Blender Soup

Last Christmas I received the Cuisinart Blend and Cook blender, but I had yet to make soup in it.  Last night I was in a soup mood so I decided to finally try it out.  I couldn't find the recipe booklet so I improvised with what I had on hand.  And voila...Spicy Tomato Soup!

Spicy Tomato Soup
This is a very tomato-y tasting soup.  It would be awesome with garden tomatoes, but all I had was canned. Still tasted great though.

Add about 2 tablespoons olive oil, a clove of garlic and about half a chopped onion to the blender.  Season with salt and pepper.  Turn the heat to medium and cook for 15 min or until the veggies are soft.

I have a terrible problem with crying when I chop onions.  Nothing I have ever tried to make it easier has worked so a couple years ago I gave up completely and started buying pre-chopped frozen onions.  So much easier!  You can put them in without thawing but be prepared for clouds of fog to start pouring out of your blender.

 After the onions and garlic have cooked, add one 28 oz can of crushed or diced tomatoes.  

Then add 1-2 tablespoons of chilpotle sauce.  This is what I always buy when a recipe calls for chilpotle in adobo.  I like that it is all smooth and I don't have to fish out and chop slimy, saucy hot peppers.  

Cook on medium for 30 min or until hot.  Use the stir button occasionally.

Once the soup is hot all the way through, add 1/2 cup of heavy cream.  Then cover the lid and blend the soup until it is the consistency you like.  I like it completely smooth.

This recipe makes about a quart of soup.  I'm going to freeze half for later.  I love a nice grilled cheese sandwich and bowl of tomato soup on the first day it snows.  Yum!

Pumpkin Massacre

I love scary stuff.  That might seem a bit incongruous with all the other things I'm into like baking, gardening and other various domestic activities, but I've always loved horror in all forms.  Lately I've been really into playing the video game Dead Island.  I can happily hack and slash at zombies for hours while my boyfriend looks on with an expression that is equal parts amused and appalled. 

So while I enjoy seeing a pixilated zombie get hacked to bits, I do not enjoy it when the carnage comes to my garden.  My pumpkins that I have displayed on my balcony in a charming (if I do say so myself) Fall arrangement have been visited by a scourge.  Not of the undead hordes,  but of demented flocks of birds.  While I sleep, these baleful creatures peck, peck, peck away at my pumpkins leaving them riddled with holes and missing chunks.

I have to admit that while the gardener part of me is angry at the destruction of my pumpkins by the same fiends who ate all my strawberries earlier in the summer, the horror fan in me is strangely fascinated by the gore of it all.  Doesn't that look just like a puddle of blood pooling underneath the mutilated pumpkin on the right?  And is the one on the left with the big drip coming out of it's wound...crying?  No?  Just me?  Okay, maybe its time to lay off the Dead Island.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Bars

Now that it is officially Fall, I'm in full on "pumpkin flavored things" mode.  I love seasonal things and since Fall is my favorite anyway I'm all pumpkin, all the time.  I recently used some of the pumpkin puree I made with the pumpkins from the garden and baked these pumpkin oatmeal bars.  They were really good on their own and I suspect they would be even better with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Bars

1 1/4 cup flour
1 cup oats
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
pinch ginger
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup pumpkin puree (homemade or canned)
1 cup butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly grease a 9x9 baking dish.

Mix together dry ingredients in a large bowl.

These are rolled oats because I like the texture, but quick cooking oats would be fine too.

In another bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

I used dark brown sugar here because I like the flavor more, but light brown sugar works equally well if you prefer  it.

Add in egg, pumpkin and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients in batches and mix until just combined.  

Stir in butterscotch chips.  If butterscotch chips aren't your thing, use about a cup of whatever you like.  Raisins, nuts, dried cranberries or chocolate chips would all be good here.

Spoon into baking dish and bake about 30 min until toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool and cut into bars.

