Southwestern kolokethokeftaide

I didn't intend to make kolokethokeftaide. I hadn't heard of them until a moment ago. I just improvised some squash fritters and ended up making kolokethokeftaide accidentally. This Greek recipe isn't far off from the Turkish kabak mucveri I made three years ago but since I wasn't actually making it intentionally, I ended up with a Southwestern flavor profile which moves it a bit farther away.

I apologize for the quality of the pictures; I ran out of AA batteries for my camera and have had to fall back on my phone's crappy camera. Also, I didn't expect to write this up, as I was just throwing stuff together, so I don't have any process pics to share. Or many measurements.

So, anyway, I grated the two CSA summer squashes, salted them, let them sit a few minutes and then squeezed out an enormous amount of water. I ended up with no more than a cup and a half of squished squash.

To that I added about half a cup of pepper jack cheese, a dollop of caramelized onion confit (really just the caramelized onion I made last week mixed with a good bit of olive oil), a minced hot pepper, a dash of chili powder, one egg and enough breadcrumbs to make a dough that held together but wasn't wet.

I heated my oil and made little Tablespoon-volume patties. Those got fried at just over medium-high heat until just over golden brown. More of a brazen brown.


Tasty stuff. And it tastes mainly of squash, not dough with a bit of squash in it like most fritter recipes make. A nice chewy/creamy texture inside and crisp outside too. Maybe they could use a dipping sauce just to mix the flavors up a little bit, but I didn't bother with one.

Southwestern corn and squash bake

Looking at the vegetables I have on hand this week, I knew I wanted to pair the squash and corn. I had a fair amount of Southwestern flavorings left over to work with and a chunk of mild white cheddar that was close enough to monterey jack. No real plan here; I just threw it all together in some vaguely sensible manner.

Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon butter
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped
2 smallish yellow peppers, chopped
1/2 summer squash, thinly sliced
3 ears corn, stripped from their cobs
2 chipotles in adobo, chopped
equal amount of pickled jalapeños, chopped
6 ounces pulled brisket in faux barbecue sauce
1 handful cilantro, chopped
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup double-cream white cheddar cheese, shredded
parmesan and bread crumbs to cover
salt and pepper and chili powder and cumin and oregano and hot sauce and such to taste

I heated the butter and olive oil in a dutch oven over medium heat until the the butter melted, sizzled and settled down. Then I threw in the onion and peppers with a pinch of salt and sweated them until they softened the the onion turned translucent. Then I added the squash with some spices and let it cook down while I harvested the corn from the cobs. After a few minutes I added the corn, turned the heat up a little and cooked for five minutes until the corn was just turning tender.

Then I took the pot off the heat and added the chipotle and pickled jalapeño, brisket (with its sauce) and cilantro, mixed well and poured out into an 8"x8" baking dish. After it had cooled a bit, I mixed in the cheddar and the eggs whisked into the milk and cream, adjusted the spices, topped with the mixed breadcrumbs and parmesan, covered with foil and baked at 350 degrees for a half hour, removed the foil and baked for 15 minutes more and then gave it five more minutes under the broiler.

Here's the result:
The structural integrity isn't quite where I'd like it; Next time, I'm mixing the bread crumbs in. But even if it falls apart into a bowlful of creamed corn, it's nicely rich and full of flavor. The corn is tender but still has a bit of crunch to it. It's sweetness, surprisingly pronounced, contrasts with the several different sorts of spiciness and the savory brisket. The acid from the pickled jalapeno (and the hot sauce) cuts through the richness. Kind of trashy I admit, but really pretty tasty. Could use more squash, though. And, I just now realized that I've got a can of black beans that I should have thrown it. That would have been pretty good too.

Greek zucchini pie

I had a few different ideas of what to do with the zucchini this time around. My first choice was a couscous dish, but I decided to put it off until I can get hold of some merguez sausage (which means probably no time soon). This, instead, is a cross between these zucchini galettes, originally from Bon Appétit magazine, and a more traditional Greek kolokithopita. Or maybe it's just a quiche; I dunno.

