Five Recipes, One Busy Week

As much as I hate doing this - it's been a busier week than usual for cooking, but also in other areas of my life - here's a summary of the five or six things I've made since I picked up my last Pinckney's stash for the summer:

Top left: I made this chunky garden pasta recipe with about five tomatoes (one big one from Pinckney's and four small ones from the backyard!), two green bell peppers, the last three banana peppers (I've been chopping these small and pretending they're onions; I still don't know what people even want these for besides pickling), one largish zucchini from the backyard, herbs (fresh thyme and dried oregano), chopped garlic, salt and pepper.  Basically, saute everything but the tomatoes for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes (after dunking in boiling water and peeling) and simmer until you have a sauce.  Then I ladled it over wheat linguini and topped it with shredded parm.

Friday was a day at home doing chores, but I did find time to throw this salad together using a couple of small tomatoes and a generous helping of the green leaf salad that Steve bought on Thursday.  Friday night he went out and bought a whole roasted chicken from Piggly Wiggly, so that's what we ended up having for dinner, plus a similar salad on the side.

For lunch on Saturday, we still had half the roasted chicken in the fridge, so I warmed that up, pulled back the skin and sprinkled on some Cavender's Greek seasoning.  For sides, I made Greek-style vegetable sides: zucchini and tomatoes (zucchini from the garden plus about half a cup of tomato juice; the latter saved me some peeling and chopping) and carrots with ground cloves, fresh parsley and thyme.



Sunday I made a couple of things I haven't photographed yet because when I was done cooking, neither of us wanted to eat hot food.  (We went out for lunch on Sunday and ran a couple of errands while it was hot as blazes, and my car has a black interior and no a/c.)  Of the two items that were packed up as leftovers, one was Thiaka, a recipe from my Haitian cookbook that basically calls for frying up a small quantity of finely chopped pickled veggies and cubed salt pork (I made it vegetarian but would have used pancetta had I been so inspired) and then mixing in polenta and kidney beans.  The other was Fassolia Plaki, which is basically a Greek bean casserole (I used the butter beans that came in my stash) plus a chopped carrot, a peeled tomato, chopped parsley and fresh thyme, plus salt, pepper and oregano.  Both are pretty simple, although the polenta part took a while because I used the fresh corn to make the polenta and, once again, had to add water to my three ears' worth in the blender and then cook it on the stove until most of the water evaporated out.  Next time I guess I'll just buy a fourth ear or corn to make life easier.

I wasn't quite sure where to go with the blog once my Pinckney's subscription ran out for the summer, since the fall season doesn't start until September.  As it turns out, the peppers in the backyard are doing nicely, as are the zucchini and all the herbs.  To supplement what I already have, I might see what City Roots has to offer and, to the extent possible, buy more in between Steve's trips to the store.

Hope the summer's treating you well and that you're enjoying good food and weather (by which I mean the first sort-of rainy summer in South Carolina in over a decade) and all the other things that make it special!

Vegetable soup

OK, I'm gonna say it - this was nothing special; just a use-stuff-up recipe.  I still had most of the potatoes, corn, pink-eyed peas, tomatoes and banana peppers that I received in my most recent Pinckney's stash before Thursday rolled around - and I wanted to ensure that I had something vegetarian for myself on the days when I didn't want any meat or dairy.

2 tbsp canola oil
3 mild banana peppers, gutted and diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
6 cups vegetable broth
1 lb fresh pink-eyed peas, rinsed
4 new potatoes, peeled and diced
1 ear of corn, cooked
2 large tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 branch fresh rosemary
1 branch fresh thyme
6 basil leaves, torn
pepper to taste

In an 8 qt pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the banana peppers and saute until softened, about 3-5 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring broth to a boil in a separate pot. Once it has boiled, add to the pot with the peppers along with the peas and diced potatoes. Cover and simmer 15 minutes.

