Roasted Eggplant and Sauteed Greens Lasagna

Fall's CSA last year was filled with eggplant, perhaps a little too much eggplant.  This year Nick is trying not to overwhelm us, but we are gauranteed two varieties (1 lb each) each week.  Last week it was a pound of "Casper", white, ghostly eggplants, and a pound of "Orient Charm" a long, thin, pink eggplant.  We also got one bunch of broccoli greens, which I've never had before but the note with the basket said we could saute them like collards.  So, I thought it would be a good time to make this Roasted Eggplant and Sauteed Greens Lasagne from Food52 that I discovered during last year's CSA eggplantapalooza (eggplantapocolypse? eggplantnado? I don't know,  but you get the idea).  The recipe suggests using a modified version of Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce, which I recall making last year (and it is delicious), but this time I didn't have the time so I just used a jar of Trader Giotto's Marinara I had in the pantry.  It was a little less than the quart required, so I added a can of chopped tomatoes with their juice (at the end, when I realized everything was a bit dry...would have been better to mix that in at the beginning.  I also used regular shredded mozzarella rather than fresh. 

So slice the eggplant, toss in some olive oil and spread on a sheet to roast at 450 for 20 min (the recipe fusses around with rotating pans but I ain't got time for that while I'm trying to make a different dinner at the same time)

(I might have sprayed them w/ a little olive oil spray before roasting.
Saute the chopped greens:

And then build the lasagna according to instructions (no photos).  Bake covered with foil for 40 min at 350°F.  Remove foil and back 5-10 minutes to brown.  I discovered last year that this freezes and reheats well:

Blueberry Barbecue Pizza (Flatbread)

Pizza..flatbread...pizza...flatbread.  What's the difference?  I reckon if something is called a "pizza" it should be vaguely Italian, which this was not.  What's used from the CSA?  Thinly sliced red onion and a chopped red Thai chili from last weeks' basket.

So, I've been working on a lot of Vivian Howard's recipes from Deep Run Roots.  Early this summer, I made her Blueberry Barbecue sauce, and I've used it on pork barbecue, as well as on grilled chicken or pork.  I've also used it as a flavoring for seltzer (like a "shrub").  I found a recipe online in which she used the Blueberry Barbecue sauce on a barbecued chicken flatbread:  Link to flatbread recipe

I love to make pizza, so this was super-intriguing.  Recently I had some leftover grilled pork tenderloin, and I had the sauce in the fridge and, believe it or not, some smoked gouda from some other recipe I can't recall the name of. But there it was, threatening to get moldy so let's use it up!  I used the recipe as a guide.  I substituted chopped grilled pork tenderloin for chicken, and used the red onion from the farm.  I didn't have jalepeños, but I did have some Thai red chilies from last week's basket and I used one of them.  I also used this pizza dough recipe: Link to pizza dough recipe.

I rolled out 12 oz of dough to make a flatbreat, and covered it with 4-5 tbs of Blue Barbecue sauce.  Then I put the chopped pork tenderloin (4 oz) on, and added 5 oz of the shredded smoked gouda.  I added about 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion, and one chopped red Thai chile.

Before baking:

note: I start my pizzas on parchment - bake 5 min, then slide off the parchment onto the stone and bake 5 more min.  Much easier to get the raw pizza dough onto the stone.

After baking:

Ugly, but very, very tasty.

Other things you do on CSA arrival:
Wash it
Cut it up
Roast it

Eat it up!

So delicious: 1 lb okra.  Tops removed, pod halved (one really big one  I cut into quarters).  Tossed with salt, pepper, 2 tbs of olive oil.  Spread out on sheet pan lined Al foil, cut sides down.  Bake at 400°F for 30 min.  Remove from oven, cool slightly, and eat.  All of it.

The arrival of a new CSA

So....usually when I get the CSA I try to post a beauty shot of all its gorgeousness.  I did not this week.  To be honest, I'm still trying to catch up from last week.  So this post will be an homage to catching up.

But this is all about catching up... remember this summer, when I said "we've got the beets" and I promised I would discuss what I was doing with them?  Ok, what I'd been doing with is putting them in the crisper and waiting for another day.  Fortunately beets can take that kind of abuse.  They can wait around FOREVER.  Finally, I have made some beet hummus.
Step 1: Roast your beets
I used this recipe from Food 52 that has been a go to when I have beets: The best way to cook beets.

