Tonight, Michael was off having fun with friends, so we took the opportunity to make something not only with vegetables, not only vegetarian, but vegan (gasp)—ratatouille. Unlike most French fare, the recipe for this rustic vegetable stew is somewhat flexible. We opted for the stovetop route, adding non-traditional yellow squash and substituting red bell peppers for the typical green, resulting in a very colorful dish (red, orange, yellow, green, and purple are all in the mix). It’s really very easy, once you assemble and chop up all the ingredients! Also: surprisingly delicious despite not having any suffering in it.

Rainbow Ratatouille

• 5-6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 6 cloves of garlic (or to taste), broken/crushed with the back of a knife and then chopped
• 1 large onion, sliced thin
• 1 large eggplant, cut roughly into 1/2 inch cubes
• 2 large zucchini, sliced into long strips and then cut into quarter-strips
• 6 small crookneck squash, cut into thin circular slices
• 1 large red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped
• 5 medium tomatoes (preferably slightly overripe), chopped roughly
• 1 tbsp each of dried thyme and oregano (or to taste)
• 1 cup shredded fresh basil
• red pepper flakes (to taste)
• kosher salt (to taste)

Sprinkle chopped eggplant and squash with salt while you start. Heat half the olive oil on medium-low, then cook the onions and garlic until onions have softened. Add the remaining oil, turn the heat up to medium; let the oil heat, but don’t let it smoke. Add the eggplant and cook until the eggplant is soft, about 8-10 minutes. Add the zucchini, crookneck squash, and bell pepper, cooking for another 10-12 minutes (stirring to prevent scorching). Finally, add the tomatoes and the seasonings, allowing everything to soak through. Let that stew for another 8-10 minutes (uncovered, as the tomatoes add a good deal of water). Serve with a baguette (and/or Rice-a-Roni if you have an entire shelf of your pantry dedicated to it because it is always on sale… *looks around shiftily*).

(Picture was taken right before the tomatoes went in.) Tomorrow: Sausage cappelini (with homemade pesto!) and bruschetta. :9

Chicken and summer squash cornbread casserole

• 4-6 chicken breasts, cooked/leftover or poached, then shredded (see below)
• 3 boxes pre-mixed cornbread batter (such as Jiffy) prepared according to instructions (for Jiffy, you’ll need 3 eggs and also X c of milk)
• optional: 4-10 diced jalapeños mixed into the Jiffy cornbread, for added heat. :9
• 1 lb summer squash, peeled, sliced thin, and browned in a pan with some salt for about 5 minutes
• 2 1/2 c frozen then thawed corn kernels, or about 5 ears worth of corn kernels (instructions on cooking fresh corn can be found by consulting the internet)
• 3 c shredded cheese, in whatever combination of cheddar and monterey jack pleases you. Panela is actually the preferred variety, but it’s hard to find(?)
• 4 cups roasted tomatillo salsa, recipe below (can be substituted with store-bought salsa verde, but it is really easy)

Preheat oven to 375˚F. In a greased lasagna dish, lay down about half of the cornbread batter, then half of the squash, half of the corn, half of the chicken, half of the salsa, and half of the cheese. Repeat. Bake for 30 minutes, covered with foil. Remove foil, bring the oven down to 350˚F, and bake another 30 minutes, or until outer layer of cheese is golden brown and an inserted knife comes out clean. (The real difficulty is getting the middle layer of cornbread to cook; it is essential to the casserole’s structure.

Roasted tomatillo salsa
This yields about 6 cups. The recipe calls for 4 cups, but the rest is for serving. Also, salsa verde is something awesome to have around for other reasons.

• about 60 tomatillos, leaves removed, and rinsed under warm water to remove the stickiness
• 10 large cloves garlic, *with* skins
• 12 jalapeños (or 8 serrano chiles, if you can find them)
• 1 c fresh cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
• salt, to taste

Preheat broiler to high, oven rack in center position. Place tomatillos, garlic, and chiles on a foil lined baking dish, and broil for 8 minutes, turning tomatillos halfway through. Skin garlic, stem chiles, and blend these, the tomatillos, and the cilantro in batches in a food processor.* It doesn’t have to be puréed, but fairly smooth is better for this dish.

