Mixed Hot Peppers

What I Got – Fall Week 2

/ CSA in the City / Leave a comment

Clockwise from left: Spinach, Red Scallions, Gold Beets, Green Romaine Lettuce, Cranberries, Honeycrisp Apples, Jerusalem Artichokes, Mixed Hot Peppers, French Breakfast Radishes, Black Nebula Carrots

Advertisement

What I Made – Week 21

/ CSA in the City / 2 Comments

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 Made – Week 19

/ CSA in the City / 1 Comment

Even though we cooked a lot, there’s not much to show here since many of these recipes were repeats. Here’s some of the new stuff I tried this week.

These skillet chicken enchiladas aren’t new to me, they were a staple of our collard, chard, and kale heavy winter last year, but I just had to make them with our first collards of the season. I add some water to a bowl with washed and roughly torn greens, and then microwave and chop them pretty well to mimic the frozen ingredient the recipe specifies. I usually leave off the cilantro and sour cream, but typically do add an avocado. Unfortunately, it wasn’t ripe in time! 😣

Another recipe that I’ve made fairly often, this arugula salad with quinoa, tuna, cannellini beans, avocado, and feta (not pictured, I had started eating before I remembered!) is a staple “fancy salad” that’s hearty enough to eat as a meal. You can also add fresh or dried fruit, or otherwise customize it any way you’d like.

One of my favorite ways to use butterhead lettuce is as salad cups or wraps. This recipe for turkey larb was really quick and not too spicy, even though I added a whole Thai chili pepper. I didn’t have the lemongrass the recipe called for, but I added a bunch of chopped Thai basil (from my garden!) with the mint, which brightened it up and added some great flavor.

Since zucchini season will never end and our freezer is already well-stocked with zucchini bread, I finally remembered that there ways to pass zucchini off as apples by adding plenty of sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon and nutmeg. Once the zucchini is softened (I did go the stovetop route), this “cobbler” crust comes together quickly. I put Penzeys Pie Spice on the crumble topping instead of plain cinnamon and it was delicious! It’s a perfect recipe for easing yourself into Fall (or if you’re me, dragging yourself kicking and screaming…)