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It’s a bumper crop for zucchini this year - at least from our CSA. I’m almost running out of ideas on how to process it. Storkbite is consuming her fair share, it was her first “real” food after all. I’m not sick of it yet, but it’s getting real hard to be creative. There has been an overload of eggplant as well. I’m doing better with it than last year, the last one is going into a baba ganouge today. I don’t think we will see the end of it though now tomatos are abundant. My new breakfast is toast, grilled tomato and a friend egg. Here are a few highlights from the past few days:
Eggplant Rollatini
This was a really easy dish that was prepped over the course of a few days. One thing I’m learning is take time to prep when you can get it. Storkbite doesn’t allow me time to actually enjoy what I’m doing in the kitchen now that she slithers. On the day I got seven eggplants, I sliced them all the long way and grilled them with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. When they cooled, I neatly piled them into a plastic container and stashed them in the refrigerator. A few days later (not sure how many) I pulled out my eggplant and made the rollatini.
Simply use a small container of ricotta cheese, mix in an egg, salt, pepper and chopped parsly. Combine it in a mixing bowl and set aside. Add a ladle full of some sauce (in this case my very own Basic Sauce) to the bottom of your olive oiled baking dish and begin to roll your eggplant. It doesn’t have to be pretty and sometimes it’s easier to put two eggplant peices together laid flat. Add a dollop of cheese and roll. Once you have all your rollatini in the dish, cover it them with sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes until the cheese is golden brown. This was a Papa pleaser - he loves cheesy baked goodness and it’s a great way to use up your eggplants.
Salmon Loaf
I have no idea what to call this except “Salmon Loaf” which sounds horrible because it was so delicious! I realized that I had nice grilled salmon left over from the onigiri which was just sitting in the refrigerator calling my name. Storkbite’s Papa was so taken with this that he wants it worked into our regular menu. It was very easy so that is fine with me. The filling consists of chopped grilled salmon, chopped scallions, chives, black sesame seeds and a dash of sesame oil to combine it. Then I wrapped the filling in sheets of puffed pastry dough available in the freezer section of any super market. Once it was nicely rolled up I put slits on the top to let the steam out, brushed them with a little oil and sprinkled with black sesame seeds. I baked these at 425 (as indicated on the dough package) for 30 minutes until golden brown and puffy. I served by slicing these through the pre-sliced slits which helps to keep the pretty puff pastry in tact. With a simple salad these were a huge hit, and made great room-temp leftovers for lunch.
Mini Burgers
One of my favorite things is a mini burger. It satisfies my itch for a burger and doesn’t weigh me down after eating 1 lb. of beef. I like to buy mini dinner rolls at the bakery and make them at home. In this case I used ground turkey, doctered it up with an egg, salt, pepper, chopped scallions and diced green peppers which I combined in a mixing bowl. I grilled zucchini chips for toppings and cut up tomatos. Once I formed my mini burgers into balls, I grilled them on my trusty grill pan.
These got assembled on a toasted bun with olive oil mayo, grilled zuccs, cheddar cheese and fresh tomatos. They knocked my socks off and were probably on the healthier side of things too.
I wanted to introduce Storkbite to rice so I thought it would be interesting to make onigiri and see what happend. Well… we had rice all over the apartment, in Storkbite’s ears, on the wall, and in between her toes. It was delicious for Papa and me to eat these delicious onigiri and it’s not our usual fare.
Onigiri
I watched at least three YouTube videos before trying this at home. I hardly ever try something new, but this was a real hit and a great snack food. First I grilled salmon in sesame oil, cut nori into strips and cut up avocado for my rice ball filling. Then I steamed sushi rice according to the directions on the bag. Once it was slightly cooled I started forming my rice balls. The trick is to have a bowl of salt water to cool your hands and to prevent the rice from sticking to your hands when forming the balls.
Form the balls like a snowball. Then make a depression in the center with your thumb, fill it with a piece of avocado and chunk of salmon. Cover the filling with more rice and continue packing the snowball. Roll the ball in nori and sprinkle with seasame seeds. It takes time, but is repetitive and easy. This is an ideal after school snack!
Once complete you can give it to a baby — if you want rice in ears, on walls, on tables, chairs, floors, moms, dads, etc, etc.
The last two nights have been hot as hell here in the City. If you live here then you know that you might as well take all your clothes off and try and cook a meal if you absolutely need to cook yourself a hot meal. Last night I was unable to bring myself to turn on the gas, but tonight I was much more brave. I paid for it tonight and everyone was in a bad mood because of it. Storkbite nearly expired. She had to be excused, took a cool shower and went to bed. I, on the other hand, was able to chill out with a crisp glass of rosé avec an ice cube.
