On Turnip Greens, and How to Make Them Tasty

Do you want to know something funny?

I used to be a picky eater. When I was little, I didn't like: cheese (in all forms except for pizza - because I didn't realize that white stuff on top was a form of the dreaded dairy product), milk, eggs, beans, green beans, most other vegetables save carrots, and oh, the list goes on. As I got older and my mom started cooking with fresher veggies, I developed a taste for zucchini and asparagus, and I would eat cheese in certain forms (mac and cheese, on pasta, etc.). I went to college, and started to appreciate cheese even more (you can't be around Mark and NOT like cheese). But just in probably the last 2 years, I've really branched out. It's because I want to, not because someone is making me - there are no "Okay, if you eat 6 green beans, you can have dessert" discussions, no "But I don't LIKE that" coming from me. My list of things that I do not like has become very short.

Things April Does Not Like:
-beans (I try, and try, and try, and I just can't do it.)
-peas (see above.)

Things April Is Still A Bit Wary of But Hasn't Given Up Hope On Because She Has Yet to Find a Really, Really Good Promising Recipe and/or Hasn't Received Any In Her C.S.A Box:
-beets (Lissa swears I'll like them)
-brussel sprouts (I've never actually had a brussel sprout, so I can't make a judgment call - and besides, they're so pretty!)
-turnips
-cauliflower
-parsnips

Greens used to make the top of the April Does Not Like list, but after I got my CSA, I became considerably more open-minded, and they moved down to the second list. I waited for about 3 months, and then came the faithful day - turnip greens showed up in my CSA box. Turnips, for some reason, scared me more than others. I hear of delightful recipes made with Swiss chard all the time, I already like kale chips pretty well, but the turnip/mustard/collard greens, I was terribly wary of.

But at the start of my CSA adventure, I promised myself that I would branch out, try new things, learn to like vegetables that I'd never even given a chance. I also refuse to waste CSA veggies. So I started my search for the perfect recipe.

Not surprisingly, it ended with a quiche. It's funny - quiche is made of all the things I hated when I was a little girl: eggs, milk, cheese, and vegetables (and the occasional meat.) And it happens to be one my my favorite foods now, and one of the most frequently-made dishes in my kitchen. I've gotten so comfortable with quiche that I don't even refer to a recipe anymore :) (A far cry from my quiche-gone-splat-on-the-floor from this past May...)

I started with most of an onion and a big clove of garlic, sauteeing in a big pan with butter.

Then I chopped some mushrooms and added them to the onions.

And then came the greens. They didn't look nearly as daunting as I felt that they were...

I roughly chopped them, and threw them in the pan with some more butter.

After sauteing for a minute or two, I put the lid on to let them wilt.

While the greens were wilting, I mixed together the liquid mixture. I used 5 pretty farm eggs...

 ...1/2 cup milk, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/4 tsp. pepper.

After that was all whisked together, I checked on the greens, etc. They were perfectly wilted :)

 Then I mixed it all together, plus about 4 oz. cheese (which sounds like not all that much, but it's a good bit!), in a big bowl.

And dumped it in a pie crust. (Not homemade - I fail. I need to make a whole bunch of pie crusts at once, and freeze them.)

Into the oven at 375 degrees for about 35-40 minutes, and voila!

Lovely, cheesy quiche with healthy greens! What a success.

My next challenge will be to not mask the actual flavor of the greens with all that cheese and eggs!

Summer Squash Croquettes

This is the perfect summer side dish (or you can do like we did, and use these as the main course.) SO YUMMY! I never used to like squash much - mainly because the only way I ever ate it (unwillingly) was boiled to a mushy nothingness by my grandma. (Whose only method of cooking vegetables, apparently, was boiling. She missed out on SO MUCH GOODNESS.)

Anyway.

I found this recipe at work in a Cooking Light magazine laying around. I believe it's the June 2010 one. These things are so yum.

First, you get some squash.

And cut it up in chunks.

So that it measures 4 2/3 cups

(I know that's a liquid measuring cup. But it's about right. And I'm okay with unexactness in cooking ... just not baking.)

Then you cut up some scallions.

And then you steam those babies right up.

And if you're like me, and you don't have a steamer basket, you get creative.

The ghetto steamer.

Isn't that pretty?

So after they're nice and steamy and soft, you mash 'em up with a fork.

This is easier said than done. So I used a fork ... and then I used a big knife to help the process along.

After you've got a big pile of mush, you dump it in a bowl.

And then you crush up some saltines, and put them into another liquid measuring cup. Incorrectly. Martha Stewart is probably rolling her eyes at me.

Then you put those in the bowl with the squash mush, plus some eggs and a little sugar and salt, and stir it all together.

