-Mushroom Spaghetti Delicious

If you have small children, you'll understand the needing to get food into tiny faces before a certain time, else you face the wrath of a major toddler HANGRY meltdown.
So, yesterday, by the time we got home, we were seriously behind schedule.  I did not have a lot of time to throw something together for dinner, and judging from the behaviour I was facing, we were close to witching hour. Fortunately for me, yesterday was also the day we receive our weekly produce bin, so food was at hand!

I threw this together quickly, while distracting a toddler with crackers, and preventing her from breaking herself or the kitchen.  It turned out to be pretty gosh darned delicious, so I'm sharing my dinner win with you.

To make my tasty, last minute, Garlic-Spinach-Tomato-Mushroom Spaghetti, you will need:

spaghetti or other long noodles
3-4 large white mushrooms, washed & sliced (I only used 2 yesterday, but more would have been better)
1/3 lb spinach, washed and roughly chopped (ie. a big bunch of spinach)
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 pint cherry tomatoes
salt & pepper to taste
olive oil
grated parmesan cheese

Get the noodles started as per package directions.  Meanwhile, heat some olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat.  When the oil is warm, add your garlic & mushrooms.  Stir occasionally so the garlic doesn't burn.  Let the toddler have a turn with the salad spinner full of just washed spinach while you do this so they let go of your knee.

When the mushrooms start to look a little bit cooked, throw in the spinach.  It will wilt down by a lot, so don't worry if the pan looks ridiculously full. When the spinach has all wilted down, so that there is space in your pan again, add the pint of cherry tomatoes, and then salt & pepper to taste.  Give everything another stir.

At about this point, your spaghetti will likely be done.  Drain your noodles, reserving 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the pasta water and toss the lot into your frying pan.  Toss everything together until it is all well mixed.

Serve with lots of grated parmesan.

I hope you enjoy!

I Love You, Crock-Pot

Image from Crock-Pot's official Canadian website

Dear Crock-Pot,

I'm sorry that I go through periods where I neglect our relationship.  It isn't very nice of me to leave you sitting in the pantry, getting dusty, for weeks at a time.  It is especially not nice when the weather is cold and damp and miserable, since that is usually when your talents truly shine.

I know that today was sunny, and nice, with a crisp spring breeze, but I thought it was time we got caught up.  Plus, I had a turnip, some cauliflower and a lot of sweet potatoes that wanted to meet you.

Thank you, my slow-cooker friend, for being understanding and not holding a grudge.  The sweet potato-cauliflower-turnip soup we made together today was delicious.  It made the bellies of my child, my partner and myself very happy.  Although, I think the munchkin may have eaten more bun than anything else, she did seem to like the bites of soup that actually made it into her mouth.

Yours in deliciousness,
Me

If you want to make your own crock-pot improv soup for dinner, peel (if appropriate) and roughly dice whatever veggies you happen to have on hand (I especially like root veggies, and adding some onion, celery or carrots rarely goes awry).  Dump them in your slow cooker with 4-6 cups of water or broth, whatever spices you think will taste good, turn the cooker to low, and walk away for several hours.  If you want smooth soup, immersion blender it up if you have one!  If you want to make it more a meal, get some buns or bread and a salad to serve on the side.  

Tonight's Dinner: Potato & Leek Soup, Roasted Broccoli, Rice with Lentils

I'm officially on vacation this week, and so far, things have been pretty tasty.  I've made two kinds of buns and chocolate cookies, in addition to regular meals over the last few days.

Speaking of regular meals, tonight's was pretty delicious!  Here's what I did.

Rice with Lentils:
This bit wasn't from scratch.  I used minute rice and just added a cup or so of dried red lentils to it at the beginning so it all cooked together.

Roasted Garlic Broccoli with Oven Dried Tomatoes:
1-1 1/2lbs broccoli (about 4 small heads, or 1 large bunch) - broken into florets, with stems peeled & diced
1-3 garlic cloves, finely minced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
oil-packed sun or oven dried tomatoes
salt & pepper to taste

Toss the broccoli with the garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice.  Spread in a single layer in the bottom of a small casserole dish, or on a foil lined baking sheet.  Dot with your dried tomatoes in oil.  Bake, uncovered, in a 425F oven for 16-20 minutes.

