Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Submarine Pizza

Tomatoes! What a surprise to find one in my CSA box today. With bacon in my refrigerator and a head of lettuce in the box as well, I had BLT on my mind. But I still wanted to try something a little different.

After a little searching, I settled on BLT pizza from a recipe I found on allrecipes.com because it would require minimal preparation and still feel as if I had done a little cooking.

Side note: I usually like to make my own pizza crusts, but I had two packaged flatbreads on hand from when I moved, and I knew they would speed up the preparation. If you haven’t tried them, the flatbreads are a brand called Flatout and they make a great substitute for homemade crust for personalized pizza. And the best part is they only have 100 calories and have 8 grams of fiber.

The original BLT pizza recipe called for topping the crust with olive oil, mozzerella, tomatoes, and bacon before heating it in the oven. When the pizza is done, you top it with shredded lettuce that has been dressed with mayonnaise.

Although I’m sure that would have tasted fine, I wanted to try something different with the lettuce and make it a little more salad like. I made a vinaigrette with olive oil, red wine vinegar, basil, oregano, and garlic powder. It reminded me a little of the oil and vinegar dressing I remember from a sub shop when we were kids. On top of the pizza after it had been removed from the oven, it tasted a bit like a BLT sub sandwich.

The pizza was a good combination of hot and cold and it was a fun way to try an old favorite. Plus the tomatoes tasted wonderful among the bacon, lettuce, and of course cheese.

Fabulous Fennel (and Grapes)

I’m having all kinds of discoveries already this CSA season. As noted in my last post, only on my second box, I’ve found a favorite new way to cook zucchini (with raisins!), and today I found out that I like fennel. What’s even more strange is that this recipe has grapes in it. That has to be the surprise ingredient of the season.

The recipe was so simple it barely had a name, only appearing as Fennel, Chickpeas, Peppers and Grapes on the piece of paper I had torn from Whole Living magazine. It was part of an article titled, “Culinary School” and fell under 2. Roasting.

The article said that most people know about roasting vegetables, but that adding fruit or beans to roasted vegetables could add a greater dimension. The instructions were simple, just slice the vegetables, drizzle with olive oil and toss in some herbs and salt and pepper.

In addition to the aforementioned fennel, chickpeas, peppers and red grapes, the recipe also called for garlic. For spices, I used dried oregano instead of fresh, since I didn’t have any on hand. After tossing with olive oil, I cooked them at 450 degrees for about 30 minutes, stirring halfway through.

Roasting took the edge off the fennel, a vegetable that for my taste tends to overpower a dish. Part of the problem I’ve had in the past is finding the right flavors to go with its licorice taste. This dish, which combined the spicy taste of peppers and the sweet taste of grapes, along with the roasted chickpeas somewhere in the middle, seemed just right. Roasting also seemed to soften both the flavor and texture of the sometimes stringy vegetable.

All in all I was surprised again by the addition of the sweet grapes in such a strong dish. But the article was right. The grapes, and the chickpeas, did add a different dimension. This recipe will go on the top of my fennel recipe pile for the future. It's also a good reminder to try adding a few unexpected tastes here and there.

Trying Out the New Kitchen

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before in this blog, I like zucchini pretty much any way you slice (or shred it). It was a nice surprise to find it last week in my CSA box, only the second of the season. It seemed early, but I wasn’t about to complain.

Since I’ve only been in my new home about a week, it’s nice to have an old friend, and something I can cook with my eyes closed, at my side. I’ve been eating it raw and on pizza, but I wanted give my new kitchen something a little harder to produce tonight. Well, not really hard, but at least little more complex, if only in flavor.

I found the recipe for Spaghetti with Zucchini, Walnuts and Raisins in a stack of those I shoved in my hutch before I moved. I had been tempted to toss the whole stack out in the last days of packing, but luckily my hutch could be moved with the contents intact as long as they weren’t breakable. Knowing a stack of recipes fit the bill, I felt better tossing them in there than in the trash.

I had most of the ingredients on hand, only substituting penne for spaghetti. The raisins were picked out of a bag of trail mix. I thought about leaving them out entirely, as they’re not my favorite ingredient, but decided to keep them in as they were pretty much the thing that made the recipe different from any other I had made before.

The recipe was from Real Simple, which as the name suggests means it was pretty simple. But as with most of their recipes, they don’t tend to be too boring, even if they are easy. It was a good recipe to try out the flow of the kitchen. I was pleased with how the kitchen worked and was able to whip the whole thing up in about 15 minutes. I was also pleased with the taste when I sat down at my new table.

