North African Vegetable Soup

When shopping for Christmas presents on Amazon last week, I came up a few cents short of the $25 minimum order that qualifies for free shipping.  So, I looked around in the food/kitchen part of their website for a little something for myself and found this prepared harissa from France.  The four-pack cost about $15.  En tube, no less!

Then I felt like a jackass when I Googled "harissa recipes," hoping to find recipes using harissa, and instead found a slew of harissa recipes I could have easily made myself.  Oh, well.  I still got something to remind me of the wonderful time I spent in Geneva and of all the weekend shopping trips in France with my Swiss and German roommates, buying groceries with ingredient lists in several languages because they were being sold throughout the European Union.

So, when I changed the search to "recipes using harissa," this Moroccan vegetable stew recipe from Sara Moulton came up in the results.  This worked out well, since I'm a little under the weather today (and, thankfully, home from work), so I haven't had an appetite for the Indian yumminess that I made the other day.  Whenever I have a cold, all I really want is liquid, so I turned this stew into a soup, used up several veggies that had been hanging around for a while and got to use some of the harissa to boot.  I made numerous changes, as shown below the photo, based mainly on what was on hand:

2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic
2 tsp minced ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cumin
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 15-oz can diced tomatoes, undrained
4 cups vegetable broth (I used Better than Bouillon veggie base)
1.5 cups thawed frozen yellow squash, sliced in 1/2-inch rounds
1 15-oz can chickpeas, drained
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
harissa for serving

In a soup pot, heat oil over medium heat.  Add onion and saute for 3-5 minutes.  Add celery and garlic, stir and cook for another 3-5 minutes.  Add the next three ingredients and stir to combine.  Add tomatoes and sweet potato, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes.  If sweet potatoes are not tender after this step, add the squash and chickpeas, raise the heat slightly, cover and simmer another 5-10 minutes or until sweet potatoes and squash are tender.  Turn off heat, stir in cilantro and serve.
***
I tasted the result before and after adding the harissa, and it's really good both ways.  I was able to taste the cinnamon more before I added the harissa than after, but I also liked how the harissa gave the broth a little more color than the liquid from the canned tomatoes could do on its own.  The harissa wasn't quite as hot as I expected (maybe I'll taste a difference once I'm no longer congested), but it was still very tasty and has great potential for being used in other soups and stews as a zippier alternative to tomato paste, particularly in Turkish recipes like chickpea and zucchini moussaka that I blogged about last year.

I'll be taking it easy for the rest of the day so that I can go back to work tomorrow and also be well enough to enjoy all the fun stuff going on this weekend, like tomorrow's holiday drop-in at work and Columbia Veg's "'Tis the Season to Party Like Veg*ns" potluck!

Hope everyone's having a happy and safe holiday season, and I'll be seeing some of you soon!

Hot Vegetable Salad

Well, I made it through all 21 days (23 days, actually) of the vegan kickstart.  I was pretty pleased with that, since I was really only trying to see how long I could last without cheese.  And now I know.

Now that I'm back to being a regular old vegetarian, I decided to attempt a knockoff of California Dreaming's Hot Vegetable Salad.  Mind you, I've never tried it; I was planning to order it at my office's holiday luncheon in 2009 but ended up spending that day at home sick.  Anyhoo, we've had a bunch of produce in the fridge for the past week and I was starting to fret about what to do with all of it when, somehow, I was reminded of this salad.  Mine's not exactly the same (I didn't have any green beans or hearts of palm on hand), but that's all right because the recipe lends itself well to adaptations.