Then, when I've got them cooked, I either eat them in salads, or try this crazy thing from simply recipes.  First I roasted the beets, and then I made the beet hummus.

Here's what the beets look just after they are done roasting:

And then you cube them  up and put them in the food processor with the tahini, lemon juice, zest, cumin, salt and pepper:

And blitz it:

Viola! Pink and delicious.  I have to admit, I only put 2 tsp of cumin in (rather than a tablespoon), and 4 tbs of lemon juice (rather than 5).  But it was tasty!!!

Shrimp Succotash Salad

So this is mostly ingredients from the Greensboro Farmer's Curb Market, but they are all seasonal and I did use two items from the CSA!  I made the Shrimp Succotash Salad from p 154 of Deep Run Roots by Vivian Howard, of Chef and the Farmer fame.  It starts with butterbeans that have been cooked according to the method for the Butterbean Burger recipe posted on the PBS website for A Chef's life (it's also on p 153 of DRR).  The rest of the ingredients are:

Salad:
1/2 lb large shrimp (21-25 count), peeled and deveined
1 1/2 cups Stewed Fresh Butterbeans, drained and rinsed of their cooking liquid - I used speckled butter beans from Smith Farms, they cook up brown rather than green)
1 cup fresh corn (I used bicolor from Rudd's Farm)
1/2 cup celery, small diced
1/2 cup picked parsley leaves (oops, just realized I forgot to put those in)
1/2 tsp salt
1 medium tomato, diced (I used a German Johnson from Smith Farms)

Dressing:
3 tbs extra-virgin olive oil (I used 2)
2 tablespoons minced red onion (yay, from the CSA!)
1 garlic clove, grated on a microplane  (also from the CSA)
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/8 tsp red chile flakes
3 tbs red wine vinegar
zest of 1 lemon
2 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs honey (could have been from the CSA, but it wasn't)
1/2 tsp hot sauce

Making the dressing:
In a small sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat, add the onion and cook gentyly for 3 min.  The onion should not brown, only soften.  Stir in garlic, coriander seeds, mustard seeds and chile flakes. Toast for 45 seconds.  Remove from head and transfer to a small bowl.  Whisk in the remaining dressing ingredients and put it aside while you make the rest of the salad.

Making the salad:
Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil.  Slice the shrimp in half lengthwise, and drop them into the boiling water and immediately turn off the head.  Stir the shrimp in the hot water for 30 sec, drain and put in the fridge to cool.

Stir together the butterbeans, shrimp, corn, celery, parsley and slat.  Pour the dressing over the top, stir to mix, and refrigerated, stirring occasionally, for at least 3 hours or, better still, overnight.  Just before serving, stir in the tomato.   Eat cold or at room temp.

A few pics:
Chopped red onion for the dressing:

Cooking the red onion:

Final product:

 Could have used the parsley just to make it a little prettier (as I said, those butterbeans aren't the prettiest when cooked), but it tasted good!  Overnight marinating really helps mellow out the garlic a bit!

And we're back!

So today was the start of the 10-week fall CSA.  And a lovely start it was:

According to the note we had:
peppers (both hot and sweet)
potatoes
onions (one red and one yellow)
eggplant (Thai and purple)
okra
onions
garlic

Tonight I used some leftover roast chicken and made tacos with one of the peppers and onions from the CSA basket. Very easy and quick, and I forgot to take a photo.  I cheated a bit and used  one of the pouches from Frontera.  I also add a little bit of salsa and some of this ancho adobo sauce (easy to make and keeps for months!)

Since I forgot to take a picture of dinner, I thought you'd enjoy some of these pictures of animals at the Guilford College Farm:

This is Polly - she belongs to Nick and Audrey (Nick is the farmer).  She's a big sweetheart.  Glad her days of bounding across New Garden Road seem to be behind her.

And this is Oliver, one of the barn cats.  He's a feral rescue (from the Feral Cat Assistance Program), and also a big fuzzy sweetheart.  Unless you're a mouse in the barn.  Then he's a stone.cold.killer.

SRSLY DONT MESS WITH OLIVER.