Good Real Food

anyone who tells you that two kids more than doubles the work is totally correct. Wow.

Anyway, in addition to being up to my eyeballs in kids, this site’s software lost it’s marbles for a bit and none of our intrepid authors could login to share their culinary adventures. Apologies that it has taken me so long to get things sorted out.

And being back, I thought I should share something food-ish. In fact, I have two things to share: squash stuffings, and a nifty thing to do with soup.

Squash Stuffings:

I don’t know what’s happening where you live, but we are well into fall here, and that means squash.

In the past weeks, our CSA share has provided a few butternuts, a couple of acorn, a kombucha and some truly amazing delicata. I’ve been kind of down on the peel, roast, eat practice recently - maybe since that was all I ever did with squash so lately, I’ve been stuffing it. Below are two suggestions for stuff squash - the sausage one filled out the roasted delicata, while the bean and greens stuffing filled out roasted acorn squash. The butternuts and kombucha are likely to find themselves in a soup or pie in the not too distant future.

Sausage stuffing for squash: This couldn’t be simpler. Get some good bulk italian sausage. Cook it. Make a simple tomato sauce - I put fennel and peppers and garlic and onions and capers in mine. Halve, scoop, lightly oil and roast your squash (cut side down) - I did ours at 400 and tucked a sprig of thyme under each half of squash. When cooked, spoon sausage into squash and top with tomato sauce and some grated pecorino or parmesan.

Beans and Greens stuffing for squash: Another simple one. Cook some great northern beans. Chop some bacon, cook until it’s mostly done, then add diced onion, garlic, carrots, and peppers assuming you’ve got some from your market or CSA. Cook down, adding some salt and pepper and some crushed red chili along the way. Add your greens. I used some lovely “saute greens” from our CSA - a mix of all kinds of little greens. You could use any greens you like. I think dino kale, chard, spinach, or arugula would all be lovely. Beet greens would be fantastic, and you’d have beets too! Once the greens are wilted, add your cooked beans without the liquid they cooked in, and reduce heat and let it hang out for a bit, stirring occasionally and maybe adding a bit of water if it looks like it needs it. Once again, roast your squash, stuff it with this mixture, and enjoy.

Really, these are shared not because there’s anything terribly interesting about them - you likely already do stuff like this all the time - I just find that sharing and hearing about what others do with their veggies inspires me to get a bit more creative with my cooking from time to time.

Nifty soup trick: Yes, I was rather proud of myself when I thought of this one. Does that make me a food nerd? Fine, then I’m a food nerd.

Anyway, I was making some celeriac, carrot, and beet soup, and I thought it would be swell with a poached egg in each bowl. So, instead of poaching them separately, I just broke the eggs directly into the simmering soup and waited till they were cooked to my liking. Just don’t forget how many eggs you put in!

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Like so many midwesterners in late August, I find myself completly overrun with monster zucchini and summer squash. I have included a recipe in this post that I made up to use up the bunnies in unique and yummy ways: Chocholate Zucchini Bread. But first, as an homage to my father, Jim Heynen, I want to share with you his short story about zucchini.

