Cauliflower Saute
November 16, 2011 - Written by Diana
- Cauliflower is in season.
I get overwhelmed with all of the seasonal produce at the farm market and I want it all. My real problem is having enough time to cook it up before it goes bad. When we were at the farm market last I bought heads of cauliflower that I used right away. I love cauliflower, but I think it can get over cooked and soggy easily, to me the flavor diminishes, and it’s not as tasty. Here’s a way to cook fresh cauliflower and make it the center of the dish. I like roasting, but this uses steaming on the stove top to start off. Then a saute in a pan with some olive oil and some herbs. I served it with some Sweet Italian sausage and grated parmesan. Really tasty, my son, my husband and I finished it up quickly.
- Roasting instead?
I added the sausage, to make it a one dish meal, but you can serve this as a side for any meal. I used the stove top, but you could roast it in the oven in a casserole dish. I don’t like to heat …
Fast and Delicious – Grilled Veggies & Bulgur
September 25, 2011 - Written by Diana
Grilled Summer Vegetables & Bulgur
Tonight’s dinner – had a side of grilled veggies and bulgur. This side dish is a really fast and easy side that packs in a good deal of nutrients. This side can also be served as a vegetarian main and can be eaten cold or hot. So double up and bring it to lunch the next day or a repeat dinner. It’s a little scorched on the edges, but still very tasty. A quick grill with olive oil and then after you combine the veggies and bulgur, give it a quick toss with some chopped fresh basil and a little bit of olive oil.
I have a grill grate that I place over the grill top because I worry that the vegetables will fall through. I sprayed the grate with a little oil first to make sure the veggies wouldn’t stick and I used a sweet onion along with some summer squash, and red peppers.
Ingredients:
- 1 red pepper
- 1 sweet onion
- 1 small to med zucchini
- 1 similar sized yellow squash
- 1 cup dried bulgur cooked according to directions
- 2 tbs olive oil
- olive oil …
Melon & Blackberry Fruit Salad Tossed with a Mint Simple Syrup
July 24, 2011 - Written by Diana
We were invited to my brother in law’s for a small family cookout, and I wanted to throw together something cool and delicious for a side dish. We bought melons and blackberries at our local farmer’s market. The mint is something my daughter and I have been trying to cultivate in our garden. Mint can get out of control easily, so we’re planting patches of mint down at the bottom of the legs of our deck. It can go out of control all it wants down there. We have one mint plant my husband mowed totally down to the nub and after it grew back, then my son scalped it with the weed whacker and it’s back again. I need hardy plants with the two of them around because they can’t tell the difference between weeds and herbs. I am loving all the different things I can put mint into, it’s so tasty.
Garlicky Smashed New Potatoes with Spinach and Lamb Mint Sausage
March 27, 2011 - Written by Diana
Lamb Mint Sausage is my new favorite sausage. We bought it at Blues Creek Farm Meats when we were at the Lamb Cutting Class and discovered that we love it . The mint is sort of subtle, and when you throw it into an Alfredo sauce like my daughter did last week, you might not taste the mint at all. However, if you cook it on it’s own and serve it without any sauce, you can get the nice mint flavor that’s subtle, but it’s there. As a result, I don’t like to mix this sausage with other foods and serve it on the side. Tonight, to go with the sausage, I made one of my husband’s favorite sides – potatoes, though he likes potatoes almost any way you can think of to prepare it. I did a rough smash, mixed it with some garlic and shallots that were sauteed in oil, and some fresh spinach that wilted down. I threw in a couple of tablespoons of butter and some garlic olive oil …
Southern Apple Pecan Dressing
November 13, 2010 - Written by Diana
The time has come to start the Thanksgiving dinner recipes. Dressing or Stuffing what’s the difference. Where I came from, everything was called stuffing, here in Ohio, mostly it’s called dressing so I always thought it was a regional thing. Whatever – you can also call it stuffing if you stuff it, and dressing if you don’t. Usually I don’t stuff the turkey, I bake the stuffing (or dressing) and serve it as a side dish – because I like it that way. I love apples and pecans in my dressing (stuffing) and sometimes I throw in some raisins. Here’s a recipe developed by the Deen Brothers. Oven dried bread means cube it and toast it on low until the bread is dry enough to use for stuffing.
