Tag: recipes

There’s a burning in my soul…. oh, it’s just the salsa.

Tomatoes are so delicious.  I can eat them whole. Like apples. For about two days.

When the tomatoes started arriving in my CSA box, I jumped for joy and literally squealed.  It’s a BIG deal for seasonal eaters when the tomatoes are ready.  I think I ate one with every meal for the first couple days, and then as swiftly as my excitement rose it passed.

A couple days ago, I just stopped being in the mood for tomatoes.  Without enough supply to justify a full-on canning session, I looked back to my box and thought, wow, this could be an opportunity to use up the onions, garlic, and jalapenos too!  So I threw together this beautiful and really, really spicy salsa.  My hope is that with a few days in the fridge will take the edge off, but if you like hot, THIS is the salsa for you:

Spicy Garden Salsa

Ingredients:

  • About five big tomatoes, cored and chopped
  • 1 bell pepper, chopped
  • 1/2 C. onion, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3-4 jalapenos, seeded, de-veined, and chopped (or, keep a few seeds in if you dare) *
  • Splash of vinegar
  • 1 TB sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. cumin

Mix up in a bowl and eat it.  Or, store in a mason jar in the fridge and eat it later.

* Tips:

If you’re smart, unlike me, you’ll wear gloves when dealing with hot peppers.  I didn’t and then scratched my forehead and it was still burning 30 minutes later…

There are plenty of great recipes for canning salsas to increase their shelf life.  I just chose to do a quick fridge-worthy salsa because I was short on time, it’s really hot in the kitchen, and I figure this will be in my stomach before long.

And,

Salsa is not just for chips!  Use this to add flavor to your tacos, eggs, or make a sassy and refreshing salad by adding it to cubed fresh watermelon

What happened to What’s in the Box? and, a recipe for tacos

I’ll tell you what happened.

I couldn’t keep up.

and then I went on vacation.

and then, I thought, those posts just didn’t seem that interesting to me anyway.

So I ditched the weekly updates on what arrived in my box of deliciousness and opted to spend the time eating said deliciousness instead.  What has resulted is perhaps one of the most culinarily creative summers I’ve had to date, and a REALLY conscious effort to not let anything go to waste.  Once you’ve weeded carrots with your own hands you’ll never let them turn flimsy and brown in the fridge again.

So now comes that point in the post where I share a recipe, and although I can’t take credit for the nifty taco shell because I saw it on The Garden Pantry‘s Facebook Page and had to try it.  The rest?  Leftovers.

Lauren’s Leftover Taco Night

Ingredients:

  • Corn tortillas (make sure they are good quality and extra soft)
  • 1/2 lb. Ground Turkey
  • 1/2 packet taco seasoning
  • 1 onion, diced
  • shredded cheese
  • sour cream
  • avocado
  • cilantro
  • lime
  • whatever veg is in your fridge: I used lettuce, scallions, cherry tomatoes

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 375 deg-F.  Using a muffin pan turned upside down, press tortillas into the notches and spray with cooking spray.  Bake 10 minutes for cute little crispy taco shells.

Brown the ground turkey in a skillet coated in non-stick cooking spray over medium high heat.  Add the taco seasoning and diced onion and cook until onion is soft and translucent.  Place turkey aside on a plate covered in paper towel to drain oil.

Prepare your tacos in the shells.  with the meat on the bottom.  Add your toppings, squeeze some fresh lime juice over the top, and pour yourself a margarita.

 

Recipe for the Perfect Picnic

Brie.

Grapes.

Italian bread.

Wine. Red.

Add a little greenery, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a bumpin’ twitter feed and a few thousand of my closest friends, and this is the making of a beautiful evening.  

People do it up right at The Ravinia Festival.

There’s the mad dash from the gate. The in-fighting over the shaded spots close to the Pavilion.  The pop up tables, real crystal, and vases of flowers.  Everything you’ve heard about Ravinia is true.  It’s at times chaotic and dripping with wealth, but the North Shore folks in khaki pants and claustrophobic lawn quickly fade away once the music kicks in.  You settle into your bottle of wine, gaze up at the trees, and all your worries melt away. 

