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Posts Tagged ‘Gardening’

I love the sound of that And the dish was pretty good, too.

We had about 16 people over for Thanksgiving, and since we had spent two weeks in Europe, including a week in Italy, in September, naturally I wanted to serve antipasto for an appetizer.

But most people were holding out for the main event, so there was quite a bit left over. What to do with all these preserved meats and veggies? Put them in a pasta, of course! I found this great-sounding recipe and modified it for what we had and like, and it turned out great. I’ll definitely make it again.

This is my entry in Grow Your Own, the foodie event started by Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes and hosted this month by House of Annie. GYO celebrates the food we grow ourselves. We grew the basil and parsley for the pesto in this dish, and I froze pesto to use during the winter, since the basil was so prolific. The round-up of all the entries has been posted, so check them out!

Antipasto Pesto Pasta
1 medium roasted red bell pepper, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup marinated cocktail onions, halved
1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped
3 ounces salami, chopped
1/2 cup marinated mushrooms, chopped
1/2 cup marinated quartered artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1/3 cup refrigerated pesto
8 ounces uncooked bow-tie pasta (about 2 cups)
1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, divided
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

Place the roasted pepper, onions, olives, salami, mushrooms, and artichokes in a large bowl and mix gently.

Cook the pasta according to package directions, omitting salt; drain. In a small bowl, mix together the pesto and 1/4 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese; add to bell pepper mixture, and toss to combine. Add pasta to bell pepper mixture and stir.

Sprinkle each serving with 2 tsp. remaining cheese and 2 tsp. pine nuts.

Antipasto Pasta

We grew a nice variety of lettuces in the garden last spring, and most of them did very nicely. We had salad from the garden regularly all spring and into the summer.

This is a composed salad I made one day last summer. Since the high is supposed to be about 42*F today, I’m hoping the thought of a cool salad on a hot day might warm me up. If not, I’ll make some hot chocolate.

This is for Photo Friday’s weekly photo challenge. This week’s topic is Homemade.

So, last year, I started Project 365, which is taking a photo a day for a year, to try to improve my photography.

I didn’t get very far, but I’m going to try again. Here are some photos from the last few days.

Day 1, Nov. 29: Oak-leaf hydrangea leaves, from the garden


Day 2, Nov. 30: Quesadilla with cheddar and mozzarella cheeses and roasted red peppers


Day 3, Dec. 1: Hydrangeas: These were our Thanksgiving centerpieces, along with camellia blossoms. I tried and tried to get rid of the glare – covered the light with a lace tablecloth, then a pillowcase, changed the angle of the light – still too bright.

Wow, where did October go? Oh, yeah – work, work, work. Come home and guess what? Don’t really want to hang out at the computer. So the blog has suffered a bit. Ah, well, maybe it will get better during the holidays

Anyway, last night we went to a Halloween/Birthday party and I took a platter of sandwich bites made with homemade bread-machine focaccia. I let the bread machine make the dough, and then I spread the dough in a pan for the last rise and bake it in the oven.

A friend asked me for the recipe, so here it is. I’ll save the sandwich recipe for another post. This recipe is a hybrid of one from Cook’s Illustrated magazine and one in the cookbook that came with my bread machine. As it happens, I used fresh rosemary from the garden, so this qualifies as a long-overdue contribution to the food blogging event Grow Your Own, created and hosted by Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes.

Bread-Machine Rosemary Focaccia

1 cup water at 80 degrees F
1/3 cup olive oil, plus 2 tbsp.
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 cups bread flour
1-1/2 tsp. active dry yeast, or 1 tsp. QuickRise yeast, or 1 tsp. Bread Machine Yeast
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp. fresh rosemary, chopped, or 1 tsp. dried rosemary, crumbled

Place the ingredients in the bread-machine pan in the order given. Turn to the dough setting and turn it on. Watch it for the first minute or two – you may need to use a spatula to make sure all the flour is incorporated into the dough ball. Then let the bread machine do its thing through the first rise time, about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Generously oil a jelly roll pan – I use a Pampered Chef 9″x13″ stone baking pan. Remove the dough from the machine, wet your hands with water (to prevent sticking), and press the dough flat into the pan, pushing it into all the corners. If it resists, let it rest for 10 minutes and continue. Use your fingers or a pair of chopsticks to press dimples into the dough at even intervals – your yummy toppings will collect in these. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and leave in a warm, draft-free place while you heat the oven, at least 20 minutes. I put it in the microwave – no drafts in there.

Heat the oven to 425 degrees F. Press dimples into dough again. Drizzle with 2 tbsp. olive oil, then the cheese and rosemary. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown on top. Transfer to a wire rack and cool for 10 minutes. Cut into squares or wedges to serve immediately. To serve later, cool completely and reheat at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes.

Cooled focaccia can also be frozen for up to one month. To reheat, thaw at room temperature for 30 minutes, pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F, then heat directly on oven racks for 10 minutes.

There are lots of variations on this basic recipe: You can add garlic powder and/or onion powder and/or herbs to the dry ingredients, or add caramelized onions to the topping. Focaccia is great for dipping in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, or you can slice it lengthwise and use for panini.

This is half the recipe.

I can’t believe it’s been this long since I last posted something – work has been crazy forever, it seems.

Last night, the local weather jockeys forecast our first frost warning, so I went out in the dark to rescue the last of my tomatoes and peppers before they froze to death. Here’s the haul.

Yay, it works! I just created a Flickr account, uploaded some garden photos, and made a slide show using this Flickr Slideshow Generator. So cool.

Our garden was not nearly this prolific this year, unfortunately. The tomatoes and peppers didn’t do very well. So this is a test of the slide show using photos from the last few years. They still look yummy, though, don’t they?

This was almost a contest to see how many items from the garden I could use in a recipe Turns out, a lot!

This is a great recipe if you like eggplant, which, event though I keep trying it, I just don’t really enjoy. The only way I really like to have it is in moussaka, drowning in spiced ground beef and tomato sauce, so I guess I’ll have to make some of that soon, since I have another eggplant given to me by my next-door neighbor.

This is my entry in Grow Your Own, the food blogging event that celebrates foods we grow or raise ourselves and the dishes we make using our homegrown products, started by Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes, and hosted this time by MomGateway. The onion, garlic, tomatoes, basil and parsley came from our garden, while the eggplant was a gift from our neighbor, in return for some of our abundant cucumbers that I gave to her.

Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Pasta

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/4 cup Italian salad dressing
1 large eggplant
2 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 pound short pasta, such as penne or rotini (I used radiatore)
Sherry vinegar
2 cups diced tomato
Pinch of red pepper flakes
Salt
1/4 cup shredded or grated Parmesan cheese

Put chicken breasts and Italian dressing in a plastic bag for an hour to marinate.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the eggplant in 1/2 inch cubes. Toss them with 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large bowl . Place them on a roasting pan in a single layer and roast for 25 minutes or until they are soft.

Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat, then cook chicken five minutes on each side, or until cooked through. Remove to a plate, cover with foil, and set aside.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to boil. Cook the pasta according to instructions on the box. Drain.

Heat a large skillet to medium. Pour in the other 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the onion and saute until they are starting to color. Add the garlic, cook for 30 seconds, and then deglaze the pan with a splash of sherry vinegar.

Add the eggplant to the skillet along with the diced tomato, red pepper flakes, and basil. Bring the mixture to a simmer then add the pasta. Toss until the pasta is coated. Season with salt and sprinkle with the parsley and Parmesan cheese.

Slice chicken in 1/4-inch slices and place on top of the pasta. Serve.

I had no idea there were so many ladybugs living in the fennel in my herb garden. I almost let dinner burn, I was so enthralled with watching and photographing them.

… when you plant a garden, you never know what you’re gonna get. It seems like something different does extremely well each year. Last year, we were inundated with peppers – bell, Kung Pao, jalapeno. This year, the cucumbers have gone insane. I think there are three plants vining along the back fence – I just picked 10 cucumbers the other night. I wonder what the farmer’s market would pay for organic cucumbers?

A few someones at work got lucky yesterday.

I still have four cucumbers – might need to make this Spicy Cucumber Salad recipe again.

We decided to try this upside-down method of growing tomatoes this year, to see what would happen. They’re doing better than some of our other tomato plants – a few have died – but not as good as some others. I’ve only gotten one off it so far, and it was good, but they’re small for beefsteak tomatoes.

They look kinda cool hanging off the shed there, though