Tomato tart

Posted in Recipes, Vegetables by Darci

Most home gardeners — and even CSA subscribers — end summer with a plethora of tomatoes. Once upon a time, when I was single and living alone in the Detroit suburbs, I planted six tomato plants in my backyard, not realizing how many tomatoes each one would produce.

Wow. That was a lot of tomatoes. (Unbelievably delicious tomatoes, I might add.)

That’s the summer I learned how to make a tomato tart. It’s easy, it’s tasty, and it uses up a lot of tomatoes as well as basil, if you have an excess of that, too.

To start, you need a crust. To simplify the process, you can buy a frozen pie crust. Or, you can whip one up. Seriously, making pie crust from scratch doesn’t take long, and if you don’t use a tart pan (shallow pie-type pan with a bottom that drops out), you can roll the dough out right onto your baking sheet.

I always use my grandma’s pie crust recipe, which is also my go-to crust for apple pie. She passed away when I was in the second grade, but I don’t think she’d mind if I shared it.

FLORENCE’S PIE CRUST

Ingredients
1 cup flour (I use all purpose)
1/2 cup shortening
1/4 cup cold water

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. In a bowl with a wider base, cut the shortening into the flour with a pastry blender.

3. Once the mixture has turned into little balls, add the water. Keep mixing until you’ve created a ball of dough.

4. Remove the dough ball from the bowl. At this point, you can roll it out and put it in a tart pan or, like I noted a few paragraphs ago, roll it directly onto a cookie sheet. I used a tart pan for years, but just this summer realized that I like the way the finished tart looks when it bakes on a cookie sheet. More artisan, I guess.

5. Partially bake for about 7 minutes.

Yeah, that’s it. You can also use a food processor or stand mixer to make your dough. But to be honest, I find that’s a lot of cleanup for something you can accomplish in a matter of minutes with a little elbow grease, a bowl and a pastry blender.

Here’s how the rest goes.

TOMATO TART

Ingredients
About 4 tomatoes, less if they’re large, cut into thin wedges (Roma tomatoes work best, because they’re drier, but other varieties are fine, too. Just let them drain on a paper towel after you cut them up)
3/4 cup basil, chopped
1 1/2 cup shredded cheese (I like Trader Joe’s Gruyere and Swiss mixture but mozzarella is fine)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
Spinach, kale or Swiss chard (optional)

Instructions
1. Reduce oven to 375 degrees.

2. Arrange tomatoes on top of your partially baked crust. Try to fit them snugly instead of layering them.

3. Layer greens on top of the tomatoes, if you’re using greens.

4. Mix together the basil, cheese, garlic and mayo. Spread the mixture on top of the greens (or the tomatoes, if no greens).

5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cheese is nice and golden. Let the tomato tart sit for about 5 minutes before diving in.

Here’s a partially baked crust with tomatoes:

With Swiss chard:

And then with the mayo mixture:

Out of the oven and plated:

8Sep2013

Help! What the heck is this?

Posted in CSA, Vegetables by Darci

We returned this afternoon from a long weekend in San Francisco to find this mystery vegetable in the refrigerator. (Huge thanks to my cousin Matt for picking up our CSA while he was in town dogsitting.)

It resembles kohlrabi, except it’s purple instead of green. Also, it’s not smooth or ball-shaped. Hmm.

Scotch Hill Farm’s internet is down, so we didn’t receive an e-mail detailing last Friday’s CSA share. And this guy isn’t featured in the weekly photo the farm posts to its Facebook page.

Any thoughts?

27Aug2013

Dana’s dish

Posted in CSA by Darci

Dana’s accounting of week 12 of our CSA. Color me impressed!

I was all too happy to try Darci’s CSA. My previous CSA experience didn’t include the variety that I’d hoped for — so after opting out this year, I’ve been living vicariously through Darci.

After pick up, I made a rookie mistake. I left the veggies in my hot car for an hour while I ran an errand and picked up my daughter from camp. When I got home, everything was just a smidge more ripe than it had been when I’d inspected it earlier. I quickly put it all in the fridge, said a prayer to the veggie gods to keep it fresh for at least three days, and set to work finding ways to use it all by then.

First up was Saturday night’s dinner. I’d planned on doing “farmer’s market pasta,” which in my house is simply fresh, local tomatoes, onions, garlic and basil over a slightly higher-end brand of pasta (i.e., something even *more* expensive at Whole Foods). Since the share contained plenty of Swiss chard, I changed it up to be a swiss chard and tomato dish.

