Last Minute Idea For the Big Game

One last little thought for game day snacks.  This idea uses lots of things from your box, too.  Let's see... grape tomatoes and red onion... maybe pick up a focaccia loaf... some olive oil...

Photo via Epicurious

Bruschetta!!

Variations on this antipasto dish exist all over Italy.  Some add olives, some add cured meat, all toast the bread either with or without toppings.  The simplest version involves mixing tomatoes, finely shredded basil, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil, and piling that on top of thin slices of toasted bread.  Variations on the theme:

Photo via Food & Wine

1. Keep it simple.  Or use focaccia.

2. Use a blend of herbs.

3. Add some prosciutto.

Now, I think, we're ready for the game!

Salmon With Vegetables In Herb Butter Sauce

In Dublin's fair city, Molly Malone may have wheeled about her cart of cockles and mussels (alive, alive, oh!), but she might as well have been wheeling about fillets of salmon for as much as the Irish consume of this meaty, delightful fish.  That's one of the benefits of being an island, all the seafood, all the time!  And while most of us think of fish & chips when it comes to Irish seafood, that's like portraying all American cuisine as just McDonald's.  Those folks know their fishies, and how to best prepare them, and one of my all time favorite recipes comes from Margaret M. Johnson's cookbook The New Irish Table.  In a bit of a twist on a surf & turf, she tops some wine and butter poached salmon with veggies from the land and the sea. I'll spare you having to hunt down dried sea vegetables, and just stick with lovely land based ones.  But this is one dish that is sure to be a winner, winner, St. Patrick's Day dinner!

Salmon With Vegetables In Herb Butter Sauce

Ingredients
2 Tbsp dry white wine
1/2 cup fish stock or bottled clam juice
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 bay leaf
2 carrots, chopped
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 small zucchini, chopped
4 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup spinach, coarse chopped
4 salmon fillets, about 5-6 ounces a piece
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 Tbsp parsley, minced
1 Tbsp chives, minced
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
Kosher salt and ground black pepper, to taste


In a large saute pan, heat the white wine over medium heat until reduced by half.  Add in the fish stock/clam juice, lemon juice, bay leaf, and all the vegetables from the carrots thru the spinach.  Place the salmon on top of the vegetables, cover the pan and cook for 4 to 5 minutes or until the vegetables are tender and the salmon is cooked thru.  Transfer the salmon to a plate to keep warm, and into the pan add your butter and stir till well blended.  Then stir in your herbs, salt & pepper, and cook for an additional 30 seconds.

Serve each piece of salmon with a generous spoonful of the vegetables and butter sauce.

Guac This Way!

Great news, we're getting domestically grown avocados in this week's Crop Share!!!  AHHHHHHHH!!!!!! That can only mean one thing...GUACAMOLE!  Never has something that looks like rancid baby food ever tasted so very good.  You'll find a ton of recipes out there for guacamole, some of which contain about 15 different ingredients and even hardboiled egg.  Let me stop you right there, right bloody there, egg has no place in guacamole and if you need to add a bevy of seasonings, you are dishonoring the flavor glory of the incredible produce that goes into this dish.  Let the ingredients sing for themselves, as the only help they need is a bit of salt and lime juice to balance things out and bring out the brightness of the flavors.  So what does the guacamole sing when it's done properly?

"So I took a big chance, and gave a second glance, with an avocado that was ready to play.  It wasn't me it was foolin', cos it knew what it was doing, when it told me how to gauc this way!  Gauc this way!  Talk this way!  Gauc this way!  Talk this way!  Just give me chip!"

Yes, that was the guacamole version of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way."  Clearly I can talk the talk, and guac the guac. ;)

Fresh Guacamole

Ingredients:

3 medium avocados, flesh scooped, pitted & mashed
1 lime, juiced
1 tsp Kosher salt
1/2 red onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tomato, seeded and diced
1-2 Tbsp cilantro, minced
1 jalapeno or serrano chile, seeded and diced *optional


Want to know the best way to get the flesh out of an avocado?  Start by taking your knife straight through it as if you're going to cut it in half, and then just turn the avocado so that you're slicing the whole way around.  Twist each half apart and you'll be left with what you see in the photo above.  Then whack your knife into the pit and pull it out.  Next with your knife, slice three rows down and three rows across through the flesh on each half, and then grab the skin and essentially flip the avocado halves inside out.  The chunks you cut should easily come right out, and it'll save a lot of messing scooping.

