Yummy Yards CSA Boxes 14, 15

Leek and Potato Soup

Figured I’d better have a go at leek and potato soup at least once in my life, having never eaten it before.  I see now why it is so beloved.  I was very sorry when the left-overs ran out.

• Several leeks, sliced white and light green bits only
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 Yukon Gold or Russet potatoes, cubed
• About 1 cup left-over roasted carrots
• Vegetable broth
• All the dark green part of the leeks, scrubbed, but left whole
• Small dash Matouk’s hot sauce (the secret ingredient)

1. Tie the leek greens into a bundle with kitchen twine.  Failing that, put kitchen twine on your Christmas list, and find some other way to keep the leeks together, such as using an old jar wrench, which works better for this than it does for opening jars.
2. Melt butter in soup pot.  Sauté onions and sliced leeks.  Add bay leaf, vegetable broth, potatoes and leek bundle to pot.  With lid on, gently simmer the bejiggers out of it until the leek bundle is very, very limp.  Remove leek bundle and bay leaf. 
3. Purée with hand blender.  Add just one smallish dash of Matouk’s.  Adjust for salt and pepper.  Grab your Phentex slippers, a large slice of hot, buttered, toasted sourdough bread and enjoy.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Maple Syrup

Until this evening I would not have called myself a fan of the Brussels sprout.  Boiling really does them no favours.  But roasting!  Crunchy, tender, sweet, salty, only bitter enough to be intriguing.  A whole different little vegetable!

• 1 stem-full of Brussels sprouts, removed from stem, de-bugged and cut in half length-wise
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• sea salt and fresh pepper

Toss halved Brussels sprouts with oil and maple syrup.  Spread out, cut side down, on baking sheet.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Roast in convection oven at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.  The outside leaves will get deliciously crispy and almost uncomfortably brown.  That’s when they are perfectly done.

Roasted Cabbage with Fennel

This is a Martha Stewart recipe:  http://www.marthastewart.com/315062/roasted-cabbage-wedges .

I actually followed the recipe, though I cut my cabbage in wedges, rather than rounds, and used fennel in order to free up a precious Tupperware container for the kids’ lunches.  I found the fennel growing in a back alley and just happened to have a pair of kitchen scissors in the glove box.  Unrolled the window, looked furtively left and right,  and snip!  A lovely sprig of fennel.  It hung on a cupboard handle for about 10 days until very dry.  I had been intending to use it for chai, but man!  I needed that container!  And it made for a very good cabbage dish.

Later I used some of this roasted cabbage, along with left-over roasted rutabaga, turnips, mushrooms and hot Italian sausage to make Bubble and Squeak. 

Bubble and Squeak

Chuck whatever left-over cooked veggies you have into a cast iron pan with butter and whatever left-over cooked meat you have.  Brown on the bottom, add salt and pepper, then enjoy on a crisp Fall afternoon wearing Phentex slippers.  Especially delicious with your Auntie Jane’s garden fresh tomatoes, sliced, with salt and pepper.

Fresh Ugly Tomato, Roasted Aubergine and Chocolate Pasta Sauce

Didn’t feel up to the task of removing all the scabby bits from those late season, ugly, cracked tomatoes, so I washed them well and threw them whole into a pot with an onion and some herbs.  When it was all nice and mushy I passed it through my food mill to get rid of the scabs, skins and seeds and made an interesting little pasta sauce:

• 1 onion, diced
• Olive oil
• Tomatoes, as many as you have.  10-ish?
• 2 or 3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp. oregano
• 1 tsp. basil
• 1/2 square unsweetened baker’s chocolate
• 5 or 6 roasted baby eggplants
• Salt and pepper
• Capers

Sauté the onion in olive oil until soft.  Add tomatoes, bay leaves, oregano, basil.  Simmer gently until the tomato is very soft.  Cool slightly then pass through the food mill.  Add chocolate.  Pass eggplant through food mill, then add to pot.  Simmer gently and taste for salt and pepper.  Serve on pasta with lots of capers on top.  The capers really make the dish.  Don’t forget the capers.

Roasted Green Tomato Salsa with Tequila

Lastly, here is a recipe to use up all those un-ripened tomatoes that are about to get spoiled by the first frost.  This is an earthy, tangy, almost murky-flavoured salsa for chips, on top of eggs, inside quesadillas, mixed into fajita innards.  Very interesting and (dare I say it?) mature.  I plan to freeze it in cubes to add to Mexican dishes throughout the winter.  A little goes a long way.

• Green tomatoes
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• Cumin seed
• Chile flakes
• 1 or 2 jalapeno peppers
• Large shot tequila
• Large shot lemon juice
• 3 green onions, chopped
• Salt

Wash the green tomatoes and place in a baking dish with jalapeno peppers, olive oil, cumin and red pepper.  Shake to coat evenly with oil.  Roast at 400 degrees until tomatoes are soft, about 40 minutes.  When cool pulse in food processor with tequila and  lemon.   Add the onions at the end and taste for salt.