Here's the Cossack Pie recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook, one of my favorites - and it freezes well!
1 unbaked 9" pie crust
1 T butter
1/2 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 1/2 cup chopped onions
1 1/2 cup shredded green cabbage
1 medium stalk thinly-sliced broccoli
1 cup thinly sliced carrot
2 finely chopped scallions
1 t salt
3 T butter
2 T flour
1 t ground caraway seed
1/2 t basil
2 t dill weed
1/2 c pot, farmers, or cottage cheese
2 eggs
lots of black pepper
3 medium garlic cloves, minced
In melted butter, saute onion, caraway seed, and salt over medium heat until onions brown, 10 minutes.
In butter, saute all the vegetables (except the scallions) and the dill until just tender, 8 minutes. Add black pepper and garlic, cook a few minutes more. Remove from heat and toss vegetables with flour.
Beat the eggs and cheese together. Add scallions, mix. Add mixture to sauteed vegetables. Mix well. Spread into crust. Dust with paprika.
Bake 40 minutes, or until set, at 350 degrees.
Let stand 10 minutes before serving.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Sweet Potato Pie
In honor of Thanksgiving, here's my favorite sweet potato pie recipe, adapted from this one at Allrecipes. I actually prefer it to pumpkin pie!
Sweet Potato Pie
Ingredients:
1 1-lb sweet potato (or a 1-lb portion of a larger sweet potato)
1/2 c butter, softened
1/2 c white sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c evaporated milk (or regular milk if you don't have evaporated)
2 eggs
1/4 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground ginger
1/2 t ground nutmeg
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1 t vanilla extract
2 T lemon juice
1 - 2 T flour
1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust
If using a whole sweet potato, pierce it several times with a fork and microwave 5-8 minutes until soft, turning over halfway through cooking time. Peel and mash. If using a portion of a larger potato, peel and cube the potato in 1/2 inch cubes, then steam a few minutes until soft. Mash with a potato masher.
To mashed potato, add butter, then mix well with mixer. Stir in sugar, milk, eggs, spices, vanilla, and lemon juice. Beat on medium speed until smooth. Add 1 T flour, then beat again; if mixture looks too liquidy, repeat with another 1 T flour. Pour filling into an unbaked pie crust.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 55 to 60 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Pie will puff up like a souffle, and then sink down as it cools.
Sweet Potato Pie
Ingredients:
1 1-lb sweet potato (or a 1-lb portion of a larger sweet potato)
1/2 c butter, softened
1/2 c white sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c evaporated milk (or regular milk if you don't have evaporated)
2 eggs
1/4 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground ginger
1/2 t ground nutmeg
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1 t vanilla extract
2 T lemon juice
1 - 2 T flour
1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust
If using a whole sweet potato, pierce it several times with a fork and microwave 5-8 minutes until soft, turning over halfway through cooking time. Peel and mash. If using a portion of a larger potato, peel and cube the potato in 1/2 inch cubes, then steam a few minutes until soft. Mash with a potato masher.
To mashed potato, add butter, then mix well with mixer. Stir in sugar, milk, eggs, spices, vanilla, and lemon juice. Beat on medium speed until smooth. Add 1 T flour, then beat again; if mixture looks too liquidy, repeat with another 1 T flour. Pour filling into an unbaked pie crust.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 55 to 60 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Pie will puff up like a souffle, and then sink down as it cools.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Recipe Smorgasborg
Here are my favorite recipes from this week's recipe search, involving cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, and radishes. I'll expand on it a little later if I can.
Hearty country soup
Spicy ginger cauliflower cabbage and potatoes
Tofu, cauliflower, cabbage, and onion stir fry with coconut peanut sauce
An assortment of broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower recipes
Sweet and sour cauliflower and cabbage salad
Cauliflower and potato curry (crockpot recipe)
Cool and crunchy radish and spring turnip salad
Radish cabbage coleslaw
Pan-Fried Fish and Tomatoes With Cabbage Radish Slaw
For now, gotta take my little one to Sunday Dinner!
