Cherry Tomatoes

What I Made – Week 6

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Let’s start with the most photogenic dish of the week, and also a surprisingly easy one! We used arctic char instead of the bass, and swapped the arugula for regular old lettuce.
This potatoes, fennel, and sausage skillet is an example of how I followed a recipe, but completely changed everything. I didn’t think my skillet was big enough to cook everything together, so I roasted the potatoes in the oven, adding the sliced fennel halfway through. I browned the sausage and onions in the pan, and cooked the onions in the sauce to make the glaze. Then I just topped the potatoes and fennel with the glazed onions and sausage. It was tasty, but heavy for a summer meal.
A pretty straightforward taco salad with last week’s shredded beef. We mixed a tablespoon or two of hot salsa and a tablespoon or so of spice blend into the beef to amp up the taco flavor.
I’ve made this recipe for salmon and napa cabbage many times, but didn’t follow the directions for the fish as closely this time. Do as the recipe says, not as I did if you want delicious crispy skin.
Another meal where I made some changes for the texture. I pan fried the tofu instead of marinating it, then just added oil to the marinade from the recipe to make a dressing. We left off the rice noodles this time, but I also like bean thread noodles on this.
Part salad, part grain bowl, the basic formula for this quinoa base with a lemon scallion vinaigrette and whatever cheese, dried fruit, and nuts you have (or not) is the recipe I always go to when I have a leafy green and no ideas for dinner.
Behold the collard breakfast sandwich! We followed the recipe instructions for the collards but managed to change just about everything else: an English muffin instead of a biscuit, peach bourbon jam instead of the aioli, country ham instead of pancetta, and a fried egg in place of the scrambled. But it tasted very good anyway.
Last but not least, rhubarb! lemon! cheesecake! I like to layer the curd throughout the cheesecake rather than just swirling it on top for maximum combination per bite. It’s also great with gluten free cookies for the crust.
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What I Made – Week 21

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This was a comfort food week, through and through, never mind that it’s still hot enough outside that turning my oven on still makes the air conditioning run…

This is basically eggplant Parmesan without all of the work! The only slicing involves cutting the eggplant in half, then the insides are scooped out and cooked until tender with onions and sausage. I left off the breadcrumbs for the topping and didn’t miss them. By the way, the marinara sauce is made with tomatoes from our garden!

This tempeh stir fry with broccoli was tasty, but I probably should have doubled the sauce for two small-ish heads of broccoli. I just pan-fried tempeh instead of making the crispy tofu from the original recipe. I also added some of the spicy peppers from a few weeks ago. (After stir frying, they are really not that spicy.)

This spaghetti allá vodka with Swiss chard is so good and so easy. And did I mention you only use one pot, so cleanup is simple too?! It’s a great way to use both the chard leaves and stems and you can easily substitute spaghetti for a pasta shape of your choice.

In keeping with the one-pan theme, this was Greek chicken with roasted potatoes and green beans. Unlike the recipe, which suggests putting everything in at the same time, I like to give the potatoes a 15 minute head start, then add the chicken and cook for another 15 minutes, then add the green beans for the final 15 minutes or so.

This poached cod in cherry tomato curry was…bland? Maybe I’m used to my garden’s extra sweet cherry tomatoes, but I also got very little spice from the peppers, and not much coconut flavor from the coconut cream. I’ll have to try again, maybe with some hot curry powder next time.

What I’ve Planned – Week 19

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There’s no doubt the weather is changing towards fall, and the amount of leafy greens in the basket this week is another sure sign. I’ve gotten used to making fall salads with all these seasonal ingredients – expect to see a lot more of them in the upcoming weeks. But before I get caught looking ahead, there are still 8 more weeks of our Spring/Summer fruit and vegetable share to get through!!!

Here’s what I have in mind to use our veggies this week.

I’m also planning to dice and can our tomatoes and make some Asian plum sauce (haven’t yet decided on a recipe through!)

What I Made – Week 15

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This post is more than a bit overdue, and I had quite a few repeat recipes this week around, so I’ve only posted pictures of the new things I made with my Week 15 ingredients.

