Nena’s Pink Applesauce
As a child, I was a picky eater. When I was an infant and starting on solid food, I didn’t seem to like anything. But I did like applesauce. My mom tells me she would use a bit of applesauce to hide whatever else was on the spoon, whence derives the applesauce habit I had as a child.
I’m not kidding when I say I had an applesauce habit. Every evening at dinner, to the left of my plate, sat a small bowl of applesauce and I would dip every forkful of whatever meat was for dinner into the applesauce before eating it. Of course people have heard of pork with applesauce, but this was, truly every single meat. Even fish. Even my grandmother’s veal Parmesan with tomato sauce and mozzarella. (Yes, I realize that sounds like a strange combination, and I haven’t had it in years, but it’s one of those embedded taste memories I can still call to mind with utmost clarity.)
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Vegan Tsimmes
As may be clear from many of my posts, I am not vegan, yet I have numerous friends who are vegetarian or vegan. So when I made this dish and it was more phenomenal than I had even anticipated, I knew I had to share, and highlight that it’s vegan!
We had already made the brisket ahead of time – as we always do – for Erev Rosh Hashanah dinner, and I was poking around to decide what vegetable I would serve with it. I had three enormous carrots and a huge leek from our Woven Roots Farm CSA share; I also had three containers of dried fruit that were merely remnants from other recipes: 6 prunes, 3 dates, and a few tablespoons of dried cherries.
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Skillet Gnocchi with Leeks & Cream
It is always a happy day when we go to pick up our CSA farm share at Woven Roots. Because we are now empty-nesters, we only bought a half-share and pick up every other weekend. I love walking into the tent and seeing what’s on the tables each time, and then, of course, I start to come up with recipes in my head for my treasures.
This weekend we got leeks (among lots of other veggies). I adore leeks! We also had some refrigerated gnocchi and some High Lawn Farm heavy cream that were nearing their expiration dates, and so I knew exactly what I was going to make for dinner!
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Joanie’s Italian Plum Pie
Although Joanie and I hardly ever see each other anymore, especially now due to the pandemic, she follows my blog faithfully. Several days ago, she emailed me with a request. A friend had Concord grapes, she told me, and she remembered a delicious Concord grape pie she had several times, a specialty of the Finger Lakes region of New York State. If she got the grapes to me, she wondered, could she pay me to make her that pie?
Joanie went on to explain that she used to cook a lot, but her eyesight has been diminishing and she really cannot cook anymore, but would really love to taste that pie again. I told her I could give it a try. But then it turned out there weren’t enough grapes.
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Hamburger Relish
So often it is a smell that takes you back. For me, when I was making relish this weekend, as soon as it began cooking on the stove, I was transported back to Bethany, Connecticut, when I was just a child.
Although my father was New Yorker born and bred – he never lived anywhere else except during college and law school – he also loved the country. When my sister and I were young, my parents bought a country house near my grandparents in Connecticut on three acres of land where we spent many weekends and much of our time in the summers.
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Peach Sauce for Grilled Duck Breasts
Now that my stepdaughter, Rachel, lives closer to us, we have had the good fortune that she spent almost all of her vacation time with us this summer! She was even here for her birthday this past week, and in the season of the best, ripest, local fruits and vegetables, she wanted plenty of them for her birthday dinner. We served lots of grilled zucchini and eggplant, and sliced fresh tomatoes from the garden, and a Tarte Robert for dessert. And for the main course of grilled duck breasts, I did a bit of kitchen improv and made a sauce with fresh peaches! I think this this would be really good with white wine, but I had none open so I used some cognac. If you try it with white wine, or serve it with something different, such as chicken, I’d love to know how it turns out!
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Tomato, Fig & Blue Cheese Salad
Our house sits upon a hill of solid ledge. If you go down into our basement (not something I recommend), you will see the rock come up out from the earth which then becomes a beautiful focal point out in our yard. The downside, however, is that with the rock just below the surface – and in some places actually exposed in our lawn – we do not have enough soil for a vegetable garden.
Our sole effort at growing some of our own food is one small raised bed, which provides enough soil for the plant to grow. We only grow tomatoes and basil, and at this time of year it means we are eating tomatoes and basil with every single meal. I also freeze and can items for the winter, such as pesto, slow-roasted tomatoes, and tomato jam.
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Corn Tacos
I’m not talking about corn tortillas, but rather tacos that feature fresh, sweet, in-season corn, along with a protein or other vegetables!
I first got this idea when I saw a Washington Post article on easy taco fillings, one of which was for corn and chorizo with soft corn tortillas. Of course I didn’t really follow the recipe. First of all, Hank and I prefer flour tortillas, and I also didn’t have any scallions. But what was really key to this delicious dinner was the spicy and the sweet together, with slices of avocado, a bit of sour cream, and a spritz of fresh lime.
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Moo Shu Chicken – Sort Of
We got a beautiful head of napa cabbage from our CSA farm share, along with some sugar snap peas, so my thoughts turned to something Asian. Napa cabbage plays a starring role in most moo shu recipes, and we had some boneless chicken thighs in the freezer, so I started to think about that. Combining a few different recipes, as I often do, with some additional ideas of my own, the plans were coming together. Except for the moo shu pancakes.
In normal times, we would have made it an event for the day to drive to Albany, visit a few stores, eat at an interesting restaurant, and stop at the huge Asian supermarket on Central Avenue to find moo shu pancakes and any number of other hard-to-find Asian ingredients. But nothing these days is normal, and it seemed like a bit too much to drive that far for only one item that we really needed.