And then it goes in the fridge for a while.

Once that's done, you're ready to cook your croquettes!

Put some of the mixture in a mesh strainer and squeeze the liquid out.

Then (and this is also easier said than done), make a little squash patty, dredge it in cornmeal, and put it in a big pan with hot oil.

And cook those croquettes right up! We ate ours as our main dish with a side of salad. So healthy, so yummy! Mark loved them. 

Hubby stamp of approval: check!

Now, here's the real recipe (with my slight modifications):

Summer Squash Croquettes

Ingredients:

• 4 2/3  cups  coarsely chopped yellow squash (about 1 1/4 pounds)
• 1/2  cup  chopped green onions
• 1  cup  crushed saltine crackers (about 30 crackers)
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 1/2  teaspoon  sugar
• 2  large eggs
• 1/4  cup  yellow cornmeal (I ended up using more than this)
• Cooking spray (I HATE cooking with PAM, so I just used oil)
• 1  tablespoon  canola oil, divided (because I didn't use cooking spray, I increased this by a little bit.)
• Sliced green onions (optional)

Directions:

1. Steam squash and 1/2 cup onions, covered, 15 minutes or until tender. Drain well. Mash mixture with a fork. (And also a knife.) Stir in crackers and next 3 ingredients (through eggs). Cover and chill for 3 hours; drain well in a fine mesh strainer.

2. Place cornmeal in a shallow dish. Divide squash mixture into 12 equal portions, shaping each portion into a 1/2-inch-thick patty. (Seriously, easier said than done...) Lightly coat each patty with cooking spray. Dredge in cornmeal.

3. Heat 1 teaspoon canola oil in a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. Place 4 patties in pan; cook 1 1/2 minutes on each side or until golden. Remove patties from pan. Repeat procedure 2 times with remaining 2 teaspoons oil and 8 patties. Garnish with onions, if desired. Serve immediately.

Hope you all enjoy!

Eggplant Parmesan

I am a terrible food blogger. I can't believe my last post was 9 days ago!! 

Oh well. Nothing I can do about it now...

Last night I made eggplant parmesan. Or, Eggplant Parmigiana, if you want to be correct and technical. It came from one of my mom's recipe files, and I have no idea who to credit the recipe to. But oh, it is yummy. Mark RAVED about it last night. He said it belonged at Leonardo's, "our" Italian restaurant. (Where we went on our first date, where we went the night we got engaged, etc. etc.) He literally begged for seconds.

So, you want it now? Here it is.

You start with eggplants. I soaked mine in heavily salted water for maybe 30 minutes? I've heard that helps get the bitter taste out, and also helps them retain their shape.

After they soak, you broil them in the oven

Till they're pretty and browned, like so

Then you take a 9x13 baking dish, and smear 1/2 cup of marinara sauce all over the bottom

Then you layer half the eggplant on top of that

Then more marinara

Then some cheese

And repeat!

Then you pop it in the oven

You're supposed to cover it with foil. I forgot, but that was okay, because Mark says he likes his cheese crispy anyway :)

 Et voila!

It's super easy, super yummy, and pretty darn healthy. There's a fair amount of cheese in it, but it's gotta have at least 2 servings of veggies per serving, maybe even 3. And what's better than that??

Here's the real recipe:

Make-Ahead Eggplant Parmingiana

You need:

2 eggplants, about 2 1/2 lb., cut into 1/2-in-thick rounds

nonstick cooking spray

1/2 tsp. pepper

1 jar (26 oz) marinara sauce, or you can make your own

(I was lazy, and used the jarred kind.)

1 1/2 c. shredded mozzarella (I kind of rounded up and used more like 2 c.)

1/2 c. grated Parmesan

To make:

Salt or soak your eggplant if desired. Heat your broiler, and place half the eggplant on a broiler rack. (Or my ghetto version - a cooling rack placed on top of a baking sheet. Hey, it works.) Evenly coat the eggplant with cooking spray, and sprinkle it with 1/4 tsp. pepper. (I estimated.) Broil 4 in. from broiler, 4-8 minutes per side, till lightly browned. Repeat with the rest of your eggplant.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Spread 1/2 c. marinara in a shallow 3-qt. baking dish. Line with half the eggplant. Spoon on 1 1/4 c. marinara, top with 1 c. mozzarella. Then repeat with remaining eggplant, sauce, and mozzarella. Sprinkle with Parmesan, and cover with foil. (I forgot that one... oops.) 

**NOTE: you can indeed make this recipe early, and stop at this step, keeping the covered dish in the fridge for a day. Just add 10 minutes to your baking time if it's coming straight from the fridge.**

Bake for 45 minutes, or until bubbly. Let rest for 15 minutes. (We're never good at the "let rest" part of recipes....)