Ingredients:
crust:
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut in chunks
2-4 Tablespoons cold water

filling:
1 large zucchini and 1 small summer squash, grated
1 small onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic
3 1/2 ounces well-flavored feta, crumbled
1/3 cup Greek yogurt [I substituted the sour cream I had on hand, but yogurt would be better.]
3 eggs
1 small handful flat leaf parsley, chopped
a little bit of fresh mint leaves, chopped
a little bit of fresh dill, chopped [I was out, but it's a traditional compliment to the other flavors in this dish.]
salt
pepper
pecorino romano or kefalotiri cheese if you can get it

0. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

1. For the crust, mix the flour and salt in a food processor. Add the butter and pulse several times until the butter is incorporated and the mixture looks a little coarse. Add the water Tablespoon by Tablespoon, pulsing in between, until the dough just barely comes together. Remove the dough to a work surface, work it into a ball, split in half, flatten each piece into a disc, wrap in plastic and chill in the refrigerator for a half hour.

2. Meanwhile, grate the zucchini and squash (or whatever you've got), mix with 1/4 teaspoon salt, put in a colander and let sit for a half hour. Afterward, squeeze out most of the moisture.

3. Heat olive oil and/or butter over medium-high heat in a medium pan. Add the onion and cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened and slightly browned. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant. Add the zucchini and cook five minutes more until the zucchini is softened and slightly browned. Remove from heat.

4. Mix feta, yogurt and eggs in a large bowl. Add the zucchini mixture and the herbs. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Remove one of the dough discs from the refrigerator and roll out to about 10-inches in diameter. Place it into a 9-inch pie pan and adjust it so it's lining the pan properly. Pour in the filling and grate the romano cheese over top. I folded the excess dough over the top for a bit of the galette feel. You could top the pie with the other half of the dough instead if you'd like. I ended up saving it for another recipe.

6. Bake the pie at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375 degrees and bake for 25 minutes more until the filling is set and browned and the crust is golden. Cool at least five minutes before serving.


The pie filling is fluffy and the crust light and crisp so no faulting it on texture, but I'm disappointed in the lack of a strong zucchini flavor. I would have thought the purging and pan frying would have intensified it, but no. The pie's flavor is mostly just savory eggs, feta tang and fresh herbs. Maybe the zucchini flavors blended with the herbal notes? I think it's in there somewhere. Well, I'm not being judged on my use of the ingredient so it doesn't really matter. What's important is that the results are pretty tasty any which way.

CSA week 16 - Summer squash chicken bake

Just a simple recipe as I've got to get to work. And frankly, I don't think summer squash is up to complex preparations. It'll just fall apart and turn into mildly-flavored mush.

This is a slight variation on this recipe. I wanted to make it more of a main dish and had just finished making a batch of chicken broth so I added in some of the boiled chicken and substituted in a little broth for the water.

Ingredients:
1 pound yellow summer squash, chopped
1/4 cup water or chicken broth
1 cup shredded cooked chicken
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
pepper to taste
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions:
1. In a saucepan, combine the squash, water, onion and salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until squash is tender. Remove from the heat; cool.

2. Stir in the chicken, egg, bread crumbs, butter and pepper. Transfer to a greased 1-qt. baking dish; sprinkle with cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes or until heated through and the cheese is melted. Broil for a couple more minutes to get a nice crust.


I was impressed by how well the dish holds together physically considering how much liquid there was in the pan. The texture was kind of bread-pudding-esque with the squash, bolstered by the breadcrumbs, acting as the starch. I didn't know squash could do that.

As for flavor, not bad, but the squash is so mild it's lost behind the chicken and cheese. Well, maybe not behind. If you eat a piece by itself you can recognize the light buttery flavor as infused throughout dish. That said, if you're going to add meat (and I think it would be a fine sidedish without, although I'd want to add a little paprika or mustard or something for a little extra zip), halve what I added and consider ham instead of chicken. The choice of cheese is important too. Something less robust than the Dubliner I used would be best: a young Cheddar or maybe Muenster or Edam.

And if I had read the comments on yesterday's post sooner I would have known to add corn and peppers which would have gone just dandily with the other flavors. I'm probably going cook some up and add them to the leftovers before they go into the freezer.

CSA week 15 - A couple things to do with chard

I had chard for both lunch and dinner today (Saturday that is. I'm setting this post to go up tomorrow while I'm at work. Best to pace these things out, don't you think?)