Poached chicken breasts

• chicken breasts
• water, salt
• appropriate herbs and spices

Put chicken breasts at the bottom of a pot such that they do not overlap (too much). Fill pot with water such that the chicken breasts are fully submerged. Add salt and other flavorings as desired (for this recipe I used about 2 tsp salt for two chicken breasts, plus some garlic powder and probably about 2 tsp of chili powder, but it depends on what you’re making). Bring to a gentle boil on medium-high heat, then bring it down to a simmer on low, cover, and simmer for 2-4 minutes. Turn off heat, and let the pot stand covered on the range for 20-30 minutes. Chicken should be done all the way through by then. You can reuse the water for more chicken breasts, too… also, you don’t really have to thaw them if they are frozen, because you’re heating them already, and adding water when poaching is a-okay. Poached chicken breasts are ready to eat, and there’s no added fat from the cooking. D:

Shredding a hot poached chicken breast is fairly easy; I found the best way was to attack it like some kind of madman dual-wielding forks. Shredded chicken is great in Mexican dishes (esp. enchiladas verdes) and also you can make it into delicious chicken salad for lunchtime sammiches.

It’s grade-A coma-inducing comfort food. :v

*Apparently we obtained a food processor at some point, and I didn’t even know! So useful.

I consider pork to be the most mysterious of all the meats. An extremely reputable online encyclopedia has this to say:

Meat refers to animal tissue, especially that which is consumed as food. There are various kinds of meat, ranging from white meat such as (chicken or turkey) to red meat (such as beef). Some meats, such as ham and pork (both being meats of the pig) resist such strict classification.

As you can see, even creation scientists are baffled when it comes to pork. So far, pork is the most difficult meat I’ve tackled in the kitchen… Every now and then I get an urge to make something with lobster (like bisque! :q), but those recipes always begin with “dispatch the scuttling space monster by stabbing it in the brain stem, or by boiling it alive, you genocidal monster.” Yeesh!

The Pork Problem is probably well-known to all, but let me summarize: Pork sold in America has fairly low fat content, probably due to some arbitrary decree by the FDA. This means that it would be best not too cook it too much (as it dries out quickly on the stove), but! pork has also been known for centuries to harbor foodborne diseases (though less so today), so people are very wary of undercooked pork. Thus, if you want a nice juicy pork tenderloin without the whole “parasite” side effect, you really have to “cook it twice”: brown it in a pan, and then stick that pan in the oven for a while (until it has reached the federally mandated internal temperature of 150˚F).

Anyway, here is a unorthodox interpretation of a delicious pork-based meal I had while over in Germany, modified to fit the stuff in our CSA box this week + also a recipe from Gourmet that sounded yummy.

Curry-rubbed pork tenderloin with tomato-peach compôte (adapted from Gourmet 07/2009)

• 4 large garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tbsp ginger, minced
• 1 tsp curry powder
• salt and pepper
• 2 3/4 lb pork tenderloins
• olive oil for browning
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3/4 lb tomatoes, chopped into 1 inch pieces
• 1 peach, pitted and chopped (I did into eights and then those into quarters)
• 3 tsp dried thyme leaves
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 425˚F. Smash the garlic, ginger, and curry powder into a paste using your favorite paste-making method. The Gourmet-recommended method is using a mortar and pestle, but we have neither mortar nor pestle, so instead we used the flat part of our Ikea meat tenderizing mallet and pressed down really hard with our huge manly muscles. *flex* Anyway, once you make the paste, rub your tenderloin (lol) down with salt and pepper, and then rub it with the seasoning paste. Delish! Brown the two tenderloins in an oven-safe* pan for 5 minutes on one side, then flip over and thrust into the middle of the oven, cooking for 10-15 minutes**, or until it is done all the way through, or a meat thermometer registers something between 145 and 150˚F when inserted into the thickest part of the meat. (Hehe… meat.)

Alright! Remove the pan from the oven (the handle will be hot… I touched it with my hands because I am dumb it was not fun guys). Place the pork on a cutting board and let rest while you make the compôte. With the hot oven-pan on the range (all its pork juices intact), heat it to medium-high, then add the chopped onion and cook for 5 minutes, or until the onions are translucent and soft. Add the chopped tomato and peach, and cook until soft, 3 to 4 minutes about, depending on the kind of peach. Slice the pork against the grain, serve with compôte and also the pork-fruit-juice stuff that runs off.

* If you don’t know if your pan is oven-safe, here’s a good tip: Any pan made entirely out of metal automatically is (and up to 500˚F if it’s got Teflon). If it has plastic, it’s eitiher labeled or you shouldn’t try.

** Ours took about 30 minutes, but we had doubled the recipe. I’m still not really sure this makes any sense.

The next item on the menu is something my mother makes every Christmas. She makes it from a pre-packaged mix, though, so I thought I’d try to make it from scratch. It was pretty hard and it didn’t come out quite right the first time (still not sure why that is). Anyway… maybe you will have more luck?