It was delish! I can’t say my kids loved it, but at the very least they tried it and did not utter the words, “Ew, I don’t like it.” My husband and I happily ate their helpings.

FARMER’S MARKET PASTA

Ingredients
1 pound Swiss chard, stems cut from the leaves and then both chopped, rinsed and drained separately
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup water
1 cup chopped fresh tomatoes
1/2 pound penne pasta (or really, any shape you like)
1/2 pound Italian sausage, sliced
1/4 cup grated Parmesan

Instructions
1. In a large skillet, sauté the red pepper flakes, onion and garlic in the oil over medium heat. Add the Swiss chard stems and 1/4 cup of the water, cover and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the Swiss chard leaves, the remaining 1/4 cup water, cover and cook for 5 more minutes.

2. Stir in the tomatoes, cover and cook for 3 minutes.

3. Add Italian sausage and simmer on low for 5 minutes.

4. Boil the paste until it’s al dente then drain.

5. Toss the pasta and the Swiss chard and sausage mixture with the Parmesan cheese. Serve with a healthy sprinkling of Parmesan.

Sunday night, I was able to use the grape tomatoes in a lovely simple salad of cucumber, tomato, avocado oil and a touch of red wine vinegar. This was a side dish for our main meal of burgers, along with the AMAZING corn. I don’t think I’ve had corn that good all summer. My kids literally wolfed their ears down.

I felt good about my CSA progress, especially considering the tomatoes were the most in need of use, but I was on a roll. For dinner last night, I went full steam ahead and prepared a stir-fry of green beans, broccoli, eggplant, green pepper, the one hot pepper, onion (not from the CSA) and the one leftover ear of grilled corn. I sautéed everything with two tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat while I boiled some Asian flat noodles. I mixed together soy sauce and sesame oil with a touch of ground ginger and poured that over then added a corn starch mixture (2 tablespoons of corn starch dissolved in 1/4 cup of water) at the very end. It thickened perfectly and by not overcooking or over-saucing (it’s a word I’m sure) my vegetables, for the first time in history, everything retained its fresh taste.

One note on hot pepper usage: Research what kind of pepper it is before using. WOW, that pepper was hot. The stir-fry was very tasty but it required a whole lot of water in between bites.

Three days and the CSA is almost 100 percent gone. Just one cucumber is left, and I’ve been using it as a side dish for lunches. What a treat this was for us! Now, where can I get Mike and Darci to go next week?

21Aug2013

Healthier coleslaw

Posted in Recipes by Darci

One small cabbage — seriously, the tiniest I’ve ever seen — arrived a couple of weeks ago. If this year’s farm is anything like last year’s, I’m fairly certain that it’s the first of many to come.

The only issue: I have just three recipes in my repertoire that call for cabbage, and that’s including one for stuffed cabbage rolls. And this li’l guy’s leaves just weren’t big enough for those, which honestly aren’t any fun to make anyway. Plus, stuffed cabbage rolls taste much better on a crisp autumn day than during the summer. Ditto for beef stir fry.

So I turned to my go-to recipe for Asian coleslaw, which a friend gave me years ago. I don’t know where she got it from, so I can’t give credit, but it’s been modified along the way.

Since, again, this head of cabbage was the size of one Frodo might’ve grown in the Shire, I halved the recipe. We ate it alongside grilled bangers from the farmer’s market. Yum on both counts.

ASIAN COLESLAW

Ingredients
8 cups cabbage, thinly sliced (I lazily grated mine in the food processor)
1 cup carrot, julienned (I bought whole carrots and grated them in the food processor, too)
3/4 cup sliced green onions
1 package Ramen noodles (throw away the spice packet)
1 tablespoon sliced almonds
1 tablespoon sunflower seeds
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1/3 cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 teaspoons dark sesame oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Instructions
1. Place cabbage, carrots and green onions in a large bowl and toss. Break up Ramen noodles, add and toss again.

2. Toast the almonds, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds until they’re just beginning to brown and become fragrant. Add them to the bowl, and toss the mixture one more time.

3. In a small bowl, whisk vinegar, sugar, oils, salt and pepper. Pour on top of the vegetables and nuts and mix well.

4. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour.