Green Bean Salad with Goat Cheese Dressing

I found this recipe on the bulletin board at Whole Foods. We had it for supper last night and it was delicious. We used fresh local beans (and corn) from Gillespie Farms. We had a nice personal connection to our food last night as one of our house guests for this my birthday weekend has Gillespie as a maiden name! It was her husband Andy who had the idea of serving this dish with a nice piece of fish over it. Maybe we can try it with some local Striper, if we ever catch one! :D

This isn't a very good photo, but I just realized we had some leftovers and wanted to include a visual of this yummyness!

Avocado Tomato Salsa

This salsa is the topping for the Corn Cilantro Pancakes.

Ingredients
1 avocado
4 tomatoes
1 scallion
1/4 red onion chopped
1/4 cup diced cilantro
1 lime (juiced)
1 garlic clove, minced
1 Tbs oil
salt and pepper to taste

Process

1. Cut avocado in half lengthwise, remove pit, remove skin, and chop the meat.
   
2. Coarsely chop next four ingredients.
   
3. Combine above ingredients in a bowl and mix with minced garlic, lime juice, oil and salt and pepper.
   
4. The consistency can be altered by further mashing or chopping the ingredients. Taste and adjust as you may wish for more lime or garlic, etc.
   
5. When pancakes are ready, spoon salsa over the top and enjoy.
   

Cilantro Corn Pancakes

Bumping this post because it's that day of the year again! Thanks Mom!

I first ate a version of this recipe at Diner, in Williamsburg Brooklyn, on the Sunday morning before 9/11. The meal, and the wonderful morning spent with friends, will be forever etched in my mind. With my birth day only a few days away, this recipe is timely since it is one of the meals we eat most often on or around my birthday. Fresh corn is coming into season, the tomatoes are ripening on the vine, and this light and refreshing meal is perfect on a hot summer evening. These pancakes are served with a heap of Avocado Tomato Salsa and are best with a freshly muddled Mojito!

Ingredients
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup corn meal
1 egg (or 2 egg whites)
1 cup buttermilk (or yogurt)
2 Tbs oil
1.5 cups fresh corn, cooked
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
1/4 cup chopped scallions

Process

1. In large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt.
2. Stir in the corn meal.
3. In another bowl, lightly beat eggs. Add buttermilk, oil, corn, cilantro and scallions. Add these ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until combined.
4. Heat a large griddle over medium high heat. We have even put the griddle on the grill outside to stay cooler on a hot summer day.
5. When hot, brush with oil.
6. Drop batter by large spoonfuls onto griddle.
7. Cook until holes form on pancakes and then flip.
8. When browned on both sides, remove from grill.
9. Serve on plates, topping each pancake with Avocado Tomato Salsa, with a dollop of sour cream on the side.
10. Enjoy with a cold, freshly muddled Mojito! (and wish me a Happy Birthday! :D)

Last Night's Dinner Salad

What a yummy dinner it was! Served with a fresh baguette, this modification of Tasty Kitchen's Deviled Eggs in a Nest of Butter Lettuce made a perfect summer dinner for 6. I was able to use butter and romaine lettuce from the garden, but also bought a head of butter lettuce at Hannaford's. I added the first of our Sweet 100 and Sungold tomatoes to the salad. I also added shaved steak, left over from Monday's steak dinner, cooked a la our friend Brucepedia.













The biggest change I made was the salad ingredients and the deviled eggs. I used 8 eggs, and the funny part is that not knowing SP ate a broken half, no explanation of even numbers and multiples of two kept Daughter from counting 15 eggs. We love lots of laughter in our kitchen!

I doubled the dressing (recipe below) and it was perfection - I will be using it again! So that any left overs would save well, I let everyone dress their own. The serving tray was picked clean in the end but we do have leftover dressing - hooray!

In making the deviled eggs, I added fresh tarragon from the front garden bed. I did find that the amount of dressing added made them rather watery and messy, so next time I will use less of the dressing. In an attempt to dry it up a bit I added some white pepper, ground sage, and mustard powder. They were super yummy!

Dressing Ingredients

• ½ cups Light Mayonnaise
• 3 Tablespoons Dijon Mustard
• 2 Tablespoons Honey
• 4 teaspoons Rice Wine Vinegar

Dressing Preparation Instructions

1. Whisk mayonnaise, mustard, honey, and vinegar in a small bowl.

* this is a great honey Dijon recipe!