Garden Rabbits, by Jim Heynen
There were the fuzzy sharp-toothed ones that nipped tender shoots of lettuce and cabbage before they could dream of the salad bowl, the kind that multiplied as quickly as aphids and were as hard to discourage from their nibbling ways. But there was another kind of garden rabbit. These too were fruitful and multiplied in great abundance, though they did not hop. They were zucchini.
The boys did not like to eat zucchini very much. The taste was as dull as potatoes without salt or butter or sour cream, and the texture was slimy as cooked okra. But in August when the lettuce had bolted and the cabbage had died, when even most of the tomatoes had ripened and the wine-colored beets bulged from the earth ready for harvest, the zucchini caught a second breath: the yellow blossoms quickly turned into small green fingers that within a week were the size of cucumbers and in two weeks the size of small watermelons. Why couldn’t the animal garden rabbits eat these vegetable garden rabbits instead of the carrots and lettuce?
If the boys didn’t do something, they knew it would mean zucchini in eggs for breakfast, fried zucchini and onions for dinner, boiled zucchini for supper. Zucchini casseroles! Zucchini salads! Zucchini pie if there was a recipe for one hiding somewhere!
The oldest boy had a plan. Over supper, as they all swallowed the soggy chunks of zucchini, he said, We have so many zucchini, we should give some to the poor people who don’t have anything to eat.
The oldest boy had never in his life suggested giving anything to anybody, not even to his friends. And now he was thinking of poor people he didn’t even know?
The grown-ups thought it was a wonderful idea and even brought it up in their family devotions: That the abundance of the earth should be given to all, they prayed. Yea, even to the neediest of our number.
On Saturday night the boys loaded the car trunk with big zucchini before they went into town. The boys agreed that they would spend the evening giving the zucchini to poor people they met.
Look at them, said one of the grown-ups, as the boys loaded their arms with zucchini and started down the streets looking for poor people. Aren’t they wonderful?
The boys couldn’t really tell a poor person from a rich person, so they started offering zucchini to everyone they met. They figured the rich people wouldn’t take them and the poor people would. But it seemed that poor people were few and far between when it came to feeding them zucchini.
When the boys got to the big parking lot next to a WalMart that had just replaced most of the stores downtown, the oldest boy said, Let’s just put some in the back seat of everybody’s car. We might not be getting them to poor people, but at least we’re still giving them away.
This is what they did and within a half hour they were rid of all the zucchini. The grown-ups thoughts the boys’ charity had been so successful that they let the boys load up the trunk of the car with zucchini the next Saturday night too.
The boys went straight to the WalMart parking lot. But word had gotten out that if you didn’t lock your car doors somebody would fill the back seat of your car with giant zucchini.
Oh no, said the oldest boy, after they had tried all the car doors in the parking lot. We’re stuck with them. We’ll be eating zucchini until Christmas!
Then one of the boys pretended to drop one on the street as he crossed on the way back toward their car. The other boys followed suit, dropping zucchini, one after another. Whoops, whoops, whoops, as the zucchini dropped to the street.
The boys stood on the sidewalk and watched the cars pass by, some of them slowing down and swerving to miss the shattered vegetables. But in a few minutes the zucchini had been mushed up and the cars didn’t even slow doen. And that was how the last of the green garden rabbits died. Smeared out on the street like so much road kill.

Chocolate-Zucchini Bread
-1 1/2 cups brown sugar
-3/4 cup sunflower or safflower oil
-3 eggs beaten
-1 1/2 tbsp melted butter
-1 tsp vanilla
-2 cups grated zucchini
-1 1/2 cups white flour
-1 cup whole wheat flour
-2 tsp baking soda
-1 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp salt
-2-3 tbsp good quality cocoa powder
-1 tsp cinnamon
-1 tsp ground cloves

Preheat the oven to 350F
1. In a large bowl combine the sugar, oil, eggs, butter and vanilla and beat well with a whisk. Mix in the grated zucchini. 2. In a separate bowl, combine all the remaining dry ingredients and mix well. Gently stir the dry mixture into the wet. Pour the batter into a well-oiled loaf pan and bake for approximately 1 hour, until firm and a toothpick comes out of the center clean. Cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.

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Not actually all that original, chopping up squash and cooking it with chopped up basil but I was goofing around with the food processor and I made a slurry of onions, garlic and basil. And a hot pepper. And then I dumped it on cubed squashes and remembered to add salt and pepper and a decent amount of olive oil before I put it in the oven (350) for half an hour.  I used young squash, small ones, not baseball bat zukes and patty pans the size of frisbees. I think the bigger they get, the more they need to be cooked down.

I tossed (I didn’t toss. I stirred.) it with whole wheat couscous, which, since I always have to look this up since I buy bulk grains all the time, I cook 2c boiling water to 1c couscous. Simmer until the water is absorbed or let it sit for half an hour. Add a little salt and some olive oil at the end.

<h3>Meanwhile</h3>

My friend J-Ro made me dinner the other night. He’s a master of eating his whole CSA share alone, so dinner included a green salad with cucumber, broccoli with garlic and sausage (local, free roaming animals. I’m still kind of half veg, half flexitarian, which I think means “not veg” to some people.) brown rice, and a second vegetable side which he made thusly:

Steam some potatoes and matchsticked beets a little. I think the potatoes were in there because we got two or three young potatoes last week. They were nice but not key to the project. Rinse a can of garbanzos, chop an onion, and start it cooking in some oil. Add the beans and beets and potatoes and a handful of raisins and some chopped mint and a good amount of fennel foliage (because we’ve all got fennel growing and it produces a lot of foliage. Move the whole mess to a bowl and stir in a little cider vinegar.

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Scrambled eggs have a publicity problem. They are taken for granted to be boring, hurried, week day morning affairs with two eggs tossed together in the pan with nothing to keep them company. Or, they are the cold slabs of congealed bland eggs we often find in buffet lines as we scan ahead for the baked goods, or (please please!) the fresh crab legs. Today I am on a mission to put the scrambled egg dish back at the center of the weekend brunch. Forget the pancakes…who wants to be standing over a hot stove flipping those little buggars all morning and then feel their heaviness in the heat of the afternoon?