Making pumpkin puree

When I decided to grow pumpkins this year I knew I wanted to try growing sugar pumpkins since they are excellent for making pies.  Fortunately, they did very well and I ended up with lots.

I researched different ways to make the puree and found tons of different ideas and tips.  I decided to go with roasting.  Mostly because it seemed easiest, but also because I thought roasting the pumpkin would give it extra flavor that just steaming would not.

Here is what I did:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Remove stem if still attached and cut pumpkin in half.
3. Scoop out seeds.
4. Place pumpkin cut side down on a baking sheet that has been lined with foil.  Make sure to use a baking sheet with a rim on it.  The roasting process generates some liquid and you don't want to make a huge mess in your oven.
5. Roast for about an hour.  The skins should look slightly darkened and papery and the flesh should be soft.
6. Cool until you are able to handle and scoop flesh into a food processor.
7. Process until smooth.

I used 2 pumpkins and ended up with about 4 cups of puree.  I'm freezing some of mine until next month when I make pumpkin pies.  I love these freezer containers from Ball.  They come in a bunch of different sizes and are really sturdy.

Growing Pumpkins

I don't know about you, but it always frustrates me to see all these seasonal magazines showing gorgeous pictures of unusual types of pumpkins and then suggesting that you "pick them up at your local produce stand".  What?  Where are these people shopping?  I've never seen more than the regular jack-o-lantern pumpkins and pie pumpkins at my grocery store or pumpkin patch.  In particular I've been coveting the all white Lumina pumpkin for years now, but I've never seen it anywhere around here.

So I grew my own!

Exactly one white pumpkin grew, but I was still excited that it worked at all.  I put it front and center in my display so all the other pumpkins could be jealous of it.

What didn't work so well were the Cinderella pumpkins I planted.  They were supposed to be deep orange and slightly flattened looking and resemble the pumpkin coach from Cinderella.

Not so much...

It still looks pretty cool though if you didn't know what it is supposed to look like and it adds a nice splash of yellow to my balcony.

So if there is a particular type of pumpkin or squash that you see in a magazine and want to get your hands on, don't wait for your "local produce stand" to start carrying it.  Try growing it yourself!

I bought all my seeds on amazon for less than $3 a packet so this was a very affordable experiment.

Pumpkins!

I picked up a whole basket full of pumpkins from the garden at my sister's last night.  I'll post recipes soon.  So happy it's Fall!

Mini Caprese Salad

I've always loved miniature things.  When I was a kid my parents' used to get these dollhouse furniture catalogs and I would spend hours looking at tiny sofas and kitchen tables.  So it makes sense that I'm a sucker for miniature versions of classic foods.  This mini caprese salad was inspired by the tiny leaves on my spicy globe basil plant, but if you can't find this type of basil you can just use regular and chop it into small pieces.

Mini Caprese Salad

For each salad you will need about 10 cherry tomatoes, 6 small fresh mozzarella balls (called bocconcini), 6 spicy globe basil leaves, salt, pepper and a splash of olive oil.


Layer into a bowl or a martini glass if you are feeling fancy.  Serve at room temperature.

Farmer's Market Number 2

What a difference a couple weeks make!  Last Saturday I went to the farmer's market again and it was so different that the first time I went.  For one thing it was packed!  And all the stands were completely bursting with all different kinds of fresh fruits and veggies.


My strategy for navigating the farmer's market is I try to stay away from the huge stands because they are usually the most crowded and the people selling the produce are too busy to talk.  I like to search out the smaller stands.


It was one of the smaller stands where I found these gorgeous cherries.

They were so sweet and juicy and didn't last long before I ate them all.


I also found these...

They are garlic scapes.  Garlic scapes are the top part of the garlic plant and are usually cut off as the plant is growing.  But now they are becoming popular for cooking.  Its one of those ingredients that I've been seeing popping up lately in food magazines and cookbooks so I was excited to try cooking with them myself.  So I decided to make a quiche.