Potato & Leek Soup:
1 large leek, washed & chopped (all of the white bit, and as much of the green bit that's good - watch out for the sand in the crevices!)
2 tbsp butter or margarine, or some oil
4 potatoes, diced
4-5 cups broth (I only had 1 bouillon cube left, so I added that, water, and a handful of herbs)
1 cup milk
sour cream
salt & pepper to taste

Heat the butter in a large saucepan.  Add the chopped leek, and stir for about 5 minutes, until it is all well softened.  Add the broth and the diced potatoes, then bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer, and cook until the potatoes are cooked through.  Turn off the heat (or remove the pot from the heat), and blend the soup (either with an immersion blender right in the pot, or remove to a blender and puree in batches).
Return the soup to the pot, add the milk and two big blobs of sour cream, and stir until combined.  If the soup is now too cool, heat on low until the soup is heated through.

I hope at least one of these dishes works out for you.  I'm currently really into soup, so if you have a good recipe you'd like to share, feel free!

Cold Weather Comfort Food: Veggie Shepherd's Pie

The weather recently has decided that it should probably give this winter thing a proper crack, since it is Canada and all.  This sort of weather change always makes me crave casseroles, stews and soups - comfort foods, in other words.
I've talked at least three times about squash on this blog, so I won't give you my squash soup slow cooker variation (unless you really want me to).

However, I will tell you how to make my vegetarian shepherd's pie (sadly, a bit of a misnomer since it contains no shepherd, nor mock shepherd - or sheep for that matter).
I also have no photos for you, since we ate it all.  What little leftovers we had went to work with partner & I in our lunches.

To make my vegetarian shepherd's pie, you will need the following:
2 packets of vegetarian ground round (we use the Yves brand, original flavour)
1 tin of mushroom gravy
2 medium or one large carrot, sliced
1-2 stalks of celery, sliced
4-6 white mushrooms, sliced
half a medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small zucchini, sliced
1 cup frozen corn
1 medium turnip, peeled and diced
4-6 potatoes, diced (most recently I used three yellow potatoes and four small red potatoes)
milk
butter or margarine and/or oil for frying
thyme to taste
pepper to taste

Put your turnip & potatoes in a pot of water, and bring to a boil.  Turn down the heat, and let simmer until cooked soft.
While the potatoes & turnips are cooking, saute the carrots, celery, mushrooms, onion, garlic & zucchini in a frying pan with the thyme and some pepper until they start to soften.
Put the veggies in your lasagna pan, and add the corn and vegetarian ground round.  Stir everything so it is all mixed up and fairly evenly distributed.  Then add the mushroom gravy & give it another stir.
By this point, the potato-turnip mixture should be ready.  Drain the potato mix, and then mash with butter/margarine and milk until you have your preferred mash potato consistency.  Spread over the top of the other ingredients in your casserole dish in an even layer.
Cover, and bake in a 350F oven for half an hour.  Uncover and cook for a further 15 minutes.

I usually serve this with a salad, and maybe some crusty bread, because salad and some sort of bread bun goes with almost everything!
When we had this last, I made a Greek inspired salad with cucumbers, grape tomatoes, green bell pepper, and mozzarella (we were out of feta) in a Greek salad dressing.  It was really good!

Have you been making comfort foods lately?  I'm sure my partner is going to get sick of casseroles and stews sooner or later, so feel free to shoot me some suggestions.

Produce Delivery Box, Making Us Think Outside The Box!

A few weeks ago we signed up for one of those organic produce delivery services, that recently started delivering in our neighbourhood.
The theory is that it will keep our trips to the grocery store down, and help us to get more local and organic food in our bellies now that the farmers market is closed for the season.
So far, we have had two deliveries, and I think it is going pretty well.  It is certainly forcing us to think outside our usual food box a little bit!

I'm finding that it is stretching my brain to come up with ways to use up all the produce we've been receiving - especially when you remember that you are getting another box in a week's time!

Here's a short list of some of the stuff we have made with the 2 weekly produce boxes we've received so far:
watermelon radish chips
vegetable stew
thai curry veggie stir fry
garlic bok choi with red cabbage
sweet potato fries
sweet & regular potato mash
lots and lots of salad

This doesn't even take into account the apples, oranges, bananas (the bananas & oranges are clearly not local, but they are organic & fair trade) & pears we've received.

So, if anyone has any suggestions on how I can make salad more interesting, or how I should use up the remaining sweet potatoes, before this week's box which includes regular potatoes and yet more lettuce arrives, let me know!