For just ten bucks, you can sit in the most beautiful back yard in the tri-county area and hear some of the best musicians in the world.  This particular Sunday it happened to be Idina Menzel with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  Admittedly sniffly, and suprisingly crass, that bitch can sing.

What a glorious way to spend a summer evening. 

Lauren relaxing on the lawn at Ravinia Festival

What’s in the box: Week 3/4

With being in San Francisco since Tuesday, most of my CSA box is still at home in the fridge.  But I managed to make some bang up meals before I left.

Ravinia date with myself:

An on-the-fly Spinach Artichoke Dip used up all the spinach I had left over, plus cream cheese in anything is delicious.  Simply sautee the spinach until wilty (add a little water to the pan so it doesn’t burn.  Mix with a jar of drained artichoke hearts and equal parts cream cheese and sour cream.  I took this beauty on my Ravinia picnic before attending the live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion and paired with grapes, crusty bread, homemade pickles and a bottle of red.

Shrimp Something-Or-Other

In an attempt to throw as many of my box ingredients as possible in the same dish, this delight (not being facetious) started off with sauteed onion, kohlrabi, garlic scape and kale with a bit of soy sauce and a bit of adobo seasoning.  I added ramen noodles and shrimp that were sauteed separated in butter, and was pretty much the envy of my Facebook newsfeed for the evening.

I’m thinking that at some point it would be helpful to find actual recipes to complement the ingredients that I find in my box, but honestly, I’m short on time and seem to be doing just fine throwing a little of this and a little of that into a pan and seeing what comes out.  Maybe that’s the beauty of having fresh produce around all the time… it tastes amazing no matter what you do with it.

If only baking was that easy… but what with it’s chemical reactions and such measuring cups and recipes come in quite handy for that…

When life gives you lemons, make limemade

Life changes, stress, and too much Starbucks have been keeping me up at night and I’m having a bit of insomnia this week.  Last night I woke up around 2am, answered a few emails, took a bath, and made limeade.

Yes, you heard me right.

Insomnia aside, yesterday was a pretty warm day – skirting 85 at times and there’s nothing quite as refreshing as a delightful glass of fresh lemonade on a warm evening.  However, my inability to waste combined with having procured 30 limes for the Produce photo shoot a couple weeks ago (how can I resist when they are 15 for $1???), resulted in my opting for limemade.

And it was good.

Not to get religious on you here, but this limeade might be what happened on the ninth day of creation.  I’ll never go back to that store bought bottle of sugary yellow chemical water.  Trust me on this…….

 Homemade Limeade

Ingredients:

Limes (lots)

Water

Sugar

Elbow Grease

Directions:

Using a juicer, juice limes with a citrus juicer and add to pitcher.  If you don’t care for pulp, pour the juice through a strainer before it goes into the pitcher.  Add sugar and stir until dissolved (the amount depends on your personal taste.  For 1 C. lime juice, I used 2/3 C. sugar and it was a teensy bit on the tarter side… which for me is perfect).  Add water and stir.  Your juice:water ratio should be approximately 1:2.

Store in the refrigerator, but trust me, it won’t be there long.

P.S. If you find yourself with an overabundance of lemons, the recipe works the same way for making lemonade.

Scones, glorious scones

If I were stranded on a deserted island, and I could bring two things, one of them would be my recipe for Trail Mix Scones.  Now, I realize that there is not an overabundance of brown sugar and pumpkin seeds on deserted islands… I am simply trying to exemplify the importance of this scone in my life.

In fact, baking scones is one of the things I do best, and this quality makes it into every biography I write.

So, it is with great joy that I present to you my cherished recipe for Trail Mix Scones (although, it does make me a little nervous, since I often bring these to impress people at parties).  I originally came across the recipe in the Tribune several years ago when they did a special publication of favorite reader dishes from restaurants around Chicago.  The “Take a Hike Scone” is a schmorgeshborg of ingredients thrown together by the owner of the Bleeding Heart Bakery.  The result: magic.  I loved it instantly because it’s a vegan baking recipe that actually works and even tastes good (I was vegan at the time, and baking is perhaps the biggest challenge as a vegan chef) .