Hot Vegetable Salad:
(Serves two)
1 tbsp Earth Balance
4 tbsp olive oil, divided
1 yellow squash, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1 orange bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 can artichoke hearts, drained and halved
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste
6-7 ounces fresh spinach leaves
1 vine-ripened tomato, diced
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp shredded Asiago cheese
1 tbsp shredded Parmesan cheese

Heat Earth Balance and 1 tbsp olive oil in nonstick pan over medium heat.  Add squash, peppers and garlic and saute until peppers begin to soften, about 5 minutes.  Add artichokes, salt, pepper and thyme and continue to cook until peppers and squash are tender but not mushy, another 3-5 minutes.  Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, combine salt, pepper, lemon juice and remaining olive oil in a bowl.  Add the dressing to the spinach leaves and tomato and toss well.  Place the spinach and tomato on two 9-inch plates, cover each bed of spinach with half of the cooked vegetables and top each salad with equal amounts of Parmesan and Asiago.
***
Did I mention that it's equally tasty and easy to put together?  This is easily one of my shortest blog posts that actually contained a recipe!

Give this a try whenever you have a bunch of veggies you don't have any ideas for.  Maybe even use some of your veggies in the salad and some in a soup recipe on a soup-and-salad night!  If you happen to have veggies (hot or cold) left over from the salad, maybe use them in a wrap the next day with a little more cheese (and/or some drained and rinsed chickpeas or cannellini beans).  So many possibilities!

Have a great week, and hopefully I'll see some you (in the Columbia area) at the Ray Tanner Home Run next week!

Stacks of fun

I'm still at it with the stacks because I had another eggplant to get rid of.  (The one I used last week was one of two that Steve had bought.)  Steve also brought home some yellow squash because they were on sale, so now I've met my squash quota for the summer plus one.  I threw this together rather hastily because I was just that eager to use up all the squash at one time:

It's based on this recipe from the July 2004 issue of Food and Wine, but I used the squash instead of zucchini and skipped the onion, red pepper and tomato because I had a lot of squash (3 of them chopped took up a lot of space in my biggest saucepan) and none of the other things in the fridge.  No biggie - it's the flavor that matters.  I happened to have a ton of mint leaves in the freezer from when I snipped a bunch from my mint patch in early summer, so I chopped about 20 of them and added them to the pan with about half a cup of tomato sauce, 4 cloves of garlic, salt and crushed red pepper to taste.  Mix that all together, then throw in the chickpeas and leave it on the stove until the chickpeas are warm.  Easy!

For the stacking, I sliced the eggplant lengthwise into four pieces and sauteed it like before, in olive oil with ample salt, pepper and dried Italian herbs sprinkled on each side.  When the slices were cooked through, I removed them from the stove and plated up two of them, covered them with a helping of couscous that was soaking up some boiling water while the eggplant cooked and then topped that with the squash and chickpea sauce.  Yum!  I've saved myself from hospital cafeteria Armageddon once again!

Speaking of which, I'm off to work in a few minutes.  Enjoy your Thursday night for me if you have it off!

Black Bean and Squash Casserole with Cilantro Rice

As promised, I did dispense with the large amount of spinach mentioned in my last post by replaying the spinach kootu from a couple of weeks ago.  It came out great, as always, but my plan to make it into a vegetarian alternative to the tuna/bacon/spinach pasta went up in smoke when I realized that I was all pasta'd out after my last big batch of pasta salad.  So, I just made some brown rice to go with it and that was just as good.

Tuesday was a day off, so I addressed my anxiety about the three yellow squashes that had been in the fridge for at least a week by making this casserole. 

Black Bean and Squash Casserole with Cilantro Rice:
2 cups water
2 Knorr cilantro cubes
1.5 cups basmati rice (jasmine or another long-grain works too), rinsed
3 yellow squash, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
3 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
2 tbsp canola or olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
2 cans black beans, drained
cayenne pepper to taste
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
2 cloves garlic
8 oz. cheddar cheese, shredded

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Bring the water to a boil and add the cilantro cubes. 

Toss the squash and jalapenos in a mixing bowl with the oil, salt and pepper.

In a separate bowl, combine the black beans with the next four ingredients.

In a 10 x 13" baking dish, spread the uncooked rice evenly across the bottom of the pan.  Layer the squash and jalapenos evenly across the rice, then pour the cilantro broth over both.  Layer the black beans evenly over the squash.