Remove the husk from the corn and cut the corn off the cob with a serrated knife. Add corn, tomatoes and herbs to the pot, cover and simmer another 30 minutes. Check seasoning and add pepper to taste.

If I make this again, I might make it heartier by using less broth.  (Chris Rock: 'cuz I sho' is hungry!)  Since the potatoes were diced, less liquid was needed to soften them up.  One pleasant surprise, was that most of the thyme fell off the branches while the soup cooked, so when I finally had some on Tuesday, I just had to fish the thyme and rosemary out of the pot and toss them in the compost bin, and the rest I packed up as leftovers.

Summer stew with chana dal, squash and pomegranate syrup

Once again, I had a ton of stuff to use up come Thursday night, and I still hadn't used up all the yellow and starburst squash from my previous Pinckney's stash. Since summer's such a great time for trotting out Turkish recipes, I decided to try a variation on one that I like to prepare at least once each summer, based on Musa Vagdaviren's (sic) Summer Stew with Lentils and Eggplant.*

Instead of lentils and eggplant, I had chana dal and about 10 zucchini, yellow squash and starburst squash. This called for using a larger pot than the 8-quart pot I usually use for the stove-top version of this recipe.

3 cups chana dal**, rinsed and sorted
2 tbsp plus 1/4 cup olive oil
10 zucchini, yellow and starburst squash sliced lengthwise
4 banana peppers, diced
2 onions, diced
3 tomatoes, peeled and diced
(8 oz. can of tomato sauce if tomatoes are not fully ripened)
2 tsp. crushed red pepper or to taste
1/2 cup mint leaves (about 25-30 large leaves), chopped
1/2 cup pomegranate syrup***

Bring 6 cups of salted water to a boil, add the chana dal and cook, covered, 30 minutes or until very soft to the bite (i.e. you could easily mash into a paste). Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, slice all zucchini and yellow squash in half lengthwise (for the starburst squash, remove top and bottom and cut in half at the "equator"). Place slices on plates, cut into them in a crosshatch pattern and sprinkle with salt. Store in refrigerator for 30 minutes, then rinse and pat dry with paper towels.

While the chana dal's cooking and the zucchini and squash are in the fridge, combine the peppers, onion, tomato, salt, garlic, crushed red pepper and mint in a mixing bowl. Stir until blended.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 10 by 15 inch (4 inches deep) baking pan. Add just enough chana dal to cover the bottom. Add a layer consisting of half the zucchini and squash (any arrangement is fine as long as spaces are filled as completely as possible). Cover the zucchini and squash with half of the vegetable mixture. Repeat layers and cover the top with any remaining chana dal. Drizzle olive oil over the top and down the sides and repeat with the pomegranate syrup.

Cover with lid or aluminum foil (so any beans on top don't dry out) and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Serve hot or at room temperature. Good alone or over rice or couscous.

The Food and Wine recipe called for slightly smaller amounts of everything, resulting in a yield about 2/3 of what I ended up with on Friday. Theirs also called for lentils, which cook a little faster than chana dal, and eggplant, which increases the cook time to 90 minutes.

What you get: a very bright, citrussy-flavored vegetable stew with very tender zucchini and squash. The result, which I finally sampled today (Monday) for lunch, was just as good as any I've made the usual way, and I've got tons of leftovers that will probably go in the freezer tonight. Hopefully, Steve will help me make a dent in it.

*Wolfert, Paula. "Master Chef of Turkey." Food and Wine July 2004, p. 179.

**dried split chick peas, available in Indian grocery stores. In Columbia, look for Oriental Groceries, across from the Wal-Mart on U.S. 1 in West Columbia, or J.M. Emporium on Two Notch Road, about a mile south of Sesqui (behind Dunkin' Donuts).

***also labeled "Pomegranate Concentrated Juice," available in Middle Eastern grocery stores. In Columbia, look for Aladdin near the corner of St. Andrews Road and Jamil Road (same strip mall as Inakaya).