Thai-style spring rolls

Tonight I experimented. With cabbage, carrots and bean sprouts, I made Thai-style fresh spring rolls. They're a little fiddly but really easy, and you can make them up ahead of time. Ria even helped me soften up the rice paper wraps (and had fun splashing in the water...)!

1 small cabbage, sliced

2 carrots, julienned finely

2-3 slices fresh ginger, julienned finely

bag of Taproot bean sprouts

1 T peanut oil (or other oil)

2-3 T soy sauce

2-3 T rice vinegar

rice paper wraps

Saute the cabbage in the oil for a few minutes. Add ginger. Add carrots, soy sauce and rice vinegar; saute a few more minutes. Add sprouts. Cook until carrots are tender-crisp (don't overcook).

Soften the wraps according to package directions. Spoon a small amount of the cabbage mixture onto each wrap and roll into a spring roll. Cover with a damp tea towel until ready to serve. Serve with Thai dipping sauce and more soy sauce.

Last night Kenneth used up a bunch of potatoes by making a big pot of scalloped potatoes, served with roast pork and steamed beet greens. A feast!

-Kathy

pickled beets and pickled carrots

Well, the weekend kind of got away from me. Friday we had friends over and cooked up a big pot of spaghetti - mostly ingredients from our garden or the farm, which was neat. Canned tomatoes from the garden or Taproot, herbs from the garden, ground hamburger from Kenneth's uncle's farm ... okay, okay, and canned store-bought mushrooms. But still!

Ria was sick most of Saturday so we didn't feel like cooking, so we had spaghetti nests on Saturday ... and on Sunday. (Twirl leftover spaghetti in muffin tins; top with chopped pepperoni, spaghetti sauce, and grated mozzarella cheese, pop in the oven at 350 until heated through and melty.) Nothing much to blog about except that we finally got around to making the pickled beets and carrots I've been planning on making for about two months. The beets we just used the recipe out of the Benardin book, but I've included the recipe for carrots below. I never imagined eating pickled carrots but they're really good! (The recipe calls for 30 carrots but I only had about half of that - but they must have been really big or something because I ran out of syrup to cover them and had to make up more. So you'll have to play with quantities a little depending on how big your carrots are.)

Pickled carrots

30 carrots

2 c water

1 1/3 c sugar

1 c vinegar

1 T pickling spices

sprigs of dill or fennel seeds

Cut the carrots into sticks no longer than the size of jars you're using. Cook until tender-crisp (don't over-cook); drain. Put the spices in a tea bag or cheesecloth bag and boil with water, sugar, and vinegar for about 10 minutes. Pour over carrots; simmer 3 minutes. Put either a spray of dill or about 10 fennel seeds - depending on your taste preferences - in each jar; pack carrots into jars; pour syrup over top. Can 30 minutes.

-Kathy

Lemon greens penne

I kept it simple tonight: pasta with salmon and greens. This is a very easy-dish - mild-flavoured, but the flavours mix nicely and I think shine better than in a more overpowering dish.

Grill some salmon fillets (one fewer than the number of people). Meanwhile, start the water boiling. Wash the greens - I used spinach and the rest of last week's savoy cabbage, but you can use any greens - and slice them to manageable size. Heat 1-2 T of olive oil and 3-4 T of lemon juice in a large pan or wok. Add 1 T of lemon zest. Start the tougher greens in the pan. When the water boils, cook 1 c of penne per person. Add the spinach or other greens to the pan. Break the salmon into bite-sized chunks and stir into the greens. Drain the pasta; add to the pan. Toss with a bit more olive oil and lemon juice (the dish should be quite lemony). Serve with lots of fresh parmesan and fresh ground pepper.

Patricia said some people were having trouble using up the beets - I think I'll make pickled beets this weekend, but if that doesn't suit your fancy, try the beet conserve: http://csanovascotia.blogspot.com/2011/02/root-vegetable-chips-parsnip-and-carrot.html.

-Kathy

oriental coleslaw; box day!

Box day! And a beautiful sunshiny one, so Ria and I walked over to pickup the box and I came home with a knapsack full of beets, mostly. Beets, potatoes, frozen tomatoes, apples and fresh spinach - yum. Ria ate a whole apple right out of the box.

Sunday as planned I made the coleslaw for the potluck. I mixed red and savoy cabbage, which worked pretty well. This salad originally called for uncooked Mr. Soup noodles and a vinaigrette made out of the soup spices, but I didn't like the MSG so made up my own dressing which approximated the flavours. Then on Sunday Kenneth told me putting Mr. Soup noodles in the salad was like putting marshmallows on sweet potato - something out of the fifties. So I desisted and stuck with the basics - no Mr. Soup.