Bake, covered, for 45 minutes or until rice has absorbed all liquid.  Remove from oven (heat may be turned off at this point), cover evenly with cheddar cheese and put the dish back in the oven uncovered until the cheese has melted, about 3 to 5 minutes.  Serve warm.

***
I don't normally experiment with casserole dishes without having a recipe to tweak, but this came out okay all things considered.  My only regret is that the rice didn't really make itself a part of the casserole because of the barrier formed by the squash.  It would have been nice for some of the cheese to reach down and mix with the rice, but alas...maybe someday I'll try it again. 

Here's what it looked like on Steve's plate:

As for the squash, it neither helped nor hindered, but it was nice to have a veggie figure prominently in the mix, unlike the standard rice-and-beans plate you can get at any of the Mexican restaurants around here.  And I normally use a 1.5 to 1 ratio of water to uncooked rice, but I made it 4:3 this time figuring that any liquid coming out of the squash would make up the difference.  I was right, and the rice came out perfectly!  So the moral of the story is...maybe don't bother making this as a casserole, and just cook everything, put it on a heatproof plate and put that in the oven just long enough for the cheese to melt over the rice?...
 
Except for some tomatoes that Steve picked from the plant yesterday, we really don't have anything that needs to be used up right now.  If I had to guess, my next recipe will involve pesto made from parsley, basil and/or lemon balm.  Another pizza?  Stay tuned...

My two-day vegan cleanse

So, I had some free time yesterday morning and did a little cooking to get Steve and me through the next couple of days.  After having just a little too much fun during my weekend off, it seemed like a good idea to take a temporary leave of animal products and alcohol.  Nothing major, just a couple of days of austerity to help me feel better.  To that end, I whipped these two things together before lunch:

Summer vegetable soup:

This is loosely based on the summer vegetable soup in my Greek cookbook (The Food of Greece p. 87).  It pretty much amounts to throwing things in the pot and letting them blend until you have soup.  Since we had yellow squash from one of Steve's recent trips to the store and I had radishes and herbs from the backyard, it was easy enough to take what was fresh and add a few more things that were either canned or frozen and throw them in a pot.  So...the soup bowl pictured above contains chopped yellow squash, onion, radishes, one diced cucumber (only because we had one, also from the backyard, and the Greek cookbook said it was okay) crushed tomatoes, about four cups of veggie broth, about a cup and a half of thawed lima beans from the freezer, a few sprigs of thyme, a few chopped basil leaves, lemon juice, salt and pepper.  This ended up being my lunch and Steve's dinner yesterday.

Pasta salad:

This is nearly the same as my usual pasta salad, except that I threw in a bunch of chopped Italian parsley from the backyard along with the artichoke hearts, tomatoes (grown and given to me by a patient's wife!) and sliced black olives.  The "dressing" was just some salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil that I drizzled over the pasta and veggies right before they went in the fridge.  I left the optional shredded Parmesan out of the batch but treated myself to the cheese-included helping shown here for lunch today.  So, between that and the yogurt-honey-peanut Balance bar I had for breakfast this morning, my vegan cleanse is officially over (until next time).
***

SO glad we finally got some rain last night and Monday.  It's been about six days, and I've got about five little sprouts so far of the spring mix seeds I planted last week.  Not bad, considering the package said it would take 10-14 days for sprouting to occur.  With any luck I'll be able to make salads with it before summer's out.  Both boxes of radishes are coming along nicely as well. 

Also, for those of you in Columbia who know and love the All-Local Farmer's Market: they've just announced that they're expanding and will also be open on Wednesday evenings from 4-8 p.m. starting August 24.  If you haven't already, go check it out!  For more info, click here:
http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat=1992912064202144&ShowArticle_ID=12292607112412392

I've still got three yellow squash and two bags of spinach to dispense with in the next few days.  Check back to see what kind of ingeniousness I cook up next time to keep us fed and make good use of what's on hand!

