Borscht Baby!

A quick little entry on the joys of this summer treat!  If I had been introduced to this velvety smooth goodness as a youngster, My lifelong aversion to the dread beet may have been avoided!
The farm share has been giving us beets, and although I can tolerate and even enjoy them to some degree simmered forever in butter, they just never really excite me.  so when I had two week's worth staring me down, I decided to go with a nice cooling soup.
I searched through the internet sites I usually troll for recipes and settled on a Lithuanian style Borscht, pureed.
Here is what I used:
Around two pounds of beets, cleaned peeled and sliced.
1 large cucumber, peeled, split, seeded, and chopped.
4 Tbsp butter
4 Cups Non Fat milk
4 Tbsp Lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/8 Cup minced fresh basil
3-4 Tbsp White Vinegar
Salt
Pepper
First I put the beets in a heavy saucepan and simmered them in butter with a little salt and pepper for like an hour.
Then I cooled the beets by immersing a bowl in a sink filled with ice water
While the beets were cooling I added the lemon juice to the skim milk to make a buttermilk substitute.  You could use yogurt, sour cream, or buttermilk... or even Kefir.  I actually can taste a bit of lemon in my finished soup and I like it, so, it's up to you how you go.
Then I put the beets in the processor, and added the cucumber, onion and basil (The original recipe called for dill, which I am not a big fan of, it also had no instructions for pureeing the soup.) and process till ...well... processed.
I transferred 1/2 the mix to a blender, added half the sour milk and started pureeing the soup and forcing through a mesh strainer till it reached the desired silky smooth texture.
I then refrigerated the soup overnight.  This is an important step.
The end result is a deliciously smooth, cooling treat, like a beet gaspacho. It is shown with a dollop of sour cream swirled in.  The lemon and basil accent the beets better than I expected.

Basil and More Basil

So our take from our organic farm share has been on the low side this year, based on a combination of an overly wet spring, compounded by volunteer and employee error resulting in entire lost crops.  However we HAVE been swimming in lettuce, getting plenty of summer squash and zucchini (watch for a post on zucchini pancakes, coming soon!), the corn and potatoes have started, and the tomatoes are just getting underway.  For the past few weeks, we have been getting large bunches of basil.  Far too much basil to use in one week of conventional basil usage, even if I had pesto every night!  SO!  How to preserve it, and how else to use it?  The pic above is the first way I came up with to use more, namely, fry the basil in canola oil and season it with salt and pepper.  above it has been paired with a fresh farm share beefsteak tomato, and some fresh mozzarella for a crispier version of a classic!  If you have a deep fryer, use it.  If not, heat 1/2" oil in a wok to almost smoking,  The basil should be dry. If washed first you must dry it with paper towels very well, or it WILL splash you will burning oil!  Add the DRY basil (Look, just make sure it's dry, aight?) in small handfuls to the oil, tossing quickly, and removing in under 30 seconds. NOTE:  Before you put your first handful of leaves in the almost-smoking-hot-oil, think about how you might get the leaves out of said almost-smoking-hot-oil.  Tongs will break the leaves.  You will need to scoop them out with a slotted spoon.  Drain excess oil.  DO NOT pat with paper towels or they will crumble. I actually lined my salad spinner basket with paper towels and spun the oil off of them, with some limited success.  They are a crispy and delicious treat, even if just munching!

An old Martha Stewart trick is to make Pesto and freeze it in portions for easy use later.  She used an ice cube tray.  Great idea but since I have an automatic ice maker, I have no ice cube trays.  So I simply found a good pesto recipe (one with nuts and lots of garlic and even walnuts!) whipped it up, and dropped tablespoon-fulls of it into a muffin pan, lined with plastic wrap.  I froze them on the pan, and then put the little pesto patties into a soup container to go back in the freezer.

finally (or, if truth be told, Firstly, since I actually did this a few weeks ago.)  I made a half pesto by processing the basil and adding some oil to make a basil paste which I use a spoonful at a time.  this has been turning darker, but still tastes great.

