Celery

To preserve the wonderful market celery for winter.  I washed it, stripped the leaves, and chopped the celery.  I blanched the celery in boiling water.  I put the celery in a colander and lowered it into the pot of boiling water for two minutes.  Then I put the colander of celery into a cold water bath.  Then I patted it dry & packed it into freezer bags.  I could have individually frozen the celery on a cookie sheet, but I didn't have the energy for that!  Now we will have flavorful, fresh celery all winter long.

"Stuffed" Cabbage

We used the cabbage on the first day!   I made my interpretation of stuffed cabbage, which is a cabbage lasagna.  I boiled the cabbage leaves for 15 minutes, according to a recipe I found on the internet.  Then I sauteed 1/2 a large onion, a shallot, a head of garlic, 3 carrots, 1/2 a red pepper, a rib of celery, some sprigs of thyme in olive oil with a pound of ground beef and a pound of ground veal.  I added a little bit of chili powder and some salt & hot paprika.  I cooked a cup of basmanti rice and added the cooked rice to the mixture. Luckily, the sweet husband had made a pot of tomato sauce today.  His sauce included fresh beefsteak tomatoes from the market, garlic, onions & roasted beets!  Instead of rolling the meat in the cabbage, I layered it in a 9 x 12 pan.  First, I put a couple scoops of sauce on the bottom.  Then a layer of cabbage leaves, then a layer of meat, cabbage leaves, meat, cabbage leaves & then sauce on the top.  Then I baked it at 350 for 30 minutes.  The 8 year old approved & the sweet husband & I added a few dollops of goat cheese.  Yum.

Oyster Mushrooms

This week we bought a box of oyster mushrooms from Tom at Kilbuck Farms.  Tom suggested in the past, that we buy the mushrooms in bulk, saute them and freeze them like the restaurants do.  We have done it many times.  Chop the mushrooms and saute them in olive oil, then freeze in small portions in freezer bags.  They are great in pasta, paella, pot roast, stew, short ribs etc.   They can be sauteed with shallots before freezing or the shallots can be added later.   They reduce quite a bit after they are cooked!

Roasted tomatoes and garlic

We have followed Tom Collichio's recipe for roasted tomatoes.  We bought beautiful heirloom roma tomatoes.  Tom says to slice them in half, add some full cloves of garlic toss them in olive oil with salt and pepper and sprigs of thyme.   He places them cut side down on a cookie sheet and roasts them for 20 minutes at 350, then removes the skins, lowers the temperature to 285 and roasts them for 3 or 4 more hours.  Then, discard the thyme, and freeze the garlic and tomatoes separately for later use.

Oven dried tomatoes II

I've now perfected the oven dried tomatoes.  I found a recipe which sprinkled a small amount of sugar on the tomatoes.  I omitted the oil, added the sugar and ground pepper.  They are a bit spicy, really sweet and amazing.  I've never even really been fond of sun dried tomatoes because they usually have too strong of a flavor.  These tomatoes taste like summer.

Oven dried tomatoes

I could go to bed if my oven were not filled with tomatoes!  My neighbor Demos mentioned today that he had dried some tomatoes.  Our house is full of tomatoes!  Those from the CSA bag of course and all of the tomatoes my sweet husband has purchased for a winter of tomato sauce.  Demos works for a food processing company & "one of the chef's at work" told him that he should dry his excess tomatoes in a 225 degree oven for about 5 hours, with just a little olive oil & salt.  I tasted them & they were great.  Thus, my tomatoes went into the oven about 6:00 and now I wait for them to dry, instead of sleeping like my children.

Paella & lima beans?

I love to make paella and I always put lots of veggies in my paella.  About two years ago, I bought the sweet husband a paella cookbook & that Christmas I made a 3 paella feast, one for the vegetarians, one for the friend allergic to seafood and one for everyone else.  Then I experimented with paellas trying Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa quick paella with kielbasa.  I feel like I have a winning paella recipe down.  My friend Alison had paella in the south of France and told her group that she has a friend in Cleveland who makes a better paella! My 15 year old has proclaimed my paella her favorite meal.  So, what's a girl to do with a winning paella record?  Add lima beans?!?   So, tonight, it occurred to me that a pan of paella would provide dinner, an afterschool snack for the teenager & lunch for me for the week.  I also could use up some carrots, onions, shallots, garlic, peppers, yellow squash and even some of those lima beans! 

In the spring we went camping with a Puerto Rican friend who made an amazing paella over the fire.  He bought all sorts of unusual Spanish ingredients including a special kind of bean that is used for paella in Spain.  I have no idea what it was, but I realized that the lima beans from my bag would have the same effect.   

My only experience with lima beans were the mealy frozen ones I remember from my childhood.  Yuck!  But there they were in the bag, as the kale was 2 years ago.  I threw three handfuls of those lima beans into my prized paella.  I make the paella by sauteing vegetables: onions, garlic, shallots, carrots, celery and often zucchini, squash or even eggplant in olive oil, adding cumin, thyme, salt and homemade chicken stock.  Then I add the rice.  For the sausage, it sounds crazy but I prefer Barefoot Contessa's suggestion of kielbasa, but chorizo is also wonderful.  I also add roasted chicken and shrimp.  Near the end I add the saffron, mussels & peas.  But tonight, we didn't have peas, and in with the vegetables I put lima beans!   

Those beans were quite good.  They were not mealy, and neither the teenager nor the 2 year even mentioned that they were there.   They had a good flavor & we may even be bold enough to try the rest of them on their own. . .