Garlic Scape Quiche

Pie crust (either homemade or store bought)
5 garlic scapes chopped
1 tablespoon chopped chives
3 eggs
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1 cup shredded cheese (I used a 5 cheese Italian blend)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  


Saute chopped scapes in a little olive oil until they start to soften up a little.  Set aside to cool slightly.


Place pie crust in pie pan and prick bottom and sides with a fork.  This is called 'docking' and lets the steam escape so the crust doesn't puff up.  Bake crust for 15 min.


In the meantime, make the filling.  Mix eggs, cream, chives, salt, pepper and paprika together.  Spread cheese and scapes over prebaked crust and pour filling over the top.  Bake for another 30-40 minutes.  Since it is technically like a custard, I like to pull my quiche while the center is still slightly wobbly.  This insures I never end up with rubbery eggs.  Let the quiche rest for 15-20 min before serving.

Spinach and Lettuce Part 2

I had to pull out my spinach and lettuce today.  I'm kind of bummed that they didn't do better and I've been speculating about the reasons why.  I recently read an article about Thomas Jefferson's gardens at his Monticello plantation and it mentions that Jefferson talked and wrote extensively about both his successes and failures in the garden.  Its a good reminder for me that we can learn as much from our garden failures as from our success (although the successes are much more fun).

So I have a few theories about why the spinach and lettuce didn't thrive.  I think they both suffered from a combination of the weird weather we have had in northern Illinois this year (a hot couple weeks in March and then a cold April) and the general lack of direct sun on my balcony.

The lettuce plants had always been a little bit wimpy.  Even after I thinned them a couple weeks ago (which did help some) they still had very thin, weak stems that wanted to flop over all the time.  I think the problem was that I don't get any overhead sun on my balcony.  It only comes from one direction so the seedlings would always grow in the direction of the sun.  I would turn the container everyday to try to even them out, but they still didn't want to grow straight up.  I think because the seedlings were always stretching to try to get to sun they grew very thin and stretched out so eventually they weren't able to support the weight of the leaves. 

The spinach seemed to be doing better than the lettuce initially.  It grew bigger and stronger stems and was actually able to hold itself upright.  But this weekend I noticed that it had started to bolt.   What that means is that it started to go to seed.  After that happens the leaves can get very bitter and not good to eat.  May is pretty early for a plant to bolt, but I have a theory as to why this happened.  Like lettuce, spinach does better when it is cooler.  I think because I was so focused on letting the spinach get as much sun as possible (to grow upright), the container overheated and the soil got too hot.  This is a problem in general with container gardening.  The soil gets warm and dried out really quickly.  Since the weather turned warm last week I've had to water all my plants everyday to keep the soil moist enough.

Bolted Spinach

All is not lost however in my quest to grow greens.  I'm attempting lettuce again, but this time I'm starting with plants rather than trying to start from seeds. I think that will help with my sunlight stretching problem.  There is still a chance that it is too warm now for the lettuce and it might bolt like the spinach, but I've put it in a bigger container and I'm keeping it a little further back and out of the direct sun so hopefully the soil will stay cooler.

I've also planted kale a couple weeks ago since I wanted some sort of dark green for cooking to replace the spinach.  I've never tried to grow it so I don't quite know what to expect.  It seems to be doing well so far.

Crostini with Microgreens

When one of my plants dies, I die a little inside, too. 
~Linda Solegato

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I might have overplanted my lettuce a bit.  This is definitely true because now it looks like this.

It’s like a tiny delicious jungle.  I knew I had to start thinning out the lettuce plants if I wanted to give any of them a chance to actually grow to full size.  I hate thinning though because it feels like such a waste.  And I always get this weird paranoia that somehow I’m jinxing the rest of the garden if I start just throwing away perfectly healthy plants.  Clearly I’m terrible at sacrificing a few individuals for the greater good.  This is one of many, many reasons why I’m not president or a general or cult leader or something.