Hearty country soup
Spicy ginger cauliflower cabbage and potatoes
Tofu, cauliflower, cabbage, and onion stir fry with coconut peanut sauce
An assortment of broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower recipes
Sweet and sour cauliflower and cabbage salad
Cauliflower and potato curry (crockpot recipe)
Cool and crunchy radish and spring turnip salad
Radish cabbage coleslaw
Pan-Fried Fish and Tomatoes With Cabbage Radish Slaw
For now, gotta take my little one to Sunday Dinner!
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Tasty Root Vegetable Soup
Hooray - the three CSA parsnips from the other week, and the half a CSA rutabega I had left over from a while back, have made it into hearty rutabaga, carrot, parsnip, and sausage soup! I first made this tasty soup for a dinner guest last year, and we all enjoyed it a lot. Sometimes root soups will have a very strong taste, but somehow this soup was just flavorful and good.
The herbs that I've moved indoors for the winter have officially started pulling their weight: I use fresh thyme in the recipe instead of dried. Fresh herbs can really make such a difference.
The herbs that I've moved indoors for the winter have officially started pulling their weight: I use fresh thyme in the recipe instead of dried. Fresh herbs can really make such a difference.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Weekly Menu
Here's this week's menu:
- Monday: the last of the vegetable enchiladas
- Tuesday: [no potluck due to elections!] lentil-spinach soup with cornbread muffins and lettuce salad
- Wednesday: stuffed cabbage leaves and mashed potatoes with gravy
- Thursday: ditto
- Friday [date night]
- Saturday: sausage and root vegetable soup with cornbread muffins and salad
- Sunday: ditto
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Hundred Mile Diet
Here's a cross-posting of the Food For Thought article I wrote this week for our CSA ezine. The article deals with the fascinating idea of the Hundred Mile Diet, and at the bottom, I have appended the farm-by-farm, mile-by-mile results I found when I went looking for local staples within 100 miles of my house.
Food For Thought: The Hundred Mile Diet
What if you had to get all your food locally? Could you get by?
Alisa Smith and J. B. MacKinnon provided a fascinating glimpse into this world of local-food-or-bust when they gave themselves a challenge: the Hundred Mile Diet. For one year, they promised, they would eat nothing that they could not find within a hundred mile radius of their home.
When a friend sent me a link to their first article, I was hooked. Could they do it? Would such a thing be feasible for them? For me?
Their experience is now a book, a website, and a phenomenon: hundreds of others have signed on for their own versions of the Hundred Mile Diet. (Check out their website for some great local eating tips!) Just reading their first article ot me reading the food labels in my local supermarket: where did my food come from? I started shopping more and more at local farmers markets, and asking the vendors there where their farms were, and whether all their produce was local, and just where was this fish caught, anyway?
I also started thinking: if higher oil and gas prices would eventually necessitate a change in how food was shipped across the country (and the world!), what would that mean for my family? Being able to buy all our food locally might mean anything from lower prices to food security. Would moving to a Hundred Mile Diet now help guarantee that the small local farms and their food variety would be there when we needed them?
In case anyone is curious, the Local Harvest website lists 437 farms within 100 miles of my Silver Spring, Maryland zip code. Using their farm products search engine to search for food needs beyond just fruits, vegetables, meats, and milk (all of which I already knew I could get locally), I found whole wheat flour, wheat, corn, oats, dry beans, walnuts, pecans, peanuts, honey, maple syrup, and vinegar within the 100 mile limit. (I list specific farms and distances below for anyone who's interested.) For pressed oil, I would have to travel 120 miles, and for rice, 150 miles. And although the search engine did not list white sugar at all, I found out that I could get brown sugar and molassas locally processed (if not locally grown) in Silver Spring itself!
We live in an area of unusual bounty. What can we do to keep it that way? This is the question that continues to float at the back of my mind as I begin to bring my family slowly closer to the Hundred Mile Diet. I may never arrive there, but I am finding the journey itself fruitful - and delicious!
Food For Thought: The Hundred Mile Diet
What if you had to get all your food locally? Could you get by?
Alisa Smith and J. B. MacKinnon provided a fascinating glimpse into this world of local-food-or-bust when they gave themselves a challenge: the Hundred Mile Diet. For one year, they promised, they would eat nothing that they could not find within a hundred mile radius of their home.
