Is anyone else tired of roasting every member of the squash family?

So am I. Besides, it can’t get much better than that spaghetti squash last week.

So, let’s do something different.

Okay, okay, we’re going to have to roast the squash first. But when we’re done, you’ll have forgotten all about it. Because it will be the next day and you’ll be eating squash gnocchi.

I love gnocchi. But let’s try it with healthier acorn squash instead of potatoes! Mario Batali, lead the way…

So, everyone roast your acorn squash tonight, like Mario says, and stash it in the fridge overnight, like Mario also says.  Meet me here tomorrow and we’ll make squash gnocchi.  Probably with plum tomato sauce.  Yum.

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CSA Harvest Week 15: Acorn Squash, Onions, Plum Tomatoes, and Mixed Peppers

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Eggplant Schmears with Bruschetta Topping

Eggplant Schmears with Bruschetta Topping. Sharp eyes will notice that the basil is missing. Mine was past its prime when I went to use it.

In my neck of the woods, a schmear is cream cheese on top of a bagel.  I borrowed the name for this dish, which unites eggplant with one of my favorite party foods, bruschetta.  You can also make the bruschetta on its own and serve it atop lightly toasted baguette slices.  Here, the eggplant stands in for the bread, making this carb-friendly and a “meatier” appetizer.

Eggplant Schmears with Bruschetta Topping
by CSAGourmet

2 medium eggplant
1 small tub of ricotta cheese
4-6 tomatoes (multi-colored heirloom are excellent here; if not, I use plum tomatoes)
1 medium sweet onion
handful Italian basil
red pepper flakes
salt
pepper
extra virgin olive oil

For eggplant:
Peel eggplant and slice 3/8″thick lengthwise.  Lay in a rimmed sheet pan.  Drizzle with olive oil and rub to coat both sides.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste.  Roast at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, until eggplant is soft but still holds together.

For bruschetta topping:
While eggplant roasts, make topping.  Take ricotta out of the refrigerator and set it out to take the chill off.  Dice tomatoes and onions pretty finely.  Chop basil fine.  Combine in a bowl and drizzle with about 1 Tbsp of olive oil.  Toss.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Assembly:
Top warm eggplant planks with a smear of ricotta cheese, then bruschetta.  Enjoy!

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CSA Harvest Week 14: Kale, Tomatoes, String Beans

Whoops, forgot the photo this week.  Sorries.  😦

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CSA Harvest Week 13: Broccoli, Spaghetti Squash, Eggplant, Green Beans, Heirloom Tomatoes, Red Peppers, Zucchini, and Okra

Finally, some broccoli, one of my favorites!  I can’t wait to share my favorite broccoli recipe later this week!

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Sometimes, You’ve Gotta Do It the Hard Way

So, in reading up on eggplant in an attempt to get ahold of its capricious nature, I turned to Alton Brown because I felt like I needed some science behind me.  His foodnetwork.com recipes introduced me on salting the eggplant to purge the bitter juices.  Huh.  I had no idea there were bitter juices that could be removed.  So, I thought I’d put that technique to the test in my own little version of America’s Test Kitchen.

I chose two small eggplants of the same variety.  I peeled the eggplant, sliced them into 1/4″ thick rounds and cooked them exactly the same way — roasting at 375 degrees for 20 minutes in just olive oil.  The only difference is that I salted one batch following Alton’s directions from his Eggplant Pasta recipe:

“Evenly coat each slice with the [kosher] salt and purge on a sheet pan fitted with a rack for 30 minutes. Rinse with cold water and roll in paper towels to dry.”

Believe it or not, some juice does drip out.  Not much, but it did happen.  This technique is, however, a bit of a pain with the rack and all and the extra time involved, so the question is, is salting worth it?

You bet.

There was a very noticeable difference between the salt-purged and non-salt-purged eggplant, and not just that the salted version retained some salt for flavor enhancement.  The salt-purged version was not nearly as bitter, sweeter, and more mellow.  Much, much better than without salting.  So, in my opinion, salt-purging eggplant is definitely worth it.

