purple potatoes three ways

Well, to be totally frank, I made the potatoes sort of three ways and then turned one into one that I already had, so I really mostly ate them two ways: roasted and mashed. And they are so good that way. The third way, that semi-involved a recipe that I mostly didn't follow, was fork-mashed and with a zesty flavor profile as per this SK recipe. I didn't quite have everything on-hand to make it, so when it didn't seem stunning, I just made them creamy and mashed and delicious. While they look like a weird purple yogurt when mashed, they taste pretty yummy, so I don't mind. They were also delicious roasted. What vegetable isn't delicious roasted? I have yet to meet it. It's such a simple and elegant solution to any veggie "problem," and I never have any problem cleaning a plate full of roasted vegetables. They just hit some flavor spot that my mouth is a big fan of and my conscience feels great about.

So... so much for a recipe. Here's some pics of roasted purple potatoes and squash (some with olive oil and spices, some with olive oil and cinnamon sugar). And some other veggies that got roasted and eaten straight off the foil in a dignified manner.

iphone hipstamatic or nice olympus picture?

I honestly can't decide which is better, which is frustrating...

paleo salmon salad

My friend, a rower/teammate who is now a workout trainer in Colorado, recently got hooked on the paleo diet. She posted about this salmon salad in her blog (about working out and eating paleo), and while it struck me as a strange combination of ingredients, she was really enthusiastic about it so I figured I'd give it a try. I didn't have blueberries or coconuts and subbed in dried cranberries for cherries, but man! It was delicious! I am impressed and very happy that I tried it. I'll be stocking up on canned salmon now so that this can be a go-to for me as well. Give it a try!

Apologies for the pictures - I snapped a couple on my phone, but the quality was sub-par (and worse than they normally turn out) plus the color scheme here was a bit rough to manage well. Don't let appearances fool you! You want to eat this.

1 can of salmon (wild salmon has a great omega 3 to omega 6 ratio btws)
½ cup blueberries [didn't have on hand]
¼ avocado
¼ cup unsweetened coconut flakes (the BIG kind, not the shavings) [I didn't have this]
2 Tbs golden raisins
2 Tbs dried cherries [I used cranberries instead]
dash o’salt, pepper, and onion powder
hefty drizzle: olive oil and balsamic vinegar

Basically, just mix it all together and enjoy! Also, I bet this would be pretty good if you put it on top of lettuce like a chicken salad or if you weren't paleo, mixed with quinoa or cooled pasta or something. I don't know, but it seems pretty flexible and is really just satisfying.

Nutritional Information (full recipe with my version of ingredients):
427 total calories
28.3 g total fat [but it's all good fat - salmon, avocado, olive oil]
0 g cholesterol
20 g total carbs
5 g fiber
10 g sugar
22.5 g protein

Spicy Roasted Pepper Sauce

I saw this recent post on Smitten Kitchen about a roasted pepper sauce, and because I still had a plethora of veggies laying around (down to potatoes, a squash, and maybe a couple peppers or something), I thought I'd wing this recipe with what I had to use up all my peppers. I appreciate peppers, but I'm not a huge fan, so I wasn't really eager to just eat them raw or in anything else because that's just not what my taste buds liked. I haven't, in the course of the week, really found a use for it yet - but I think that is more because smoky, spicy, pepper flavor isn't my bag and not because this isn't totally delicious and worth having on your food.

 how cute beyond cute are those little guys?

also, I think they are the spiciest ones, so big things in small packages, etc.

Yield: 1 2/3 to 2 cups steak sauce.

1 red bell pepper, small was suggested [I had 3 tiny peppers, 2 small green bells, and 1 larger yellow bell pepper]
2/3 cup canned or fresh tomato purée
1/4 cup orange juice [I used lemonade because that's what I had]
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon molasses [I didn't have any so I used syrup]
3/4 teaspoon table salt or more to taste
1 teaspoon ground mustard [I just used some dijon]
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger [didn't have]
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon onion powder [didn't have]
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice [didn't have]

Preheat your broiler. Place your pepper on a baking sheet and cook it under the broiler until all sides are charred, turning with with tongs as needed. Don’t skimp on the charring as this skin will add a fantastic flavor dimension. Mine took about 15 minutes, but I have a terrible broiler [I think mine were in there for like 45 minutes, but I just had them in the oven at 400 with other veggies to roast]. Yours might only take 5 to 8 minutes. Transfer pepper to somewhere to cool until you’re able to handle it, about 15 minutes.

