Apple Crisp

No recipe for this one, I just followed the instructions on the bag. :)

It tastes yummy!

Home Fries

I had some potatoes from my CSA delivery and some bacon from the farmers market a couple weekends ago. So I wanted to make some home fries and do up a proper country breakfast.

I was surprised at how simple it was to make home fries, which is definetely one of my favorite breakfast dishes.

Recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Quick-and-Easy-Home-Fries/Detail.aspx

INGREDIENTS
3 medium russet potatoes, cubed
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
Rinse potato cubes with cold water, and drain well. Melt butter or margarine in a large skillet over medium heat. Place potatoes in the skillet, and stir to coat with butter. Season with salt and pepper. Cover with a lid, and cook for 10 minutes. Remove the lid, and cook for another 10 minutes, turning frequently until brown and crisp on all sides..

Nectarine Pie

Ingredients:
Pastry for a double crust 9-inch pie
4-5 cups fresh nectarines sliced
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon cinammon
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons sugar

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Using a medium bowl, combine 1/2 cup sugar with flour, add nectarines and gently toss. Spoon into unbaked pie crust.
3. Form a lattice crust by weaving the dough strips over nectarine filling. Seal and crimp edges. Brush lattice top with milk; sprinkle with 2 TBsp sugar.
4. Place on baking sheet, bake for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake 45 to 50 minues or until lattice top is golden frown and fruit is tender.

 

Feel like makin' pies

Ok, so yesterday, 2 for one pies.
I made an Apricot Pie and a nectarine pie.

http://southernfood.about.com/od/apricotrecipes/r/bl40310w.htm

1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
pastry for double crust 9-inch pie
3 cups fresh apricot halves
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon butter, cut in small pieces

PREPARATION:
Line a 9-inch pie pan with half of the pie crust. Combine sugar, flour, and nutmeg. Fill pie crust with apricot halves and sprinkle with sugar mixture. Sprinkle lemon juice over all then dot with the butter.

Cover with top crust, trim and flute edges and make several small slits in top to vent. Bake at 425° for 25 to 35 minutes.

 

Minestrone Soup

Well I decided to make a minestrone soup, basically by taking a minestrone soup recipe and sort of just throwing in whatever I had handy.

I had yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, sweet corn, and just sort of threw it all in there.

It did work out really well, by the way. It was also an excellent way to use up my overabundance of Basil and Oregano. (I threw some thyme in there as well).

So here's the basic recipe:
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion finely chopped
3 garlic cloves finely chopped
2 large ripe juicy beefsteak tomatoes (about 2 cups worth) diced
1 carrot finely diced
1 celery stalk finely sliced.
1 medium zuchinni cut into small cubes
1 medium yellow squash cut into small cubes
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
fresh mozarella cheese

salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, and basil to taste


Heat the oil in a large sauce pan (soup pot) over medium heat.
add onions and garlic andd cook for 3-4 minutes until soft

add everything else except the cheese.
season with salt and pepper
reduce heat and simmer for 50 minutes.
(check the flavoring occasionally and add spices to taste)

serve with small pasta, and or with mozarella cheese added to the top just before serving.

Yellow Squash Casserole

 

Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons of butter
1 Large yellow onion, chopped
1 lb yellow squash, cut into 1/4 in slices
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
Pinch of salt
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
pinch of thyme
1/3 cup fine dry bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 425 degrees
Melt 3 Tbsp butter in skillet over low heat.
Add onions, cover and cook for 5 minutes until soft.
Add squash, cover and cook until crisp and tender. (I don't know how it can be both crisp and tender, but there you go)
(about 3 minutes)

In bowl blend egg, cheese, nutmeg, salt, pepper and thyme.
Remove squash from heat and blend in the egg and cheese mixture.
Pour into a buttered 9 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish.
Top with bread crumbs and "dot" with the remaining butter.
Bake uncovered for 10 minutes, then broil for 2 minutes.

(Recipe from Great country farms cookbook.)

Easy / Simple /Quick Baked Eggplant & Zucchini

 
 

This was the easiest thing I made all week, and it was totally awesome.
Makes for excellent, snackable squash / zucchini /eggplant.

Fresh eggplant, squash, and/or zucchini cut into 1/4 in slices
2 cloves garlic crushed
"Season All" - seasoning salt
Parmesan cheese grated

Arrange eggplant and zucchini slices closely on a lightly oiled cookie sheet.
Spray vegetables lightly with PAM or similar cooking spray.
Mix crushed garlic with a little water and brush on the vegetables.
Sprinkle with seasoning salt. (be generous)
Broil for 5 minutes.
Remove and flip vegetables.
Season other side of vegetables the same way and broil for add'l 5 minutes.
Sprinkle on grated parmesan cheese for last 2 minutes.

Recipe from Great Country Farms cookbook.

 

Mmm. yummy.

Fresh Peach Pie

Ok, here's the idea with the peaches.