The raisins gave the dish a nice unexpected sweet taste against the garlic and toasted walnuts. Of course the pasta and zucchini were good, but there’s no surprise there. I’ll be adding this recipe to the binder I keep of successful CSA recipes. That is, as soon as I find it.

Moving Right Along

My belongings are really starting to pile up in my new garage. I’m keeping them there until Wednesday, the day before by closing when I can actually move them in, and the day the movers are moving my large items.




I’ve been taking about three carloads a day, but thanks to help from my sister, brother and brother-in-law, yesterday I was able to double that.

In between, I’ve been eating up as much of the CSA bounty as I can, and I have to say I’m doing a pretty good job. After the chard, the lettuce, radishes, cucumber and one of the kohlrabi disappeared in a salad. For breakfast, I used the broccoli and some of the spinach in a breakfast bake, which helped me use up my eggs and some of the milk and cheese I had on hand.

Yesterday, I used up the green onions and garlic scapes in a pan of butter dips. They were a savory treat alongside the broccoli spinach bake, even if I ate them off a paper plate.

Today, after taking my last carload to the condo, I decided to stop for a swim at the pool. While there, I was reading an issue of Real Simple and saw a recipe for Feta and Sun-dried Tomato dip inside. They recommended you serve it with pretzel crisps, which I didn’t have, but I knew I could easily substitute that for something I did have on hand – soft pretzels. I bought a bag at the Bavaria Sausage store in Madison before I knew I was selling my house, and still have a few in my freezer.

In my mind I knew had the jar of sun-dried tomatoes, feta, and Greek yogurt the recipe called for on hand. When I returned home, I found I didn’t have as much feta as I imagined, but used the rest of the blue cheese I didn’t know I had. In addition, I added two handfuls of torn CSA spinach to my batch.

It tasted wonderful with a hot pretzel out of the oven and later made a tangy dressing for a cold pasta salad. Although the presentation wasn’t beautiful because I mixed the last quarter of a box of penne and half a box of spaghetti I had on hand together, it did taste pretty great.

Moving is actually turning out to be pretty healthy for me. I think I’ve done more cooking in the past week than I’ve done in the month leading up to my move, thanks to my Two Onion vegetable delivery. I am basically down to a pan and a pot and I’m only using the ingredients I have on hand, so I’ve also been more creative than I’ve been in a long time. I may be getting to be an old hat at this CSA farm share stuff, but in the midst of a move, it’s still teaching me new lessons.

They’re Back

The veggies that is. I picked up my first box of vegetables from my CSA share this afternoon. And although I’m excited, my enthusiasm is tempered a bit this year by the fact that I’m a week away from moving out of my house and into a new condo.

My first impulse upon dropping the vegetables on the kitchen table was to throw them all in a pot and make stew. That thought only lasted a second, not only because a lettuce, chard, beet, spinach, radish, kohlrabi, cucumber, broccoli, garlic scape and green onion soup sounds a little unappetizing, but also because I remembered I’d already packed away my stock and crock pots.

Unable to use up all produce in one feel swoop, or should I say soup, I've decided to do my best over the next week to eat whatever I can and see if the rest is hardy enough to make the move.

First up was the chard. It’s the most fragile and I knew that if I didn’t eat it tonight, it would be a wilted mess tomorrow. In fact, as I write this a few hours later, I see a leaf of chard that I missed beneath the bag of spinach already has taken on the consistency of a wet paper towel. It will be one of my final gifts to the compost bin.

I rooted through the pantry for a can of white beans I wanted to use up before I had to pack and move them and then headed to the freezer. There I found a turkey sausage that would likely end up in the garbage in a week if I didn't eat it soon. Before I knew it, I was getting excited again.

I thawed the sausage in the microwave and cut it into bite size pieces before putting it on the stove in one of the pans I hadn’t yet packed. Next I cut the ribs out of the chard and added them to the compost pile, before tearing up the dark leafy greens and throwing them in the pot. I cut up one of the garlic scapes and added that with the beans and a quarter cup of chicken bouillon. I let it cook for about 15 minutes on low heat, to let the chard soften and then it was done.

Overall, it was a good start to a new CSA season and a healthy meal in the midst of all the chaos and boxes filling my house right now. Earlier today I may have wished my CSA share would’ve waited a few weeks, but now I’m glad to have a few healthy choices on hand to nourish me as I finish packing up over the next week.

Daylight Saving Soup

I’ve felt my energy growing all day, even after losing an hour of sleep last night to daylight saving time. I must admit I slept more than the extra hour, waking up at 10 a.m. To a morning person like me this felt like the middle of the day. Since half the day was gone I considered staying in bed all day.

