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This is prime, peak season for tomatoes and they’re the perfect ripeness and flavor for an outstanding fresh tomato salsa. The key to a chunky texture, rather than a soggy salsa, is to let the tomatoes drain in a colander for 30 minutes to purge excess water. Then simply toss with the other ingredients, season with lime juice, salt, sugar and a pinch of pepper.
Fresh Tomato Salsa
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We’ve been lucky this year with carrots – this was the fifth week in a row that we’ve received a bunch in our box. Last year, I can only remember getting them once or twice due to the incessant 2007 August rain. But this year, the farm has been yielding bumper crops, and it’s likely we’ll receive more on Saturday. So, what do to with all those carrots? How about a cool, crunchy, spicy Moroccan Carrot Salad – a great alternative to boring, old carrot sticks.
Moroccan Carrot Salad
Admittedly, this recipe is about one week late. Last week’s box contents were a perfect mix for ratatouille – eggplant, zucchini, garlic, onion, and parsley. But many of you, like me I suspect, have vegetables that hang around the week after and this is a perfect recipe for clearing out your refrigerator. There are a lot of variations and styles of ratatouille and everyone has their favorite. I am a big fan of roasting and I like my vegetables to remain separate and distinct, so this version is perfect for my tastes. You can serve this bruschetta-style on toasted bread with goat cheese. Or, as a side dish to fish or poultry, warm or room temperature.
Roasted Ratatouille
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Oh what to do with the lemon balm? I ask myself that question every time I get this little known herb in my box. Well, this time I actually used it – some of it, at least. I tied together a bunch of lemon balm along with three black tea bags (you can use any tea you like – black, white, green, herbal...) and placed the bundle in a 2-quart container. Fill it up with filtered water, place in a sunny spot and the tea will be ready in 3 to 5 hours depending on how hot and sunny it is that day.
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Ever since I bought The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook last year, I’ve had my eye on their recipe for Hot Pepper Jelly. In part because I’m a huge fan of anything with cream cheese. But most appealing was that the recipe called for green peppers. We receive a LOT of green peppers in our boxes and, quite honestly, not a big fan. Love red peppers; but green peppers, not so much. I usually hand them over to my Dad so he can make stuffed green peppers or I donate them back to the swap box.
Hot Pepper Jelly
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There’s a hard core group of burger purists out there that are probably horrified at the title of this post. Well Done Burgers! Never. Burgers are to be medium (at most) if they are to be enjoyed and appreciated at all, they say. Here’s the deal: I like a medium/medium-well burger as much as the next person – if I’m at a restaurant where someone who’s experienced is doing the grilling. Too often, I’ve started off grilling with the best of intentions, only to find that the burger is either (a) undercooked and I have to throw it back on the grill or (b) overcooked and dried out. So, when I tried this recipe, I hit the jackpot.
Well Done Burgers Done Well
The adjustable mandoline slicer is one of my most favorite and heavily used tools in the summer kitchen. In this recipe, it makes short work of turning garden vegetables into thin ribbons and slices. I piled on these “cold cuts” along with a garlic and herb cheese spread. In no time at all, I had a spectacular Veggie Cold Cut Deli Style Sandwich stacked with zucchini, squash, red bell pepper, carrots and radish.
Veggie Cold Cut Deli Style Sandwiches
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These muffins give you a double dose of your veggies – carrots and zucchini – combined with hearty healthy whole wheat flour, wheat germ and pecans. In place of butter or oil, we’re using low-fat yogurt. To give them lightness and lift, the egg white are beaten to stiff peaks and added ever-so-gently at the very end. These muffins have a lot going for them, especially after you add the lemon cream cheese icing.
Zucchini-Carrot Muffins with Lemon Cream Cheese Icing
The key to great zucchini pancakes is the thickness – too thick, and the outside is nicely browned, while the inside is still gummy and undercooked. But spread thin, the pancakes cook up nice and crisp on the outside and cooked through on the inside. I especially liked the addition of the grated onion in this recipe – it made them more potato-pancake like, especially when you serve them with sour cream and chives. Another winning recipe from Barefoot Contessa at Home.
Zucchini Pancakes
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The adjustable mandoline slicer
The Black & Decker CJ525 CitrusMate Plus Citrus Juicer
Cuisinart TOB-195 Convection Toaster Oven
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It’s taken almost two full seasons of boxes, but I think I’m finally getting the hang of it. One of the biggest hurdles that I had to get over was the pressure that I put on myself to use all of the vegetables in creative and elaborate ways. I would pour over cookbooks and search online for that perfect recipe to use turnips or spend half a day cooking a meal with kale. And then I hit that ‘‘ah-ha” moment when I realized that I really didn’t need to do much at all with the vegetables – I could let them do most of the work for me and allow their flavor and freshness to speak for themselves. So I calmed down a bit and started preparing more simple dishes. The Simple Series brings some of these preparations to you, focusing on one vegetable at a time. Each Simple Series includes three recipes: Simple, Simpler and Simplest and all three require only a few ingredients and minimal time in the kitchen.
Simple Series :: Cucumbers
Compound Herb Butter