The Strawberries are here! Boneless Pork Chops with Strawberry Gastrique, Pecans and Gorgonzola

The Strawberries are HERE at last!  I've been buying and enjoying the Florida Strawberries for around a month now, and I think half the reason I buy the expensive inferior berries from down south is that when the New Jersey ones hit, they taste all that much sweeter!  Maybe they taste this good when you buy them fresh and local in Florida, maybe not.  All I know is that the plastic container of big fat berries in the supermarket cannot hold a candle to the fresh local berries I buy at the Farmer's Market in Trenton, or in a week when our organic farm share lets us start picking them ourselves.  So of course, at the Farmer's Market today, I got carried away and bought three quarts!  When I arrived home I immediately cleaned, hulled, sliced and sugared one of the quarts to have for dessert with some Halo Farms Lemon Cream Sorbet, toasted chopped pecans and whipped cream!  Then I decided that a nice gastrique style reduction would go nice with the boneless Pork Chops I bought for dinner,

So I sliced up about 1 1/2 cups of berries,

and put them in a pot with 3/4 cup water, 3/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar, 3/4 cup White Wine (sauvignon blanc), 3/4 cup sugar, and a pinch of salt.

I boiled them...

and boiled them some more until they reduced about 3/4.  The sauce was looking nice and syrupy at this point so I removed from the heat and strained into a measuring cup through a mesh strainer.  It still looked a little thin to me,

So I put it back on the heat and reduced it some more.

While all of this was happening, I prepared a nice salad of fresh lettuces, tomatoes, and carrots I got at the Farmer's Market, and seasoned my Pork Chops with Kosher Salt, Fresh Ground Pepper, and Fresh Rosemary.
I browned the Pork Chops in a pan, and allowed them to rest, covered, for about 8 or 9 minutes, while toasted chopped pecans on the stove.

I plated by pouring a little of the gastrique on the plate, adding the chop, topping with some of the pecans and  crumbled Gorgonzola, and finished with a bit more of the gastrique on top.

Served with the salad, some steak fries on the side, and a glass of the Sauvignon Blanc, they were a delicious harbinger of the fresh bounty yet to come this spring!  The dessert rocked too!

Adventures in Baking: Two Layer Key Lime / Strawberry Mousse Pie with a Strawberry Mirror Glaze

Wow!  It's been quite a while since I have blogged.  A semester in fact!  I am currently attending a Paralegal Certificate program at Mercer County Community College and it has taken time away from my blogging efforts. The semester is almost over and the farm share is just about to open up for the season so I look forward to another summer of fresh organic veggies and new adventures in cooking!  In the mean time I have been trying my hand at baking, with mixed results.  It is a different animal than straight cooking, and isn't as friendly to my experimentations, but that hasn't stopped me from trying.

Back in February 2010, Erika and I went on a 3 day cruise and spent a morning in Key West.  We had just enough time there to take a cab to the southern most point and walk back to the Gulf, walking past Hemingway's house, stopping for Conch Fritters and PBRs at The Conch Shack, and for a slice of award winning Key Lime Pie at The Blonde Giraffe (since closed).  It was the first and only time to that point that I had enjoyed authentic Key Lime Pie, with Meringue on top instead of whipped cream (The original way, since they were working without refrigeration back in the day)

The pie was awesome, and I vowed to make my own Key Lime Pie someday! So a month or so ago, lo and behold, Key Limes were on sale at the local Acme!  I bought a few bags, and after struggling to juice the first bag of those thick skinned little f#@%&rs with my trusty reamer-juicer and getting 2/3 cup of juice from a whole bag, I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a proper lime juicer like the one to the left.  It made all the difference, and I tore through the rest, ending up with a few cups of the

tart lime juice, which I apportioned and froze.  

My first Key Lime Meringue Pie, was a great success, and tasted fantastic.  I took me right back to sunny Florida with the first bite.  It was such a success I decided to make one to take over to my Mother for a Mother's Day visit.  When I was growing up, she would occasionally make a Lemon Meringue pie, which I loved, but the Key Lime took it to a new level for me. As I was doing my planning, I remembered her saying that she wasn't a huge fan of Key Lime Pie.  Knowing the  versions I have had in the past up here in the Northeast, with their thick pudding like gelatinous fillings and thick whipped cream toppings, I can understand why, and was sure she would like MY authentic version!  As I made my shopping list however, I kept thinking about variations.  I had two large containers of fresh Strawberries in my fridge, and after searching on the 'ol infernet, 
I found the beautiful item at the top of the page for sale at a high end pastry business and decided I had to make that!  The only problem?  I could not find a recipe.  So, I found a recipe for Strawberry Mousse, and in another place, a recipe for a Strawberry Mirror Glaze.  I figured I would use my existing recipe for Key Lime Pie, and just leave off the meringue.  I would love to say that My creation came out looking as good as theirs, but... we'll get to that.