2. * Mash 5 tablespoons of the dressing into the yolks to make a smooth filling.

*Next time I will use less of the dressing. I like my deviled egg stuffing to be stiffer. I hope to return to this recipe and rewrite my version.

(Dressing, filling, and eggs can be covered and refrigerated overnight.)

Chef Jef's Veggie Burgers

These are my favorite veggie burgers in the whole wide world!

I have been in possession of this top secret recipe for about six years. It was given to me by Chef Jef (chef, drummer, friend, now father - yea - all around awesome guy) whom I had the pleasure of working with at Freedom Cafe. Having been a vegetarian, I have an interest and appreciation for veggie burgers and these babies were the first thing I ordered off the menu for my staff meal. The moment I had one of these for a staff dinner I fell in love. Jef finally divulged the recipe to me months later. SP distinctly recalls us "putting our heads together" to turn the restaurant kitchen recipe into a more family sized recipe.

This recipe yields about 6 patties and feeds our family for dinner - one burger each with the 6th split between SP and Puckstopper. You can happily double it, prep-cook and freeze, and save for later use. This recipe is perfect for the summer as it makes use of the garden vegetables and squash overload :D Thank you Jef, congrats on your son, and we love and miss you!

Ingredients
1 small zucchini, grated
1 small summer squash, grated
1/2 yellow onion, minced
1/2 red bell pepper, minced
2 Tablespoons chopped garlic
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/2 teaspoon granulated onion
1 jar wheat germ
4 eggs
1 and 1/4 cup shredded Monterrey Jack cheese


Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Combine all ingredients, but don't over mix.
3. Portion out into 6 parts, and shape into patties.
4. Lightly grease a baking dish .
5. Bake patties in oven for 10 minutes. Flip and then bake for 10 minutes more.
6. Cool and freeze.
7. Remove from freezer and throw them on the grill! :D

I took a total of three pictures before I froze them. Only the top photo came out ok, but here are the rest of the blurry iPhone photos I took before they went into our bellies. And the freezer.

Zucchini Recipes a la Egg Basket

It's that time of year again. My Zucchini cup runneth over. They are longer than my foot and wider than my calf. I needed some innovative recipes, and voila! My friend Egg Basket posted this link on Facebook this morning. Paula Deen to the rescue!

Here is a collection of her best Zucchini recipes!


Top Zucchini Recipes by Paula Dean

Deviled Eggs on Butter Lettuce with Honey Mustard Dressing

Before I lose this recipe for the third time, I am blogging it! This is another wonderful looking recipe from Tasty Kitchen.
I am making a version of this for dinner tonight, except I will be adding some shaved steak that is left over from yesterdays lunch. I will take pictures and add later.




Deviled Eggs on a Nest of Butter Lettuce with Honey Mustard Dressing

SORBET!!!

We are churning out multiple batches of Sorbet this weekend.

Strawberry. Locally grown at Gillespie Farms.
Blueberry. Frozen last fall from MOFGA and the Common Ground Country Fair.
Blackberry. Raspberry. Grown outside right in front of my house.
Any combination of the above flavors.
Here is a blueberry sorbet, individually portion, and deeply frozen in our upright freezer.















I do so love our ice cream maker. It is so handy.

Here it is wearing its fruit fly repellent hat.



























Today's flavor: Cherry Peach. YUM!





















We are using a modified version of the Strawberry Sorbet Recipe from the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Book.
The recipe makes about a dozen 3 ounce cups, even if one is just a partial for the cook (bottom center).












Ingredients
1/2 pound frozen fruit, or fresh berries refrigerated, hulled/sliced/mashed (we throw it in the food processor)
1/2 cup sugar
Juice of a lemon
1/4 honey (or corn syrup)
2 cups cold water

Directions
1. Combine fruit, sugar, honey and lemon juice in food processor and blend.
2. Pour contents into the frozen drum of your ice cream maker and follow the makers instructions.
3. When finished, pour into 3 ounce cups, and deep freeze in a freezer.

Yield = about 1 dozen 3 ounce servings.

Merrymeeting Farm Letter Head

Bakers Onion Soup

This recipe comes to you as is - on the Merry Meeting Farm letter head and in my great grandmother Baba's handwriting!