Cherry Bruschetta

Remember the strawberry brushetta I shared a while back?  This is a very similar concept–except with cherries.  I made it to bring to my good friend Heather’s (hi Heather!) house for a summer barbeque.  I thought they came out pretty tasty—nice and refreshing for the summer.  A word of wisdom I will leave you with—-this recipe called for jicama.  I had never used jicama before and the labels were wrong at the Giant, so I bought a big thing of ginger instead.  You probably don’t want to cut up big pieces of ginger for these!  I ended up not using jicama.  Maybe next time…

Enjoy!  and thanks for reading.

Ingredients
1 cup fresh sweet cherries, pitted and finely chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped jicama (I omitted)
1 medium scallion, sliced
1/2 tsp red wine vinegar
salt and pepper
4 ox. soft goat cheese
18 baguette slices, lightly toasted

Directions:

Combine the cherries, jicama, scallion and vinegar.  Season with salt and pepper.

On each baguette, spread a layer of goat cheese.  Top with the cherry mixture.
Source: Annie’s Eats.  Original source: Fine Cooking, May 2010

Look who got a new argyle collar!  She loves it.

Tomato Cobbler

I’ve probably had this recipe saved for about a year…..just waiting for tomato season!  If you haven’t been able to tell by now, I love biscuits, so any excuse to combine biscuits with a vegetable and call it dinner/lunch, seems like a great idea to me.  These cherry tomatoes  came in my farm share box the other week, so it seemed like the perfect time to try the recipe.  The original recipe called for gruyere cheese in the biscuit topping, but since I wanted PJ to try these, I had to leave the cheese out.  Either way—they were worth the wait.   The caramelized onions especially added a tasty touch to the roasted tomatoes.  Enjoy!  And thanks for reading.

Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp thyme
2-3 lbs cherry or grape tomatoes
3 tbsp all-purpose flower
salt and pepper

For the biscuits–
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp  salt
8 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 cup grated gruyere cheese (I had to omit)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream (I used whole milk)

Directions

1. In a large skillet, combine the oil and butter over medium heat.  Add the onions and let them cook down and caramelize—about 20-25 minutes.  Stir occasionally.

2. When they are caramelized, add the garlic and thyme and cook about 1-2 minutes.  Remove from heat and let cool.

3.  When they are cool, combine the onion mixture, tomatoes, flour, salt and pepper.  Set aside while you prepare the biscuit topping.

4.  For the biscuit topping–combine the flour, baking power and salt.  Add the cold, cubed butter—either use a food processor or use your hands to break up the butter into small pieces.   Add the cheese (if using) and pour the cream in.  Mix the cream into the dry ingredients to make a soft dough.

5.  Pour the tomato mixture into a 9 x 13 in. baking dish.  Using a large spoon, scoop the biscuit dough into clumps on top.  Bake at 375 for about one hour and 10 minutes.  The tomatoes will be bubbling and the biscuits are golden.  Let cool.

Source: Annie’s Eats

Someone else has been waiting forever to try this too….

Greek Panzanella

I made this for the first time last summer and have been waiting all year for fresh tomatoes to make it again.  It’s really delicious and very summery.  One of the nicest things about this recipe is that you can use whatever vegetables you have on hand (i.e. whatever showed up in your farm share that week!).  My favorite part are the cubes of bread—definitely don’t skimp on these.  If I was left up to my own devices I would probably just soak the bread in the dressing, but alas, a girl should probably eat her vegetables.  Enjoy!  And thanks for reading.

Ingredients
3 cups (or so) diced bread
1 cucumber/zucchini/squash, diced
1 or 2 peppers, diced
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced.
2 tsp. minced garlic (2 cloves)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 cup olive oil
feta cheese
olives (I omitted)

Directions
1.  Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  When it’s hot, add the diced bread and season with salt and pepper.  Stirring frequently, toast the bread till it’s browned, about 5-10 minutes.  Let cool.

2. Combine the cucumber, peppers, tomatoes and red onion.

3.  In a small container, whisk together the garlic, red wine vinegar, oregano, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper to taste.  While whisking, add the remaining 1/2 cup of olive oil.  (If this seems like it would be a lot of dressing for your veggies, you could cut it in half).

4.  Add the feta, olives and bread to the vegetables.  Pour the vinaigrette over the top and mix to combine.  Let it rest for about 30 minutes to let all the flavors develop.

It lasts for a while, so it’s good to enjoy for lunch.

Source: Barefoot Contessa: How Easy is That?

 

Also, if anyone is in the Baltimore area and is looking to adopt a cat, I discovered this cat rescue over the weekend: Lucky Cat Rescue

They seems like a really well-run organization and have many pretty kittens and cats up for adoption.  They are also looking for volunteers to foster cats.  If you are interested–please check them out!

Everyone should be as lucky as this cat with her very own fort!

 

 

Sharing about a Farm Share

Whoops….it seems as though I have been a little MIA.  I’ve been taking pictures of food, but just haven’t posted any!  My goal from here on out is to post once a week, so please keep me to it if I start slacking again.

One of the most exciting things that has happened since I last wrote was that my farm share started!  I did it last year as well, and to be totally honest, was a little overwhelmed by all the vegetables I had to use in a week.  This year however, I was ready and have been trying to be more creative with using everything we’ve gotten.

Here’s a picture of what we got during one of the first weeks….

Lots of green!  In recent weeks it’s been more colorful….especially with the tomatoes.

Here’s a little salad that I made for dinner one night.  It’s got the lettuce (obvi), sliced radishes, avocado and fried goat cheese.  The fried goat cheese is really tasty—I just cut slices of goat cheese, dipped them in egg and coated them with panko.  Then I fried them for a few minutes on each side in a pan over medium heat.

One of the fun things about the farm share is that you end up with things that you never heard of, but get to figure out how to use.  Like, kohlrabi.

Kohlrabi is a weird looking space-like vegetable:

Source

I looked around for recipes to figure out what to do with mine and decided to try to make kohlrabi fries.  One thing to know about kohlrabi is that it has a really thick outer layer and several layers of fiber underneath.  You have to really use your vegetable peeler to get all the fibrous layers off.  Every time I use my vegetable peeler I cut myself, so I think I was probably bleeding and didn’t get all the fibers off.  It makes the final product a little chewy, which wasn’t especially delicious.  So, word to the wise, keep peeling!

To make the kohlrabi fries:

1) Peel off the outer layer of the kohlrabi and slice it into thick slices.

2) Heat canola oil in a large skillet over medium heat.

3) Dip the kohlrabi slices into flour that has been lightly salted.

4) When the oil is hot, add the floured kohlrabi to the pan and cook for a few minutes (2-3) on each side until they are browned.

5) Let cool on paper towels and sprinkle with a spice of your choice (ex. ground cumin, paprika, chili powder or curry powder)

Mine were probably chewier than they were supposed to be, but they were definitely interesting……if you ever find yourself with a kohlrabi, give it a try!

Source: Adapted from New York Times

Enjoy!  And thanks for reading.

p.s. I’m currently watching the men’s gymnastics individual finals.  Has anyone else noticed how much nicer the male gymnasts are to each other than the female gymnasts?  They all clap for each other!  So much nicer.