Thanksgiving Leftover Casserole
A quick post here (from my phone no less) that really has little to do with veggies. Naturally I made too much food yesterday so I have leftovers galore. I decided to make a Thanksgiving Leftover Casserole.
Bottom layer: turkey, cubed, mixed with green bean casserole
Next layer: mashed potatoes
Next layer: gravy (we use the Heinz stuff in the glass jar)
Next layer: stuffing.
Top layer: French fried onions
Bake at 375 degrees for about 20-25 minutes and enjoy.
BBQ Cabbage
Early in the summer, a friend posted this link on my Facebook with the note “Ann you have to do this with one of your cabbages.” I knew immediately that I had to try it.
Fast forward a month or so, I finally had the time and cabbage so I worked on it.
The first step is to cut out a beer can-sized hole in the bottom of the cabbage. I wish that I would have taken a picture of the actual hole. It was much easier than I anticipated. Once I got past the stem, it was just a much of digging with a small knife. One I got the hole to the right size, I poured out half the beer (and drank it, duh) and took my fixins’ outside.
Then came the fun part – seasoning. All in all it went ok, but obviously getting the “under” size of the cabbage was the most difficult. The BBQ sauce was also a bit difficult because it didn’t “stick” as good as I thought it would, and I ended up applying a few layers of it throughout the cooking.
The one obvious shortfall of this recipe is that it is difficult to tell what’s going on inside, so I had to trust the recipe that it would be fine after the allotted time period.
Okay, so here is my confession. I didn’t read the recipe in full, and just assumed that I would eat it like a “cabbage steak”. When I pulled it off the grill, I realized that the recipe went onto give a suggestion for a “pulled cabbage sandwich.” I had already used the cabbage innards for something else, so I wasn’t able to make the coleslaw. I also was woefully short on bread, so I ended up with a semi-dry hamburger bun.
Overall impression: it was pretty good. The crispy outside with the BBQ sauce was delicious, although sometimes tough to tear through with my teeth. It certainly would be better with the coleslaw as recommended. Unfortunately, I may not make this recipe again (or at the very least look at it in a different manner, i.e. not in a sandwich). The kitsch of this recipe is that it is a barbeque substitute for vegetarians. Because I am an omnivore, I just don’t think that its a big ROI for me.
Staples.
As mentioned in my previous post, which no one read because this site for some reason stopped automatically posting to Facebook, I mentioned that I spent the past weekend cooking a ton. I seriously had close to three boxes of veggies to deal with.
So I made a few staples for supplements to “main courses” which really weren’t anything to write home about. I mean, they were still delicious but pretty standard recipes.
The first item was corn-off-the cob, which I started by shucking and boiling about 5 ears of corn. Fun fact my cat (Ellie) loves grass. She also things that corn husks are an acceptable alternative to grass. So, she was quite upset when she say that I threw away perfectly good corn husks:
After this, I cut the corn from the cob and mixed it with salt, pepper, cream cheese (about a third of the block) and butter (like 1-2T). It’s a recipe from my sister in law and is pretty dang good.
Next I made potato salad with some red potatoes that came in one of the CSAs. This is my mom’s recipe, which I kid you not is:
5 pounds potatoes
12 hard boiled eggs
1 onion, chopped
1 c Miracle Whip
2 long squirts mustard
2 glugs white vinegar
As you can imagine, no two batches are the same.
I had about 3 pounds of red potatoes so I made 8 eggs. Then recipe got a little difficult. Given that I don’t measure the mustard or vinegar, it seems weird to measure the Miracle Whip. Plus, its one more thing to clean. I got the right amount of Miracle Whip, but I think I help my squirts of mustard too long, because it’s quite mustard-y. Regardless, it’s still pretty good. Here are some pictures from the process:
Salsa!
I was going to quote a Gloria Estefan song here and then realized that song is about Conga, and not Salsa. I am getting my Latin American dances confused (or my knowledge of 90s dance pop).
Anyway… I find myself negligent in this blog once again. But! Fear not! I cooked so much this past weekend, so I will be able to schedule a number of upcoming posts.
Between my garden, and the CSA, I have more tomatoes than I know what to do with. Following the advice of a friend, I made salsa. Three batches of salsa. These pictures are from the first batch, which was arguably the best. My peppers must not have been spicy enough in the second batch, and the third… well honestly I didn’t try the third because it went straight to the freezer.
I started with slicing up my tomatoes – which were a mix of Roma and Better Boy (I halved for most of the Romas and quartered for most of the Better Boys), salting the heck out of them, and roasted them at 375 for probably around 90 minutes. I then sliced up some jalapenos (on the right) and peppers (on the left) and some green onions (in the middle), added them to the pan and continued roasting for about 30 minutes.
I rarely work with hot peppers, and I learned something when roasting the peppers. Their spiciness becomes airborne and creates a really weird smell in the house.
After the 30 minutes I placed all in my food processor and blended (I think I had to do 2 batches… so many tomatoes!).
Like I said, this batch was the best. I wasn’t feeling adventurous enough to try out canning, so I just froze the next two batches… so salsa in the winter!
Eggplant: Not Just a Shade of Purple
I honestly have never truly considered eating an eggplant.
While considering this statement, I have to ask myself why. Truth is, I probably mostly associate it with vegetarianism, and I am certainly an omnivore (and if this blog has taught me anything, it’s that I lean more towards being a carnivore).
When I was showing a comical picture of an eggplant in my CSA email to a friend (think: social interpretation of the eggplant emoji), she saw the recipe in the email for eggplant camponata, she says “you should make this! I hated it but I think you will like it!”
Clearly a glowing recommendation.