First off, I had some Portuguese chorizo I had bought for kale soup before I decided to go with an Italian recipe instead. I looked around for a Portuguese chard recipe, didn't find one, but found something close enough to adapt. This is chard and beans:


INGREDIENTS

1/2 Tablespoon olive oil
1 spring thyme
1 bay leaf
1/4 pound Spanish or Portuguese cured sausage
1/4 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 medium garlic cloves, finely chopped
smoked paprika to taste
1 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 pound Swiss chard, mostly leaves, thinly sliced crosswise
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh Italian parsley
salt and pepper
1/4 tablespoon white wine vinegar

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oil in a medium pot with a tightly fitting lid over medium-high heat. When oil shimmers, add sausage and cook until crispy on both sides. (I didn't think of this until afterwards and added my sausage later. Crispy would have been better.) Remove sausage from pan.

2. Add onion, garlic and herbs to pan, season with freshly ground black pepper and smoked paprika. Stir to combine and turn heat down a little if the onion starts to brown too quickly. Cook until onion and garlic are soft and golden, about 4 minutes.

3. Reduce heat to medium low and add beans, chard, and broth. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for about five minutes. Remove lid and continue cooking until chard is tender and broth is thick, about 5 minutes more.

4. Remove from heat and stir in parsley, salt, vinegar and sausage. Remove bay leaf and thyme sprig and serve with toast.


Tasty, but not really a very chard-centric dish as most of the flavor comes from the sausage and the herbs and spices, but the chard's inclusion does elevate it over a basic bowl of beans and weenies.


And for dinner I made a chard pesto:

I found a few recipes for such a thing on-line and they all disagreed about the ratios of the ingredients so I just winged it. They did, however, agree, that you had to cook the chard first. I used mostly stems since I had used mostly leaves earlier. I think I ended up with somewhere between a third and a half pound total. I chopped them up, melted some butter in a pan and cooked the stems for five minutes and added the leaves for three minutes more.

Meanwhile, I toasted an ounce of pinenuts in another pan, and grated out a half cup or so of Parmesan cheese.

Those all went into the food processor along with a handful of parsley and a few splashes of olive oil. After processing I ended up with a tan paste so I don't think I got the ratios right. I thinned it out with a little water, added some salt and, upon consideration, a little basil and oregano. I thinned it out with some pasta water later, too.

Then I boiled up some pasta, fried the squash, ladled the pesto on top and there you go.

Not bad, but it mainly tasted of toasty pinenuts and a bit of cheese. The chard didn't stand up. Also, I don't know if a thick sauce is what it's supposed to look like. Pesto I've seen is usually thin with green flecks, but when I ended up with a base of pinenut butter. Maybe I should have used a lot more olive oil? It wasn't bad mind you, just nothing like the parsley pesto from week nine that I was hoping for.

Still plenty of chard left. I should make something that actually tastes like it next time.

CSA week three - Roasted ratatouille

Just a short note on this simple dish. I attempted to follow the recipe by Clotilde Dusoulier at the Chocolate and Zuchini blog that I pointed out earlier but had some small difficulty.

First off, it's one of those annoying recipes that feed a crowd but don't mention it. In fact, it's actively misleading since it says to put all of the sliced vegetables into a pan, but it would take a restaurant pan to fit them all.

I halved the recipe and still used both my 13x9 and 11x8 pans. Maybe that's optional; I kept the vegetables to a single layer to maximize the benefits of roasting, but you don't really have to if you just want to get everything cooked. I'm going make the other half tonight and I'll just pile everything up and stir it occassionally to compare and contrast.

Now that I take another look, Clotilde just assumes the reader knows what size to cut the vegetables, whether to stir, what size pan to use, how to judge when things are done. I managed to figure it out and so did a lot of other commentators on the post. Maybe I should give my readers more credit.

Anyway, I added some chicken sausage to the veges to make it more of a main dish, and used oregano instead of rosemary to make it a bit more Italian to match the sausage but otherwise I just chopped everything up into big chunks, tossed with salt pepper and olive oil and stuck it into the oven for a half hour covered with foil and a half hour without and the results were just dandy (although another 15 minutes for extra roastiness would have been worth the minor drying out I was worried about).

On the other hand, they were a just dandy roasted vegetable mix and not really a proper ratatouille to my mind. Maybe it's just me, but if the vegetables aren't melting into each other and blending flavors it's not quite right. I found a dash of balsamic vinegar tied things together well. Clotilde suggests a poached egg. Some mild feta or goat cheese would work too. Why not all three?

I think for the second batch I'm going to toss in some southern-style smoked sausages and add fresh sage to match flavors. These vegetables are so common they can match with a wide variety of flavor profiles and still work.

CSA week three - lard bread pudding

The lard bread I baked last Friday was on the fast track to stales-ville so I figured I'd better use it quick. I considered making some really weird french toast, but settled on a savory bread pudding that would let me rectify my mistake of not putting in nearly enough salami or cheese.

It's a pretty simple procedure that I've discussed before. First, I sauteed up onions, mushrooms, a squash from the CSA along with a good handful of salami bits. Then I layered slices of the bread (I left out the step of buttering the slices since they were already chock full of fat.), layers of the sauteed mix and layers of sliced provolone and grated Parmesan and Romano cheese, ladling over an egg/milk as I went along.


I packed the 8"x8" baking dish pretty good so I wasn't able to get a spoon to get the extra eggy mix out so I could baste it as it soaked. That meant that, after a half hour at 375, the bottom layer came out mushy, the center layer the targetted custardy texture and the top toasty crisp. Two out of three's not bad.

I should have used a bit more vegetables for balance, but otherwise a good result. The addition of the Parmesan and Romano brings some complexity of flavor to the cheesiness and the fine-ground salametti I switched to since I ran out of the salami I used in the bread was an improvement. And my spell-checker recognizes salametti. Huh. And the squash (which made up the bulk of the vegetables) matched well with provolone and salami which is not something you'd necessarily predict.

I'll have to make a bread pudding with a less rustic bread one of these days to see if I can make something a little more refined out of it.

Late Summer Vegetable Quiche

I've changed my mind since the last time I wrote about quiche. I spent a couple paragraphs back in January disparaging the idea of crusts. But when I actually ate that crustless quiche, tasty as it was, I missed the extra texture and flavor elements a crust contributes. On the other hand, a proper crust is still a pain in the butt and still likely to end up mushy on the bottom and dried out around the top so I wasn't entirely sold.

But I saw an interesting alternative on an episode of Sara Moulton's new show: Weeknight Meals or something like that. She made a savory version of a graham cracker crumb crust by leaving out the sugar and using a plain cracker. It looked like she used a Trisket or something akin but annoyingly she never showed the actual recipe on-screen and I can't find it anywhere on her website. I think I'm supposed to buy the cookbook. So, failing that I used the whole-wheat flatbread I had on hand--made a cup of crumbs, added four Tablespoons of melted butter and blind baked it for ten minutes at 350 degrees. When I've done this with graham crackers or nilla wafers the crusts held together after baking and cooling, but this one stayed a bit crumbly so I had to move it around carefully. I think the added sugar melted, spread out and held bits together in the sweet crusts. In this case I spread cheese around inside the crust before adding the quiche fillings in the hope that it would melt into the crumbs and serve the same purpose.

Those aforementioned quiche fillings were the last of the CSA squash and eggplant (surprisingly well shredded by my food processor) which I salted, let sit for a half hour and gave a squeeze to get out some moisture and then quickly browned to add a bit more flavor, a bit of ham, some sliced cremini mushrooms and a bit more cheese on top. The quiche itself was five eggs mixed with a cup and a quarter of half-and-half (more or less. It was my leftover milk and cream from my last ice cream.) and I topped it all with slices of tomato.

Here's the result after thirty minutes at 375 degrees and one minute too long under the broiler.


And here's a look at the crust. There's a notable note of the cracker's flavor and few crunchy bits along the sides (as there was no exposed crust during baking). Mainly the crust adds structural integrity which was notably lacking in the crustless quiche I made. My advice at this point is that a savory crumb crust is well worth making but you need to choose your crackers and cheese carefully to match the vegetables. The Lincolnshire Poacher cheese and whole grain crackers I used, although they went nicely together, didn't work particularly well with the eggplant and squash. Probably something in a Swiss would have been a better choice. Still it was palatable enough even if it missed the harmonious synergy I stumbled into last time.

Community Supported Agriculture - bonus week

So this is the last week of regular CSA shipments for me. I thought that would be true for most of the other subscribers too, but if my drop off point is typical most of you didn't miss any weeks and finished up last time. I guess I shouldn't have saved my wrap up post for today.

Overall I enjoyed the CSA experience. The surprise selection of vegetables each week forced me cook more, cook better and cook more interestingly than I would have otherwise. I could have done with a lot less lettuce and I never need to see another sapote, but otherwise I was pretty happy with the selection we got. The quality and flavor were always tip top which works well with my natural tendency to keep recipes simple.