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Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs (So Good You Won’t Miss the Spaghetti At All)

I am a girl who loves, no, adores her pasta.  Even though I don’t usually have it with sauce (or gravy, depending on where you’re from).  I’ll pause a moment while that sinks in.

Yes, I really like my spaghetti plain.  No sauce, no butter, no olive oil, just plain.  But I love lasagna and baked ziti, and all those type dishes and they all have sauce.  I didn’t say it made any sense; I just said this is what I like.

To digress a moment, I had two pasta revelations in the last few years. 1) I became a meatball aficionado.  Mom never really made meatballs, just ground beef, with our spaghetti, and they always seemed to close to meatloaf, which I loathe, for my taste.  But, I tried a meatball at a fabulous local Italian place when I first moved to where I live now and I was converted.  And then, at a charity auction, I won a gourmet gift basket that included a copy of Shore Gourmet, a cookbook of recipes from excellent Jersey Shore restaurants.  And damn if the recipe for the meatballs from my local Italian place wasn’t in there.  I leapt for joy.  And then, of course, I tinkered with it.  And I put a little sauce on it.  So there.

The second revelation was whole grain pasta.  I’ve tried whole wheat pasta before.  May I say — BLECH!  It was like eating cardboard mixed with sawdust.  I ran screaming back to the arms of my semolina, most specifically Barilla, which I think is hands-down the best mass market dry pasta there is.  So, when my grocery store started stocking Barilla’s whole grain pasta, which is 51% whole wheat and 49% semolina, I thought I’d give it a try.  I loved it.  Very much like 100% semolina, without a trace of cardboard or sawdust, and it made me feel a bit more virtuous.

Which brings me to my third pasta revelation:  spaghetti squash.  I had heard for years that it was just like spaghetti.  I was sure that this was complete nonsense.  Some sort of marketing ploy from the vegetable lobby.  Or something like that.  Well, this was my opportunity to put the hype to the test — a spaghetti squash appeared in this week’s harvest.

I’m going to warn you — you’ve got to plan ahead for this dinner because that squash has to roast for a good hour and a half.  But it’s gonna be worth it, I promise.  And I promise you won’t miss the pasta at all.

Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs. I realize this dish isn't going to win any beauty contests, but it is delicious.

Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs

by CSAGourmet

Serves 4 as a main course

For spaghetti squash:

1 large spaghetti squash
3 Tbsp butter at room temperature
6 medium cloves of garlic
salt

Preheat oven to 375.  Get the spaghetti squash in the oven first.  Halve the squash lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with a spoon.  Place cut side up on a rimmed baking sheet.  Sprinkle the cut sides lightly with salt.  Crush garlic (I use a garlic press) into softened butter.  Mix together well.  Slather the butter mixture over the cut flesh of the spaghetti squash.  Place in oven.  Roast 1 1/2 hours until interior flesh is very soft.  About halfway through, I raked a fork down the insides to start separating the strands and mixing in the butter, which will have melted by then.  While it is roasting, make the meatballs.

For meatballs:

1 package ground pork (1.3 to 1.5 lbs)
5 medium cloves garlic
1 1/2 Tbsp. fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 egg
1 c Italian-flavored bread crumbs
1/2 c finely grated romano cheese (I use my microplane)
olive oil

In a bowl, combine ground pork, crushed garlic (I use a garlic press), finely chopped fresh parsley, egg, bread crumbs, and cheese.  Mix by hand until just combined and ingredients evenly distributed.  Don’t overmix or the meatballs will get heavy.

Heat 1-2 Tbsp of olive oil over medium heat in an ovenproof skillet.  If you don’t have an ovenproof skillet, start the meatballs in the skillet and transfer to a baking sheet.  Roll meatballs into balls (I make mine pretty big, big enough to get about 8 out of the mixture) and drop into hot oil.  Sear on 4 sides, turning as needed.  Place skillet in oven with the squash when the squash has about 25 minutes to go.  Bake meatballs until done through, about 25 minutes.

Assemble final dish.  Drag a fork down the insides of the squash, shredding it into the spaghetti-like strands.  Each half of the squash makes two servings.  Mound squash on the plate like spaghetti.  Nestle two meatballs in the spaghetti squash.  Enjoy!

