Pip's Plate

I went to my first LAN party a couple weekends ago at a coworker’s house. (Before you skip on to the next post, YES, there is a recipe included here.) It was SO MUCH FUN. Aside from the fact that a group of us play shoot-em-up video games over the lunch hour every day at work, it’s so much more fun to spend at least 8 hours playing on a Saturday. Yes, I officially reached geek status with this event. And I’m OK with that.

I said I’d bring something over and decided to make spring rolls (which were mediocre so I’m not even going to include the recipe here) and the recipe I’m about to talk about.

These were quite good, and you can make them gluten free if you want. Just use a gluten free flour. These were great because they were easy to eat in your hand but not greasy. These would be great as a brunch item too.

The recipe calls for a regular size muffin tin. If I were to make these again, I would make them in a mini muffin pan so there were more. In this case, I would cut the zucchini smaller instead of sliced, but keep a few sliced ones for the garnish.

Little Zucchini and Basil Fritattas

Total Time: 35 min

Active Time: 15 min

Makes: 12

Ingredients

2 T dry breadcrumbs*

2 T olive oil

2-3 cloves garlic, thickly sliced

2-3 zucchini, sliced into 4mm-thick rounds

8 eggs

8 basil leaves, sliced

3/4 cup grated parmesan

100 g feta (preferrably marinated)

1/2 cup self-rising flour**

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Butter a 12 hole nonstick muffin pan. Dust each hole with crumbs then tap out the excess.

Place the olive oil in a large skillet. Gently head the oil over medium-low heat for 1-2 minutes until the garlic starts to sizzle. Remove garlic and discard.

Increase heat to medium-high. Fry zucchini on both sides until golden. Drain on absorbent paper.

In a large bowl, lightly whisk eggs with a fork with the basil, salt and freshly ground pepper (enough to cover the surface of the mixture) until just combined. Stir in the Parmesan and flour until combined.

Divide the fried zucchini and feta throughout the muffin tin. Place 12 pieces of zucchini aside as a garnish.

Pour the egg mixture into each muffin hole (about 1/4 cup) and top with a slice of zucchini.

Gently tap the sides of the muffin tray to ensure the mixture has spread throughout the muffin hole.

Bake for 20-25 minutes – until the the fritattas feel firm when gently pressed and spring back.

Remove from oven and allow them to settle in the pan for about 10 minutes before gently easing them out.

based off of this chow.com recipe

*I typically bake in stoneware, so I don’t need to grease anything. I skipped the breadcrumb step altogether. If you don’t have stoneware, I use rice breadcrumbs as a GF alternative.

**Use gluten free flour here instead if you wish to make these GF.

I’m on a budget. There, I said it. I have been for some time now, but now I’m actually paying attention to it. And it starts with food and cooking. I have so much stuff in my cupboards and refrigerator that I really should cook up things I already have instead of rushing out to the store to buy a whole bag of groceries for one dish that I’m dieing to make.

So last night I was rifling through some CSA veggies and trying to figure out what to do with a lot of stuff I have on hand. The list was fairly random: potatoes, winter squash, parsnips, dried cherries, beets, carrots, garlic, and on and on.

What I found out was I don’t have to sacrifice flavor or quality when making a dinner from what I have on hand. I did end up making a trip to the grocery store but only to pick up 3 items: chicken, onions (which were on sale yay!), and canned tomatoes.

This recipe is fairly easy and dinner can be on the table in under 60 minutes – and it’s all in one pot so clean up is super easy. You can vary the spices if you want, and I might even try adding a little vanilla bean next time since I have some in my pantry, but we’ll see since I rarely make the same dish twice.

I also thought this would only make 2 servings, but it made quite a bit more than I expected and easily serves 4. Round it out with a green salad for a complete meal, but to be honest there’s enough veggies in here that you’ll get plenty of vitamins.

The best thing about this is that you can vary this depending upon what kind of veggies you have around – root veggies would work the best since they can stew for awhile. And the chicken stays nice and tender. Oh, and it’s very healthy! It’s only 3 Weight Watchers points per serving.

