Late Summer Ratatouille

Although the signs of autumn are all around, apples, school buses, and the first few crunchy leaves on the ground, the recent hot weather has reminded me that summer is not quite over yet.  I'm glad for that because there are still a few more summer dishes I want to savor before the cold weather moves in...and living in Syracuse that may be tomorrow...I'll make sure my snow boots are out just in case.  Checking our garden lately has ended up in pleasant surprises finding yellow squash and zucchini that I had previously written off as a failure.  I've also recently raided my parents' herb garden which have perennial herbs that I'm pretty sure are older than I am.  Adding in some of our tomato harvest and a few bell peppers shared by my husband's coworker from their garden overflow, I made a delicious late summer ratatouille tonight that made me a little bit sad to see the season go.  For this ratatouille, I'd like to note that I forgot to add in eggplant, but I wish I had so I'll add that to the ingredients list.  Also, I added in cannellini beans which is bit untraditional, but added a nice flavor and made the dish a little more hearty which would be great if you're planning on serving it as a main course.  Here's what I did:

Late Summer Ratatouille

2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp dried oregano
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 medium yellow squash, large diced
1 medium zucchini, large diced
1 medium eggplant, large diced
1 medium bell pepper
1 large tomato, diced
1 small yellow onion, cut in half and finely sliced
1 can of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
A few grinds of fresh black pepper

Prepare all of the diced vegetables ahead of time to make life easier.  Heat olive oil in a deep skillet over medium-high heat.  Saute garlic and onions for about 3 minutes, stirring often.  Add in squash, zucchini, eggplant and peppers and cook for about 5 minutes or until they start to become tender.  Add in tomatoes and beans followed by oregano, basil and pepper. Cook for another 2-3 minutes then lower heat and cover.  Allow to simmer for at least 20 minutes before serving.

Tomato, Basil and Mozzarella Pizza

Now that summer is winding down and fall is just around the corner (yay!) our garden harvest is in full swing.  While some items didn't have as high of a yield as I would have liked, like our zucchini and corn, others, including our tomatoes and green beans have given us quite a bounty.  I've tried my best to keep up with picking, cooking or freezing all of our garden goodies and in some cases it has really forced me to flex my creative cooking muscles to come up with recipes for everything.  This past week we've been enjoying fresh tomatoes on our salads and I plan on using some to make pizza sauce and tomato sauce to freeze for the coming months.  Sometimes, however, I think simple recipes can be some of the best ones.  Going with this theme of simple and easy, tonight we made a delicious and light summer pizza with our fresh tomatoes, fresh basil from the garden, garlic and fresh mozzarella.  I was so amazed with how much flavor all of the fresh, garden-grown items packed and my husband even proclaimed that his only complaint about it was that I didn't make a larger pizza.  I'll check this one off as a success.  Here's what I did:

Fresh Tomato, Basil and Mozzarella Pizza

Use your favorite 12" whole wheat pizza crust (I used Wegman's Whole Wheat Flat Bread Pizza Crust) or even better, try your hand and making your own
1 tbsp olive oil
2 small or 1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced
1/4 cup fresh basil, thinly sliced
1 large tomato (I used Pilgrim tomatoes, but beefsteak or any other large type would work)
4 oz. of fresh mozzarella, halved and thinly sliced in triangles
A pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.  Drizzle crust with olive oil and simply spread sliced toppings over pizza crust evenly.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake for 12-15 minutes.

Making a Favorite Food Blog Local

If your a food lover and a blog lover, then chances are that you've heard of Smitten Kitchen.  This food blog is not only inspirational as the author serves up wonderfully creative dishes and equally amazing photography.  Add in her humor and wit and this blog is not only entertaining, but also gives you great ideas for dinner (which is really what we all want in a food blog, right?)  Anyway, I've been a longtime fan of hers and one reason is because she offers her recipes categorized by season.  That way it makes it very easy to find a recipe and make it "local" with ingredients from your garden or local farmer's market.  This week I found a recipe on her blog that met all of my needs for a weeknight meal as it was a "one pot meal" making for hardly any clean-up and it was super easy.  I was also able to make it using almost exclusively local ingredients.  Here's the link to the recipe, but make sure you take some time to look around the rest of the blog as I'm sure you'll love it as much as I do!

One Pot Farro with Tomatoes from Smitten Kitchen

Here are some photos of my version...

Tomatoes from a favorite local farm

Any recipe that involves combining everything together in only one pot is definitely alright with me! (And probably my husband since he's usually on dish duty)

As for the other local ingredients, the onions came from the farmer's market, garlic from a friend's garden, and basil from our garden.  That left only the farro and cheese to be purchased at the grocery store...not too bad.

Sage Turkey Burgers

When I used to think of gardening at home, my mind immediately conjured up images of fresh green beans, tomatoes, and zucchini.  I never really got too excited about the thought of growing herbs.  My dad always had a very well kept herb garden when I was growing up and I do remember our kitchen filled with small bundles of basil, thyme, and oregano hanging from the pot rack drying for later use.  Now that I have my own garden, I've realized how great growing fresh herbs can be.  There are so many benefits to growing your own herbs and spices starting with the ability to do so in pretty much any space.  Right now I have rosemary and parsley growing in small pots on my kitchen window sill, oregano and cilantro in larger pots on our patio, while the basil and sage is planted in our garden serving as a border to keep small animals away (yup, they're pulling double duty as food and pest control).

