recipes

Whipping up dinner

| Green Card Gardener

A frantic Monday at work. Honestly, if I did not have veggies in the garden that need to be picked and that took so much time getting to this stage, I would have fetched takeout (don’t get me wrong, we do have takeout pizza every now and then), or I would have made something else, definitely something with much less veggies.

While the dough was rising, I picked and prepared the vegetables for the filling. It took me a while to switch gears, but then I thoroughly enjoyed being in the kitchen and improvising this vegetable torta. I also found use for an almost full container of ricotta that was nearing expiration. The recipe for the yeast dough is from my favorite cookbook, or I should better say: my cooking bible, Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

Tonight was another proof, cooking can be great relaxation. And what I like about this blog is that before, I rarely wrote things down when improvising, so that very often I could not remember how much I used. Now I can because I am taking notes!

Summer Vegetable Torta with Zucchini, Eggplant and Tomatoes

Dough:

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

½ teaspoon sugar

½ cup warm water

1 egg

3 tablespoons olive oil

Pinch of salt

1¾ cups flour

Filling:

1 medium zucchini

1 medium eggplant

20 cherry tomatoes

2 garlic cloves

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 eggs

12 ounces ricotta

½ packed cup fresh basil leaves

Salt

Pepper

1. Mix yeast with sugar and water and let stand for 5-10 minutes until it foams. Lightly beat the egg and mix with the olive oil in a bowl (I use the KitchenAid for this). Add the yeast mixture and the flour and knead on low until the dough is smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a ball.

2. Spray the bowl with olive oil and turn the dough over so the upper side is coated. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise 45 minutes.

3. Halve the zucchini and remove the seeds with a small spoon. Cut into thin slices. Peel the eggplant and quarter. Cut into thin slices (I use a mandoline for slicing). Quarter the tomatoes. Chop the garlic.

4. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

5. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and cook the garlic until translucent but not browned. Add the zucchini and the eggplant and cook for 15 minutes until soft and browned in a few spots, stirring often. Add the tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes more. Remove from the stove and let cool for a few minutes.

6. Lightly beat the eggs and whisk in the ricotta until smooth. Chop the basil leaves and add to the cheese.

7. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to fit a 9-inch springform pan plus a good 2 inches coming up the sides. Line the pan with the dough and smoothen out the sides so the crust is evenly high all around.

8. Mix the veggies with the cheese and season with salt and a generous amount of black pepper. Spread the filling evenly onto the dough.

9. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until the torta is lightly browned on top and the crust is golden brown. Remove the springform rim and let the torta cool off completely.

Cake on wheels

| Green Card Gardener

With the early raspberries almost gone, and just a handful of ripe blackberries, there is not too much to harvest for sweet splurges right now. But I had set my mind on making a cake for my parents-in-law, and I wanted to use at least something from the garden.

So I settled on a lemon pie with blackberries only for garnish. The forgotten half-empty jar of English lemon marmalade in the fridge, for which I had tried to find a use (the parsimony mantra “do not waste food” was fed to me with the baby bottle) came extremely handy – it gave the top a nice shiny finish.

Yet looking at the cake now, I am starting to wonder if and how it will survive the five-hour car ride. At least I have the photo to show if it arrives all mush, and I can always make it again for on-site consumption – if my tasting panel likes it.

Lemon Cake with Blackberries

Crust:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup shortening, at room temperature

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup + 1 tablespoon cold water (as needed)

Filling:

3 tablespoons cornstarch

2 cups milk

1 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar

3 egg yolks

Juice of 3 lemons (at least two of them organic)

Grated zest of 2 organic lemons

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Garnish:

24-30 blackberries

½ to 1 cup lemon marmalade

1. Mix flour, shortening and salt thoroughly in a bowl with a pastry blender. Add just enough water to hold the dough together in a firm ball.

2. Roll out the dough between two large pieces of wax paper to fit a 9-inch springform pan plus about a 1-inch edge.

3. Grease the springform pan and fit the dough into the pan. Even out the edge with a knife. Place in the freezer while you prepare the filling.

4. Mix the cornstarch with a bit of the milk to a smooth consistency. Put the rest of the milk with the sugar in a double boiler. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the milk. Whisk the cornstarch mixture into the milk and cook over boiling water until it thickens and coats a spoon, about 10-12 minutes, stirring constantly (you might wonder if that coating ever happens, but you know unmistakably when you’re there).

5. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

6. Juice the lemons and chop the lemon zest of the two organic lemons very finely.

7. When the mixture thickens, stir in the lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla. Pour the mixture into the pie crust and carefully transfer to the preheated oven. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the filling is set. If the crust gets dark but the filling is still too liquid, place a sheet of aluminum foil on top and bake a few minutes longer. But note that the filling will set more when it’s cold.

8. Remove the cake from the oven and let cool completely on a rack. Carefully run a knife along the edge and remove the rim of the pan.

9. Heat the lemon marmalade in a small saucepan and strain through a fine sieve. Brush a thin coat of marmalade on the cake.

10. Place the blackberries with their blossom ends down in a circle around the edge of the cake. Coat the blackberries and in-between the blackberries with marmalade. This works best with a small brush. If you have any marmalade left, brush the side of the cake. Refrigerate until serving.

Beets? Sweet!

| Green Card Gardener

I was a beet-avoider – until I found the best way to prepare them: roasted in the oven. What a difference in flavor and texture from the boiled, rubbery slices in jars and cans! Now I am growing beets in the garden, and for the first time I have a real harvest (thanks to Berlin Wall No. 2).

Tonight we’ll have a beet salad that I’ve made a few times already this year. But I will add a new, also homemade ingredient: raspberry vinegar. I found the vinegar recipe in the superb recently published River Cottage Preserves Handbook by Pam Corbin (though I used less sugar than the recipe calls for).

Roasted Beet Salad with Walnuts and Goat Cheese

8 medium-size beets

3-4 tablespoons raspberry vinegar

½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts

4 ounces crumbly soft goat cheese

3 tablespoons olive oil or walnut oil

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 F.

1. Peel beets and cut them into ½-inch dice. Toss with the raspberry vinegar and spread in one layer on a greased jelly roll pan. Roast in the preheated oven, turning once in a while and adding a bit of water if they seem dry. Roast for 25-30 minutes, or until you can pierce them with a sharp knife. dry. Cool completely.

2. Lightly roast the walnuts in a pan. Cool.

3. Whisk oil and red wine vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Toss dressing with the beets, walnuts and crumbled goat cheese.

Zucchini glut

| Green Card Gardener

 

Blanched zucchini for quiche

One of my creations to use up the bright yellow, buttery zucchini from the garden is zucchini quiche with goat feta. In previous years I baked and froze several quiches with zucchini straight from the garden. But this year I want to make it easier for myself (after all, it’s summer, and who wants to spend an entire Saturday afternoon toiling in a hot kitchen) so I decided to blanch the zucchini and freeze them in batches big enough for one quiche.

Zucchini Quiche with Goat Feta

Crust:

1 cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons cold butter

2 to 3 tablespoons ice water, as needed

Filling:

1 large (or two small) yellow zucchini

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon herbes de provence (mix of dried rosemary, basil, marjoram, and thyme)

3 eggs

8 ounces goat feta, crumbled

Freshly ground black pepper

Salt

1. Mix the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Cut in the butter and process until mixture resembles a coarse meal.

2. Add water, a tablespoon at a time, until you bring the dough together in a ball. Wrap the dough in plastic foil and refrigerate for 15 minutes, or until slightly hardened.

3. If you are not sure the zucchini haven’t been treated, peel them. Cut in half lengthwise and remove the seeds using a tomato shark or a grapefruit spoon. Slice very thinly.

4. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and add the zucchini and the herbes de provence. Toss well and cook over medium heat until the zucchini are tender and most of the liquid has evaporated. Stir frequently especially towards the end to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the skillet.

5. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

6. Roll out the dough to a circle to fit a 9-inch pie dish (not a deep dish), preferable one with a removable bottom, and trim the edges. Bake for 10 minutes.

7. Beat the eggs and add the feta and the cooled zucchini and mix thoroughly. Season with pepper. Go easy on the salt, as the feta usually adds enough saltiness to the dish.

8. Reduce the oven heat to 375 degrees F. Bake the quiche until set and lightly browned on top, 35 to 40 minutes. Serve warm.

9. The quiche can be frozen and reheated in the oven at 300 degrees, or in the microwave.