What, you want sauce?  Oh, alright.  Make the roasted tomato sauce from my No Bake Lasagna.  Hell, you already have the oven on.

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Help! I’m drowning in eggplant!

I have an entire crisper drawer full of eggplant. So much eggplant that I’ve been a little paralyzed as to what to do with it all.  Tonight, I get cooking with an idea for bruschetta-topped eggplant. Recipe, provided it doesn’t suck, coming Wednesday.

And, in the meantime, I saw this. Chocolate and eggplant? Could it be that my favorite food on earth could rescue my least favorite vegetable? Dangit, I’m gonna sure try. Heaven knows, I have enough eggplant to give it a shot.

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Green Beans with Garlic Romano Crunchies

[Apologies for the lack of a photo.  Camera batteries need charging.]

I believe we discussed the wonders of my Gram’s crunchies a while back.  Well, we’ve happily got green beans with the last week’s harvest, which is what the crunchies were originally meant for, and I’ve put a little twist on the plain recipe…

Green Beans With Garlic Romano Crunchies

1 quart green beans
1 1/2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/8 c finely grated romano cheese (I used a microplane)

Heat enough water to boiling so that the green beans will float freely.  Wash the beans and snap off the ends.  If beans are long, snap them in half.  When the water is vigorously boiling, add the green beans.  Boil until crisp-tender and still bright green.  For me, this was seven minutes.

To make crunchies, melt butter over low heat until it just starts to bubble.  Add bread crumbs and garlic powder.  Toast over low heat until golden.  Remove from heat into a bowl.  Allow to cool to room temperature.  Add romano cheese (if you add it while the crumbs are hot, it will melt and clump together) and stir to mix.  Serve over green beans.  Enjoy!

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Oh, Eggplant, How You Taunt Me

Well, I promised you culinary failures as well as successes.  I am a woman of my word.

The eggplant and I have never understood each other.  My mother didn’t cook with it.  My grandparents only pickled it, and everyone always raved about it, but it honestly never looked appetizing to me in my youth, so I never tried it.  I used to even pick it off my garlic bread when a stray strand from my grandfather’s garlic bread topping secret recipe wandered onto my piece.  I’ve never bought an eggplant because I never knew what to do with it.  I’ve never ordered it in a restaurant, but it has crossed my plate from a hot antipasto appetizer combo.  It was okay.  Once, I had a divine version of eggplant parmigiana — it was free at a tasting for a party I was having.  It was so good I couldn’t believe it was eggplant and I almost put it on the menu.  And that’s the sum total of my eggplant experience.

One of the reasons I joined the CSA was to force myself out of my vegetable rut and start trying new things.  And, in mid-August, along came my old foe eggplant.  Quite a lot of eggplant.  The first week we got it in our harvest, it was more eggplant than I had ever eaten in my entire life put together.  What the hell was I going to do with all this eggplant.

Like so many misguided conquerors before me, I mistook initial victory for total vanquishment.  My eggplant chip idea turned out great.  I thought, “HAHA! Eggplant, I HAVE YOU NOW!”  I once heard someone respond to this type of situation in the human context by stating, “Fear not, they will rally.”  The eggplant rallied.

My sister also belongs to the CSA.  She made an absolutely divine eggplant parm with the harvest.  Really, that good.  Restaurant quality.  She brought me a small piece, I ate it, I wanted more.  One of the keys was slicing the eggplant very thin.  So, I thought, I would take a recipe I’ve made 1000 times, tandoori chicken and onions, and reinvent it with this week’s harvest into tandoori chicken with eggplant, peppers, and onions.  And, thinking I was clever, I made matchsticks with the eggplant so it would be thin.  Cooked them up like I normally would, excited for the tandoori flavor.  Took a bite and…BLECH!!!  The flavor was okay.  But the eggplant skin was inedible.  Like spit it out inedible.  Eating plastic inedible.  Rookie mistake, I guess.  It was no problem on the chips (perhaps because of the different cooking technique? the variety of eggplant?), but big problem here.  So, I picked ’em all out of the dish.  Lesson learned.

I’ll try to get my sister’s eggplant parm recipe for you.

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