First, I bought myself a nice new Pyrex 9 1/2" pie plate with a nice wide lip.  This pie uses a Graham Cracker Crust.  The Blonde Giraffe used a Nilla Wafer Crust, but I thought for where I was going with the recipe, graham would be better.  Of course you could simply buy a graham cracker pie shell, but that would be cheating, wouldn't it? Anyway, the only shortcut I took here was to buy graham cracker crumbs, since I only have a mini food processor.
The original recipe for a regular 9" pie plate was as follows:

1 1/2 Cups finely ground graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup white sugar
6 Tbsp butter, melted
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
for my 9 1/2 " plate I used a whole stick of butter, the same amount of sugar, and a little more than 1 1/3 cups of crumbs.  I simply added more crumbs till the consistency was the same as I remembered from the first time I tried.  Mix the dry ingredients well, then add the melted butter, and mix until thoroughly ...uh...mixed.  Press evenly into the pie plate using the bottom of a smooth glass, or measuring cup (or anything you can think of really) and bake for 7 minutes at 375 degrees.

The Key Lime Pie filling is the easiest step (once you have the limes juiced and zested and all)  As a note, you can buy Key Lime juice at your local supermarket most anytime.  The ingredients are as follows:
(3) large egg yolks
(1) 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 Cup Key Lime juice
1 tsp grated Key Lime zest. (since I only have a zest peeler, I minced the peels.

Mix these ingredients well, in a large bowl.

Pour into finished crust, and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.  This pie only needs baking because of the salmonella risk in the uncooked eggs.  Originally, the pie would be finished at this point and would only be baked if they added the meringue.
For our creation, the pie at this stage must cool completely, before adding the mousse.

For the Mousse, you will need:
1 pound cleaned, hulled strawberries,
2 cups whipping cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 packet unflavored gelatin, poured into 1/4 cup of water to soften.

Here I am giving you the original directions. I diverted from these, because I evidently know MORE than the people that made the recipe!! (That was sarcasm, by the way.)  I used a recipe from the Joy of Desserts blog, and I thought that using a whole packet of gelatin would make the mousse too stiff and... well... gelatinous, so I halved it.  This could be my downfall.  As I type this, the pie in the fridge has a mousse that may not stand up when the pie is sliced later today at my Mothers.
So I chopped up the strawberries in my mini processor, in three shifts, and by then, my gelatin had hardened a bit too much to easily mix in,

So I threw it all in the blender and blended till smooth.
I poured this puree into a bowl, and placed in the fridge while I whipped the cream with the sugar until stiff peaks formed and held. (I forgot to take a picture of this, what with all the getting out of the Kitchen-Aid mixer, and cleaning up of same. Sorry.)

Then I folded the puree with the whipped cream and ended up with a lusciously smooth mousse, which I placed in the fridge, along with the cooling pie.

For the glaze, you will first need to make Strawberry Juice.  Use the following:
18oz cleaned, hulled, chopped strawberries
3/4 Cup sugar
3/4 Cup Water
Put this all in a saucepan, and mash while heating to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Then strain through cheesecloth or a fine mesh strainer, without pressing on the fruit.  This will yield slightly more than 2 cups of strawberry juice.  You will need 1 1/2 cups of it for the glaze.  Pour the following into a small bowl:
1 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp Kirschwasser (dry cherry brandy)
1 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp unflavored gelatin (about 1 1/2 packets)
a few drops red food coloring (Not really necessary, as it turns out)

If the juice has cooled, bring 1 1/2 cups of it back to a simmer, then pour over the gelatin mixture.  Stir well until the gelatin has fully dissolved, and place the bowl into a large bowl of ice water, stirring periodically until the glaze starts to thicken up to a syrupy consistency.  DO NOT LET IT SET!!  Remove from ice water before it sets up.

Spread the Mousse into the pie shell, leaving a little space at the top for the glaze.  Notice how I didn't do that here.
I also didn't follow the directions properly on the glaze and didn't use enough of the gelatin.  So I reached a point where it looked like it was thickening up, and I poured it onto my over-filled pie at left, where it proceeded to start running off the edge, sinking into my crust, and sinking into my under gelled mousse.  Frustrated, I put the mess into the fridge and took a break while I cooked dinner.
For dessert we enjoyed leftover mousse which, while it might not be stiff enough for the pie, was beautifully smooth and creamy as a mousse by itself.