Another benefit to having your own herbs is that they're always there when you need them.  Have you ever purchased fresh herbs at the store, paid way to much for them and had to buy way more than you needed only for them to wilt or get slimy in the fridge?  Well I have and it irritates me!  Having my own on the widow sill or in the backyard lets me just go out, pick what I need and they're fresher than fresh. Also many of them including sage, oregano, thyme, and cilantro are perennials, meaning they'll come back year after year.  So all you need to do is pick a spot and plant them once.  It doesn't get much easier than that.

This past week, we enjoyed some of our fresh sage used to make turkey burgers.  I love sage as a poultry seasoning whether you're grilling or roasting chicken or turkey, it's fantastic.  It adds a whole lot of flavor on it's own so you can dial back on the salt if you're looking to cut back on your sodium intake.  Here's what I did in this super simple summer recipe:

Sage Turkey Burgers

1 lb. ground turkey

1/4 cup of freshly chopped sage

1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder

A pinch of salt

A pinch of pepper

Combine ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.  Divide meat into four equal sized patties and place on grill or in a large skillet with 1 tbsp. of olive oil.  Cook for 3 minutes on either side or until the inner temperature of the burgers is 165 degrees F.

Add any toppings that you choose.  Some that we like are lettuce and tomato, of course, red onion, natural cheese such as cheddar, or avocado slices.

A Litte Housekeeping

In order to make KJ's Green Kitchen a little bit better, over the next few weeks I will be doing some work on the information that I offer here.  I'll be starting with my "Addie's Eats" page and moving on to the others and hopefully adding some new ones as well.  I'd really like to hear from those of you who check in with this blog on what you would like to see.  Post a comment or email me at kjsgreenkitchen@gmail.com.  I'd love to hear what you like about the current pages or what you would like to see more of.  I will be continuing to post on the main page as usual, but check back often for updates on the other pages.  Thanks for reading KJ's Green Kitchen!

Whole Wheat Blueberry Walnut Muffins

Happy Fourth of July!  It's so nice to have a mid-week holiday with a day off to spend with my family. I've tried to keep the agenda clear for the most part so we can just relax and enjoy the day starting with a big breakfast and perhaps an extra cup of coffee :)  With most weekday mornings seeming like a complete blur, I always like to take advantage of these days to prepare a breakfast that might take a little extra time, but that we can take our time enjoying together.  I decided to celebrate two things this morning with my recipe choice: Independence Day and Blueberry season!  It's still pretty early for many blueberry growers in our area, but I was able to find some grown fairly close, which means blueberry picking is just around the corner for us!  If you've got the day off to spend with your family or just a little extra time for breakfast, try these healthy and seasonal muffins, best enjoyed while still in pajamas with one more cup of coffee!

Whole Wheat Blueberry Walnut Muffins

1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar + 2 tsp for the blueberries
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 fresh or frozen blueberries
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Wash and dry blueberries with paper towels if fresh or thaw and pat dry with paper towels if frozen then toss with 2 tsp sugar.  Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.  Add blueberries.  Combine egg, milk, and applesauce together and mix well.  In the dry ingredients bowl, make a well in the center of the bowl and pour in wet ingredients and walnuts.  Mix until just combined.

Lightly grease muffin tins and scoop batter into each cavity so that they are 2/3 full.  Sprinkle more chopped walnuts on top if desired. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove from pan to cool.

Garden Update

Rain, rain, go away...not sure if you should come back anytime soon.  Here I am complaining about the weather again, I swear that's not all I do.  However, lately I am feeling a bit like I need to build an ark before we all float away!  On a positive note, though I've barely had to water anything in my yard and despite the uninvited mushrooms growing in my garden, things are going pretty well.  We've just recently begun to enjoy some of the first few fruits of our labor in the garden including some fresh herbs like basil and sage, some spinach and arugula for salads and even a pretty good size zucchini.  Before providing an update on what our garden is currently looking like, I thought I'd go back a bit and show it from the beginning since we made some pretty big changes this year.

 We started by mapping out the larger perimeter of the garden space.  Inside, you can see the outline of our old garden beds, which look pretty puny.

Then we broke out the serious equipment to get started.  Thanks to my wonderful husband for doing all of the hard work!

Our dog, Abbey was clearly working hard too.  She was supervising, I guess.

Here are my pepper, tomato, and eggplant seedlings catching some sun outside.

 Meanwhile, I had started some seeds indoors.  Some were successful while others were not, but those that weren't I was able to replace with plants from the farmer's market.

Spinach sprouts

 Other plants, we sowed directly in the ground when it was warm enough including the lettuce, arugula, spinach, beans and peas.

 

Finally time to start gathering some greens.  Here is a fresh salad we enjoyed with a mix of spinach, arugula and basil.  Yum!

Our first zucchini from the garden we used in some homemade pasta sauce combined with fresh yellow peppers.

A little friend that came to visit...and surprisingly didn't eat anything

Basil and romaine lettuce

Pole beans climbing a bean teepee.  Space saving and fun for Addison to hide in!

Grape tomatoes

Peas!

Another baby zucchini

Carrots in a pot

We're looking forward to continuing to eat just about as local as we can get from our garden throughout the summer.  Hopefully your garden is growing well too (if not overwatered!) and if you haven't started one yet, you may still have a little time to pick up some plants at your local farmer's market so you can enjoy fresh food in your own backyard!  If not, it's never too early to begin planning for next year.  Just take a look at the space you have and take note of what kind of sun your yard gets and think about what you and your family like to eat often.  Write everything down and maybe even draw a picture of how you want your garden to look and you'll be prepared to get planting as soon as the ground is ready.  Share some pictures of your garden here or 'like' "KJ's Green Kitchen" on Facebook and post a picture on our wall.