One Pot Moroccan Chicken

Serves 4

Time: under 60 minutes

1 T olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 small onion, cut in half then sliced

1/2 pound organic skinless boneless chicken breast, cut into strips

1 t chopped fresh thyme

1 t ground cumin

1/4 t salt

1/4 t pepper

1 large potato, peeled and diced (about 1 cup)- I used purple Peruvian potatoes and the color was just amazing

1 small (bordering on teeny) winter squash, peeled, seeded and diced (about 1 cup) – I used Delicata and left the skin on

1/4 cup dried cherries

14.5 oz canned diced tomatoes

1 cup chicken broth

2 cardamom pods

2 whole cloves

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Heat 1 T oil over medium heat in large deep skillet. TIP: if you use stainless cookware, remember “hot pan, cold oil” to keep food from sticking to the pan – heat your pan and when you’re ready to start cooking, add the oil then immediately add the food. It works really well.

2. Combine 1 t fresh thyme, 1 t cumin, 1/2 t salt and 1/2 t pepper. Coat the chicken with this mixture.

3. Add 2 cloves minced garlic and 1 small sliced onion to the oil in the pan. Saute for 1 – 2 minutes or until starting to soften. Move the onion and garlic mixture to the side of the pan and add the chicken to brown it, turning once and cooking about 2 minutes on each side.

4. Add the squash, cherries, potatoes, tomatoes, broth, cardamom and cloves to the pot, combine. Bring to a boil then cover and reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until veggies are tender and chicken is cooked through.

Serve with rice. A new thing I tried for cooking rice and really like was instead of using water, I made African Rooibus tea and cooked my basmati rice in that. It added a lot of flavor and was quite delicious. Just heat 2 cups of water, add 2 teabags and let steep for 3-5 minutes. Then add 1 cup basmati rice and cook like normal.

At our last book club meeting for Petal Pushers (which I didn’t read after hearing is was just so-so), we had brunch at one of the women’s houses. I brought dessert this time. Again, it was another episode of “I have so much <blank> from my CSA…what can I make with it?”

I found some inspiration from epicurious.com for their Fig and Raspberry Galette recipe, but I didn’t want to make the crust (short on time and poor reviews) so I ran over to the store and purchased some frozen puff pastry.

I have to leave for book club in an hour. And I had just bought frozen puff pastry. I had no idea what I was doing, but I figured I make something work. Turns out…the how-to-thaw-frozen-puff-pastry on the back of the package works! WHY have I never tried this before? Essentially lay it out on the counter for 40 minutes.

I also didn’t want to make one giant galette, so instead I pulled out my Donna Hay cookbook (remembering seeing a galette recipe in there) and worked some magic into individual servings…

Fig and Raspberry Galette

serves: 12

time: 1 hour 30 min (includes puff pastry thawing time…exclude 40 minutes if it’s already thawed)

Ingredients

1 pound fresh ripe figs (about 10), sliced

4 T sugar, divided

3/4 cup fresh raspberries

1 large egg yolk beaten to blen with 1 t water (for glaze)

1 sheet puff pastry

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Slice figs and place in a bowl with 2T sugar. Toss together and let sit. Toss raspberries in another bowl with remaining 1 T sugar.

Roll out puff pastry to approximately 14 x 10 inches. Using a pizza cutter, cut into 12 even rectangles. Place on a jelly roll pan evenly spread out.

Put 4 slices of figs on each of the puff pastry pieces, leaving about 1/2 – 1 inch edge. Top with raspberries. Using a pastry brush (or your finger if you don’t have a pastry brush), brush the edges of the puff pastry. Sprinkle the remaining 1 T sugar on the edges.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the puff pastry is browned and the filling is bubbling.

ALTERNATIVE: I haven’t tried this, but I think soaking the raspberries in balsamic vinegar and honey instead of the sugar would give this some depth of flavor. Try soaking raspberries in 1 T balsamic vinegar and 1/2 T honey.

Can’t wait to pick up our Harmony Valley Farm CSA this week. Everything looks amazing, as usual.

Veggie Box

Carrots

Yellow Onions

Garlic

Zucchini or Summer Squash

Cucumber

Arugula or Saute Mix

Potatoes

Dill

Fennel

Amaranth

Melon or raspberries

Eggplant

Italia Pepper

Fruit Box

Blueberries

Champagne Grapes

Hass Avocado

Flavor King Pluots

O’Henry Peaches

Bartlett Pears

Summer Grand Nectarines

Well…it’s officially summer once the CSA starts arriving! My household is participating in the Harmony Valley Farm CSA this summer and Thursday was our first delivery.

We received sunchokes (jerusalem artichokes), chives, spinach, parsnips, rhubarb, and ramps. We made mashed sunchokes and potatoes the other night and it was pretty delicious.

CSAs are Community Supported Agriculture, which is essentially a farm share. They are a great way to get fresh, local produce. I recommend joining one – you won’t regret it!