It also gave me plenty to fill up the blog with and, if I understand my stats right, around two dozen regular readers (most of whom are no longer judging by last week's numbers). I was disappointed that the other blogging subscribers dropped off posting about their cooking very quickly. I was hoping for a community with discussion to develop instead of just me monologuing on. Next year it would be great to have a discussion board on the Bee Heaven website for people to ask questions, give advice and post recipes. I'd happily abandon the blog and put my support behind that. On the other hand, having an audience was crucial to getting me to try new recipes instead of just getting rid of everything in the same old recipes again and again.

And speaking thereof, I managed to use up one of last weeks cucumbers and half a squash along with substantial amounts of dill and garlic chives in a tuna tartar yesterday. It didn't seem worth a blog post of its own since I've discussed tartars a couple times before. But it is worth mentioning briefly as I could easily have used tuna from a pouch (much better than the canned. You really should switch over if you haven't.), cut the cuke and squash a little smaller and had a quite presentable salad. Or I could have sliced the vegetables thin, mixed pouch tuna and the herbs with mayo and layered them in sandwiches. Thinking back to the very tasty cucumber sandwiches I made last month, now I'm really regretting not going that last route. I've still got another squash and cucumber left so I still might.

And by the way, last week I described the share as winter vegetables. While I was researching recipes I learned that they were really an typical end of summer vegetable collection. Just shows how dissociated from the natural harvest cycles I am from a lifetime of shopping in supermarkets. I know you guys knew better; why didn't you correct me?

Anyway, on to this week's share.

First up are scallions and yukina savoy. The scallions are so crisp and fresh that I really want to feature them in something right away. I never made the spiced beef with lime marinated scallions recipe that I found a while back. Maybe I'll do something with that.

The yukina savoy adds to the pile up of cabbage in the house. I still have all of last week's baby bok choy and a bit of the head of Western cabbage from before. If I want to go through a lot at once I think I'll have to do a stir fry or maybe a slaw.

Next I've got more tomatoes, which I will eat fresh this time since I squandered last week's box, a couple peppers once of which looks stuffable, a couple of possibly radishes/possibly turnips I found in the extras box that will roast up nicely either way and a nice big bag of shiitake mushrooms. If I'm going to do a stir fry with the cabbage, the mushrooms will likely end up in there.

And finally, a daikon, some Japanese eggplant, strawberries and cilantro. I did a bit of poking around for a recipe that would use both the daikon and the eggplant (and preferably some of the cabbage too), but nothing presented itself. I could do a tempura, but I've been defaulting to deep frying too much lately and I'd like to go another way.

The cilantro looks a bit faded so I wouldn't be surprised if it goes off before I get to use it, but otherwise I'll find a use for it.

And that leaves the strawberries. Last week I made some whipped cream to accompany them, but I don't think the whipping added anything. It'll be just plain cream this week.

Blogger (or possibly my internet connection) is being temperamental. I'll add the pictures later when I can. Or, alternatively, I'll accidentally delete them. Ah, you know what all those vegetables look like by now.

CSA week 19 - fresh tomato and summer squash pasta sauce

I noticed today that my tomatoes were a bit past their prime so it was time to put them to use. However, since they were a little mushy I didn't want to use them raw, but since they were so nice fresh I didn't want to cook them very much either. The solution I came up with was a lightly cooked fresh tomato sauce.

There are two main approaches to fresh tomato sauces. Either you take a large tomato, blanch it, peel it, seed it, chop it and then cook it down a little bit, or you take a handful of small tomatoes and run them through the blender with a splash of wine and a drizzle of olive oil. I tried to leave the sauce thick and bit chunky, but the tomatoes were a little watery so I ended up with a rather thin sauce. Nothing a little cooking down couldn't fix.

But first I fried up some chopped squash in butter and olive oil and, on impulse, an equal amount of bay scallops. If I had known I was going to be adding seafood I would have used white wine with the tomatoes. After those ingredients were cooked through and a bit browned, I removed them and added the tomato sauce to the pan along with some basil. Fresh would have been nice, but I was all out so dried. I simmered that for maybe four minutes while the pasta cooked, returned the squash and scallops to heat through, added the al dente pasta (and some black olives which were a mistake so I'm not going to mention them). Cooked for another minute and, bar some grated Parmesan, it was done.

