Pesto

I made pesto for the first time and it was easier than I expected and also very good. Much better than the jarred kind.

I exchanged some zucchini for extra basil so I'd have enough to make pesto and managed to make the pesto just before the batch of basil went bad. I added garlic, pine nuts and Parmesan to olive oil and the basil leaves for less than thirty seconds in the food processor, and then added it to sauteed mushrooms over pasta.

CSA Week #8

CSA Week #8

Beets
Zucchini
Savoy cabbage
Red onions
Basil
Romaine lettuce
Cucumber
Red Norland Potatoes

I did my volunteer hours handing out shares on Thursday and as a special bonus I got some leftover peaches and blueberries that came with the fruit share. I promptly made pie:

Blueberry Peach Pie

1/2 pint of blueberries
6 large peaches
and I probably dumped almost a full cup of flour and at least 3 tablespoons of tapioca to try to make it less watery. And it worked! Finally a peach pie that isn't a liquidy mass.

CSA Leftover Lasagna

When I got back from Israel the greens from two weeks of CSA plus the week I had just picked up were a bit out of hand and so I made lasagna. This used up several kinds of onions as well as Swiss Chard and kale.

For the record the CSA weeks I didn't get photos of included:

Week #5 - Romaine lettuce, carrots, cippolini onions, beets, kohlrabi, Toscano kale, dill, broccoli

Week #6 - Zucchini, carrots, cabbage, radicchio, Romaine lettuce, green kale, cippolini onions, broccoli

Week #7 -Zucchini, Romaine lettuce, Toscano Kale, Broccoli, Scallions, Swiss Chard, Cucumber, Basil, Corn.
The corn was an unexpected surprise and though the ears were small it was pretty good corn.
I was also pleased to miss most of the zucchini run as it falls on the list of vegetables I just really don't care for.

I spent the first two weeks of July in Israel. When I am not in Israel I dream of the many amazing milk products that you can get there that you just can’t get here. The dairy section of a regular supermarket is easily three times the size of any of the supermarkets I shop at in New York. There are all sorts of cheeses, yogurts, pudding type things and fantastic tasting milk and my personal favorite cottage cheese. It took me a long time to learn to like some of the white cheeses because I spent the rest of the year eating the filled with fat American cream cheese, but now I wish I had access to them all the time (especially when baked inside puff pastry).

That said, part of what I love about eating in Israel is that for the most part everything is most meals are accompanied with fresh cut up raw vegetables or salads and all these kinds of cheese. I did not expect to end up cooking while in Israel but my brothers begged for me to make baked macaroni and cheese. Normally I make my macaroni and cheese with predominantly cheddar cheese. I might mix some Gruyere or goat cheese to add some extra flavor, but part of the whole point of macaroni and cheese is that it is comfort food and to that equals cheddar. Except that you can’t really find cheddar in Israel. I imagine if you go to a specialty store that carries imported cheeses you might find something that as one family member said might have stood next to a block of cheddar in its life. I remember reading an American cookbook about Israeli food that discussed different cheeses and how Israeli chefs used to smuggle in various hard cheeses from Italy and France since they were not made in Israel.

I made macaroni and cheese anyway using the only vaguely yellow cheese I could find that came cubed and marked “Holland Cheese” mixed with some leftover Brinza (which I know as Bulgarian cheese and is vaguely Feta like) and some other leftover soft white cheese mixed with scallions. The breadcrumbs that were available at the grocery store were some of the finest breadcrumbs I’ve ever seen so I mixed them in with a generic Israeli brand of cornflakes. The end result baked up to look quite pretty in my grandmother’s casserole dish and tasted good if a bit bland.

We always used to leave Israel smuggling borekas and rogalech and various bags of Bisli and Bamba in the suitcase, perhaps next time I go I’ll be smuggling cheddar in.

Haiku Tuesday

Shiraz is busy
Finding ways to use veggies
Before Disney World.

Haiku Tuesday! I am back!

I apologize
for the lack of new content
Travel interfered.


I was away for a couple of weeks visiting family in Israel so wasn't able to post. I came back to a refrigerator filled with onions, kohlrabi and zucchini. I'm back now until my real vacation to go visit the mouse in August, so expect more CSA experiments.