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 spray

Core, de-stem and slice pepper lengthwise. Slice onions into similar size.  Slice zucchini down lengthwise into fourths, and divide into thirds so that you end up with rectangles of squash.  Do the same with the yellow squash.  Spray grill grate with oil, and also the vegetables.  Sprinkle with dried basil, salt and pepper. Place on the grill and if you can flip – a couple of minutes on each side.

Cook the bulgur according to directions.  Chop fresh basil up and toss in a serving bowl along with some olive oil, salt, pepper, the bulgur and the grilled veggies.  That’s it, on the table in twenty minutes at the most.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 canteloupe cut into small chunks
• 1/2 honeydew melon cut into small chunks
• 1 1/2 cups black berries

Mint simple syrup:

• 1 cup water
• 2 tsp agave
• 1 to 2 tbs chopped mint

Heat up the one cup of water in a small pot or pan.  Add in the agave and mint.  Stir together while simmering for about 4 or 5 minutes.   Pour the mint simple syrup (and leaves) into a small bowl and place the small bowl inside a larger bowl filled with ice.  This is the way to cool the syrup before pouring it over the melons and blackberries.

After the mint syrup is cooled, toss the melons, blackberries and the mint simple syrup together.  Store in fridge until you are ready to serve.  Yum.

Ingredients:

• 3 red potatoes – cut into chunks about 2 inches by 3 or 4 inches and boiled until just soft
• 1 whole shallot peeled and large diced
• 3 cloves of garlic peeled and smashed
• 3 cups of fresh spinach (not packed)
• 3 tbs of garlic olive oil
• 2 tbs of butter
• salt
• pepper

-chopped herbs

• thyme
• parsley
• rosemary

Pour about 3 tbs olive oil into a saute pan.  Heat up and when it is hot enough, saute the shallots and garlic lightly. Drain almost soft potatoes.  Add to pan with shallots and garlic and using a potato smasher or bottom of a slotted spoon, rough smash the potatoes.  With a large spoon, toss the potatoes with the spinach while the spinach wilts.  Throw in the butter, the salt, pepper and chopped herbs and give it a nice mix heating it up.  Drizzle top with a little more garlic oil and serve.

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 (recommended: Saltines)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3 stalks, roughly chopped
• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 2 large red apples, skins left on and cut into large dice
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 2 teaspoon salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground sage
• 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup pecan halves, toasted and roughly chopped

Directions

In an extra large mixing bowl, toss together white bread and crackers. Set aside.

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in celery, onion,apples, sage and poultry seasoning. Cook until onion is translucent. Pour vegetable mixture over bread mixture. Add stock, salt and pepper. Stir to coat. Add beaten eggs and mix well. Stir in Nuts. Pour mixture in a prepared 9×13 baking pan.

Bake until golden on the top and cooked through with a slight jiggle (45-60 minutes).

Tell us, are you a stuffing, or dressing person?  What kind do you like best?

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.

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 husband repeatedly dipping into the dish,  it only served 3.  It was delicious, did I say that yet?

Ingredients:

• 1 kohlrabi – deleafed, destemmed, peeled, julienned
• 3 or 4 carrots – peeled and julienned
• 1 tsp ginger – grated
• 2 garlic cloves – minced
• 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine
• salt
• pepper
• parsley

Directions:

Throw all of the ingredients together in the baking dish – up to the olive oil, mix around a little. Drizzle white wine over top, sprinkle on herbs and spices,  cover with foil, bake at 375 until veggies are firm soft.

What was the name of that vegetable?  Carrot.  No the other one.  Ummm, (look at title) Kohlrabi.  Yes, that’s it.

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

1 green acorn squash

  Ingredients:

Squash – enough for about 3-4 cups

Olive Oil

1 Onion – diced

2 garlic – minced

Sage – nice handful of fresh sage

1/2 cup grated grana padano cheese

salt

pepper

melted butter

8 Filo Factory Fillo Dough Sheets

Directions:

Slice each squash in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds with a spoon and drizzle with olive oil.  Place the squash cut side down on a baking sheet, and bake until soft.  I used a silicon sheet on the pan for easier cleaning. Peel the squash, and slice into bite size cubes.  Sauté onion, garlic and sage in one tbs of oil until the onions are soft.  Place squash, onion, garlic, sage, salt, pepper and cheese in a bow. 

Work with the fillo but try to keep the sheets damp.  As you use each one, brush with melted butter. Place six of the sheets on a baking dish so that the ends stick out over the side overlapping. Fill the Filo lined baking sheets with the squash mixture and fold the ends over the top.  If you can do it all nice and neat, great.  Mine needed a little work, so I placed one sheet over top, then the next sheet I tore into wide strips, layered over top and tucked in the edges. The squash had such a nice savory flavor, not like pumpkin pie at all.  This makes about 8 servings, or more if spread out in a larger dish making a thinner layer.  It would be a great bring to the family gathering dish.  We had leftovers that were delicious reheated.  You could probably cover the top of the pan after preparing and bake right before you are ready to use it if you want to make it ahead.

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 they landed, and told us the one we liked best was 1238.  There’s only one tree in the world with those apples, and they developed it.  That apple was really delicious and sweet, though he said it was a tart apple.  I hope they plant more of these trees.  As a thank you, we were able to pick out some gold rush apples to take home.  Cool!

I love the bright purple Cauliflower (no, of course I don’t have a before picture) though I’ve never used it before today.  I was really pumped to see that the color when the cauliflower didn’t disappear, but changed as I cooked.  I first boiled the cauliflower in a pot of water, so that I could use that water as the base for the risotto.  The water turned blue purple, but when poured in with the arborio rice, it turned lavender.  So all of these purples – dark blue down to light lavender are in this risotto and make it so pretty.  A few green herbs thrown really pop.  Then I strained the water out into another pot and let the cauliflower cool long enough to be able to dice it up.

Ingredients:

• 1 head of cauliflower
• 2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 cup arborio rice
• salt
• pepper
• parsley
• thyme
• 1/4 cup grana padano grated

Directions:

In a pot large enough to hold the whole head of cauliflower, boil until almost done but still firm.  Strain the water (it will be blue purple) into a second pot and place that on the stove on low heat to keep warm.  In large deep skillet heat oil, sauté onions and garlic. Pour in white wine, and stir until evaporated.   When the onions and garlic are tender but still firm, add in the arborio rice, and stir for about a minute.  Then pour in one to two cups of purple cauliflower water.  Let it soak up the water, then add more. Meanwhile mince the cauliflower head.  Add more purple water to the rice slowly, until it is just about risotto ready.  Mix in the cauliflower, throw on some salt, pepper, the herbs and add on top the grana padano. 

Deb, you’ve got to try this – T would love 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 do it again. Thanks Olga for the encouragement. Isn’t social media grand?

Ingredients:

• 6 cups water
• 1 tsp water
• 2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Corn Grits
• 3 tsp butter
• Olive Oil
• Grated Romano Cheese
• crumbled sage
• thyme
• salt
• pepper

Boil water and salt in large deep pot. Gradually stir in polenta.  Polenta acts like lava spitting up out of a volcano when it’s cooking, so be careful. Reduce heat and simmer gently and stirring frequently to prevent sticking.  Toss in herbs while stirring. Stir in butter.  Keep stirring until it becomes thick. 

Oil a baking or casserole dish really well – because polenta will stick.  Pour polenta into pan, sprinkle with grated Romano and broil for a couple of minutes.

Try it, it’s delicious. What new to you thing have you tried lately?