But I could see a bit of sunlight filtering in thorough the crack between my blinds. I also heard birds singing like I haven’t heard them before this spring. I’ve been listening for them and have heard a few tweets here and there, but this was a full chorus performing for one another. If I didn’t know any better, I could almost imagine it was warm summer day outside. That was enough to get me up at least to see what kind of day was in store for me.

When I did I began to see true signs of spring. When I grabbed the Sunday paper I saw the green stems of tulips, daffodils and hyacinths peeking up through the ground. I guess it’s not too hard to believe since spring officially begins in a week.

And, not to rush things, but that means it’s only three months until the first official day of summer. Which means the growing — and CSA season — is right around the corner. I’m already signed up for another season membership at Two Onion Farm again this summer. I’m looking forward to an extended season into mid-November and a full six months local and tasty produce to eat and cook.

Although I used up the last of my fresh CSA produce when I made the Saffron Almond Potatoes at the end of January, I have a few tomatoes left. Bolstered with the extra energy of having the sun still shining at dinnertime, I took three each of the oven-dried and the whole tomatoes from the freezer and began whipping up another Spanish-inspired dish.

I ended up with soup, because with all the warm weather that is no doubt on the way, I won’t have too much longer to enjoy it. I seasoned it with some of the saffron and also paprika. The rest of the dish was simple. I sauteed onions and garlic in olive oil and added the tomatoes and spices along with a cup of water. I let it simmer for about a half an hour to thaw out and heat the tomatoes, and then put it in the blender.

After pouring it back in the pot, I added a can of drained chickpeas and a couple handfuls of spinach and heated it until the chickpeas were warm. I topped it with feta cheese and served it with toasted baguette brushed with olive oil. The soup was good, but the best part was eating it in the light of day. I even saw a few birds flitting about the backyard as I dined. Bring on spring!

Valentine’s Mole

I have been craving peanut butter cups ever since I saw the Reese’s peanut butter hearts in the Valentine’s Day candy aisle a few weeks ago. When I went grocery shopping last week and looked for them again, they were gone. More than a little heartbroken, I’ve been craving that magical peanut butter chocolate combination ever since.

Such is the way of holiday candy. A little not-so subliminal messaging goes a long way toward feeding my cravings. Knowing that Easter is only a couple of months away and with it a whole bunch of other candy cravings I decided to feed my need for peanut butter and chocolate in a different way with chicken mole.

I didn’t know a whole lot about mole, other than two of its magic ingredients were chocolate and peanut butter. I also heard it was complicated to make and so was happy when I found Marcela Valladolid’s ‘Easiest Ever’ Chicken Mole Enchiladas recipe on the Food Network site.

After checking the recipe I found I already had majority of the ingredients including queso fresco and corn tortillas from tacos last week as well as dried Guajillo chili peppers. All I needed was chicken and some Mexican chocolate as the recipe called for.

I looked for Ibarra chocolate at Woodman’s but was surprised to come away empty handed. The recipe said I could substitute semi-sweet chocolate, or ground cinnamon and almond extract for the chocolate but since it was such an integral ingredient I wanted to do it right. Luckily there’s a Mexican grocery store on the way home so I decided to stop there.

They were serving prepared tamales, tacos, and much more there, which was hard to pass up, but I ignored the little restaurant set up in the back corner of the store and went straight to the aisles where I found the Ibarra chocolate right away. I wandered through the aisles looking at all the products I might want to try, holding myself back from buying a bunch of packaged goods that looked sweet and exotic, but couldn’t avoid one treasure. I found a sort of bento box, shaped like a big thermos with a number of plastic containers packed inside. It was a steal at $2.69 and I can’t wait to take my leftovers to work in it.

Back at home I started the process of making the mole sauce first by reconstituting my dried chilies in hot water. After 15 minutes they were still a little bit like plastic, but since I’d be processing them in a blender, I thought the texture would work. In addition to the peppers, I added garlic, onion, chicken broth, peanut butter and sugar to the blender. When I was done I had a red-orange sauce typical of most Mexican sauces, but not yet the dark brown color of mole sauce. That would come after I added the chocolate after simmering for about 20 minutes.

After that, the rest of the recipe was simple. I shredded two chicken breasts, put that with some mole sauce inside the corn tortillas, wrapped them up, and then added a little sauce on top. On top of that I added a little queso fresco.

It wasn’t a bad knock-off to my favorite mole dish at La Mestiza in Madison. The only difference I noticed was that my sauce was a little thicker, but the taste was pretty much the same. As usual I couldn’t taste the peanut butter and chocolate inside, but I still feel like my craving has been satisfied. At least until those peanut butter chocolate eggs start whispering to me in a month or so.