Pasta of the Gods

And so the voyage continues. Tonight's Farmer's Market Bag creation is zucchini and summer squash pasta with mint. This dish can be summed up in one word- yum. I can hardly describe how good this was, but if a pasta dish can make a grown person purr, this is it. While this dish is super tasty, it is ridiculously easy to make. If you so desire (and you should), this is how to do it: After slicing the squash into coins, I patted them dry with a paper towel, seasoned them with some salt and pepper, lightly dusted them with flour and cooked them in batches in some olive oil until golden brown. After all the squash had been cooked, I added the garlic and red pepper flakes and cooked until the garlic just started to brown then added in the pasta, along with some of the cooking liquid, and a couple handfuls of Parmesan cheese. Now here is where some magic happens- as you vigorously shake the pan and toss the pasta, the starchy water, olive oil, and Parmesan cheese emulsifies to create a creamy sauce. Once this happens add the mint, adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper, and dig in. Trust me, you won't be able to refrain from going back for seconds.

Zucchini and Summer Squash Past with Mint

2 Zucchini, cut into disks
2 Crockneck squash, cut into disks
2 garlic cloves, pealed and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons minced mint (or basil would be good here too)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1-lb pasta of choice, cooked until al dente (save about a cup of the starchy cooking liquid)
1/2 cup Olive Oil
Flour, as needed for dusting squash

Farmer's Market Bag 4-8-11

I am big fan of supporting local growers and small artisnal producers. That said, I am not a big fan of CSA (community supported agriculture) boxes. I signed-up for one a year or so back and I soon became bored with the contents of my box. I understand that one small farm cannot grow everything, but I'm a gal who needs variety in her life. Since then I have periodically visited the farmers market to purchase my produce directly, but with the hectic turn my life has taken I rarely find the time to support our community's farmers. That is until now...

I was recently introduced to Specialty Produce, a warehouse produce distributor and the best kept secret in San Diego. This place is my new Mecca. I am happy just walking through the plastic flap door. They have everything you could ever want and then some. While they do get their produce from sources World-wide, they also do quite a bit of purchasing from local growers and have started selling a "Farmers Market Bag". Each week they hand select produce from local farms, so you're able to support multiple growers as well as getting variety of produce each week. In addition to this bounty of produce, Specialty also provides add-ons to your bag from local artisnal companies. This week my bag of goodies included green spring garlic & all red potatoes from Weiser Farms, baby green zucchini from Tutti Fruitti, mint, Italian parsley, and rosemary from Ruitz Farms, arugula from Coastal Organics, Lyon artichokes from Life's a Choke, dandelion greens from McGrath Family Farms, baby yellow crookneck squash from Beylik Farms, Hass avocados and Eureka lemons from Stehly Farm Organics, Moro blood oranges from Pomack Farms, some Irish soda bread from Sadie Rose Bakery, Cypress Grove Purple Haze, Chuao Chocolatier Spicy Mayan chocolate bar, and two pounds of fresh caught yellow tail from Catalina Offshore (and some rhubarb that I couldn't help but get).

One of the challenges (and joys) of getting the Farmers Market Bag, or any CSA for that matter, is coming up with creative ways to utilize the ingredients and Saturday night dinner with a friend was a perfect place to start. The Lyon artichoke is unique in that the long stem, once trimmed, is fully edible and just as tasty as the heart. Armed with my chef's knife, I attacked the artichoke, trimming it down to just the heart and stalk. After steaming, I buzzed it in the food processor with some juice from the Eureka lemons, olive oil, and voila, Lyon artichoke puree was born. To go with my Kermit colored puree of awesomeness, I roasted some root vegetables, and served it all alongside pan roasted yellow tail topped with a wonderfully bright relish made with the mint and parsley, along with some capers, golden raisins, olive oil and a touch of lemon juice. So good! I also dressed the arugula simply with a little olive oil, lemon juice, and garnished it with Parmesan shavings. As for dessert, well that is a story that started out good, but took a tragic turn in the end. I love strawberries, so naturally my favorite pie is strawberry rhubarb. I had some left-over sweet dough stashed in the freezer from Baking and Pastry, so I thought now would be the perfect time to make pie. I put a lot of love in this pie- I stewed the strawberries and rhubarb in a little simple syrup and a touch of Bonny Doon Rose, I lovingly topped the pie with an oatmeal crumb, and baked it to a golden perfection. But unfortunately while cooling on the counter it picked a fight with a falling bag of sugar and lost horribly. In less than ten seconds my beautiful pie was reduced to a cratered mishmash of sugary goodness. While it looked like a meteor had landed in it's center, it still tasted pretty good.