Luckily, inspiration struck me after reading The Beekman 1802 website and seeing the lovely spring salad the guys made using a whole bunch of untraditional and foraged ingredients (like forsythia flowers and pea shoots).  I decided to use the seedlings that I was removing to top a simple crostini.  They are perfectly edible so not only was I able to add something fresh from the garden to my meal, I was able to thin the lettuce ‘crop’ at the same time.  Being a garden wimp does occasionally pay off.

Crostini with herbed cheese spread and microgreens (this recipe also uses chives and dill from the garden!)

For the cheese spread:

8oz. Neufchatel or cream cheese softened

About a cup ricotta cheese

1-2 tablespoons finely chopped chives (my chives are still pretty young so I used more.  If your chives are really strong you can use less)

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh dill

1 clove garlic

1 tsp grated lemon zest

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and let sit in the fridge for at least half an hour before using

To assemble the crostini:

Slice a baguette into half inch slices and toast.  I brushed mine with olive oil and toasted them on the grill, but the oven works just as well.  Spread each piece of toasted bread with some of the cheese mixture and top with a few of the washed greens.

With the combo of chives, lemon and fresh greens this tastes like Spring on a plate to me.  Any leftovers can be used as a dip for veggies.

Garden Update: Late April

Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
~Peter, Paul and Mary

It's been about 3 weeks since I planted my garden and I'm already getting excited by how well it's growing.  Although it is still pretty early (i.e. cold) in the season for gardens in Illinois, I'm very encouraged by how well my little plants are doing.

What growing now: Late April

The biggest change in the garden is that I had to replant my herbs in bigger pots.  I had planned to keep them in this cute little 3 pot planter, but they were already getting too big for it. The parsley especially wasn't doing very well in the small pot.  The leaves kept wilting and turning yellow.  Its doing much better since I moved it to a bigger pot and has a bunch of new leaves coming in.  All of the herbs have been growing well and they seem big and sturdy enough now for me to start harvesting some to cook with.

Parsley

Chives

Orange Mint

Dill

Thyme

You can really tell in this picture of the thyme how my plants have been growing in the direction of the sun.  I have been turning the pots fairly often to try to help them get sun on all sides of the plant.

The strawberry plant has been growing a bunch of new leaves too.  And 2 tiny berries and a flower!  Serious gardeners tell you to remove the first couple berries to help the plant grow stronger and have a bigger yield later, but I haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet.

The lettuce and spinach seem to be doing well.  They still seem very fragile and delicate (actually 'wimpy' is the word I keep using) so I'll be excited when they get stronger and more substantial.

Lettuce

Spinach

The cubanelle pepper plant has been my 'problem child' in the garden so far.  It has been extremely finicky.  It hasn't been growing as fast as all the others and it wilts constantly so I have it water it more often than the rest of the plants.  In the last few days though it has seemed more stable so hopefully it won't give me much more trouble.

Finally, the tomato plant has been growing very well.  It also seems very hardy so far which has been nice.  I don't have to do too much to it and it just keeps getting more leaves.

Black cherry tomato

The tomato plant also is getting these little buds, which I'm pretty sure are going to eventually open up into flowers.

Coming soon...updates on the flowers in the garden!

New addition to the garden...Spinach and Lettuce!

I'm strong to the finich
Cause I eats me spinach.
~Popeye the Sailor Man

About a week and a half ago I planted spinach and lettuce seeds and I just noticed today that they have begun to come up.  We have had some cold days lately and I wasn't sure if it would be warm enough for them to sprout so I was happy to see them doing ok.  I've never grown either of these from seeds before so I don't quite know what to expect.  I only planted in half of the planter because my plan is to plant in the other half in another week or so to try to stagger them a bit.  I like salad, but I'm not sure how much I could eat if it was all ready to pick at once. 

2 tiny spinach plants

Lettuce.  I might have gotten a bit carried away with how many seeds I planted, but they are so tiny and hard to see!