Leeky, Greek-y pasta with figs and radicchio – Fresh Foodie
We had a really fun harvest this week, ranging from lots of leeks to two giant heads of radicchio and a pint of Brussels sprouts. Inspiration struck and I devised a pasta dish that would use all of those, plus some leftover fresh oregano and herbed feta I had in the fridge.
Using the weekly harvest from our CSA farm in creative ways is really at the heart of my Fresh Foodie-ness, so I really got a kick out of creating this dish. I’m not sure what I’ll do in a couple of weeks when our CSA farm closes up shop for the season. Supermarket veggies just don’t have the same appeal, although I’m certainly glad we have a lot available to us.
Read the rest of this entry »
Pasta with lobster, butter beans and chives
The last clambake that my family went to, a few years back, our then almost two-year-old ate the lion’s share of my lobster. I’m a loving, giving, generous mom, so I only resented him a little bit for it, and I was secretly tickled that my crazy kid adored the bizarre shellfish.
Fast forward three years: I ordered a whole lobster for the kid, because I simply didn’t want to share. Well, Owen simply didn’t want to eat more than five or six bites of his lobster (the slip and slide is way more fun), so we ended up with almost a whole lobster left over. Next year, it’s hot dogs for the kid, but my more immediate problem was not solved quite as easily.
I wanted to be more creative than just throwing the lobster over a salad, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to mix it with mayonnaise and stick it on a roll. The fleeting thought of making my own raviolis thankfully passed (although I’m really doing it someday), but I couldn’t get the idea of lobster with pasta out of my head. And so my dish was born….
Quinoa with chick peas, chard and currants
Now, if this recipe doesn’t qualify as a “clean out the refrigerator meal,” I don’t know what does. Sometimes getting home late to a relatively empty fridge has its advantages.
I knew I wanted to use up some leftover diced tomatoes, and I also had some broccoli. We got a bit of chard from our CSA farm and I always have onions laying around. Mix all that with some pantry staples and dinner was served!
Whole cumin seeds are so, so special and this dish turned out so flavorful and satisfying.
Potato salad with chives and feta
Our CSA Farm has, quite frankly, been pathetic this year. Finally, we got something beside lettuce and scallions this week: lots and lots of the most delicious yellow beans I think I have ever tasted, and more chives than you could ever imagine using, no matter how many scrambled eggs and baked potatoes you can make. So I tossed ‘em into my concoction of a potato salad.
I’m almost sure that I would eat just about anything if feta cheese were sprinkled on it, so I tossed some of that in there too, along with fresh basil and baby spinach, and ended up with a really flavorful potato salad exploding with fresh, fresh, fresh!
Pasta with fresh herbs, chick peas and sausage
Arriving home from vacation just in time to cook dinner … not a perfect scenario by any means, but somehow I welcomed getting back into the routine. You know the one: scouring the fridge, freezer and pantry for anything that might remotely taste good together. Oh, don’t forget, these are where some of the best meals come from!
This one was no exception. Maybe it was because our week away was pasta-free and we could have simply dumped a can of tomato sauce on the brown rice rotini and been just as satisfied, but I don’t think so. There’s something about the flavors bursting from fresh herbs that make any dish special, and since the herbs are the one things growing well in our garden, herbs we had.
Mesclun greens with figs, pine nuts, prosciutto and feta
Ever since springtime arrived, I haven’t been able to get enough of salads. I could literally eat them at every meal and not get sick of them. This works out rather well, as they calorically balance out the excessive amounts of chocolate I consume daily.
I forgot to buy hearts of palm today for my favorite gourmet mesclun salad that is really my go-to side salad, so I whipped up a little something using the same maple mustard balsamic vinaigrette that I use.
It couldn’t have worked out better, since I had some prosciutto that was about to expire, and my freakish pantry is always stocked with dried mission figs and raw pine nuts. Someday I will write a post about how you could live out of my house for months, quite possibly years, before ever running out of the food in the pantry and freezers. But right now, I’ll just give you my very easy recipe:
Shepherd’s pie: A recession-proof recipe
Shepherd’s Pie is an English meat pie made with ground beef and mashed potatoes. My boyfriend and I lazed about on July 4th, enjoying a respite from the hustle and bustle of the week, instead of joining the hoards of people heading out for picnics and fireworks over the weekend. The day was spent reading, napping and listening to music.
As dinner time approached, I realized that we didn’t have much of a plan or much in the fridge for that matter. It was likely the grocery stores were going to be barren, having been subject to the barbecuing masses. My boyfriend was kind enough to suggest ordering Chinese, but I declined and instead welcomed the challenge of making a delicious dinner for us with whatever I could find in the fridge and pantry.
Most Commented (Past Week)