Tear open the pepper and remove the seeds and membranes with your fingers or a paring knife [mine were so soft this was crazy easy]. Add the pepper (with its skin) to the blender along with the remaining ingredients. Puree mixture until as smooth as possible. Transfer mixture to a small saucepan. Simmer it gently over low heat for 15 minutes, stirring from time to time. It will yield a fairly smooth that can be used as is, but if you’d like a smoother consistency, you have two options: running it back through the blender or food processor again (I got a smoother blender after the fibers had cooked down more on the stove)[this is what I did] or pressing it through that fine-mesh sieve (I started doing this, then decided it wasn’t worth the trouble).

Store in an airtight jar in the fridge for one week, though I suspect it will keep for two.

Muffin Bread Pudding

As I did not eat up all my muffins from the other day and they got sort of stale, I wanted to see if I could make them into a bread pudding, which I've never made before. According to Joy of Cooking, you can't make muffins into bread pudding, so that made me sad, but I decided to google it before I gave up. SK didn't have anything, but I found a couple random blogs that had recipes, and this one seemed to match what I wanted to do most similarly. The cinnamon in it was really nice, so I would maybe add a bit more next time because I liked it so much. Looking over the recipe, I really didn't even use a lot of what it had, but I got the basics and it turned out pretty well. More cinnamon would have been good, and I guess I could have cooked it for longer, but it was tasty. Especially with some Blue Bell homemade vanilla ice cream, which will always be my love of loves for simple desserts.

1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups milk
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp almond extract [didn't have]
6 muffins, crumbled (about 4-5 cups) [I only have 5 muffins]
2 Tbl butter, melted [didn't use and didn't even see until now...]
1/2 cup raisins (optional) [didn't use]
1/2 cup slivered almonds, chopped [didn't use]

1. preheat oven to 350 f. spray or lightly butter a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.
2. beat together sugar, eggs, and milk in a medium size bowl.
3. beat in cinnamon, nutmeg, and almond extract.
4. add crumbled muffins to the pan.  carefully toss with optional raisins.
5. pour melted butter over muffins.  add milk mixture and sprinkle with almonds.
6. bake for about 45 minutes until top is crusty and pudding looks set and is firm to the touch.
7. cut into slices while in the pan.  serve plain or with suggested accompaniments.

blueberry peach muffins

My mom bought some fruit while she was in town visiting me (yay for mommies), but sadly, I couldn't eat it all before it started getting too soft for my liking. So I baked it! Best solution to handling overripe fruit. This time I went with a Joy of Cooking basic muffin recipe and threw in the rest of my blueberries and two peaches (which I know are peaches thanks to some helpful identifying advice from a friend - peaches, nectarines, apricots, my brain can't keep them straight). They weren't the best muffins I've ever made - I used half and half (my mom bought it and I'll never use it otherwise), so maybe that was why? Or maybe because I used oil instead of butter, and I don't love oil? Or probably I overmixed it because it was smooth. I'm not sure but I just wasn't crazy about the texture. The fruit is yummy, though, of course, and my friends liked them enough to eat them, so problem solved.

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder (make sure its not clumpy, I keep finding them in my finished products)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp grated or ground nutmeg (I also add some cinnamon and cardamom, why not?)
2 large eggs
1 cup milk or cream
2/3 cup sugar or brown sugar
1/4 to 1/2 cup (1/2 to 1 stick) butter, melted, or 1/4 to 1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg together. In another bowl, whisk eggs, milk, sugar, butter/oil, and vanilla. Mix together with a few light strokes, just until the batter is moistened but not overmixed and smooth. Add in cut up fruit. Pour into muffin tin.

Bake for 17 minutes (longer with fruit) until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool for 2-3 minutes before removing from pan. Serve warm with some butter, and it's delicious!