In a medium bowl, combine your mashed avocado with all of the ingredients and stir to fully blend.  Adjust salt or lime juice, if necessary.  Serve immediately or really allow the flavors of meld and refrigerate for about 1 hour.  Serve it up the classic way with corn tortilla chips, use it as a topping for burgers and sandwiches, or see our favorite Potato Skins recipe and omit the traditional stuffings and throw in some guacamole or use it along with the bacon and cheese, for a fresh take on a game day classic!

Game on and gauc on!

Healthy Caramelized Red Onion Dip via Healthy Green Kitchen

I tend to have a fear of red onions -- long story, but let's blame it on a freshman-year college roommate with horrendous acid reflux and a penchant for subs loaded with raw, red onion.  But when I came across this Caramelized Red Onion Dip from Healthy Green Kitchen, I knew it could make be a believer in "demon onions."  So with Super Bowl Sunday on the horizon, make sure to honor your chips and give them something good and fresh to be dipped in!  If it looks like it's in the same style can as cat food, it's probably wise to leave that on the shelf, and whip up your own easy and healthy onion dip!  Plus, you'll get to put this week's garlic to good use in this dip, too.  Follow the link below to view the recipe...

Caramelized Red Onion Dip

Adventures in Cauliflower, Part 2: Pumpkin Chicken Curry over Cauliflower Coconut Sticky "Rice"

Well, it was with much, MUCH, trepidation that I attempted another cauliflower recipe.  I waited over a week to recover from the last experience, and finally got up the courage to give it another go.  Plus, not being able to sleep does lend itself to the kind of randomness needed to tackle this project.  Thankfully, 1 AM is also a great time to make curry (any time is great for curry, but I have a soft spot in my heart for late night pub curry that may or may not have followed inordinate amounts of drink)!  And thanks to new Crop Share member Louise for answering my call for cauliflower recipes and sending me a recipe for Pumpkin Cashew Coconut Curry over Coconut Rice from PaleOMG.  It should be noted that Louise is also not a big fan of cauliflower, so again I say, where are all these cauliflower lovers and their incredible recipes?  Hmmmm???!!
 
The great thing about the recipe is that it was automatically gluten, dairy & egg free, so no needing to substitute there for our household.  But the cashews had to go, especially since I was the one who discovered the Mister's cashew allergy when I tried to kill him with a cookie one night.  He married me any way.  So what better thing to substitute in to a pumpkin curry than pumpkin seeds!  Thus without further ado, here is my twist on PaleOMG's recipe, and then scroll to the bottom to see if I'm finally sold on the vegetable of doom.

Pumpkin Chicken Curry over Cauliflower Coconut Sticky "Rice"

Ingredients:

For the curry:
1 Tbsp coconut oil
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into cubes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red onion, diced
1 1/3 cups reduced fat coconut milk
1 cup pumpkin puree (make your own!)
5 Tbsp curry powder
2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup roasted pumpkin seeds
salt & pepper to taste (the seeds I had were already salted, so I didn't add any additional salt)

For the "rice":
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1 head of cauliflower, rough chopped
pinch salt
2/3 cup reduced fat coconut milk
1/2 cup unsweetened, finely shredded coconut
2 tsp local honey

In a skillet, heat 1 Tbsp coconut oil over medium high heat. Once oil is melted, add in cubes of chicken and garlic.  Once the chicken is white on all sides, add in onion and saute until chicken begins to brown.

Deglaze pan with coconut milk and then stir in pumpkin, mixing well to break up any clumps.  Stir in spices and pumpkin seeds, taste to determine if salt & pepper is needed.  Pull from heat and set pan aside.

