Zucchini/Summer Squash Curry

We’ve only made curries from scratch a few times, and I think this was the biggest success.  R absolutely loved it, I think I would add half cashews or maybe even raisins in the last 5-10 minutes when we make it again.  But make no mistake, that’s “when” and not “if.”  Recipe via Epicurious.

 

Comfort food – Spicy Macaroni & Cheese, Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Most of the time we try to keep this blog focused on moderately healthy meals.  This is an exception.  There’s really nothing healthy about this, but after a pretty hectic couple of weeks for the both of us, it hit the spot.

We’ve tried lots of baked & stovetop macaroni & cheese recipes in the past, but all of them seemed to be mising something.  So I started from an Alton Brown recipe, dialed up the seasoning and added paprika and chiles, and wound up with a winner, if I do say so myself.

 

Blackened Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Garlic/Dill/Carrot Mashed Potatoes

While we do a pretty good job faking our way around the kitchen, when it comes to the grill, R. & I are ridiculously inept.  But the only way to get better is to practice, right?  Tonight, with the beginning of classes right around the corner, we gave it the old college try and wound up with our third straight meal that garnered enthusiastic thumbs-up from the both of us.

 

Grilled Fish, Potatoes, Veggies

Can’t say there was much to this recipe–we just loaded up 2 aluminum foil pouches and sat them on the grill for 40 minutes.  One with scallions, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, lemon juice, oil, rosemary and thyme.  The other with potatoes, onion, and a bit of salt & butter.  Then we plunked down some fish–trout–with a little bit of butter to finish it all.

 

Minty Garlic Scape Curry

R. is out of town visiting family, and I’m all by myself with a whole farm share all to myself.  With her away, I’m free to try out some wacky stuff, as there’s nobody around to pay for my failed experiments.

Last week when looking around for garlic scape recipes (they’re almost ALWAYS pestos), I came across this little number from Open Source Cooking.  Now, I don’t have any green curry, and between the e. coli scare and the fact that our own tomato plants haven’t yet produced anything, I was going to need to do some adaptation.

The result was a middling success, with some potential.  i used carrots instead of tomatoes, but they just didn’t deliver–tomatoes, peppers, or some other flavor-heavy ingredient would likely do the trick.  The mint, however, was both the biggest gamble and the most satisfying payoff of the day.  The crispness was a nice contrast to the lip-tingling spiciness of the curry.  I had it with a ginger-clove rice, some sourdough friendship bread I made yesterday, and a Middle Ages Tripel Crown.

 

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Garlic Mashed Potatoes

R & I have basically been eating vegetarian for a while now–not really as a matter of principle, but just to try to get ourselves into healthier eating habits.  But with our farm share coming up, and with a bunch of meats sitting in our freezer needing to be used, we’ve celebrated the end of the school year with a quasi-return to the carnivorous world.

 

Cheese Tortellini Pesto Pasta Salad

Because we keep getting bunches and bunches of fresh basil from our farmshare, in addition to the basil we’ve been growing ourselves, R. has been making a lot of pesto in our blender.  When we had a Labor Day picnic on tap, then, she went right into making a pasta salad.  It was fantastic!  No picture today, sadly.  You can find the original recipe here.

 

Spaghetti Squash, Tomatoes & Basil

 

This was another one of those “We have a fridge full of vegetables, we need to use them FAST!” kind of recipe, but it wound up as a pretty excellent meal.  Spaghetti squash are an interesting taste–almost pumpkin-ey.  This recipe probably would work better as a side dish than a main course. 

 

Pasta with Zucchini, Squash & Herbs

This was a surprisingly good pasta dish with a nice sweet-tasting sauce that was not too heavy. I’d adapted it from an original recipe that called for shallots, port, tomato paste and a lot less garlic. Instead, I put in more garlic, red wine, and some of the fresh cherry tomatoes from our farm share. It was good as leftovers, as well. I’d definitely make it again!

 

Chicken Cabbage Saute with Spicy Carrots & Chard

Part of the fun (and part of the challenge) of our CSA farmshare is figuring out ways to use up all the fresh vegetables (many of which we’ve never used before) so none of the food goes to waste. We’ve been getting tired of the chard salads, so this side dish was an opportunity to try something new. When we made spring rolls for the picnic (see recipe here) we had a ton of leftover carrots and cabbage. So, I googled around a bit and adapted a couple of recipes (original recipes here and here). The carrots & chard was alright, although R. and I both agreed that the sauce could be improved. We discussed perhaps a more lemony/peppery flavor, instead of the spiciness that almost overpowered our delicious fresh carrots. The cabbage dish, however, was wonderful. The fresh garlic we had, along with the ground pepper and sea salt made for a surprisingly nuanced taste with the just slightly carmelized vegetables. We’ll definitely make it again!