Eggs are the most versatile of all foods, and they go well with almost anything, so you can really use them to highlight seasonal vegetables and herbs and to try out different spice combinations. The trick to really good scrambled eggs is to, first, use the very best fresh local eggs possible. Second, you want to cook them over low heat, patiently moving them around the pan with a spatula as they cook. The rest is all about getting creative with what you put in them. The scramble I made this morning highlighted what is available right now in our garden and locally, so lots of basil, zucchini, tomatoes, chives, spring onions, and garlic scapes. Inspired by Simon Hopkinson, I also added fried bread cubes at the end.

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if you haven’t heard the news, my family has recently (like, last week) welcomed a new addition. Our new daughter is doing well, and as we return to somewhat normal, I return to thinking about food. I was lucky - no more than lucky - to have friends who jumped in and organized a week of meals brought to us. It was, hands-down the most wonderful gift anyone could have given us. More that just giving us food, they gave us, and especially me, the precious gift of time - with our new daughter, with each other, time to soak up the energy and excitement that comes with a birth.

And while that energy is still very much here, I’m back on food duty. Which is great, sort of. I’m surprised, more than anything, by how little I actually manage to accomplish in any given day beyond laundry, tidying up, and trying to keep on top of keeping the kitchen tidy. Time for thinking about food hasn’t been front and center.

My saving grace right now? My CSA. Every week, I get a box of stuff that is so good, it barely needs anything done to it. So, recently, we’ve been taking a page from Mark Bittman and doing the minimal cooking route - think lightly sauteed greens tossed with some garlic, cheese, and pasta, or enormous salads with maybe some bread or eggs on the side.

I’m just hoping that we’re a bit more together by the time the CSA box stops. In December.

I think I’ve got time.

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Yet another salad to make and keep cold in the fridge, to pull out and serve with weekend grilled things, or to take to a spur of the moment potluck or picnic. Take two cups peas, two cups lima beans, and two cups of edamame beans and steam them for just about 5 minutes or untill just tender. Toss with olive oil, red onion, white wine vinegar, fresh garlic, salt, pepper and whatever fresh herbs you happen to have around. It is a fun take on the traditional bean salad as no one ever thinks that lima beans are much to squawk about.

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I had never seen this cut of lamb before at the market. It was so great on the grill. I just let it sit with some olive oil, rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper and lemon juice for about three hours before putting it on a hot grill for 5-7 minutes on each side. The salad was made by cooking the couscous and tossing it with olive oile, kalamata olives, garlic, onion, spinach, grilled egg plant, and red onion.

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years ago, when my father was starting to teach me about cooking, he shared with me the single best piece of cooking advice I’ve received:

He said “you have to be patient. The food will get done in the time that it needs to get done. If you’re patient, it will come out well”

And he was totally right. Nothing likes being rushed, but least of all food and I remember that lesson often as I sit there waiting for my onions to get just dark enough or my risotto to be properly tender, or any of the million other things I do in the kitchen that get done in their own time.

Another great piece of advice I’ve had was to start boiling a pot of water when you start cooking - you’ll either need it for your food (thin a sauce, moisten your gravy, etc), or you can make a cup of tea. This has been mostly replaced by my electric kettle, but it still a very very good thing to keep in mind.

What’s the best cooking advice you’ve given or received?

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I just finished off some brown rice and canned food and with a side of cauliflower drowned in a dressing I fondly call crack because I couldn’t think of anything else to do with cauliflower (just eating it, I suppose, was one option.) I’m thinking now that a little garlic and olive oil would have been a nice touch. We’re overrun with mint in the garden, which could have made the nice touch nicer.

There’s more cauliflower, though, and I’m on my own for the rest of the week, so maybe garlic and mint will happen after all. Until then, I’m open to better ideas.

Mostly, though, I wanted to say hello and thanks for having me. I thought I’d get to gloat about how spring comes sooner to NYC but it seems that St Paul CSAs are already underway? I’ve got two weeks yet until my food desert turns oasis.

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Apologies for the totally self-interested posting here. The final few weeks of pregnancy are upon us, hence my lack of posting. While I’ve been busy with work and baby prep, I’ve actually been cooking up a storm, and since our CSA has recently started up, I’m looking forward to a fun filled summer of sleepless nights and abundant fresh produce.

Given that combination, I thought I’d send an appeal to you, dear readers, and ask you for your favorite “almost no cooking” recipes - the ones that you go to time and time again when you’re too tired to cook or when your CSA share drops lovelies in your lap that you just can’t bear to sully with too much cooking. I’m hoping your suggestions can help me feed my family during the first few weeks of our new baby, so don’t hold back - any suggestion goes, and it’s likely that in the next few months, I’ll cook them all.

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