This chicken stew with farro, tomatoes, olives, and feta kinda tasted like a savory oatmeal. I followed the cookbook’s instructions but wished I had cooked it just a little less time so the farro wasn’t quite so mushy. I also pulled out the chicken when the cooking time was up and re-crisped the skin under the broiler.

I tried this recipe for zucchini blondies, swapping the zucchini for yellow squash and the butterscotch chips for chocolate, naturally. It tasted like a combination between zucchini bread and zucchini cookies. Although they were much chewier the second day, to get more of the brownie/blondie texture out of the oven, I think next time I’d bake it a bit longer and up the butter to a half cup. Also, I find whenever I add cinnamon, I taste more of the zucchini bread than a zucchini cookie, but I suppose that’s mostly personal preference!

Then I tried some zucchini brownies. The chocolate flavor was really prominent, but I think I would have preferred it with a more finely shredded zucchini texture.

These pita pockets are stuffed with cherry tomatoes from my garden and kabobs (made with ground elk, of course), all topped with creamy baba ghanoush eggplant spread. I always add more lemon juice and salt than the recipe calls for, and added a bit too much yogurt this time, resulting in the looser texture.

This dish is cheating, because it’s not using CSA ingredients at all, but instead features cherry tomatoes and basil from our garden. It was very easy to make and too good not to share here.

These are delicious garlic miso green beans with pan-fried teriyaki tempeh.

I topped a corn, tomato, and avocado salad (tossed with salt, pepper, olive oil, and lime juice) with a pre-marinated fish filet for a quick and easy no-recipe dinner.

I also made tuna poke, zucchini chicken enchiladas, and zucchini bread.

What I’ve Planned – Week 15

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I’ve got an ambitious plan to make up for lost time with my menu this week, including trying to use veggies that have been languishing in the crisper for several weeks now. (Looking at you, cabbage!)

Some old favorites:

And some new ideas:

  • Plum cake (I’ll probably freeze this for later)

I’m also going to see if the cayennes ripen to red on the counter, then dehydrate and crush them to make homemade red pepper flakes!

What I Made – Week 13

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This wasn’t a super impressive cooking week since I’m still playing catch up with most of my ingredients, but the variety of different flavors in these dishes was definitely one aspect I appreciated.

Sweet corn brightens up this very brown plate. The potatoes are from the grocery store but the no-recipe recipe is probably my favorite way to make them: toss with olive oil and any seasoning (I like garlic, salt, and pepper), spread on a baking sheet and roast at 425 for 45 minutes or until browned, flipping every 15 minutes to make sure each side gets its turn in contact with the baking sheet.

This Asian noodle bowl with cabbage and carrots is infinitely customizable. I used konjac noodles for the first time ever. They smelled terrible coming out of the package but cooked up very much like rice noodles. I liked the instructions to drain the noodles over the cabbage and carrots, just softening them slightly. Of course the spicy scallion sauce from this recipe would taste good on a brick, but I wish I had let the noodles and veggies cool a little so they didn’t add quite so much water to the sauce. I topped the bowl with some of my go to pan fried tofu.

The award for prettiest meal of the week goes to these crab cakes with German bean salad. The beans are blanched, then tossed with a mustard shallot sauce and topped with basil, hard boiled eggs, and cherry tomatoes. Even though I got cherry tomatoes in my basket this week, the ones in this picture actually came from my very own garden! Meanwhile, the crab cakes came from the freezer section…

I bulked up this recipe for carrot and beet salad with curry dressing by putting it on a bed of mixed greens and adding some goat cheese. The recipe didn’t call for cooking the beets, but I did anyway since I prefer that texture. The curry flavor of the dressing was pretty subtle when mixed with the salad greens. I think I would have preferred feta instead of the goat cheese, though.

If the crab cakes and bean salad were this week’s eyecatching Miss America of dinners, the rosemary peach chicken in a white wine pan sauce is Miss Congeniality. The salty bacon! The melt cheese! The creamy wine sauce! All wrapped around tender chicken and sweet peaches. I even left out the lemon zest and honey, and this one pan(!) dish still became a new favorite.