Meanwhile, in a food processor or blender (if using a blender, you'll have to do this in stages) "rice" up the cauliflower until all the chunks are gone.

Heat remaining Tbsp coconut oil in a saucepan over medium high heat.  Add in riced cauliflower and  pinch of salt, stir and cover to allow cauliflower to steam for about 3 minutes.  Then add in milk, coconut and honey, stirring to fully incorporate.  Reduce heat, replace lid and simmer for about 8 minutes, or until milk is absorbed, taking care to stir a few times to make sure it's not burning on the bottom.

Serve cauliflower rice topped with the pumpkin curry.



Soooooooo, what did I think?  Did this finally sell me on cauliflower or do I possibly hate it even more than I did before. Let's just say after one bite, this was me...

Now this is the story all about how my life got flipped turned upside down.  And I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there.  I'll tell you how I feel in love with cauliflower!

That's right, it's official, it's almost 2 AM and I'm eating a dish with cauliflower all up in it and I LOVE it.  Now, this doesn't mean I'll start eating heads of cauliflower with wild abandon.  But it does mean that if I rice the heck out of it, coconut it up and add honey, then I can turn it into something that doesn't trip the "eww, ick, urgh, cauliflower, I'm dying, ahhhhh!" trigger.  So for those of you like me who've yet to find a preparation that doesn't make your skin crawl, then my friends, THIS is the recipe for you.

Sausage & Apple Acorn Squash via Crop Share Member Kat

Last week Crop Share member Kat commented on one of our posts on Facebook saying that she was going to take the acorn squash and stuff it with apples and sausage.  Um...YUM!  So we asked her to send her delicious-sounding recipe our way, and here it is for all of us to enjoy, Sausage & Apple Acorn Squash.  I love that she recommends using pastured pork, meaning free range, happy, roaming about pork.  Happy pork makes yummy pork!

Sausage & Apple Acorn Squash via Kat

Ingredients:
1 acorn squash (sliced in half and seeds removed)
1/2 lb Pastured pork (I recommend Mt. Vernon Grassfed Farm, Smith Meadows Farm or Fields of Athenry)
2 apples (chopped into small pieces)
1/2 red onion (chopped into small pieces)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Cover squash halves with foil and bake at 400 for about 1 hour.  Each half will be a bowl.

Brown sausage in skillet, remove meat to drain off fat.

Add the sausage back into the skillet and mix with the apples and onions.

Spoon mixture into the baked acorn squash bowls.

Top with Parmesan or Romano cheese, if desired.

Cucumber Cool & Minty Fresh

With the combo of mint and cucumber in this week's Crop Share, it'll be a passport to cool and refreshing.  If you need a bit of a detox, slice up some cucumber, lemon and toss it in a pitcher of ice water with a bundle of mint leaves.  Allow it to set up for a bit in the fridge and then enjoy your 8 glasses of water a day with an added detox boost.

But if you're looking for something a tad more substantial, try these two delicious looking recipes from Eating In Instead and A House In The Hills.  Both call for honey, so grab some local honey in store to help battle allergies while you nosh away!

Cool Cucumber Mint Salad via Eating In Instead

 Cucumber & Mint Slushie via A House In The Hills

Stuffed Poblano Peppers via Tash's Noshes

Wow, our Crop Share is just inspiring a whole new crop of food bloggers (pardon the pun)!  It seems like every time I turn around another of our members is starting up their own food blog.  You're all going to force me to actually do something about my idea for a local blogger after-hours at Nalls that I've been musing over for about a month now.  In the meantime, any of you who are getting bloggy with your crop share cooking, we would LOVE you to guest post whenever your little foodie hearts desire.  The more ideas and unique voices, the merrier!

So to add a new voice to the mix, I give you the maiden post from Tash's Noshes, the just christened food blog from Crop Share member, Natasha Scott...

Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Hop on over to see how she turned last week's poblanos into the deliciousness we see before us at: Tash's Noshes

Guacamole-Stuffed Poblano Peppers

There are stuffed peppers and then there are STUFFED peppers.  If you're intimidated by the poblano peppers in this week's share, fear not.  While they look sinisterly hot, they are, in fact, quite mild, and when you stuff them with something gooey, creamy and delectable, the peppers provide just the right amount of zip.  We've all seen chile rellenos on menus in just about every Mexican restaurant, and while they are nothing short of yumtacular, they aren't exactly going to make it onto any healthy eats list.  Apparently, "experts" say that things stuffed with cheese and battered in egg are not good for you, despite them also telling me that my bones need calcium and eggs are great sources of protein.  Oh well, I guess we'll all just have to settle for...Guacamole-Stuffed Poblanos!  This recipe from Eating Well calls for using hearts of romaine lettuce, but you can just as easily use your red leaf lettuce in its place.

Guacamole-Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Ingredients:

5 small to medium poblano peppers

2 ripe avocados

1/4 cup fresh cilantro

3 Tbsp finely chopped red onion

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup thinly sliced red leaf lettuce

Click through to read the rest of the recipe on Eating Well...

Broc-Cauli: The New Dynamic Duo?!

For those of you who've picked up this week's Crop Share, you already know, SURPRISE, you also got cauliflower!  Alright, I'll admit, cauliflower is not high on my list of beloved vegetables.  Okay fine, it tops my list of most despised.  But I'm trying, I really am and I'm bound and determined to find a preparation for it that makes me realize what everyone else raves about.  Thanks to an idea from Valerie, I think I've found it via a broccoli & cauliflower combo...broc-cauli!  Sherlock has Watson, Batman has Alfred, so perhaps all cauliflower needs is broccoli!

So with the holiday weekend at hand, here's two "broc-cauli" side dishes to complement your dinner table.  First, a warm and rustic Cauliflower-Broccoli Gratin from Eating Well, and then a light and fresh Broccoli Grape Harvest Salad from Eat Yourself Skinny (omit the pasta and toss in your chopped cauliflower to create the broc-cauli effect and a low-carb side dish).

Cauliflower-Broccoli Gratin

Broccoli Grape Harvest Salad

Let us know how you incorporated this week's Crop Share into your holiday meal, we love to know what's cookin'!

Happy Easter and happy cooking!

Corn & Chickpea Fiesta Salad

Lunch is served. This is a nice and light dish that stays fresh. It's packed with protein from the chickpeas and filled with vitamins from all the colorful vegetables.

See ingredients and instructions for the corn & chickpea fiesta salad here: http://www.ateaspoonofhappiness.com/2012/07/27/corn-chickpea-fiesta-salad-with-cilantro-lime-vinaigrette/

Avocado and Grape Tomato Guacamole

This week, you're getting a little taste of summer. The weather is gross right now, but we decided to take full advantage of the warm weather in Florida and get some produce that would remind us of higher temps and things like the sun. We even got some avocados and cilantro so you could make this delicious recipe! 

Ingredients:
2 avocados (cubed)
2 pts grape tomatoes (halved)
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 red onion (finely diced)
2 garlic cloves (minced)
2 limes (juice)
1 tsp lime zest
1 tbsp honey (agave nectar, acacia or orange blossom honey)
1/2 tsp cumin
2 small jalapeño peppers (minced)
Sea Salt

To view the rest of this recipe, please visit: http://ypbtrainingstudio.com/blog/avocado-and-grape-tomato-guacamole/

Blackened Salmon Sandwiches

Move over tuna sandwiches. Here's a fresh new sandwich to have for lunch. These sweet potato fries would be the perfect side. 

The spice rub can be stored in an airtight plastic container for up to one month.

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon cumin seed
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons prepared horseradish
1/4 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1 tablespoon honey
4 four-ounce salmon fillets, skin removed
4 slices crusty bread
1 head Boston lettuce
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced crosswise

To view the rest of this recipe, please visit: http://www.yummly.com/recipe/external/Blackened-Salmon-Sandwiches-Martha-Stewart-193564)