I've found that when I keep baked goods, it is actually better to not seal them fully because they get soggy sometimes. But it depends on a lot of things. 

fried okra

From my big veggie jackpot from volunteering, I still have a lot to get through before they go bad. Actually, I'm sad because I had to throw out the mysterious greens (no one, not even my mom, could identify them!) and a couple peppers. But I hope I'll get my eggplants before they go bad and I think the squash and potatoes won't go bad before I get to them. Anyway! I had a bag of okra that I didn't know how to handle, so I consulted Irma in the Joy of Cooking. There weren't too many options, and I wasn't really in the mood for stewing (or have any proteins to make anything more exciting), so I went fried. Not healthy, I know. I don't know if I didn't do something exactly right because they were still sort of crunchy and not as coated as the couple times I've eaten them in restaurants, but they can't have been too bad because I ate them all. With ranch. (Now I feel a little nauseous and guilty.)

I don't know how much okra I had, but it used most of the coating.

1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic or onion powder
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 lb whole okra
1/4 cup flour
1 egg beaten with 1 tsp water
vegetable oil

Mix cornmeal, salt, powder, cayenne, and pepper.

I cut the okra into little slices, but Joy of Cooking says whole. Do as you please.

Dredge okra in flour. Dip that into the egg water mixture. Dip into cornmeal. Heat oil to 365 degrees F in a large skillet (I don't have a thermometer). Add okra to oil in batches, frying until golden, about 2 minutes. Remove okra with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. 

squash, zucchini, and eggplant rice gratin

As you can see in the last entry, I have quite a few veggies on my hand. In an effort to cook with them and waste as little as possible (advice, please!), I wanted to make something that would use quite a few tonight for dinner. This recipe took me about 2 hours and involved me being pretty darn hot in my kitchen for a lot of it (when I'm cooking, I just keep my a/c off and the windows open and fan on; save the electricity costs and I'll be hot regardless). The biggest "failure" of the recipe was the rice - but that is because, try as I might (and I do, oh I do), I am so bad at cooking rice. Every time I read someone's foolproof recipe and try my darndest to follow it exactly, but it still burns. At best, it's a bit soggy and I'm just thrilled it doesn't taste like burned popcorn. Tonight was more of a burned night. So that brought the dish down a bit to have slightly crispy, burnt popcorn flavored rice. One day I will prevail!

I love love love roasted veggies, though, and I could probably have eaten them all right off the sheet after the oven (so good), so that part of the recipe went well. I didn't have enough cheese for it to be really cheesy, so I added in a bit of my whole organic yogurt instead of cheese to the egg mixture and then just grated some cheese on top. I also didn't have tomatoes (I sure as heck wasn't going to buy more veggies), and so while that certainly changed the recipe, I don't think it was really a negative effect. I wouldn't recommend using the cast iron skillet to cook it in, but I just was overrun with dirty dishes and didn't care. I am sure the recipe as she has it is delicious and one day I hope to make it. But this was good and different, and I enjoyed giving it a try in between crying over the Olympics (I'm just such a sucker for sports).

1/3 cup white rice, long-grain is suggested but use whatever you prefer
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 pounds zucchini (about 3 medium), sliced 1/4-inch thick
1/2 pound plum tomatoes, sliced 1/4-inch thick
Table salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 medium onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
1/2 cup grated Parmesan, divided

Preheat oven to 450°F. Cook the rice according to your favorite method. The package directions work in some cases, but check my notes above about adjustments I find I have to make. If you cook the rice in a large, wide-ish covered skillet, it might cook even faster but you’ll have the chance to use it again (and save on dirty dishes) when you need to cook the onions in a bit.

While rice cooks, coat two large (or, if you have the same pitifully small oven as I do, three smaller) baking sheets each with a tablespoon of a of olive oil (a bit less for smaller pans). Spread zucchini and tomato slices on the baking sheets in as close to a single layer as you can. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Roast tomatoes for 10 minutes and zucchini for 20. Flip zucchini halfway through; it’s not worth the messy effort for the tomatoes. Leave oven on.

Heat large, heavy skillet (such as the one you used to cook your rice) over medium heat. Once hot, add 2 tablespoons olive oil, heat oil, then add onions, garlic and 1/4 teaspoon salt to pan. Cover and reduce heat to low, cooking onion until limp and tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Combine onion mixture, rice, eggs, thyme, half of your grated cheese and a half-tablespoon of olive oil in a bowl. Add a good amount of freshly ground black pepper. Use the remaining half-tablespoon of olive oil to coat a shallow 2-quart baking dish. Spread half of rice mixture in bottom of dish. Arrange half of roasted zucchini on top. Spread remaining rice mixture over it and please don’t worry about being neat about this; dinner will be “rustic” tonight! Arrange remaining zucchini on top, then tomato slices. Sprinkle with remaining grated cheese and bake until set and golden brown, about 20 minutes. Each oven varies, but I find mine does the very best browning when the dish is on a rack near the top of the oven.