Since that time I’ve modified the recipe to my own liking, with one of the biggest differences being that I make it as a drop scone.  I mean, sure, you could be all fancy, roll out the dough, and cut it in triangles before baking, but honestly, skipping that step doesn’t affect the taste or texture one bit.  Needless to say, these beauties are a staple in our household, and dried cranberries are ALWAYS on the shopping list.

Trail Mix Scones

Ingredients:

  • 1 C. (2 sticks) salted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 2-1/2 C. all-purpose, unbleached flour
  • 2/3 C. dark brown sugar
  • 2 tsp. cinnamon
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1-1/2 C. old fashioned rolled oats
  • 3/4 C. dried cranberries
  • 1/4 C. raw pumpkin seeds
  • 4 TB whole flaxseeds
  • 1-1/4 C. soymilk, rice milk or organic non-fat milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375-deg F. Using the dough hook, mix together flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, soda, and oats in an electric stand mixer on low-medium speed (*Note: the whole recipe can be mixed by hand, but your wrist will be mighty sore by the end).

Cut the butter into approximately 1-TB chunks and add to mixer while it’s running, until pea-sized chunks are left.  Add dried fruit, pumpkin seeds, and flaxseeds to mixture (*Note: I’ve tried tons of variations…. you can add nuts, coconut, sesame seeds, chocolate chips, raisins… the list goes on, but cranberries, pumpkin seeds and flaxseed is by far my favorite combination).  Add milk and mix until incorporated (dough will by slightly wet).

Scoop out approximately 1/4-C. of mix onto greased cookie sheets with two spoons.  Bake 25-28 minutes and transfer to cooling rack for as long as you can stand it.  Makes 12-15 scones, best enjoyed with a glass of milk or a bitter cup of Joe.

Words of Wisdom:

  • Don’t spend the money on fancy packaging and buy things like Craisins.  Visit your local mercado or fruit market and find the bulk section.  You can get the extras for this recipe for a third of the price this way.
  • You can use cooking spray to grease your cookie sheet, or parchment paper, but I’m not too keen on waste and cooking spray doesn’t cut it for baking since I switched over from Pam to a DIY Misto sprayer.  Best bet: invest in an expensive tub of non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening.  It rocks for greasing baking sheets, and has lasted me a year so far.

Snow, Headache, Chicken and Noodles

The first big snow of the season has arrived (very late for Chicago), and the blustery weather in addition to the five games of pool and complimentary bottles of beer last night mean that we are cooped up with blankets, movies, and a giant headache today.

Perfect day for Chicken and Noodles.

I am very deliberate about me use of the Oxford comma, and in this case, the chicken and the noodles go together so harmoniously that they shan’t be separated by a comma.  This dish was torn out of a Country Home magazine in 2009 and, along with the rest of the 1″ thick pile of magazine recipes, had gone unmade until Friday.  Being of a full-time worker constitution, I opted for the slow-cooker directions, and it’s those that I will share with you here:

Old-Fashioned Chicken and Noodles

Ingredients:

  • 3 medium onions, chopped
  • 3 stalks celery, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1TB olive oil or butter
  • 3 lb. Chicken (leg-thigh)
  • 4 C. reduced-sodium broth (vegetable or chicken)
  • 4 carrots, sliced
  • 1 TB fresh thyme
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
  • 1 16-oz. package egg noodles
  • 1-1/2 C. frozen peas
  • 2 TB lemon juice

Directions:

In a 5-6 Qt. slow cooker, place onion, celery, garlic, carrots, thyme, bay leaf, seasoning, salt and pepper.  Place chicken on top of vegetables.  Melt butter in broth, and pour over top of chicken.  Cover and cook on low 8-9 hours.  Remove chicken and bay leaf from cooker.  When cool enough to handle, remove from bones and place chopped chicken back in pot with frozen peas and lemon juice.  Meanwhile, cook noodles according to package directions.  Stir to combine and mmmmm.