Southern Apple Pecan Dressing
Recipe created by Jamie and Bobby Deen on behalf of the Grain Foods Foundation
Servings – 8
PreHeat – 350°
Prep Time – 20 min
Cooking Time – 1 hr
Total Time – 1 hr 20 min
Difficulty – Easy
Ingredients
- 10 cups oven-dried white bread, torn into pieces
- 1 sleeve crackers, crumbled …
Quinoa Berry Salad
May 31, 2010 - Written by DianaWe went to a family/friend gathering at my brother in law’s today. Though the day was a little warm, sitting under the shade trees, it was a pleasant cookout with lots of great food. My contribution was Quinoa Berry Salad. I went out and picked some parsley and mint to add a little hint of something. When I asked my husband if I should add some walnuts, the answer was a resounding yes. I’m not a big fan of syrup for the berries, I want it less sweet, so that I can taste the sweetness of the berries, so instead I added Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette. This salad went over so well, the two year old little boy from next door kept coming back for more.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup blueberries
- 1/2 cup strawberries sliced
- 1/2 cup blackberries
- 1 cup cooked quinoa
- 1/2 tbs minced parsley
- 1/2 tbs minced mint
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
- Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette to taste
Put all the ingredients into the bowl (except the vinaigrette) and toss. Pour the vinaigrette over top, and toss a little more.
Gingered Carrots & Kohlrabi
November 15, 2009 - Written by Diana
Kohlrabi, kohlrabi, kohlrabi, kohlrabi, kohlrabi, kohlrabi, kohlrabi. There’s a joke that goes – If you say the name of something 7 times it’s yours for life, and then some girl says – John, john, etc. It doesn’t matter how many times I say kohlrabi, my mental picture doesn’t match up with that name and I go blank trying to remember. Kohlrabi is a nice crunchy vegetable, similar to a turnip, but tastes more like a cross between cabbage and turnips to me with a little bit of sweetness. My sister in law adds it to salads, or just peels and slices it up for people to chew raw. My dish was baked, bringing out another level of flavor.I peeled off the leaves, scraped off the skin and julienned the kohlrabi along with some carrots. I used my frozen ginger in this dish, which smells so wonderful when grating. I did all the mixing right in the baking dish, so it’s truly a one pot dish. Even though this would have served more , with my …
Savory Squash Fillo Bake
November 13, 2009 - Written by DianaI’ve been given the opportunity to sample some different types of organic (love it) fillo sheets from the Fillo Factory. When I’m shopping I first see if there is a quality product in the organic section. I’m thrilled that I can find fillo dough frozen that’s organic too. I used the organic spelt fillo dough for this recipe with some squash I bought at the farm stand. I’m not an expert with fillo dough. I use it and follow the rules about keeping them moist as best I can, but sometimes they fall apart. My fake out is to tear strips of fillo dough and layer them across the top nice and neat. My family loved eating the crunchy top and peeling it apart. I thought it was funny the way they pulled apart the layers.
The Fillo Factory Fillo Sheets should be defrosted and placed flat, covered with a damp towel to keep from drying out.
I used:
2 yellow acorn squash
2 delicata squash
…
Purple (Cauliflower) Risotto
November 8, 2009 - Written by DianaI made a Purple Risotto, I kid you not. It had flecks of different color purples from dark blue purple on down to lavender. If you have kids that love new colorful meals, this would such a cool dish for them to try. My son, my husband and I all thought it was scrumptious, and we’d eat it again. Actually we will, because there are leftovers.
My husband and I went to Lynd’s Fruit Farm just outside of Columbus. We’ve been going there for apples in the fall plus other fun things. This was the last weekend of the sale tent and we didn’t want to miss out. They have such cool things available like purple cauliflower, purple broccoli, purple Brussels sprouts – okay, not purple brussel sprouts – just green, pumpkins, gourds and apples. While we were there, we actually got to be part of an apple tasting. One gentleman said they were trying out a new apple and we should taste 4 different types and rate where they landed on a piece of paper. After we placed the apples on the paper in the proper like/dislike square (it was a range), he marked where …
My First Polenta.
October 1, 2009 - Written by DianaDeb, my sister, put it well when she said to me – social media is great fun. She’s right, sometimes instead of getting down to work some nights I get caught up on browsing seesmic, tweetdeck, facebook and google reader, looking at all the things people write. I also get inspiration from those tweeters and bloggers, and encouragement to try new things. I found a tweet on seesmic from Olga at Mango & Tomato and I clicked into her Polenta with Mushrooms, Bacon and Mushrooms Post . That dish looked fantastic. I left her a comment, and she sent me an email encouraging me to try it.
I had a bag of Bob’s RedMill Corn Grits just waiting to be experimented with. So I did it, I tried something new for me. I made my first polenta. What did we think? The consensus was corny cream of wheat; Corn taste with a cream of wheat texture. I poured it into a clay baking dish, sprinkled it with romano cheese and broiled it for a couple of minutes to create a nice cheesy crust on top. We decided we like polenta and we will definitely …