JBG Organics volunteering

Just so you don't miss the takeaway: Please think about what you eat and how it got there. Try not to waste food. And use less plastic/throwaway packaging whenever you can. 

The other day I didn't have to head into my internship because my coworkers were out of town for a meeting. I decided to sign up to volunteer at Johnson's Backyard Garden farm because when you volunteer for 5 hours, you get a box of veggies. I also have become more curious about farming since my mom grew up on a farm, going back to Kansas for my grandpa's funeral reminded me that I wanted to get a better sense of what it entailed, and visiting California for work and seeing the farms and fresh food pushed me the extra mile. I understand farming conceptually, but I have very little experience with the actual labor and science of it.

I worked at the greenhouse, which meant that I started out by seeding Kohlrabi into 46 little planters with 128 little seeds. There was this little suction board with 128 little holes on it, and I shook the seeds out until there was one in each and then poured off the extras. Then I set it on top of the tray with some soil in it, turned off the suction, and then set everything back up again. Repeat 46 times. Once the seeds were all in, I got my hands real good and dirty filling up the rest of the planter boxes (excuse my incorrect terminology) until they were level with the top. I made a grid on the pavement of all the planters so that we could water them a few times. Because I was doing winter seeds, the greenhouse guy took them back to store in a cooler until it was time for them to actually start growing.

My next task was to weed out in the greenhouse itself. This got... hot. It was about 100 degrees while I was working (8 am - 1 pm), which meant, I'm guessing, that the greenhouse was 110+. I certainly felt it. I got a bit woozy in there, especially being in jeans and such. The planters covered the floor of the greenhouse, so in order to get back and pull weeds, I had to drag out a row hop over alternating clear patches I created, and balance while I pulled weeds and then came back. I did not love it, but I think it was because I was getting tired and very hot. It was nice to get a big bucketful of weeds though, in terms of seeing your work make a difference. That was definitely one bonus of the work as a whole. I was a bit surprised at how many dead butterflies, moths, and crickets there were, but it made sense once I thought about how enticing it would be in there but then hard to get out and then very, very hot to survive in. I also pulled weeds outside around the greenhouse, and while it was a big relief to have some wind movement and less humidity, the direct sun wasn't too much of a break.

My last little task was to move out some peppers that had grown up enough that they were almost done with the greenhouse. I set them out on this pallet area so they could get some water while they adjusted to the sunshine and spent more time in the greenhouse (I think) before they got sent full-time to the fields. Good luck little guys!

Finally, at 1, after drinking two 32 oz gatorades and my water bottle, I picked up my veggies (transferring them to my reusable bags, of course) and headed home. Phew! My neck and back were very sore, and I was pretty excited for my shower. I think I will definitely volunteer again when my schedule allows (and perhaps when it is a little cooler) to get experience in the sorting/loading space as well as out in the fields for a harvest or something.

More than anything, it really made me appreciate even more how much, I mean an incredible amount, of work goes into every single thing I eat. I already work so hard not to waste and to buy exactly what I'll eat, whether at the grocery store or restaurants, but this was further incentive to do my best. And it also made me feel like food was so cheap even though sometimes I bemoan prices in my head while I shop. I know organics and local foods are sometimes a little more expensive, but you're paying to have people take care of your food, and people just need a little bit of money. And as the guy I worked with said, JBG was great because Johnson pays a little more than minimum wage. Where would we be without people farming our food, and yet they only get minimum wage most of the time? I'm not going to get into the politics of it all and subsidies and all that headache, but I do think there are serious, sad problems with our value system of work in this country (and probably around the world). Farming and education are two of the most important jobs that exist, the end, and while teachers make more, there is such a low level of respect and tribute paid, financially, to those absolutely integral jobs.

Please think about what you eat and how it got there. Try not to waste food. And use less plastic/throwaway packaging whenever you can. 

Also, tell me what kind of veggies I got! I'm not 100% sure about exactly what's what, so I welcome any insights.