Squash blossom fritters and chile rellenos

I've been making the above this summer and thought I would share how I do it. First, pick some squash or zucchini blossoms that have bloomed that day. I pick the male flowers because I don't know if the female ones got fertilized and will begin to grow. Usually there are more male flowers anyway. Clean them carefully by rinsing them out and reaching inside to take out the stamen (the thing with pollen on it.) Try not to tear them. Buy several pasilla chiles or Anaheim chiles. (I think pasilla have more flavor.) Recipes:

Squash Blossom Fritters

1. clean, dry squash blossoms with part of their stems left on
2. any type of cheese you like, cut into a long wedge shape to fit the size of the blossom
3. cornmeal
4. vegetable oil
5. beaten egg
   

Put the cheese wedge (try to keep it from breaking) carefully into the blossom with the skinny side close to the opening of the flower. Use a couple of toothpicks to pin the flower petals over each other, sticking the toothpicks through the petals and into the cheese.

At this point, pour enough oil into a skillet to about 1/2 inch deep and heat over medium to medium low heat.

Dip the stuffed blossoms into beaten egg, coating thoroughly. Then coat with cornmeal.

Fry in oil for a minute, then turn and fry another minute. The cheese will start to melt and may ooze out a little. Remove and drain on a paper towel with a paper grocery bag underneath.

Eat promptly with a good homemade salsa. I like to made a roasted orange bell pepper and habanero salsa with these.

Chile Rellenos

1. pasilla or Anaheim chiles, roasted, seeded, and peeled
2. long wedges of any cheese you like (goat cheese and aged white cheddar are good, although Monterey Jack is traditional)vegetable oil
3. beaten egg
4. cornmeal
   

Preheat oven to "broil." Put the chiles on a cookie sheet or roasting pan in the oven to roast, turning them periodically to brown/blacken them until they look about 75 to 90% blackened. You can turn the oven off and let them sit inside for about 15 minutes or remove them and put them in a glass bowl covered with plastic wrap for about 10 minutes. You should be able to get a knife under the skins and peel the skins off easily after doing this. Try to keep the peppers whole and not pierce them. Make only 1 slit in the side of the pepper to reach in and clean out the seeds and veins. You can run them under gently running water to help get the seeds out.

Stuff the peppers with a wedge of cheese similar to how you stuffed the blossoms and fasten with toothpicks. Follow the same instructions for coating with cornmeal and frying as for squash blossom fritters. Remember with both fritters and chiles that you don't need the cornmeal to color much to be done.

Many people return the chile rellenos to a casserole dish and bake with a tomato sauce after frying. However, I like to just eat the chile rellenos fried with salsa and accompanied with some type of tangy vegie salad (like arugula) and maybe some Spanish rice.

Good stuff! As soon as I perfect the habanero and orange bell pepper salsa recipe, I'll post that, too.

Colachee. So good it's not even funny.

Tonight's dinner featured "Colachee," a succotash-like side dish made from corn, zucchini, tomatoes, onion, and green bell pepper. And that's a tamale I ate it with. Garnished with a slice of heirloom tomato.

I'm guessing my mom gave Colachee its name. And--let me pontificate--what's in a name, anyway? Colachee by any other name would taste as good, true? Ah, yes..although it may sound less inelegant.

Mom made and froze a large quantity of Colachee one summer when we lived in Idaho and must have had it's ingredients growing in the garden located on our 1/2 acre back lot. I remember as a kid being surprised that I really liked it. Recently the memory of it and the fact that I had some of its ingredients on hand made me want to figure out the recipe. Colachee has the distinct characteristic of tasting even better after it has sat in the fridge for a day or two. And it freezes very well. I recreate it here probably the way my mom originally made it..that is, without a real recipe. But these approximations will probably get you close. Adjust as you'd like.


Chop 1 green bell pepper, 1/2 to 3/4 of a large onion, 1 large tomato, and 1 large zucchini. Cut the ears off 1 corn cob. Saute all but the tomato in about 1/4 cup of butter. Cook for a while until veggies get a little tender, then add the tomatoes and cook them a while. Remove from heat and salt and pepper.

Here's a pretty heirloom tomato from the Farmer's Market that I added. I also used purple onions and a combination of purple bell peppers and Anaheim chile pepper. Don't do this. It definitely needs that green bell pepper taste. The purple onions were fine, though.

And here's dessert: plain yogurt with honeydew from the 99 Cent store and sweet plums from the Farmer's Market.

Last but not least, this meal's compostables, which were fed to the worms in my parking garage bin.

Eating the garden

Time to eat the fruits of my labors..and that of other Hispanic farm workers.

My dinner tonight consisted of pasta w/ swiss chard, garlic, and olive oil; heirloom tomato, purple bell pepper, and lemon basil salad, and beet, arugula, and goat cheese salad. And I sopped up the olive oil with a piece of crusty whole wheat bread.

The arugula, swiss chard, and lemon basil were grown by me in my little garden (pic of newly harvested swiss chard above and lemon basil sprig here). My beets and tomatoes aren't ready yet so beets and heirloom tomatoes are from the Farmer's market. And purple bell peppers were found at the 99 Cent store.

All of these are easy and favorites of mine.