After dinner, feeling a little better, I took out the pie, and scooped the top inch or so of the notglaze and not-quite-mousse, put the pie in the freezer to make it set up, used the extra pints of berries I had, made the glaze from scratch (carefully following the instructions this time), and poured it onto the pie.

Whether or not it works out well, I won't know till later today.  I know it won't look as nice as the one here, but after cutting, I will photograph the results and update the blog in interest of full disclosure!
In any case, I know however it looks, it will taste good, and that's the important thing!
Happy Mother's Day!!

Clementine Chicken with Vegetables and Quinoa

Here's another original recipe, and this one turned out great, if I do say so myself!  This was the first time I have even tried Quinoa, and I am officially a fan!  This dish takes about 15 minutes to prep and another 20 to cook, so it's great for a busy weeknight.  I prepped the vegetables while defrosting the chicken in the microwave (something that I am firmly against, but when you forget to thaw your protein, what else can you do?)
Heres the ingredient list.  As usual your mileage may vary according to taste:

2 (6oz) Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts, pounded flat
2 tsp corn starch, separated
6 Cloves Garlic, peeled, smashed and minced
1 Cup medium sliced Onion
2 Cups Broccoli florets
3 Clementine Oranges, peeled, separated into segments
1 Medium Red Pepper, cut into thin strips
1/2 Cup White Wine
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground coriander

2 1/2 tsp reduced sodium Worcestershire Sauce
1 cup uncooked Red Quinoa (you may substitute brown rice)
2 cups water
Non Stick Cooking Spray

Start off by putting the cup of Quinoa and the 2 cups of water in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to low.  Simmer for the rest of the process, about 20 minutes.

Spray a large sautee pan with cooking spray and brown the chicken breasts, about 5 minutes a side, till the juices run clear.  Season as desired with salt and pepper, but remember we will be adding Worcestershire sauce later, and that will have plenty of sodium for you!
When the chicken is just cooked, remove from the pan and cover to keep warm.

Immediately add the garlic, onions and peppers to the dry pan, stirring around for less than a minute.  You want to brown the garlic but not burn it!

Add the wine, broccoli and spices, simmer for a few minutes...

...then the Clementines...

...and just before plating, stir the remaining tsp of corn starch into the Worcestershire sauce, and stir into the vegetable mix.  Let simmer for the remaining minute while plating the Quinoa and Chicken

Mound 1/2 the Quinoa in the center of the plate, slice the chicken and place on top of the Quinoa, then surround with 1/2 of the vegetables, finally splitting the remaining sauce between the plates.

Delicious!!
As a little side note, I had intended to use Soy Sauce and grabbed the wrong bottle.  While It didn't hurt anything, next time I will try Soy, and maybe a little hot chili or sesame oil.
Also,  while I am now hooked on Quinoa's nutty, crunchy flavor and texture, If the idea of a new grain scares you, you can easily serve this up on your favorite rice.  Quinoa and Brown Rice are very close nutritionally.
Below are the numbers!

Nutritional Info

• Servings Per Recipe: 2
• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 655.3

• Total Fat: 7.4 g
• Cholesterol: 102.7 mg
• Sodium: 221.4 mg
• Total Carbs: 85.7 g
• Dietary Fiber: 13.4 g
• Protein: 57.9 g

Moroccan Ragout with Poached Eggs

In my constant search for healthy, tasty breakfasts that aren't completely carb loaded, I came across a recipe for a Moroccan Ragout.  The recipe I found had a lot of ingredients that I didn't have, including a lamb sausage.  I made this without any meat, although it would be seriously kick-*ss with chorizo... and would be seriously worse for you, SO...  for my recipe, once again I made do with the limits of my paltry pantry cabinet.
As usual, I recommend using recipes as a launch pad for your own ideas, so with that in mind, I used the following ingredients:

1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled, smashed and minced
1/4 cup diced red bell pepper
1 10oz can diced tomatoes and chilies (like Rotel)
1 6oz can tomato sauce
3 whole canned plum tomatoes, diced (If I had two cans of the tomatoes and chilies I would have used that instead of the last two ingredients)

1 1/2 Tbsp Harissa (My favorite "new" ingredient this past year!  spicy and sweet and AWESOME with scrambled eggs!)
Fresh large eggs
Toast (preferably a nice crusty bread, but I made do with weight watchers whole wheat)

 Spice Blend:
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp paprika
The original recipe called for "Ras El Hanout", a Moroccan spice blend.  The name means literally: "top of the shop" and called a lot of spices that I didn't have.  Oh well, next trip to Whole Foods or Trader Joes I will have to search it out!  I also used some of the spices that were in the sausage that was called for.