It was a nice light fresh combination of flavors. It might be a little disappointing if you're expecting the intense flavor of canned tomato sauce, but it was subtle not bland. In retrospect, I think the flavors may have worked better at room temperature. I'll have to try that next time.

CSA week 19 - ratatouille de Provence

Heavens, are there a variety of ratatouille recipes out there. Most times when I do my pre-cooking research I find two or three recipes cut and pasted all over the web (without proper attribution I might add). Not with ratatouille. With the exception of the (really cool) version created for the eponymous movie, every recipe I saw was different.

The recipes fell into two general categories with mention of a third version that nobody makes any more. Classically, you cook up eggplant, squash, peppers and tomatoes in four different pots and then combine them once they're each done just right. I haven't the pots, burners or patience to do that. The standard version is to simmer the eggplant, squash and peppers all together, adding the tomatoes late. And then there's the roasted variant where you lay the four vegetables out on a baking dish and stick them in the oven. That last one was tempting, but I decided that it wasn't really a proper ratatouille and for my first try at the dish I wanted to not stray too far from the Platonic form.

But even within that general description no two recipes agreed on the ratio of the various vegetables, the cooking times or the details of the seasoning. In the end, I settled on two different particularly interesting recipes to work with. This one that added niçoise olives, Dijon mustard, red wine and herbes de Provence for a distinctly regional flavor, and this one for it's methodical, lab-tested procedure. I recommend checking out the Cooking for Engineers website in general when puzzling out a new dish. Along with Alton Brown's oeuvre and McGee's On Food and Cooking, it's a great resource for cutting through the kitchen lore to what you really need to do to make the recipe work. For instance, there was no salting and purging the eggplant as many recipes reflexively call for; doing that helps the eggplant stay firm which I didn't want and doesn't really do anything to cut bitterness which modern varieties of eggplant don't suffer from anyway (unless you buy the really old spongy ones which you should know better than to do).

I split the difference between the two recipes and came up with a trick of my own. I decided that the tomatoes from our share were too nice to cook so I used canned tomatoes and boosted the flavor with tomato paste. One other thing I learned that all the recipes agreed on was that there's no such thing as too much ratatouille so I used as much vegetation as could fit in my dutch oven. Most recipes use more eggplant than squash so I went with that and then used both bell peppers I had bought. The 14 oz can of tomatoes seems standard for the dishes that use canned I didn't use one of my 28 oz cans of fire-roasted tomatoes which is a shame as that would have added some nice extra flavor.

Here's what I ended up with:

1/4 cup EV olive oil
6 garlic cloves, sliced thin
1 medium onion, sliced thin
1 Tablespoon tomato paste
1 14 oz can chopped tomatoes in juice, with tomatoes and juice separated. Squeeze the tomatoes a bit to get 2/3 cup of juice total
1 large eggplant, 1 inch cubes
2 small or 1 large summer squash (about half the weight of the eggplant), 1 inch cubes
1 red bell pepper, 1 inch pieces
1 green bell pepper, 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup dry red wine (something Provencal preferably, of course)
1/2 cup pitted niçoise olives (which I had to pit myself I'd like to point out)
2 Tablespoons herbs de Provence (from Spice House)
2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard (Dijon isn't particularly near Provence. If you can find Provencal mustard, use that instead.)
fresh thyme, parsley and basil
salt and pepper to taste (more than you think you need, probably)


1. Heat olive oil on medium high heat in large pot or dutch oven. Add garlic before it's fully up to sizzling temperature to ensure it doesn't burn. When it becomes aromatic add the onion and fry until onion is softened and slightly browned, around 10 minutes.

2. Stir in tomato paste and cook briefly. Add tomato juice, scrape up any browned bits. Add eggplant, squash and peppers. Stir well and cook for 10 minutes stirring occasionally.

3. Add tomatoes, mustard, wine, olives, herbs, salt and pepper. Stir well and cook for 15 minutes stirring occasionally until most of the liquid has evaporated, the peppers are just done, the eggplant is starting to get a bit mushy and squash, tomatoes and onions have completely disintegrated. (A lot of recipes call for longer cooking times and a big bowl of mush. Do what you like. You might even start the peppers first so they don't end up so much firmer than the other vegetables.)

4. Adjust seasonings and serve.

There. It's pretty easy when you hide all the chopping in the ingredient list.