So I looked at the recipe and it was heavy on the salt, which is my weakness, so I decided to try it.
One lesson I learned right away is that garlic, when sauteed burns, like super fast. It was gross. The second time around went much better.
I followed the recipe fairly closely, except I couldn’t find the jarred roasted red peppers.
I couldn’t find pitas at Target either (aside from the pocket ones, which I guess wouldn’t have been that bad) so I used individual sized Naan instead.
The final product? I didn’t care for it. It was a little too vinegar-y. I wanted to like it.
Moving on… I had a second eggplant to work with, so I went simple. Baked Eggplant. OMG was this good! Just, sooo good.
I would recommend this recipe for anything “fried” you would rather bake. Seriously. I will use this recipe on everything. Instead of using breadcrumbs, I used panko crumbs. No really reason why, but when I was looking for breadcrumbs, I saw the panko and decided that would be fantastic.
I really hate green peppers.
I hate green peppers. I always have. For years I have referred to them as “they taste like BO smells.” Green peppers were the biggest obstacle to deciding to do a CSA.
I started big. I decided I would do a stuffed pepper. When I made the cabbage hot dish, I had a friend tell me that was just like the stuffed pepper recipe that she made. So, I more-or-less made the same recipe I made then, but without the cabbage. At the last minute, I decided to throw in some chopped green peppers. Big mistake.
So, after this cooked, I prepped a green pepper for filling with this stuff.
And then stuffed it.
At this point, you might be wondering why it is in a little tin-foil cup. I had some beets cooking in my tiny oven, and I did not have room for another pan.
So, why I was cooking this, I tried some of the original innards. Gross. The problem was that because I put the green peppers into the mix so late, they were incredibly potent. So, after having this mix… I couldn’t even eat the actual stuffed pepper.
My second attempt at eating peppers went better. I made a chicken enchilada soup, in a crockpot.
This is more or less a recipe that I have made before. It has 2 chicken breasts, 2 cans of diced tomatoes, corn-off-the cob, a chopped up green pepper, and some chili seasoning. It was then filled to the top with tomato juice.
After cooking, I served with tortilla chips and a couple (for good measure) dollops of sour cream. Pretty dang delicious.
Catch up!
So I haven’t posted recently. Sorry about that. Truth is, I haven’t made anything too marvelous lately. Plus I am getting pretty tired of vegetables.
Here is the box o’ vegetables from two weeks ago. Look at this bountiful harvest…
The cucumbers didn’t last 5 minutes out of the box. I sliced those up and ate them with a little salt.
I made more beet chips from the beets. I used the mandolin slicer, and took a nice slice into my pointer finger (which, coincidentally was my second finger cut in as many days), so I purchased those no-cut gloves. I have since used them, and I can’t say I have had a close call that has warranted the purchase, but at least I can cut with confidence. The funny thing is that I don’t really actually eat the chips though. Maybe I should take them into work or something.
The weekend after the box arrived I had some friends over for a seafood boil, which found a home for the sweet corn and the potatoes. The best way to make sweet corn is to grill it, husk on. I find it best to soak it first in water to make sure it doesn’t dry out.
Then lastly, I made pickled banana peppers. it was a pretty easy recipe, although I had a “burning nose” situation. Basically, most of the peppers were normal, non-spicy peppers, but there were a couple spicy ones in there. Not knowing this, I was not very careful, and scratched my nose a little. Oh the burn. Here are some pics.
That’s it for this post. I have a few recipes I am trying in the next few days, so the posts will pic up a little more.
Mmmm… Soup.
Another box of veggies meant a few more onions to deal with. This time I decided to make French onion soup (which begs the question, do they actually eat this in France?)
I looked at a few recipes but ultimately went out on my out for this one. I started by slicing and sauteing the onions (in butter of course), and then I added beef bullion and water (I forgot to pick up beef stock at the grocery store).
At this point I added a little salt and pepper and let it simmer for a good 10-15 minutes. I then transferred to a Fiestaware giant soup cup with pieces of Swiss cheese (I would put a ladle of soup in the cup, then add cheese, then put more soup in the cup to ensure the soup was in the middle and not on the bottom of the cup). I then placed 2 slices of french bread on the top followed by a piece of Swiss cheese. Finally, I put them in the oven for about 5 minutes to melt.
I really enjoyed this recipe. I’m not always a fan of onions but I enjoy French onion soup.
Zucchini, Part One.
This week’s CSA had so many items in it… cucumbers and cauliflower (which were devoured before I had time to take pictures), kale, green beans, zucchini, and banana peppers.
I’ll devote this post to a discussion on zucchini, which between last week’s box and this week’s box, I found myself in the possession of 8 zucchinis. It reminds me of growning up in rural Nebraska and being “zucchini’ed” by someone. By this I mean, you’d run into the bank (and of course, leave your car unlocked), only to come back to find that someone put a half dozen zucchini on your passenger seat.
I started with making roasted zucchini. I used this recipe as a base.
These were pretty good (especially with the Parmesan), although admittedly they were a little too cooked for me. I prefer my zucchini on the crunchy side.
Fast forward a few days. Based on my beet chips post, my mom bought me a mandolin slicer (thanks mom!). So I decided I would throw away my preference for “crunchy” zucchini and slice up some for dinner. I also “just” salt & peppered them because for the same meal, I was also serving green beans (future post) which were to have Parmesan on them, and I erroneously decided “you can’t have two items covered with Parmesan cheese in the same meal.”
So with that being said, these were not as good. But at least the mandolin was fun to use! I will keep to thick-slicing these by hand and just cook for less time.
I have another zucchini-based post, on zucchini bread that I will post in a few days.
The Road to Loving Veggies? 