Tuesday's haul

We will be picking up a full share for the next few weeks. Considering the amount of leftover produce we had from the last week(s), we knew we'd have trouble fitting it all into the refrigerator. We gave a bit away yesterday, and I'm not quite sure what's left, but the list for this week's haul follows.

1/2 pound arugula
1/2 pound tatsoi
2 heads butter lettuce
2 pounds pattypan squash
2 eggplant
2 red bell peppers
3 pounds (I think) potatoes
2 pounds sweet potatoes
2 pounds beets
1 head garlic
3 small winter squash -- I think we have a butternut, acorn, and sweet dumpling
1 large bunch scallions
1 large bunch swiss chard
1 large bunch basil -- this may be the last of it; I know my container plants are going all twiggy
PYO: 10 jalapeno, 10 habanero, small bunch parsley, 30 stems flowers. We didn't take any other herbs because we still have some from last week.

While I ran around with the kids, Matt made Tuesday dinner:
Baked penne with roasted peppers, fresh basil and goat cheese. He made use of a jar of sauce I brought home from Trader Joe's the other day.

Matt also roasted some beets last night and is marinating them today with some sliced onion. He's using a recipe from our newest cookbook, Jim Lahey's my bread, and if I can get it together we may have fresh bread to make our beet-arugula-goat cheese sandwiches.

Also, via Chocolate and Zucchini, I discovered that there is a group that has organized The Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge and are baking their way through Peter Reinhart's book, week by week. The group started in May 2009 and is already up to the focaccia. That was the recipe I was lusting over the last time I picked up the book -- it involves pouring a half-cup of olive oil, sea salt, and herbs over the top. Imagine the crust. I'm a bit sorry I didn't know about this sooner; joining may have given me the incentive I need to get a regular bread-baking practice started. Although it is still possible to participate, anyone joining now and starting from the beginning would be many weeks behind, so there doesn't seem much point (to me). One nice thing is that the challenge has produced a plethora of blog posts with excellent photos of the various stages of the preparations. Useful. For the near-term (like this week) I am interested in the no-knead method that Lahey presents. Truly, I think that the difference between knead and no-knead is minimal. Most of the bread recipes I have seen only ask for 5 to 7 minutes of kneading. Not bad. It just seems like a lot of work. I think the biggest challenge will be finding a place for the dough to rest for 12 to 18 hours in our crowded space.

Recipe: Roasted Potatoes with Fennel, Kale, and Gruyere

My mom invited us to dinner on Friday and then on Sunday, dropped off enough leftovers to feed us all for a couple more days.

In between, we made Saturday dinner together:

Matt made some polenta with onions and fennel seed. He then cooled it, cut it into pieces and fried it. This was not altogether successful because the polenta was still quite wet and soft. We put it in the oven to dry it out, then saved the rest and tried it again this morning for a little breakfast on-the-go. It was nice to have something warm for breakfast.

I made the following, based on a recipe from Patricia Wells' Vegetable Harvest. The original called for bacon. I used some smoked paprika, fennel, and kale. It was good but, I must say, not as good as the simple roasted potatoes with lemon. The kids were thrilled and devoured it.

Recipe: Roasted Potatoes with Fennel, Kale, and Gruyere.

There is plenty of room for improvisation here; it is not at all a complicated undertaking and I think most people have probably made something similar before. The original recipe calls for yellow-fleshed potatoes, and while I used the red potatoes from Cherry Grove, I am leaving that detail intact because I prefer yellow. Similarly, I only had a small amount of gruyere, so I supplemented with some organic monterey jack that was sitting in the cheese drawer, but I think all gruyere would have been better. Also, the original recipe was obviously meant to be served as a small side, because it called for only 4 potatoes, resulting in 8 servings. We made as many as I could fit on my baking pan, or until I got bored with scrubbing and prepping. It is definitely scalable.

8-10 yellow-fleshed potatoes
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus a little more for sauteeing
sea salt
1 fennel bulb
1 small bunch kale or other dark leafys
1 clove garlic
smoked paprika
1 cup grated gruyere
1/4 cup minced fresh chives
freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Cut the potatoes in half, lengthwise. Extra large ones may be cut in quarters, as needed. Toss in a bowl with 2 tablespoons olive oil and about 2 pinches (maybe 1 1/2 teaspoons) of sea salt. Place on a baking sheet, cut side down and place in the oven to roast for about 40 minutes, or until tender.

While the potatoes are roasting, mince the garlic, core and dice the fennel, and cut the kale into bite-sized pieces. Warm a bit of oil in a saute pan, add the garlic and fennel and saute for a few minutes, until softened. Add about 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika or more, to taste, and continue to cook a few minutes more. Add the kale and saute until wilted. Remove from heat and sprinkle with a touch of salt.

When the potatoes have emerged from the oven, turn them over on the pan and use a paring knife to score the face lightly with a little hash mark. Grind black pepper over the lot of them. Distribute the smoky fennel and kale mixture atop that, and then sprinkle the cheese. Finish with a light dusting of smoked paprika and return to the oven for 2-3 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Garnish with minced chives and serve.

We have a lot of our share left over:
a lot of hot peppers (I hope they are not going moldy)
a small head of butter lettuce
a few scallions
a small eggplant
a few bell peppers
2 small winter squashes
a handful of beets
a few potatoes
2 small watermelons

Yikes. We will need to get organized. We had plans for most of this food, but the leftovers gave us a way out. On the agenda for this week: chiles rellenos with summer vegetables if the poblanos survived, marinated beets to be eaten with arugula and goat cheese on some fresh bread, watermelon salad or juice or cocktails (see Fanny Singer's agua fresca recipe from F+W).

Lentil Soup with Walnut Gremolata and a Simple Salad

Thursday night was another collaborative effort. I began cooking, then went out to shuttle D back and forth to her dance class, and returned to help complete the meal.

Thursday dinner:
A salad of lettuce and thinly sliced red onion, lightly dressed with lemon juice, McEvoy Ranch olive oil, salt and pepper. And a bit of pecorino.

A version of the Mediterranean Five Lentil Soup with Walnut Gremolata from The Artful Vegan, which is the second book to come from the Most Excellent crew at the Millenium Restaurant in San Francisco. We only had 3 kinds of lentils, but all the makings of this dish (except the ginger) were already in my pantry/refrigerator/freezer. While many of the recipes in both Millenium-generated cookbooks are very time-consuming, because of the multiple components involved in getting the layered, textured results that are a Millenium signature, the soup recipes generally are not. We were pleased to discover this one a couple of years ago, and have made it on many weekdays since. A bit of miso is whisked in at the end, which lends the broth a certain round sophistication. But it turns out the ginger is pretty crucial because without it, the mild sweetness of the light miso goes unchecked. I compensated with generous amounts of ground black pepper. Although the soup can stand on its own, the herby, citrusy swath of goodness we call gremolata is not to be missed.

Other observations:
Drawback of collaborative dinner-making: No one "owns" the dishwashing and cleanup, and no one wants to do it.