Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Apples

Okay, most of you are wrinkling your noses already aren’t you?  But for some reason I like Brussels Sprouts. I grew them one year in the garden as well and they were totally carefree and easy. Hmmm… probably about time to plant them again.

I found this recipe in the latest Cooking Light magazine. I’ve recently resubscribed and am enjoying it.  The combo of the apples and apple juice (I didn’t have cider like the recipe called for..is there really a difference?) and the roasting made this quite good. Even my 15 year old liked it!  I didn’t actually measure the sprouts, just used what I thought we would eat.

• 8 ounces (?) Brussels sprouts, ends trimmed and then quartered
• 1/2 cup diced apple
• a good splash of apple juice, 2 Tbs or so
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• a dash each of salt and ground pepper

Mix everything together in a bowl, then put in a shallow pan for roasting.  I used half a small jelly roll pan and filled the other half with some cut up red potatoes and roasted them at the same time.

Kielbasa, potatoes, apples and Brussels sprouts

Heat the oven to 375 and roast about 25 minutes, stirring now and then.   These were done slightly before the potatoes so I just pulled them out sooner, put them in a small bowl, and left it sitting on the oven to keep warm while everything else finished up.

This went great with the roasted red potatoes (cut into cubes and tossed with olive oil and Penzey’s Salad Seasonings), sliced and browned Kielbasa sausage, and some fried apples and onions.

Beets from the garden

I planted beets a long time ago and then sort of forgot about them in the rush of tomatoes and cucumbers and basil and peppers and lettuce and such.  But they were patient and sat there waiting for me to remember them!

I washed them off and cut all but an inch of the greens of the beets, saving the greens of course.  For the beets themselves, I wrapped in foil and baked an hour or so at 350.  The time will vary depending on the size of your beets. Poke them with a knife and make sure they’re soft through.  When you unwrap them, you can easily pull the peel off, trim the root and greens ends off, then chop. Top with a bit of butter and salt. Yum!

I sorted through the greens and took out the big tough ones (because they’d been in the garden so long!) The tender greens I cooked like chard, with some garlic and oil, letting them wilt.   Served with a few wedges of lemon (also from the yard). Garlic was homegrown too.  The more things come from the garden the more I enjoy the meal!

Anyone have some favorite beet recipes to share? Borscht?  I have a dozen or so left in the garden.  Will be planting more since they were so effortless and easy and are patient!

Pesto from homegrown basil

I am going to freeze some of this pesto, so I left out the cheese in the main batch, following my former mother-in-law’s rule as well as Mark Bittman’s advice in How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food, one of my favorite go-to cookbooks. I’ve added some as I went using this on some chicken breasts the other night but will freeze the rest without the cheese.

My basil this year is the best I have grown yet. It is flavorful and produces plenty of leaves! I’ve used in Thai curry, tomato caprese salad, pasta with fresh tomatoes and basil, etc.   But somehow I hadn’t yet made pesto!  So I will be making lots of pesto over the next few weeks. The plant is starting to flower a lot and I don’t want to lose it all!

homegrown basil

I picked a huge branch of it and trimmed the leaves off, not worrying about the smaller stems but definitely discarding the woody thick ones.  I left a few flowers in.  After trimming, I rinsed them all off in a salad spinner and then spun them dry.

• 2 cups of loosely packed basil leaves, rinsed and dried
• a bit of salt, to taste
• 1-2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
• 2 Tbs pine nuts (you could lightly toast but I skipped this)
• 1/2 cup olive oil, maybe more
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, if you’re using immediately

I used my food processor, first blending the basil, salt, garlic, nuts and half the oil. I had to stop and scrape the sides down a few times.  Then I added the other half of the oil and finished blending it all together, tasting to adjust the salt.  As I said, earlier I did not add the cheese yet since I was planning on freezing.

Note: if you don’t have pine nuts, you can use walnuts or just leave out the nuts. My MIL used to just mix the basil, salt, and oil together, then freeze in plastic bags laid flat. She could break off a pinch here and there as she wanted some fresh basil flavor in a dish.

What’s your favorite use for pesto, other than on pasta?

I made this pan-fried tofu and greens with peanut dressing from Cooking Light last night for dinner. Their picture is much better than mine so I’m just linking! However, there was no miso to be found at my local Safeway so I settled for a bottled Thai peanut dressing mix instead. It was good. We both ate it.  But I supplemented with some frozen pot stickers to round out the meal because i was worried about it.

I think it would have been much better with homemade dressing from the original recipe rather than bottled sauce, as is so often true!

Next on my list to try is their Tofu and Coconut Curry Soup.

My mom shared a really good recipe for apple cake a few years ago and I make it regularly. We have 3 apple trees in the yard (lost one this year!) so have plenty of apples in fall and winter.  I saw this recipe for Apple Bread in the Penzey’s  catalog and thought I’d give it a try. I made two distinct changes. It called for large chunks of apple, about 1″ cubes, and I diced them to make it less chunky. It also called for 1 tsp of salt and I halved that. (Actually the original recipe was for two loaves so I halved the recipe to begin with as just two of us cannot (and should not!) eat that much!

Timing wise I would suggest peeling, coring and dicing the apples, then turning on the oven to preheat while you mix up the rest.