Simple Peach Pie Recipe
Simple Peach Pie Recipe #128494
This recipe is from C.A. Lynd of lyndsgourmet.com. Every year we anxiously wait for Lynd's farm to put out their peaches. They gave us this recipe with the peaches I just bought and it is simple and wonderful.
by MSZANZ
8 servings
1 hour 15 min prep
pastry for a double-crust 9-inch pie
5 cups fresh peaches, sliced
1 cup sugar
1/3-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons sugar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Stir together flour, 1 cup sugar, and cinnamon and set aside.
Wash, peel, and slice fresh peaches.
Mix together peaches with the combined dry ingredients.
Turn into pastry-lined pie pan and dot with butter.
Cover with top crust, cut slits in it, seal the edges.
Sprinkle top with 2 tablespoons of sugar.
Cover the edges with foil to prevent over browning; remove foil for the last 15 minutes of baking.
Bake 35 to 45 minutes or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through the slits in the crust.
Pie may be frozen for future use.


I'm probably going to cut the sugar to 1/2 cup.
I'm far too lazy to make the crust from scratch (for now) so I'm using 2 Mrs. Smith's pie crusts. They're thawing slightly right now.

 
 
 


So here's my deliveries from the farm.

It looks like I might do an eggplant / squash /zucchini casserole. I also saw an eggplant zucchini bake recipe that I might do.

But holy cow that's a lot of peaches. 2 bags of peaches (not counting the one bag I picked on sunday) and 1 bag of apricots. That's enough for at least 1 more apricot / peach cobbler. And maybe enough for 2 peach pies.

I didn't like the peach pie recipe I tried last, so I'm looking for another one.
They say that the drought has made the peaches extra sweet this year which is awesome.
I may also do some mixed fruit for breakfast this week.

Peach and Apricot Cobbler

Ok, so I said I got a bunch of apricots, too. So I went looking for a peach/apricot recipe. Because I really had way too many peaches for just the one peach pie.

By the way the trick is to take this stuff to work, because it is way too good and tempting to leave around the house. I'd be eating Peach Pie for breakfast. In fact I'm tempted to have some right now, when I should be going to bed. Having to take it into work also keeps me from trying a piece. You hate to take in a pie that looks like leftovers.

So here's the winning recipe:
PEach Apricot Cobbler Recipe
No it didn't win anything other than my selection of it as the recipe to use to prepare my wonderful fresh apricots.

---

1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 can (1lb 13 oz)sliced peaches, drained, juice reserved
1 can(10 1/2 oz)apricots
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
--
CRUST
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter softened
1 large egg
--
TOPPING
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons honey, at room temperature
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
PREPARATION:
In a medium saucepan, mix together sugar and cornstarch; stir in 1/2 cup reserved peach juice. Cook cornstarch and juice mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils and thickens, or about 2 minutes.

---

I really enjoy the recipes with the sort of glaze, or mashed up, carmelized sauce, it's really quite decadent.

So here's the result:


And here are the remaining apricots (next time I'll take some pictures of the produce before hand):


The ones on the left looked a bit dodgy, so I didn't use them. It looks like I may still need to (get to) try another apricot recipe. Tomorrow's my boss's birthday, so I may be able to unload a fair amount of these baked treats at the office.

I've got loads of squash & zucchini to cook too. I'll give you a look at that tomorrow.

Glazed Peach Pie

Glazed Peach Pie Recipe.

So This saturday I went to the farmers market. I didn't get any deliveries from the CSA the previous week since they take July 4th week off. So I went a little nuts.
I got probably 6-8 large peaches.
Then I got my delivery on Tuesday, maybe 8-10 medium/small peaches. And like 15 apricots!
Holy cow.

I've never even seen a fresh apricot before I don't think, but more on that in the next post. So I googled Peach pie recipes, and went through a couple of candidates, but decided on the Glazed Peach Pie Recipe.

So google search found these
A variety of Peach Pie Recipes

Non-sequiter - THank GOD for the auto save. I just clicked the link in my history and it stole my blogger window.

And the winning recipe was:
Glazed PEach Pie Recipe

---

1 9-inch pie shell, baked
1 quart sliced fresh peaches, excess liquid drained
3/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon butter
1/8 teaspoon salt
sweetened whipped cream or whipped topping

PREPARATION:
Mash 1 cup of the peaches. Add water and cook four minutes. Mix sugar and cornstarch; add to the fruit mixture. Cook until thick and clear. Add vanilla, lemon juice, butter, and salt. Let cool. Arrange remaining peach slices in the cooled pie shell.

Pour cooled peach glaze mixture over the sliced fruit. Chill. To serve, top with whipped cream or whipped topping and a few small peach slices, if desired. Or, serve with vanilla ice cream.

---

I think I may pass on the whipped topping though. I'll see what the work gang thinks of it. I would prefer the vanilla ice cream idea.

Welcome Message

Ok, so I'm always scouring the internet for crazy recipes. Plus, I'm a member of the Great Country Farms CSA (community supported agriculture), which brings me a variety of exciting foods to learn how to cook.

So I thought I'd start sharing a) the fabulous recipes I discover on the internet, and b)the wonderful virtues of farm fresh, seasonal foods (preferably organic, and local) and c) whether or not the recipes are good, work out well, etc. and d) the occasional picture of the end result.

So welcome, in a couple of minutes I'll put up my first post on the peach pie and peach & apricot cobbler I just made. (well the cobbler's just finishing up in the oven.)