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My Favorite Pasta with Eggplant
Perhaps the most famous pasta dish with eggplant is Pasta alla Norma, which includes tomatoes and cheese. That recipe, Pasta alla Norma, is practically the official pasta dish of Sicily, at least it seemed that way to me when I visited Sicily during my Rome semester at the Centro (the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies). In the middle of my semester, we had a two-week trip to Sicily and southern Italy, staying at a different hotel practically every night as we toured numerous archeological sites. At every new hotel where we arrived in Sicily, they served our group Pasta alla Norma, to highlight this famous pasta dish of the island. I’ll admit I was a bit tired of that dish by the time we left!
So this post is not really about Pasta alla Norma! I do love the dish, but there is another way I love to enjoy pasta with eggplant. I like to cook slices of eggplant in olive oil until they become brown and practically melted inside, and then toss the eggplant with the pasta and a bit of heavy cream.
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Fig Marsala Sauce
We all have our weaknesses, those items that when you see them in the store or on a menu, you just cannot resist. One of mine is fresh figs.
Our local specialty store, Guido’s Fresh Marketplace, always carries the most luscious figs when they are in season, and pretty much every time I see them I buy a container, even if I have no idea how I will use them.
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Grilled Radicchio
I recently got a head of radicchio in my CSA farm share from Woven Roots Farm. Although I love radicchio and have used it often, I was quite perplexed when I picked up a head of green leaves. The radicchio I’m used to is magenta and white.
Then I cut into it! Gorgeous! I cut the head into four wedges, and also cut four figs in half. I grilled the radicchio and the figs, and served them as a side dish/salad with my favorite maple Dijon vinaigrette from The Berkshires Farm Table Cookbook. So easy!
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Fried Stuffed Zucchini Blossoms
For the second summer in a row I’ve been able to score some zucchini blossoms! This year, as I posted earlier, I made one bunch into Nidi di Rondine, at the suggestion of my friend, Romina, who lives in Gubbio, Italy.
Another Italian favorite is fried, stuffed squash blossoms, and now, on my third attempt, I think I’ve really figured it out! The first two endeavors were delicious, but this last one really came together so much better!
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Daniel’s Favorite Grilled Vegetable Pasta
As much as this may be Daniel’s favorite pasta, pasta itself is also Daniel’s favorite. He ran two seasons each year in high school and three each year in college and he still runs about 8 miles every day. You can imagine how much pasta I’ve cooked for him over the years.
So when Daniel and his girlfriend, Greta, made plans to come and visit this summer, this recipe was the first one he asked for, and the one I made for our first dinner together.
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Corn and Avocado Salad
I think I’ve got a new blog category, that I’m going to call “Hardly a Recipe.” When everything is in season, you hardly need anything to bring out the brilliance of fruits and vegetables.
Corn on the cob is one of Hank’s absolute favorite summertime treats. If I didn’t stop him, we would probably be eating it 8 days out of every week! Seriously, though, we do eat corn quite often, and even though it’s usually only the two of us now that our kids are all adults, we always get half a dozen ears.
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Blueberries!
Today was my annual blueberry-picking date with one of my former students at what I like to think of as my secret blueberry orchard.
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A Project with Zucchini Flowers
Romina, one of my dear friends from Gubbio, Italy, posted zucchini flowers on Facebook a while back, long before we were ever going to see any here in the Berkshires! And I told her how jealous I was, not only because they were months away, but also because it is not easy to obtain zucchini flowers here in the States. (Yes, I know I could grow them, but our property is on a hill of ledge, with solid rock just below the surface, so growing is a challenge.)
Romina responded with a link to a recipe for Nidi di Rondine, swallow’s nests, filled with sausage and zucchini flowers. I bookmarked the link waiting until I might be able to acquire some fiori di zucca.
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Piracicaba – A New Version of an Old Favorite Vegetable
It should come as no surprise that I follow various cooking groups on social media (as well as chefs and restaurants, of course). How often do I see someone post a less-common vegetable from a CSA or an online produce subscriptions asking for help and suggestions!
Well, today it was my turn, when I got something called piracicaba from our CSA, Woven Roots Farm in Tyringham, MA. At the farm, I spoke with Jen Salinetti who described it as a Brazilian type of broccoli, and indeed it looks like it. But when I got home and Googled it, I only found a couple of recipes (although I found many more mentions of the plant itself).
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Shellfish Indulgence
I love shellfish, but Hank is allergic. It’s not so severe that he can’t be near it – whenever we’re in Maine, after he quickly finishes his fish ’n chips, he waits patiently as I work my way through every bit of my lobster – however it does mean that I rarely cook shellfish at home.
But when we have a guest who likes shellfish, I sometimes like to treat myself, and not too long ago I was able to do so, and I served soft shell crab sandwiches for lunch and grilled octopus for dinner!
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Hilltown Hot Pies – Pizza Pop-Up!
My good friend, Rafi, accomplished pizzaiolo and sourdough master, again has a pizza pop-up this summer! So, friends in Berkshire county and neighboring areas of New York State, if you are looking for a delicious and different evening activity that’s still feasible during this time, head on over to Katchkie Farm in Kinderhook, NY for some wood-fired sourdough pizza! The pop-up will be open this Saturday, July 18, and then Thursday-Sunday beginning July 23 through mid-September.
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