What I’ve Planned – Week 13 2019

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We’re at the point in the summer where I’m not only trying to use what I got in my basket this week, but also from the last week (or two)! There’s nothing too exciting on the menu this week since I can eat many of the fruits and veggies on their own – think cucumbers and watermelon – without making them part of a larger meal.

I’m also going to try to pickle the jalapeños, maybe turn the cherry tomatoes into ‘sun-dried’ tomatoes in the dehydrator, and hopefully do something with the yellow squash, maybe those cheddar biscuits again?

What I Made – Week 11 and Week 12

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I crammed two weeks of veggies into one week of cooking!

This is an easy Caprese salad. I quartered the cherry tomatoes, sliced little mozzarella balls in half, and topped with shredded basil, olive oil, and a generous amount of salad and pepper. A perfect lunch for when it’s 98F but feels like a scorching 112F outside.

Stewed zucchini pasta. I subbed in orzo for the penne and added several sprigs of oregano and thyme while the onions were cooking. This could have used a big squeeze of lemon at the end to amp up that tangy flavor, too.

Blueberry Belgian waffle deliciousness. To make sure that blueberries are evenly distributed among the waffles, we follow the linked recipe for plain Belgian waffles and just sprinkle a handful of blueberries on top of the batter before closing the waffle iron rather than stirring them all in at the beginning.

I didn’t notice how blurry this photo was until too late, but the zucchini lasagna tasted delicious all the same. This recipe is a go-to during zucchini seasons.

  • This Greek Bulgur Salad was a great fridge-clearing dish, featuring cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and even the pickled banana peppers I made a few weeks back. I prepared it a few hours ahead of meal time so all the flavors would have time to combine. I added vinegar and salt to my taste instead of following the recipe exactly, but it was also surprisingly tasty, dare I say reminiscent of a certain Mediterranean restaurant.

  • Zucchini chocolate cake is perhaps one of the few reasons to run the oven for an hour on the hottest day of the summer. It’s dense and fudgy with a nice crunch from the walnuts sprinkled on top.
  • Peperonata with a pan-fried rainbow trout was good, but not my favorite meal this week. I wish I had left off the olives and parsley, both of which overwhelmed the sweet flavor of the peppers and the tangy flavor of the vinegar.
  • Thai steak with noodles and green beans (with elk instead of the steak of course) was also a first-time recipe that really delivered. I made this in my wok, first by blistering the green beans in some coconut oil, then adding the peppers. Instead of grilling steak, I very thinly sliced the elk and marinated it in some vegetable oil and about 2 tablespoons of the red curry paste. I scraped the finished veggies out of the wok, then cooked the elk, then dumped the beans, peppers, cooked noodles and sauce all back in together, tossing to combine.
  • I made this roasted carrot salad with spinach and goat cheese even simpler to prepare by buying a 50/50 baby spinach/spring mix lettuce blend. I left off the almond because I was too lazy to buy them. It would also be good with grilled chicken added.
  • The recipe for this blueberry peach cobbler said the dough was supposed to be “poured over” the fruit, but as you might be able to tell from the photo, no pouring was possible. I spooned it out like it was a biscuit topping, and even though the dough rose okay, it certainly isn’t going to win any prizes for looks. The Demerara sugar sprinkled over the topping was a nice crunch on an otherwise squishy dessert.

    • What I’ve Planned – Week 3

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    Rather than post each recipe step by step this time around, I thought I would make a summary list of all the dishes I’m planning to make this week and which veggies they’ll use. It will help me think and shop ahead for meals for the week and will be much faster for me to write than the longer posts I used to make (hopefully helping me keep up with the blog, ahem). I’ll link to the recipes online, where possible, and will follow up with a full blog post if I love the recipe or make substantial changes – or if you send me your requests!

    Here goes, roughly in order from Sunday to Friday:

    Even though this sounds like a lot, I expect at the end of this week we will still have red scallions to use, even after I put them on the tofu and noodles and the poke bowl. We might have some lettuce left over and maybe even some kale since that bag was pretty stuffed. I know we will have green garlic still to use because I’ll be using what we got last week in the recipe this week! And to think, this is only the start of the season – I have my work cut out for me.