Piyaz
This bean salad is something that I learned from our local Turkish restaurant and it suddenly became a favorite hot day food at our house. It’s so simple, just combine one can of white beans with chopped red onion, garlic, basil, parsley, salt, pepper and olive oil. Mix it up and you have a delicious antipasti called Piyaz that can be eaten with olives, feta, and toasted bread. This is a perfect meal for a hot day, no heating or cooking required.
Striper Filets and Zucchini
Tonight’s dinner required the kitchen to get heated up and it was unpleasant - I’ll warn you. However, it was well worth it to taste the fresh zucchini and butterstick squash cooked down in butter, cipollini onions and olive oil. All of those fresh vegetables were compliments of our CSA. I simply thawed and grilled some white striper filets on my grill pan. Standing over the grill plan was not my most brilliant idea of the day, but fish cooks in a few seconds so it was painful for only a moment. Delicious combination and seriously fresh.
The Salade Nicoise is another regular menu item here at Storkbite’s house. However, pregnancy and nursing has put the kibosh on the regular consumption of tuna. I tend to cheat once (or twice) a month and have a little. I used to make the salad with sushi grade tuna, but that is definately too expensive for us these days. You can compose this salad any way you like and it looks really pretty when the ingredients are grouped. Last night I used non-traditional ingredients because the tomatoes of late are tainted and I still have a huge stock of frozen vegetables from TJ’s.
On a bed of lettuce and escarole from our CSA, I added tuna (from a can), avocado, previously frozen asparagus, hard boiled egg and olives. I just plain old vinaigrette dressing with added capers over the top and YUM. It was a very satisfying and hearty salad. We added wedges of toasted pita on the side. The great thing about these main course salads is that preparation does not heat up the apartment at all and you can do it in several stages.
Everyone seems to be looking forward to garlic scapes season this year. I saw them on the cover of the NY Time’s dining section a few weeks back. I don’t remember them being that popular before. They are neat looking little things - curly with a crooked neck and bulb on the end. They are delicious when fried up in butter and olive oil. My friends came up with some excellent ideas on how to prepare them, but I didn’t seem to have the right ingredients to follow the same path. Instead I just used good old butter and olive oil in a pan, added my scapes and a small pour of white wine (from my glass). I finished it of with a little more butter at the end to enrich the sauce. We then just poured all our scapes right on top of a big piece of grilled salmon.
What you see here on the side is kohlrabi slaw. I used my food processor to shred the kohlrabi and then treated it just like cole slaw. I made a dressing with approx. 3 tbs of vegetable oil, olive oil, white wine vinegar, dash of salt and pepper, 1 tbs. celery seed, a drizzle of honey. I mixed up the dressing and tossed it on the shredded kohlrabi. It was very fresh and delicious. I wish I added carrots, but we were out - next time.
The last thing anyone wants to do after a long car ride home from the country on a Sunday night is cook. Especially since we watched the temperature climb to 99 degrees upon our reentry to NYC. We did our usual stop at Trader Joe’s in Paramus, NJ on our way home and restocked the excellent frozen fish. I was quite certain to do the most minimal food prep and cooking after getting home, unpacking and getting Storkbite off to dreamland. All I wanted to do was enjoy a glass of beer and throw something into the toaster oven to keep our apartment as cool as possible.
I bought these handy Salmon Roulettes and Brittany Beans at TJ’s. They did the trick! The roulettes went into the toaster oven at 350 along with some BBQ roasted potatoes from the night before. I tossed the defrosted Brittany Beans in some butter and olive oil on the stove top and voila we had a delicious instant dinner. I served a bowl of amazing red leaf Boston lettuce from our CSA share on the side with bread and it ended up to be a great little dinner that just took minutes to heat and eat.
On a night we would have normally ordered take out, we had this wonderful little meal for a quarter of the cost.
Salmon Roulettes - $3.99
Here at Storkbite’s house we have been eating a lot of fish. There are two reasons for this: the first is that it takes 10 seconds to prepare and cook after Storkbite goes to bed, and second we have a huge stock of frozen fish from Trader Joe’s. I got hip to Trader Joe’s frozen fish and vegetables because it’s a great value and can be stocked in my freezer. With a new baby I found that all my fresh foods were going bad before I could conjure up ideas. I decided that before our summer CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share starts, I would turn my efforts to frozen foods. One of the outstanding frozen veggies at Trader Joe’s is the large bag of haricot verts (French green beans). They are delicious. You will see them make daily appearances at our table. This was Monday night’s feast –
1 dozen Dover Sole pieces - breaded with store bought bread crumbs. Pan fried in butter and olive oil.
Haricot verts - defrosted and then quickly pan fried in butter and olive oil after we finished all the fish.
In addition to the fish and beans, I made a sour cream and chive sauce (thinned with plain yogurt) for the side. It was cool and delicious. We also had some crostini which was toasted with olive oil and salt.
This entire meal took approximately 15 minutes start to finish.
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