When a friend sent me a link to their first article, I was hooked. Could they do it? Would such a thing be feasible for them? For me?
Their experience is now a book, a website, and a phenomenon: hundreds of others have signed on for their own versions of the Hundred Mile Diet. (Check out their website for some great local eating tips!) Just reading their first article ot me reading the food labels in my local supermarket: where did my food come from? I started shopping more and more at local farmers markets, and asking the vendors there where their farms were, and whether all their produce was local, and just where was this fish caught, anyway?
I also started thinking: if higher oil and gas prices would eventually necessitate a change in how food was shipped across the country (and the world!), what would that mean for my family? Being able to buy all our food locally might mean anything from lower prices to food security. Would moving to a Hundred Mile Diet now help guarantee that the small local farms and their food variety would be there when we needed them?
In case anyone is curious, the Local Harvest website lists 437 farms within 100 miles of my Silver Spring, Maryland zip code. Using their farm products search engine to search for food needs beyond just fruits, vegetables, meats, and milk (all of which I already knew I could get locally), I found whole wheat flour, wheat, corn, oats, dry beans, walnuts, pecans, peanuts, honey, maple syrup, and vinegar within the 100 mile limit. (I list specific farms and distances below for anyone who's interested.) For pressed oil, I would have to travel 120 miles, and for rice, 150 miles. And although the search engine did not list white sugar at all, I found out that I could get brown sugar and molassas locally processed (if not locally grown) in Silver Spring itself!
We live in an area of unusual bounty. What can we do to keep it that way? This is the question that continues to float at the back of my mind as I begin to bring my family slowly closer to the Hundred Mile Diet. I may never arrive there, but I am finding the journey itself fruitful - and delicious!
- flour (whole wheat): Moutoux Orchard, Purcellville, VA, 52 miles
- wheat: SC Burton Farms, Glen Arm, MD, 52 miles
- rice: The Gardens, Prince George, VA, 151 miles
- oats: Lands End Farm, Chestertown, MD, 75 miles
- walnuts: Arcadia Farm, Chestertown, MD, 75 miles
- pecans: Canning Farm, Dogue, VA, 83 miles
- peanuts: Whipple Farm, Rixeyville, VA, 68 miles
- pressed oil: Strattons Wynnorr Farm, Westtown, PA, 118 miles
- vinegar: Dragonfly Farms, Mount Airy, MD, 46 miles
- dry beans: Virginia Green Grocer and the Virginia Organic Co-operative, Warrenton, VA, 54 miles
- honey: NakedBee Apiaries, Laytonsville, MD, 18 miles
- brown sugar, molassas (processed locally; probably not grown locally): Panela Sweet Cane, Silver Spring, MD, 0 miles
Stuffed Cabbage Leaves
This week at our CSA, we're getting:
I've adapted this recipe from one from RecipeSource, halving the original and integrating a few suggestions from other similar recipes until it comes out the way we like it. Sometimes I make the sauce listed with the recipe, and sometimes I just use the cooking juices as is - either way is delicious.
Stuffed Cabbage Leaves
Cabbage Rolls:
1/3 cup short grain rice
12 - 14 whole cabbage leaves
1 small or 1/2 large onion, finely chopped
1/2 Tbsp - 1 Tbsp olive oil
1 lb ground beef
1 egg
1 tomato, finely chopped
2 carrots, diced small
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley (or 1 tsp dried)
1 1/2 tsp chopped fresh dill or mint (or 1/2 tsp dried)
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
sprinkling of salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cup hot stock or water
2 tsp butter, melted
chopped dill or parsley, for garnish
Sauce (optional):
1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 egg, separated
1/2 lemon, juiced, or 1 Tbsp lemon juice
Pour boiling water over rice and let it soak 15 minutes, then drain.
Blanch cabbage leaves in boiling salted water for 5 minutes until softened. Drain and cut out thick center of larger leaves (very large leaves may be cut in half); save trimmings for later. Set prepared leaves aside.
Gently fry onion and diced carrots in oil until soft. Mix into meat with rice, egg, tomato, parsley, dill or mint, cinnamon, salt, and pepper.