Zucchini gyros and spinach and yellow squash salad

I was originally going to pick up some mushrooms for the gyro recipe, but I still had the zucchini picked last week and no ideas.  Plus, it seemed like there would be protein enough in the feta cheese and tzatziki sauce (yogurt, finely diced cucumber, dill, salt and white pepper), so I chopped up the zucchini instead and sauteed it in olive oil and then seasoned it as heavily as I could with the last bit of Cavender's All-Purpose Greek Seasoning that I had.  You can't see the zucchini in the photo, but it's on the pita beneath the tzatziki.  The tomato that went on this is the first one we've used from the backyard this year! 

I was all over this recipe from the July issue of Food and Wine when I saw that it called for yellow squash, but I had just enough spinach in the fridge for two side salads and figured I'd use that rather than go to the store for the Little Gem lettuce or (more likely) hearts of romaine.  I just used canola for the toasted walnuts because that's what I had, and the dressing I made was my usual Greek-style vinaigrette (salt, pepper, dried Italian herbs, lemon juice and olive oil).  As it turned out, Steve didn't want the squash on his salad, so I reserved a little bit of the chopped tomato for his salad. 

So, by using one zucchini, one cucumber, one yellow squash and the last of the spinach for tonight's dinner, I'm now down to two squash and one head of broccoli in the fridge!  There's also plenty of leftover tzatziki in the fridge, so I'll probably either make pitas with it again tomorrow or enjoy it as a topping or side dish for an Indian dish or something else that's warm and heavy on spices.

Until next time...sow what you reap, and reap what you sow!

Zucchini and yellow squash moussaka

Steve took care of my vegetable garden while I worked 12-hour shifts all weekend, so when I got home Sunday night, I saw two cucumbers, three crookneck squash and a zucchini that he had seen fit to pick when he went out to water the garden that morning.  A week earlier, he had bought four zucchini that were still in the fridge this morning, so I decided to take all the zucchini and yellow squash on hand and make a bigger-than-usual batch of moussaka.  Here's one of the slices we had for dinner:

I make it with zucchini more often than I blog about it, but the last time or two it came out a big, mushy disappointment.  The problem with using zucchini instead of eggplant is that it contains more water, so even if you salt the slices and then pat them dry before baking them, more liquid comes out of them in the oven and there's nothing else to absorb them.  Until now: I decided to give it another try after stumbling upon this blogger's tip about putting down a layer of breadcrumbs before each layer of zucchini.  I skipped his suggestion about grilling the zucchini slices because it's summer and I just don't wanna.  My placement of the yellow squash and zucchini was pretty haphazard-looking in terms of the colors, but I did manage to layer complimentary shapes together so that they covered the layer beneath.


For the red sauce (the base of which was a 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes), I used lentils instead of meat, as per usual, then peeled, shredded and sauteed three carrots that I had no other use for.  Since I also have a bunch of fresh herbs growing in the backyard, I also picked, chopped and threw in about 15 fresh basil leaves, 20-25 fresh oregano leaves, 5 sprigs of thyme and one sprig of rosemary.  I also had a random jalapeno that was looking a little long in the tooth, so after donning a pair of disposable gloves, I chopped that finely and added it to the sauce as well.  Salt and nutmeg to taste.  This made for a more complicated sauce than usual, but I really wanted to use up all the ingredients I could, just like when I make lasagna.


Into a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes, uncovered.  Let it rest for an hour before cutting into it, and at the risk of copyright infringement...bam!

Steve and I each had a helping like the one above and four remain, so we'll be enjoying leftovers for the next couple of days.  I'm glad I had today off, since it took about two hours for the whole thing to come together (not counting the time in the oven and cooling afterward).  Whatever I make next will probably be simpler.  Until then...

Lentil and zucchini moussaka

I made this one on Sunday because, once again, I got a ton of yellow squash and zucchini in my Pinckney's stash. Hopefully I won't run out of ideas for them before my summer subscription ends.

