Cauliflower recipes

I made a great roasted cauliflower dish - that I will now make over and over.

Roasted Cauliflower

5 cups cauliflower pieces
1 can garbanzo beans
20 green olives sliced (I used jalapeno stuffed ones because that is what I had)
1 cup sliced mushrooms
6 cloves of garlic chopped
salt
red pepper flakes
3-6 tablespoons olive oil.

Combine all ingredients in a roasting pan. Just add enough oil until it is lightly coated. Roast at 450 degress for about 22 minutes stirring it halfway through.

January and February 2011 - freeze

Ok - I know it has been a long time since I put in a post. But we just had a VERY hard 3 day in the teens and 20's and I wanted to document how the garden did. We did not cover the garden.

The radishes did not do well - for long freezes pull them or cover them.

Spinach survived very well.
Beets also did well - although the greens dies off but they appear to be regrowing.
Carrots, PArsnips - the same as the beets although the parnips greens did better.
Lettuce and Arugula - not too great, some lettuce survived and the arugula seems to be growing back. we will probably replant it.
Cabbage - the green cabbage didn't like the first freeze so we picked it, the red cabbage survived just fine.
Broccoli - survived just fine.
Cauliflower - jury is still out - it definitely froze but it may be ok for soups - next time we will pick it.
Kolrabi - just fine.
Swiss Chard - one plant of 4 survived.
Kale - it survived but it didn't like it.

New Kale recipe

I just tried this new recipe in the Nov 2010 issue of cooking light for Roasted Kale. John and I ate the whole bowl while we were waiting some chicken to come off the grill. Definitely a keeper recipe.

Roasted Kale

1 bunch of kales destemmed and chopped
4-5 cloves garlic
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
salt to taste
1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar (ok the recipe called for Sherry vinegar but I didn't have any. I suppose most flavors would also work well.)

Heat the oven to 425. Put a jelly roll pan in the oven while it heats.
Put the first 4 ingredients in a bowl and coat the kale with oil and salt.
Add the kale to the heated pan and spread evenly. Roast for 5-7 minute, stir it around and continue roasting for another 5 minutes until the ends of the kale are crispy but the rest is cooked through. Toss the kale and garlic in a bowl with the vinegar and serve immediately.

Butternut Squash

This is the first year John has planted butternut squash. He planted it in August and it took off. We have at least 3 squash off the one plant. I picked it Oct 13 and made a soup with it. It was yummy. Here is the recipe

Butternut Squash Soup

1 tbls coconut oil
1 butternut squash (peeled, sliced into thin slices) when you get to the seeded area cut it in half and remove the seeds and slice the rest up.
1 onion chopped
4-5 cups chicken broth
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 cup half and half
1/2 cup non fat plain yogurt
toasted pistachios

Heat the oil in a large soup pot, add the onion and cook until sweated. Add the squash and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the broth until the squash is covered. Add the spices and cook about 20-25 minutes until tender. Blend using an immersion blender if you have one otherwise in a regular blender in batches until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste. Finish with the half and half and yogurt. Serve with a small handful of toasted pistachios on top.

A peck of peppers

We pulled out all the pepper plants today and picked everything on them. We ended up with a huge basket of jalipenos, serranos, anaheims and pablanos. So what to do?

Pickled peppers
I pickled one jar of the jalipenos which just involved boiled a mixture of half vengar andf half water and a teaspoon of pickling slat (actually I used Kosher - not real sure the difference) I put the washed and stemmed peppers in a sterilized jar. To sterilize you can run the jars through the dishwasher or boil in water for 5-10 minutes. I added some pickling spices - allspice and mustard seeds. Cover the peppers with the boiled vinegar mixture. Now if you want to put this on a shelf you can boil the jars to seal. But I just put the jar in the refrigerator as I only made one. It will take a couple of days though before they are ready.



Frozen Pepper Mash
This is an easy way to preserve peppers. I used the pablanos and a few serranos and cut the steps and seeds out. I added these (about 6 cups) to a food processor with just about 1/2 cup of water. Process until they are ground. Add these to ice cube trays and freeze. You can remove the cubes from the tray when they are frozen and store in a zip lock in the freezer. To use take one out, thaw and you can add to any recipe that calls for peppers.


We then roasted, peeled and chopped the annaheims for Green Chili.

Its time for the fall garden

Well John has pretty much changed out the garden to the fall garden. We ripped out the peppers today and planted the radishes, parnsips and all the slaw crops. The cucumbers and zucchini are doing nicely but we don't have any fruit on them yet. We did plant something new this years as a fall crop - butternut squash. We were out of town for a couple of weeks and when we got back we have 3 very nice sized squash. We harvested a basket full of peppers and I had to scramble to figure out what to do with them but I will detail that on a separate post.

August

well it is August and not much is growing. John tried something new this year and planted Arugula just after the summer solstice. He did it as an experiment to see if it would grow. Usually Arugula will start to bolt as the days get longer. But after the solstice the days get shorter. At any rate it has been a success for the most part - we have had arugula since Mid July which is nice because almost everything else he pulled up except the peppers. The best producing peppers now are the Anaheims which as also called hatch in New Mexico - these are the best for roasting and peeling.

I have been putting them in quiches, eggs and I made some green chili mashed potatoes that were yummy.