Place one portion of stuffing on base of cabbage leaf. Turn up base, fold in sides, and wrap firmly into a neat roll. Repeat with remaining leaves and stuffing until all are used.
Combine stock or water, butter, and salt and pepper to taste. In a deep pan lined with trimmings from cabbage leaves, place cabbage rolls close together, seam sides down. Pour stock or water mixture over rolls. Invert a heavy plate on top of rolls and cover pan tightly. Simmer gently for 1 1/2 hours, adding more stock or water if needed.
When cooked, drain off stock carefully. Either use as is, or make sauce, as follows.
For sauce: put drained-off stock into small saucepan. Reduce to 3/4 cup over heat and thicken with cornstarch mixed to a paste with a little cold water. Let it boil 1 minute.
Beat egg whites in a bowl until stiff, add yolks and beat thoroughly. Gradually beat in lemon juice, then boiling stock. Return sauce to saucepan, place over low heat, and stir constantly until egg is cooked - do not boil.
Arrange rolls on a heated serving dish and spoon some of the sauce over them. Garnish with chopped dill or parsley and serve remaining sauce separately. Serve with mashed potatoes.
Serves 4 (and if anyone's doing Weight Watchers, it's 5 points per serving with sauce, or 4 points without - if you're sparing with the oil for frying the onions. As for the mashed potatoes, I make no promises!)
- Russett potatoes
- Carrots
- Sweet corn
- Cauliflower
- Broccoli
- Apples
- Green cabbage
I've adapted this recipe from one from RecipeSource, halving the original and integrating a few suggestions from other similar recipes until it comes out the way we like it. Sometimes I make the sauce listed with the recipe, and sometimes I just use the cooking juices as is - either way is delicious.
Stuffed Cabbage Leaves
Cabbage Rolls:
1/3 cup short grain rice
12 - 14 whole cabbage leaves
1 small or 1/2 large onion, finely chopped
1/2 Tbsp - 1 Tbsp olive oil
1 lb ground beef
1 egg
1 tomato, finely chopped
2 carrots, diced small
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley (or 1 tsp dried)
1 1/2 tsp chopped fresh dill or mint (or 1/2 tsp dried)
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
sprinkling of salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cup hot stock or water
2 tsp butter, melted
chopped dill or parsley, for garnish
Sauce (optional):
1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 egg, separated
1/2 lemon, juiced, or 1 Tbsp lemon juice
Pour boiling water over rice and let it soak 15 minutes, then drain.
Blanch cabbage leaves in boiling salted water for 5 minutes until softened. Drain and cut out thick center of larger leaves (very large leaves may be cut in half); save trimmings for later. Set prepared leaves aside.
Gently fry onion and diced carrots in oil until soft. Mix into meat with rice, egg, tomato, parsley, dill or mint, cinnamon, salt, and pepper.
Place one portion of stuffing on base of cabbage leaf. Turn up base, fold in sides, and wrap firmly into a neat roll. Repeat with remaining leaves and stuffing until all are used.
Combine stock or water, butter, and salt and pepper to taste. In a deep pan lined with trimmings from cabbage leaves, place cabbage rolls close together, seam sides down. Pour stock or water mixture over rolls. Invert a heavy plate on top of rolls and cover pan tightly. Simmer gently for 1 1/2 hours, adding more stock or water if needed.
When cooked, drain off stock carefully. Either use as is, or make sauce, as follows.
For sauce: put drained-off stock into small saucepan. Reduce to 3/4 cup over heat and thicken with cornstarch mixed to a paste with a little cold water. Let it boil 1 minute.
Beat egg whites in a bowl until stiff, add yolks and beat thoroughly. Gradually beat in lemon juice, then boiling stock. Return sauce to saucepan, place over low heat, and stir constantly until egg is cooked - do not boil.
Arrange rolls on a heated serving dish and spoon some of the sauce over them. Garnish with chopped dill or parsley and serve remaining sauce separately. Serve with mashed potatoes.
Serves 4 (and if anyone's doing Weight Watchers, it's 5 points per serving with sauce, or 4 points without - if you're sparing with the oil for frying the onions. As for the mashed potatoes, I make no promises!)
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