First, Sautee the onion and pepper till transparent, then add the garlic, wait a minute or so, and the spice blend.  Stir this around to toast the spices a little...

...then add the tomatoes and harissa.   Let this ragout simmer at a low boil for 5 minutes or so...

then drop the eggs in.  I like to break my eggs into a bowl one at a time, so I don't get any shell in the ragout, and just in case there is a bad egg, you don't ruin the dish, or the rest of the eggs.
Put a lid on this, and let the eggs poach...

...until the whites are cooked but the yolks are still runny.

Serve on the toast and season with salt and pepper, and maybe a little more harissa, if you can take the heat!
The beautiful thing with this dish is the large amount of leftover ragout was put in a container in the fridge, and now I can make it again as quickly as poaching eggs in water!

Chicken & Pinto, Green & Red Enchiladas, take one.

Here is an easy dish that will fill you up, is tasty and relatively healthy* to boot!
I came up with this recipe my usual way. First, I decided that I wanted to make chicken enchiladas, but didn't really have any kind of go-to recipe.  So I searched my regular on-line sources, and found that there seems to be no real "standard" recipe.  So I looked through the cabinet to see what cans I had there, and I looked at the cans in my closest Italian themed supermarket to see what was offered in the limited Mexican section available to me.
I ended up with the following ingredient list:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1 pound, 2 ounces in my case)
1 can Pinto Beans, drained
1 can Mild green enchilada sauce
1 can Mild red enchilada sauce
1 can diced tomatoes and chilies (Like Rotel)
1 large yellow onion (about 1 cup chopped)
2 cloves garlic (about 2 Tbsp chopped)
1 Long Hot (or whatever) Pepper (You could use a small can of chopped green chilies)
1 Tbsp taco or enchilada seasoning (I used a nice sprinkle each of Cumin, Chili Powder, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, and Pepper)
5 or 6 large whole wheat tortillas (you could use corn and be authentic, I prefer wheat.)
1 cup shredded cheese (I used sharp cheddar)

Start by poaching (somewhere between a simmer and a full boil, it keeps the chicken tender) the chicken breasts for 15 minutes or so, until fully cooked.

Pull the meat apart with two forks, shredding completely.  Set aside chicken.

While the chicken is boiling, start on the rest of the filling.  Chop your onion fine, and saute with a a bit of cooking spray in a large pan.

Remove the seeds and pith (the white stuff) from the pepper and cut into thin strips

Chop the pepper, and add to the cooking onions

Peel, smash and mince the garlic and add that as well.
You may need another shot of cooking spray.

Then add the tomatoes and chilies...

...pintos and mild green enchilada sauce.
Bring to a low boil, then simmer for a little while, until it thickens slightly...

Then add the chicken and mix well.  When it comes back up to temp, remove from heat.
We are now ready for assembly.

Spray the inside of a large casserole with cooking spray...

and stage your mixture and tortillas next to the casserole

Spoon a nice amount of the mixture into tortillas, then pick up by the dry ends, and roll in the casserole, keeping the seam underneath...

...till you are done.  Hopefully you will run out of mixture and tortillas at the same time.  I ran out of mixture with one tortilla remaining... oh well.

Pour the red enchilada sauce on top, spreading evenly, and sprinkle the cup of shredded cheese, also evenly.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or so, until all bubbly and melty.  Serve with a salad or Mexican rice.

*Here is the breakdown for each enchilada, courtesy of nutritiondata.com's recipe analyzer.  Hey, I said it was RELATIVELY healthy! The canned ingredients really REALLY jack up the sodium count, and the beans and tortillas jack up the carbs, but HEY, they ARE enchiladas!  On the good side, there is a whole lot of protein. One enchilada per serving, as made, is quite filling, and it is VERY tasty and satisfying!  As sodium is on my "bad" list, I will be looking for a better way to cook these next time.  I'll let y'all know when I do!