All in a Day's Work

Welcome one and all to the wonderful World of Cuisine III, where every night is a food filled extravaganza! No longer are we putzing around the kitchen, composing a dish or two. Now, for every two sessions we are preparing a four course meal, including a soup, a hot appetizer, an entree, and a dessert. The first night of each menu is spent doing all the prep work, and the next is all of the final cooking and plating. While this is a lot of work to undertake after a full day of work, one of the great things about being at this stage in our education is that we can finally do our own plate designs. Before, we had to hang back and see what the chef was going to do and then try to mimic him (which some of my cohorts still do), but now we are given free reign.

The soup du jour for this particular session was a cream of asparagus soup. The recipe was pretty basic, but turned out to be a mine field of mistakes. Even though I followed the recipe to a tee, I needed double the amount of stock to get it to the right consitency. You think someone would have caught that mistake by now- sheesh! We were left on our own to decide the garnish, so I went with a puff pastry round, which was supose to be a raft of sorts for the asparagus saute I was trying to place on top. Unfortunately it failed as a raft, but it still looked good and tasted good. Add a few dots of sour cream and you have a bowl of asparagusy goodness.

The next course was crab cakes, and I mean hello!... you had me at crab. While these crab cakes were perfectly lovely, what truly rocked my word was the roasted tomato vinaigrette that we made to dress the mixed greens. It was sublime! That with the tarragon aioli (tarragon + mayonnaise = yum!) and parmesan cheese cup pushed me over the limits of blissfulness.

The next course was a beef tenderloin en croute, which was kinda a throwaway in my book. Why take a perectly good piece of beef, wrap it in crepes, mushroom duxelles, and puff pastry? The only thing that saved it was the absolutely delicious roasted garlic demi-glace. It was so good you could have eaten it by the spoon full (which now that I'm writing this, I'm recalling that that is precisely what I did.)

To round out the meal we totally needed something sweet, but not too rich after that mammoth piece of meat (which was destined for Kiari's kong). What better than a trio of strawberries? Ah, NOTHING! Anyone who knows anything about me knows about my profound love of strawberries. If I am going to die tomorrow and I can only have one last thing, it would be a pint of plump sun warmed strawberries. To start our strawberry tasting was a strawberry shortcake speckled with orange zest, filled with a strawberry/mint/balsamic salad (a Jamie creation), and whipped cream. Next on our strawberry voyage was a perfectly lovely strawberry sorbet, made by yours truly, spiked with just a touch of booze, followed by a chocolate dipped strawberry injected with, you guessed it, more booze! Can life get any better?

Back in the dirt again!

I've decided it's time to get some dirt under my nails again, it's time to garden! A couple things have lead me to this realization, and none of them have to do with an over abundance of time on my hands. I've found that when you're as busy as I am it becomes almost imperative to set aside some time just for you. And what better way to spend that time than playing in a giant sandbox, nurturing along little seedlings, and soaking up some vitamin D. That and the fact that Kairi (aka the Pooch) has taken to digging up my plants at home to hide her bones. Not only did I find a plot for my tinkerings, I found a wonderful community garden in Ocean beach, where raised beds were already provides (yippe!), had communial fruit trees, and chickens! I don't know why but I love the chickens. And the icing on the cake... the previous owner of my plot had planted peas, so already I have lovely plump peas from my table. Win win.