Chard pasta: Boil any type of larger pasta (penne, linguine, etc.) to al dente and add the cut up stems of chard at the end of the cooking time. Right before turning off the heat, add the chard leaves and immediately pour into the colander. Drain and return to the cooking pot. Add about 1-2-3 cloves (to your liking) of minced garlic and drizzle w/ olive oil (again however much you like but generally just enough to lubricate everything.) Grind pepper and salt on top. Add some fresh grated Parmigian, Romano, Asiago or whatever tasty hard cheese you have on hand, if desired. Also good add-ins are a sprinkle of dried parsley and/or crushed red pepper flakes. Serve right away.

Tomato, pepper, and lemon basil: Chop tomatoes and pepper (yellow bell peppers are my favorite for this). Rip up basil leaves. Splash w/ red wine vinegar (go conservative at first and taste for the right amount of tang.) Add olive oil (keep about a 1:3 ratio for vinegar to olive oil). Grind salt and pepper on top and mix. Serve right away.

Beet, arugula, and goat cheese salad: Boil some beets. Cut into slices when cool. Rip up some arugula onto a plate. Cut some herbed goat cheese into slices or pieces (Chevre brand is good.) Chop a granny smith apple into bite size pieces. Arrange beet slices, apple, and pieces of goat cheese over arugula. Make an oil/vinegar dressing that is sweetened slightly with honey or sugar. I like to use this muscat orange vinegar from Trader Joe's w/ olive oil and honey. Make sure to put salt and pepper in the dressing and drizzle over the salad. Again, serve right away.

I was so proud of my swiss chard and arugula. They have grown so healthy looking..probably thanks to the vermicompost in the soil and compost tea (both homemade!) I've used to grow them. Grown completely organic, with no chemical fertilizers or pest control, and a lot of Farmer Winnow's obsessive-compulsive kind of love! Here are compostables from this meal waiting to become part of next year's garden:
And the worms are now eating it for their dinner! :) Ecology!

Kale and Roasted Vegetable Soup

This is an excellent winter vegetable stew that is worth passing on! Dee-licious! For those who find vegetarian cooking not very flavorful...here's an exception. I substituted kabocha one time and pumpkin another time for the butternut squash with pretty good results. You might want to even add a couple of drops of honey on the pieces of squash during the roasting to increase the sweetness a little. What makes this soup flavorful is the roasting of the vegetables, so roast well. Don't be afraid of well-browned and even little blackened-looking corners, since that's the good stuff. Be sure not to add too much olive oil, as this will prevent good browning. Another thing, if you don't have an immersion blender, these babies are a must for people who make soup frequently! SO much easier than trying to put things in the blender and much easier to wash after using. My Braun immersion blender is one of my favorite-of-all-times kitchen tools. I put the roasted garlic, onions, and tomatoes in with the vegetable broth and pour some of the broth in the roasting pan to scrape out roasting juices into the soup pot and then use the immersion blender on everthing. I cut the leaves off the kale by holding the kale leaf, stem up, and running the knife down the stem where the leaves connect. Cut the stems up and throw them in to simmer for a while but don't add the leaves until the very end, so they'll stay nice and green.

Happy eating!

Summer Herb Salad/ In praise of Lemon Basil

This is a great herb salad recipe I just discovered and am addicted to. (Click on the title of the post to go to the website and get the recipe.) The tang from the herbs contrasts nicely with the sweetness of the corn and green beans and the avacado dressing is mild and just right. I'd recommend only using a 1/2 of an avacado for the dressing, though. Otherwise, it's tastes too guacamole-y.

I keep making this with lemon basil (http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/48821/) that I've picked up at my local farmer's market. If you have never tried lemon basil, try to get your hands on some! Such a nice clean-sweet-zesty scent that causes you to compulsively and repeatedly sniff and sigh happily...this might be the original "people-nip"! I'm so smitten with this stuff that I'm going to try to collect seeds from the blossoms and grow some on my porch. (Or maybe I should do it the straightforward way and just buy a plant.) Anyway, the taste is just like the smell and description: lemon + basil. I also made a nice herb tea with it...just pour boiling water over the leaves. Another great use for lemon basil: tear up leaves with a chopped tomato (I used some yummy-flavored heirloom tomatoes from the farmer's market) and add some chopped yellow bell pepper. Splash a little red wine vinegar and some olive oil on it (ratio about 1:3 or 1:4 vinegar to oil) and grind pepper and salt over it. Colorful/aesthetically pleasing and tastes really flavorful, too!!

Roasted Beets w/ Walnut Gorgonzola Dressing

I found this recipe (click on "Roasted Beets.." above) on the internet when looking for a way to use up walnuts and it's both delicious and nutritious (I assume). Serve it over fettucine maybe, or today I ate it over ziti. I also buy the beets with the greens on, trim and cut them, and throw them in to the pasta cooking water toward the end of the cooking time. Mixing the gorgonzola and cream in the blender might cause some consternation..try using "pulse" and scraping repeatedly; I added extra cream to make it work better. Go easy when you add the dressing and beets to the pasta, because the flavor can be strong if you get too much dressing to pasta. I don't know if this would be a kid-friendly one...? Maybe not Lindsey-friendly, either (she who prefers Kraft macaroni and cheese and Top Ramen). And men who eat only meat and potatoes might be frightened by the gorgonzola in this. Everyone else will love it!

Here's my Sunday lunch today:



With both yellow and red beets...Good stuff!!