As it happened, I also had a couple of mild banana peppers (also from Pinckney's) and a bag of lentils and a 28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes that weren't earmarked for anything. Since I had all this squash, the pantry items and no ground meat on hand with which to make a normal moussaka, I figured I could just cook a cup of lentils and add them to the tomato sauce as a meat substitute that would keep all the layers thick enough to remain distinct in the oven. So, here's the recipe:

4 yellow squash, halved lengthwise
2 zucchini, halved lengthwise
3 cups salted water
1 cup lentils, rinsed and sorted
2 tbsp olive oil
2 mild banana peppers, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp dried Italian herbs
fresh ground pepper
28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes
3 tbsp Smart Balance
2 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste (white pepper's good if you have it)

Place the halved zucchini and yellow squash on a plate, skin-side down. Make cuts in each piece in a crosshatch pattern, salt generously and store in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Bring 3 cups of salted water to a boil. Add lentils, stir and simmer, covered, until lentils are very tender, about 30 minutes.

In a separate saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add banana peppers, garlic, pepper and Italian herbs and saute until peppers have softened, about 5 minutes. Chop the canned tomatoes by running a long, sharp knife through them, then add (with juices) to the peppers, stir well and simmer uncovered (a splatter guard's a good idea) until sauce is very thick, about 30-45 minutes. Check seasoning and add salt if needed (mine didn't need any). Add the cooked lentils to the tomato sauce and stir until blended.

While the tomato sauce is cooking, heat Smart Balance in another saucepan until melted. Add flour and stir well; do not allow to brown. Stir in the milk slowly, taking care to prevent lumps from forming. Add pepper and simmer, stirring often, until sauce has thickened. Stir in Parmesan cheese, check seasoning and add salt if needed.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Remove zucchini and squash from refrigerator, rinse and pat dry with paper towels. In the bottom of a bread loaf pan (mine are non-stick; if yours isn't, grease it first), arrange half of the zucchini and squash, skin-side down, so that as much of the base is covered as possible. Layer half of the lentils and tomato sauce mixture over the zucchini and squash. Repeat with the remaining zucchini/squash and lentil-tomato mixture. Add the cream sauce by pouring evenly over the top layer of lentils and tomatoes and smooth out carefully with a spoon so that this forms the top layer.

Bake in 350 degree oven for one hour, let cool and serve.

I made this three hours ahead of time, covered it in foil when it came out of the oven, and when we sat down to eat it was still warm and the (delicious!) sauce had permeated the zucchini and squash and also mingled somewhat with the cream sauce on top, which had still formed a crust as I'd hoped. The key, which I learned after several botched attempts at moussaka, is to make each of the sauces very thick so that it will hold its own as a layer after it goes in the oven.

This recipe is pretty much based on the one I've always used, which is in the "Grece" chapter of La cuisine autour de la mediterranee.* Vilma Liacouras Chantiles notes in The Food of Greece that, although we normally associate eggplant with moussaka, traditional Greek/Turkish moussaka can be made with whatever layered vegetables you want; the red and white sauces are the common denominator. I've also gotten excellent results using potatoes sliced about 1/4 inch thick, and I usually use ground turkey in the red sauce with a little salt, pepper and nutmeg. If you're planning ahead to make it this way, it pays to spice the ground meat beforehand. A 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes works just as well as the canned whole tomatoes, as would 5 or 6 very ripe tomatoes, peeled and diced. Also, when using meat, raise the temperature to at least 375 degrees, and the eggplant also might come out more tender after another 15 minutes or so at this temperature, or after 1 hour at 400 degrees.

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).

Zucchini and Yellow Squash Lasagna

I actually skipped yoga Tuesday night so that I could come home and make this - not to eat right away, just to use up all the zucchini and yellow squash before the next Pinckney's produce pickup. (How alliterative.) I also had a green bell pepper, ricotta and a couple of boxes of lasagna noodles; otherwise, this might have been a zucchini moussaka.