Enjoy!! It's a good one :)

I'm back!

I can't believe that I have neglected this blog for so long. Things have been a little busy here, traveling every which way... but I am back, with photos of our pasta adventure! (I accidentally threw away the recipe ... oops...)

We started with the mushroom filling. Isn't that just gorgeous?

Maybe not the most flattering picture of me ever...

After the mushrooms were cooked, we blended them with a ricotta cheese mixture in the blender, and I mutilated a plastic spoon. (We later picked bits of the spoon out of our ravioli. Thank heavens we didn't have dinner guests!)

After that mixture was done, it was set aside, and we started the pasta process. And oh my, what a process it was.

First you make this little mountain of flour, and make a valley and put some eggs in it.

Then you knead it for a while. Kelly had this job. She wasn't too sure about it, I don't think...

Eventually after enough kneading, it'll turn into a ball.

Then you split the ball in two, and roll them out into sheets. You try to make the sheets as even as possible, but that's easier said than done.

Then after those sheets are rolled, you spoon the mushroom/ricotta mixture onto the pasta. (Side note: every single time I try to spell "mushroom," I try to spell it like this: muschroom. I don't know why, and it's annoying!!)

After your mushroom mixture is on the pasta, you cover it with the other sheet and squish them together. Then you cut them into (sort-of) squares, and let them dry for like an hour.

After they'd dried for like half the time, we made a tomato cream sauce for the ravioli. That was some good stuff, although it needed some more salt. It was better the second day, when the flavors had blended a little bit better.

And after the pasta was all nice and dry-ish, into a big pot it went, and voila!

Mushroom ravioli on my patio outside. It was a lovely way to end an evening.

But to be perfectly honest, while it was quite a fun adventure, and very delish ... I'm not sure that I'll do homemade pasta again anytime soon. The whole thing took 3 hours to make, and lots of elbow grease between the rolling and the kneading. It was extremely work-intensive, and I DEFINITELY wouldn't want to do it all by my lonesome.

Coming up next (hopefully soon) ... lemon dill fish, summer squash croquettes, and quiche!

Cheesy Zucchini Frittata

Yesterday, in my Strawberry Cake post, I mentioned the frittata I made while I was waiting for the cake to bake. I decided to do a separate post about it, because it's delicious and tastes basically like a garden :) I like it when my food tastes like what it's made out of.

It's a pretty basic recipe. 

You'll need:

4 eggs

4 c. shredded zucchini

2 c. peeled shredded carrots

1/2 c. flour

3/4 c. mayo

1 c. shredded Monterey Jack cheese

1/2 c. grated Parmesan

1/4 c. chopped onion

1 tsp. basil (I highly recommend using fresh leaves)

pepper to taste

First, you've got to shred all those veggies. It takes an awful lot more arm power than I was expecting to shred 6 cups of squash and carrots...

Here's the site of the veggie massacre.

Started with zucchini:

Moved on to carrots:

Isn't that pretty? I'm such a nerd, but I just think vegetables are beautiful.

Okay, so now that your arms are about to fall off...

You're gonna beat your four eggs in a mixing bowl.

And then you're gonna fold in all the other ingredients.

Now, this is where it got tricky for me. My recipe says "Pour into buttered quiche pan." I don't technically have a quiche pan. So I'm thinking, okay, well I'll just do a pie plate. 

And then I was thinking "...Will it fit? I don't know .. Maybe I should do TWO pie plates."

And then I thought .... "Nah. My recipe says one. It'll be fine."

Should've gone with the first instinct. Or planned to bake it a lot longer than the directions call for.

Yum, yum. So, the recipe says to bake it at 375 for 30 minutes. I do so, and get it out, and the middle is definitely still RUNNY. I did put the pie plate on top of a cookie sheet just in case it ran over the edge, so that may have been the problem. I don't know. I just know that I ended up cooking it for another 15-20 minutes, and it was still not quite completely set in the very middle.

Obviously, we ate it anyway. I let it sit for a while after we cut the first pieces, and it was much better today. Also, the flavors had a night to combine, and it was just delish. The only thing I might change in the future is to decrease the amount of mayo, because you can sort of taste it, and I'm not the biggest fan of mayonnaise in general. Maybe I could do like half mayo and half sour cream or something, to keep the consistency right.

But anyway, it seriously tastes like a garden. It's mostly zucchini, with some eggy stuff holding it all together, and you can taste the squash and carrots and onions and basil, and it's just wonderful.

Yummy lunch for three days? Check!

Happy eating!