1 cabbage, sliced thinly

1 T chives, choppped

¼ cup toasted almonds

¼ cup toasted sunflower seeds

1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds

Dressing:

2 T soy sauce

3 T rice vinegar

2 T sesame oil

2 T peanut or canola oil

1 T sugar

1 T Mrs. Dash (or other vegetable seasoning)

pepper

Yesterday Kenneth cooked a tasty squash curry and tonight we had the last of the Taproot sauerkraut in a sausage and potato skillet. I think we've posted the recipe for that before so I won't repeat!

Enjoy the sunshine.

-Kathy

butternut squash ravioli

If you have a ravioli press, then this is a nice little recipe for butternut squash.

Butternut squash and pear ravioli with rosemary sauce.

Bon appetit!

Kenneth

leek and mushroom pizza

Thursday I was in the mood for quickie comfort food, so made black bean burritos topped with two kinds of cabbage (Ria disapproved of the cabbage). That used up a bit of cabbage, but we still have 1/2 a red cabbage and 1 1/2 savoy cabbages in the fridge. I love savoy cabbage, though, so I'm not despairing. Tomorrow we're going to a potluck so I think I'll bring some "Killer coleslaw" (I'll post the recipe) ... maybe a turnip spice cake. We'll see how ambitious I get.

Last night the stove worked (miraculously!) but insisted on pizza, so we used up the last leek and some portabella mushrooms that were on sale. I have a quick and easy recipe for wholegrain pizza base (adapted from 1001 Vegetarian recipes) and a pizza stone, so I actually prefer homemade pizza to order-in.

Leek and mushroom pizza

Base:

1/2 cup all-purpose four, divided

1 package (or 2 1/2 tsp) fast-rising yeast

1/4 tsp salt (optional)

1/2 cup very hot water

2 tsp sugar

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

Topping:

1 leek, sliced

3-4 portabella mushrooms, sliced

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 T olive oil

1-2 tsp worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup chopped tomatoes

1/4 c ricotta cheese

1/4 mozzarella cheese

Combine 1/4 c white flour, yeast, salt, sugar and whole wheat flour; add hot water. Stir then knead for 3-5 minutes. Cover and let stand 15 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the stone base in a 425 F oven. Heat the oil in a pan and add mushrooms and worcestershire sauce; cook until mushrooms have released their juice. Add leeks. Cover and cook about 5 minutes. Add garlic. Cook another minute; remove from heat. Roll out pizza base; sprinkle cornmeal on the pizza stone and fold pizza base out onto it; roll up edge to form a crust. Spread tomatoes thinly on surface. Cover pizza with leek & mushroom mixture; top with cheeses. Cook until crust is browning around the edges - 15-20 minutes. Yum!

-Kathy

ricotta leek fritters; roasties

Oh dear. The fridge she overfloweth. Box day yesterday and we got two savoy cabbages, fingerling potatoes, carrots, greens, sprouts, squash, turnip, cider, and soap. This to add to the half a red cabbage, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, sauerkraut, parsnip, leeks and apples we already had. Patricia keeps apologizing for the size of the box ... now really.

So, tonight I resurrected another British tradition from my time in England: roasties. I think they're traditionally done with lard, but I used olive oil - much healthier. Oven to 450, toss small potatoes (washed but unpeeled), parsnips (peeled and cut into chunks the size of the potatoes) and sweet potatoes (peeled and in chunks) in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Sprinkle with herbs - I used parsley and thyme, but would have used rosemary if I'd had some - salt and pepper. Put them in a single layer in a baking dish. Roast uncovered until you can insert a fork easily into a potato - about 30-40 minutes.

Meanwhile, I cooked some sausage for meat and made a variation on the ricotta fritters Kenneth made a little while back: I sliced a leek finely, stirred it with an egg, 2 T whole wheat flour, about 1/2 cup crumbly ricotta, 1-2 T parmesan, and made them into little cakes then dry-fried them in a pan. I should note that this recipe originally comes from Jamie Oliver's Italy cookbook - he recommends refrigerating the mixture for about 1/2 hour before making, but I didn't have time.

Sliced up some red cabbage, mixed it with the greens, topped them with fundraising dressing we got from All Nations Church, and it was dinner! The greens tasted SO good - my body is definitely ready for spring.

-Kathy