I just cut into it today (Friday) for lunch and was instantly reminded that my removal of portions from baking pans leaves a little to be desired. (This really was in layers when I baked it.) Oh, well - what can you really tell about food by looking at it, anyway?

Ingredients:
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 green bell pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp dry Italian herbs (oregano, margoram, etc.)
salt and pepper
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
3 medium zucchini, sliced 1/2 inch thick crosswise
4 medium yellow squash, sliced 1/2 inch thick crosswise
1 cup plus 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 16 oz. container of ricotta cheese
2 tsp dry Italian herbs
salt and pepper
5 wheat lasagna noodles

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in the saucepan to be used for the sauce. Add the bell pepper, garlic, herbs, salt and pepper and saute until the pepper has softened, about 5 minutes. Add the crushed tomatoes, stir well and simmer uncovered until sauce has thickened significantly (you may need a splatter guard), about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the sliced zucchini and squash on plates (1 slice high), salt liberally and store in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, rinse and pat dry with paper towels. If water continues to come out, pat them with a dry paper towel as needed.

When the sauce has about 10 minutes of cooking time left, boil enough water in another saucepan to cover the lasagna noodles. Add lasagna noodles and cook until tender, about 10 minutes or according to directions on box.

While lasagna noodles are cooking, combine 1 cup parmesan cheese with ricotta cheese, 2 tsp Italian herbs, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

When sauce is ready, spoon just enough to cover the bottom of a non-stick bread-loaf-sized baking pan and spread evenly. Place two cooked lasagna noodles side by side on top of the sauce, carefully trim and slack and set aside. Add 1/3 of the ricotta cheese mix, 1/3 of the zucchini and squash (filling any gaps with the smaller pieces from the neck of the squash) and 1/3 of the remaining sauce. Repeat the layering two more times. The final layer of pasta should be made up of reserved pieces from the first two layers of lasagna noodles plus one intact lasagna noodle. Once the last of the lasagna noodles and sauce have been added to the baking pan, sprinkle the remaining parmesan cheese on top.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until cheese is golden brown and juices are bubbling. Let cool for about 15 minutes. Serve or store in refrigerator.

Chickpea and Zucchini Moussaka

Seemed like as good a way as any to use some of the tiny yellow squash I received from Pinckney's this week. I also had a few tomatoes from Steve's most recent produce purchase, canned chickpeas and tomato sauce in the cupboard and fresh mint growing in the backyard.

This recipe came from a 2004 issue of Food and Wine* in which they profiled a Turkish chef and provided this and several other recipes. My variation is totally vegan, although I've used a small amount of ground turkey on occasion when I had some already thawed (the magazine version calls for ground lamb). It's not really a moussaka, since it's not layered, but it does involve squash and a yummy tomato base for the rest.

2 tbsp olive oil
3 small zucchini, split lengthwise and sliced about 1/2 inch thick
3 very small yellow squash, split lengthwise and sliced about 1/2 inch thick
2 gloves garlic, chopped
2 bunches scallions, chopped about 1/2 inch thick
3 medium tomatoes, peeled and diced
4 oz tomato sauce
1 tsp crushed red pepper
salt to taste
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp chopped fresh mint

Heat the oil in a saute pan. Add zucchini, squash and garlic and saute until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add scallions and tomatoes and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add tomato sauce, crushed red pepper, salt and chickpeas. Stir well, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, another 5-7 minutes. Remove cover, raise heat back to medium and cook until thickened, stirring often, another 3-5 minutes. Turn off heat, stir in parsley and mint and serve over couscous or rice.

The mint sounds weird, but this flavor combination (with the crushed red pepper and tomato sauce) comes out great every time. I actually have a Greek recipe book that calls for simmering diced potatoes and green beans in a similar tomato-mint base - "Peloponnesos style" - also very good! This recipe is also great as leftovers.

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