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a loaf pan.

• 2 cups peeled and diced apples
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 cups flour
• 1 cup sugar

They also called for a topping but I totally spaced on it and forgot. It’s still delicious but if you want, crumble this together and sprinkle on top of the loaf.

• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/8 cup sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup butter

Beat the eggs in a bowl, the mix in the oil. Add the vanilla extract, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon and mix. Add the flour and sugar and stir. The batter will be thick. Add the apples and stir well.

Spoon into the loaf pan. If you’re using the topping, sprinkle on top of the batter before baking.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour.  It’s best to let the bread cool before slicing although you may find it hard to resist as it smells so good!

I like cucumbers and find that a just a few plants climbing up a cage can keep us well supplied in cucumbers for the summer. I’m growing a different variety than last year and they are much better, fewer seeds and not all prickly on the outside.   The girls like them just plain, sliced in circles on a plate.  I like them dress them up a bit.

Last night I made one with red onions that pretty much follows the recipe in The Everything Thai Cookbook: From Pad Thai to Lemongrass Chicken Skewers, except I left out the 2 Thai chilies, seeded and minced so add those in if you want it spicy! I saw a very similar recipe in a magazine recently that had thinly sliced radishes in it, which also sounds good. I also added some bean sprouts to a cucumber salad once and loved the double crunchiness.

• 1 cup boiling water
• 5 Tbs sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar
• 2 -3 small cucumbers, seeded and sliced
• 1 small red onion, sliced

Mix together the hot water, sugar, salt and vinegar, then let cool to room temperature so you don’t cook the cucumbers! If you don’t have rice vinegar, you can use white vinegar.

Last night I actually got out the mandoline to make the slices really thin just for fun but you can just slice the cucumber in half lengthwise, use a small teaspoon to scrape out the seeds, then slice into half moons.

I served this with some excellent curry, similar to this  Thai red chicken curry. I used a mix of peppers, bamboo shoots and peas for the vegetables.

I grew up with my mom making a quick pickled cucumber salad, similar to this quick cucumber salad recipe (and my mom’s old recipe is on that page as well.)  I’ve also played around with cucumbers and sour cream.  And then there’s this one with an Asian flare to it.   (And if you’re looking for a different salsa, this cucumber and grape salsa is fantastic!)

The tomatoes are so good this time of the year!  And I could eat this sauce on practically anything. Serve it with tortilla chips for an appetizer or with quesadillas. Spoon on some black bean soup. Serve with grilled chicken or fish… the possibilities are nearly endless!

Tonight we used it on some burritos made with some leftover bbq’d steak, black beans, and sliced avocados.

• 2 large beefsteak tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• a handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
• a few good squirts of lime juice
• 2 small cloves of garlic, minced
• salt to taste

Stir and mix, taste and adjust seasonings as per your tastes.

You really don’t need a recipe for this. What you need is really good tomatoes and basil and fresh mozzarella. And olive oil.

I grew the tomatoes and basil and bought the mozzarella and olive oil.

Layer slices of fresh tomatoes and mozarella, then drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sliced slivers of fresh basils (or whole leaves of basil if you really like basil!).

Vegetarian night here tonight, in honor of my nephew. I love an excuse to experiment with a new dish!

Pasta with Lentils and Tomatoes

Cheese Soufle

Cucumbers with Sour Cream and Dill

Chermoulah

Caprese Salad (Tomatoes with Fresh Basil and Mozarella)

I served this for dinner tonight. I was nervous trying out a brand new dish for company so made a fantastic cheese souffle as well so folks would have a choice, but this was really good!

• 3/4 cup dried lentils
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1 large onion, peeled and chopped
• 2 cups cored and chopped fresh tomatoes (or sub 1 can diced tomatoes)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 Tbs fresh marjoram or 1 tsp dried
• 3 Tbs olive oil
• 1/2 pound pasta, elbow or other small shapes
• 1 tsp minced garlic

Now, first, the recipe called for a pound of pasta but I find I like more “sauce” and less pasta so halved the original pound and found it just to my taste. If you like more pasta, cook a full pound rather than my half.

Cook the lentils, carrots, half the onion and enough water to cover over medium heat.  Cover when the water hits a low simmer and cook 2o-30 minutes, stirring periodically and watching the liquid.  Beans and lentils can take various amounts of time to cook depending on how old they are so test and cook longer if needed.

Add the tomato, salt and pepper and half the marjoram, stir, and cook another 10 minutes or so, then keep warm over very low heat.  Or do the recipe up until this point ahead of time and then refrigerate and freeze and pull the lentils out later.

Heat 2 Tbs of olive oil in a large skillet or saucepan and cook the other half of the oven, stirring, for 10 minutes or so, until it just becomes slightly brown and crisp.

Put a large pot of water on to boil, add a pinch of salt then cook 1/2 pound or so of dried small pasta, like elbows, until done. Drain, reserving a cup or so of the water.

Stir the cooked and drained pasta into the onions and add the lentils, plus the garlic and the rest of the marjoram plus the olive oil. If it seems overly dry, add some of the reserved pasta water.  Heat for 2-3 minutes and serve.