And the end result? It's eggplant, squash, tomatoes and peppers; if you like them, you'll like this. Actually, I don't overmuch, but the wine, olives and mustard do add some complexity and I'm finding (as I think many have) that ratatouille is compulsive eating (possibly because the lack of protein makes it not terribly satisfying). It's supposed to be better tomorrow, which makes good sense for a stew like this, good with eggs and good cold with hearty bread. I'll add an addendum when I give that a try.
...
OK, it's Wednesday now and I had some cold ratatouille for lunch. First off, the flavor was better at room temperature than refrigerator temperature to my mind. Second, the flavors continued to meld and change over time. Yesterday the mustard flavor was a bit too strong when the ratatouille was cold, but today it's retreated a bit into the flavor mix. There's just enough background flavors from the herbs and mustard to keep the vegetables subtly French. That was my main goal in including them in the first place as these particular vegetables could easily be in an Italian dish and that's not what I was aiming at. So, on the whole I'm pleased. Now I just need to see how well it survives freezing.

CSA week 17 - kabak mucveri

I had hoped to make the oil down today but breadfruit has proven elusive. I can think of a couple other likely places to check so all hope is not lost. On the other hand, it doesn't use any CSA vegetables beyond the onions so it can wait a few weeks until I have nothing else on the agenda.

Instead I made the squash fritters I mentioned last Saturday. This is a Turkish zucchini fritter recipe that I found here. If you remember my last squash fritter, that time I ran the squash through the food processor and it ended up mush. This time I shredded it by hand, salted it and drained it for a half hour (although a few good squeezes at the end did most of the work). It's still mush, but it's a mush with a much lower water content and a good bit of flavor. In another minor substitution, I used the stalk of a green onion to substitute for the scallion and yellow onion called for.

The recipe gives a choice of kasseri or feta cheese and I was rather surprised at how different they were when I found the kasseri. The feta was much more flavorful--this is the same feta I called bland last month when I made a lousy Greek salad, but it's aged very nicely--but the kasseri promised to melt much better. In the end I went half and half.

I noticed too late that the recipe called for shallow frying in a flat pan, but I don't think deep frying did any harm other than to the aesthetics. The fritters were quite mild, but gained flavor as they cooled. Even around room temperature they never really burst with flavor, but at least you could tell they were made with squash. The original recipe suggests pairing with a lemon-garlic-yogurt sauce and grilled meats which are both good ideas. The mild fritters' flavors were emphasized by the contrasts. The suggested garnishes of tomato, olives and hard-boiled egg seem like they'd work too if I had remembered about them. I'll try them with the leftovers later.

On the whole not bad, but not fabulous. I do wish I could have tasted the dill and parsley. Maybe if I boosted the fresh herbs with dried in the next fritter I make.

CSA week 15 - marinated zucchini salad

I was off to a potluck barbecue today so a salad was in order--nothing too fancy or weird for a change. I wanted to use the zucchini and looking around I found a nice simple recipe: slice the zucchini thin; marinate in lemon juice and olive oil with garlic, salt and pepper; finish with fresh herbs. I decided to unsimplify it.

1 lb zucchini, sliced paper thin
1/4 medium onion, sliced paper thin
1 large or two small lemons, juiced. I tried meyer lemons but I think that was a mistake.
2 garlic cloves, crushed and cut in half
2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
salt, plenty. (The one thing you can always say about zucchini is that it could use more salt)
fresh ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped (basil would have been my first choice of herb, but I don't think it worked with the meyer lemon)
1 tablespoon fresh scallion, chopped
1/2 tablespoon salt-packed capers, rinsed

As in the original recipe, I tossed everything together and let sit for the salt and citric acid to work on the zucchini's texture. That recipe called for 4 -8 hours, but I found the zucchini getting limp and the marinade getting diluted by the released water within a couple hours. First I added the onion for a bit of crunch, but that went limp fast too. As a second attempt (and in response to learning that a bunch of extra people were coming to the barbecue) I sliced up and added the summer squash and some more onion which helped quite a bit.

It turned out fairly well. The zucchini and onion retain the individual flavors and there are hints of citrus and herbs. The garlic, unfortunately, is too forward. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I should have used less garlic. Still and all, a fine accompaniment for grilled meats. In fact, putting it right on top of the meat in the hamburger bun along with a slice of tomato was a very nice way to go.


1/2 lb summer squash, sliced paper thin
1/4 medium onion, sliced paper thin