Kartoffelklösse (German potato dumplings)

• 6 medium potatoes
• 1/2 c flour
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs

Boil the potatoes until they are cooked through but still relatively firm, I’d say 15-20 minutes, then rinse them in cold water, dry them, and refrigerate them for at least two hours. Then grate them with the fine mesh of a cheese grater into a large mixing bowl. Add the flour, the salt, and the eggs, and stir it all up until it forms a pliable dough. If it’s too sticky, add some flour, and if it isn’t sticky enough, maybe add half an egg? it’s hard to say.

If you can form it into fairly solid 1-inch diameter balls, then it should be done. Do so, and then throw in “gently boiling” water for at least 5-7 minutes, or until they float to the top. Then remove and set aside.

And finally, something with vinegar to set the other flavors off. If you don’t know what caraway seeds are, they are what makes rye bread taste funny. They are not for everyone, and they are potent little f-ers, so “to taste” is key.

Summer squash “sauerkraut”

• 2 large summer squash, sliced into long, thin strips, then crosswise diagonally into 2-3 inch length slices (whatever!)
• 1/2 c white wine vinegar
• 1/4 c apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp salt (plus more to taste)
• 1-2 tsp caraway seeds, to taste

Just toss the ingredients together, adjust salt and caraway to your taste, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Serve cold.

And this is what it all looks like when it’s done:

I actually thought it came out very well, though the dumplings were less spherical and tasty than I had anticipated (do a google image search for “german potato dumplings” to see what I mean). The pork was juicy, and I actually really liked the squash stuff. I think it might be “what I do with summer squash from now on”… since I always kind of struggle with them. =)

So what do you do with summer squash? Probably the most delicious thing to do is to bread it and fry it and eat it with marinara, but that’s not really very “health conscious.” Instead, I decided to make risotto, because I’ve never done it before (GASP, I know rite? D:). The roommates were all down in Santa Cruz at the beach, so I decided to invite my friend Morgan over to be my guinea pig, and for company!

Summer squash risotto

• About 8 summer squash, chopped into 1/4 inch cubes
• [unqualified] olive oil or vegetable oil (for frying)
• Salt and black pepper
• 1 medium onion, chopped very fine (almost minced)
• 3 large cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups arborio rice
• 1/2 cup sherry or white wine
• (at least) 5 cups warm chicken or vegetable broth, plus 1 cup more
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil or butter (for flavor)
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
• 2 tbsp dried thyme leaves (or to taste)… oregano and rosemary also probably work nicely
• If you’ve got them, roasted pumpkin seeds or sunflower seed kernels would probably be a delicious addition

So yah, risotto takes a fairly long time to make, it turns out (and I was going to do work today… maybe). It’s not very difficult, but there are a few steps:

1. Heat about a tbsp of oil in a large sautée pan (I used a wok, actually) on medium-low. Toss squash until well coated and cook to desired level of tenderness, add salt if desired. I didn’t cook it too much because I wanted a little resistance to the bite and the fresh, squashy flavor to stand out because it tastes like summer.



2. Remove squash and set aside. Pour oil into your cooking thing until the entire bottom has a shallow coat of oil. Add the onions and cook on medium-low, stirring occasionally, for 15 freaking minutes or until translucent. Add the garlic and cook for 2 more minutes.
3. Add the rice and toss until the onions, garlic, and rice are mixed, and the rice is coated with oil.
4. Turn the heat up to medium, and immediately add the booze, mixing well for 1 minute.
5. And now for the fun part! Add broth one cup at a time to the pan, cooking until the liquid has evaporated/been absorbed by the rice. Do this forever, or at least until the rice is done. It can be a little al dente, that’s okay. If you run out of broth (as I did), water works fine (though you might need to adjust the salt later), also you can add a little more booze if you want. Make sure to save at least one cup of broth for the last part! The goal here is just to make sure the rice doesn’t dry out during cooking, so you have to be mixing it CONSTANTLY. You cannot stop. No exceptions.
6. By the end it should have approximately the consistency of well, risotto, or maybe sticky rice if you are more familiar with that. Really, it doesn’t matter an awful lot so long as it tastes grrreat! When it’s reached the desired consistency and rice-cookedness, move it to a large serving/mixing bowl, fold the squash into the risotto, and then add the extra cup of broth, the parmesan, the thyme, and the tasty olive oil or butter (if you’re cheating). Salt and pepper to taste, and voilà: risotto!

Morgan and I ate it with fresh, unadorned cherry tomatoes and—more importantly—wine glasses filled with milk, because we’re classy dudes!