Sunday 29 July 2007

Paul cooks!


Yes, he did! I was going to offer that he could do a guest post on my cooking blog, but he just told me that he's almost ready to send his book manuscript in if the preface comes in tonight, and he's all ready to start on his *next project.* So, I suppose he's not interested in blogging right now. So I'll do the honors.

This post is to try to inspire others to garden and raise chickens, because almost everything in the frittata came from our garden or chickens!

Here's how this came down: Paul is still on vacation until tomorrow, and we wanted to attend a different church on this last day. So Paul had energy and time to say, hey, after church why don't we make a frittata with zucchini and cherry tomatoes? Ooh, that sounded good. So we found a recipe for zucchini frittata in Joy of Cooking, and adapted it. Here's how he did it:

First, he sauteed one cup of thinly sliced onion in 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a cast iron skillet, until golden brown. We added one large-ish zucchini, thinly sliced, and a small basket-full of cherry tomatoes, halved, and cooked it about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, we beat 5 eggs in a bowl with 1/2 teaspoon salt and a bit of freshly ground pepper.

Once the vegetables were finished cooking, Paul put them in a bowl to cool. Then I convinced him that even though that broth (oh, he had a Greek word to describe it....probably got it from one of our bishops who love to cook) looked very tasty, it should be drained off before adding to the eggs, so they wouldn't be runny. He saved the broth, however, so I can use it in soup.

So then he added the veggies to the egg mixture, along with 1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese and about 1/4 cup combined fresh parsley and basil. He heated two tablespoons of olive oil in the skillet and then poured in the egg mixture and reduced the heat. He cooked it until the bottom was set and then put it in the broiler until it was nice and golden brown. He cut it in wedges and served it. Yum!

I sure hope it isn't next year's vacation before he cooks again!

Tuesday 10 July 2007

Summer Garden Stew

Hot! Hot! Hot! It was 104 today! Yesterday it was only 86, and this is the first time this summer it's gotten anywhere close to 104. I couldn't quite think about cooking what I had planned, which was scallion crepes and bok choy from Local Flavors cookbook (which I haven't made before...hopefully I'll be able to make it sometime, as I do have plenty of bok choy in my garden!). Somehow standing over a hot griddle cooking crepes just didn't appeal.

So, I went out in my garden with colander and knife in hand. I went through and picked everything that I could. That turned out to be: one zucchini, a handful of basil, bunch of chives, 5 cherry tomatoes, 2 slightly larger tomatoes, the last of the peas, the first of the green beans, a big bunch bok choy, and one short, fat carrot.

I chopped the scallions I'd planned for the crepes and three cloves of garlic and sauteed them lightly in olive oil. Then I threw in all the other veggies, chopped if appropriate, except the basil and chives. Cooked that for a while and then added a bit of vegetable broth, not to cover, just enough to get them good and wet. I cooked them until the broth was reduced and everything was tender, then threw in the basil and chives.




I cooked a pot of pasta then served the stew over the pasta, and topped it with a dab of butter, ricotta, and parmesan.



It was delicious!