Cossack Pie

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.

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.

Sandy Spring CSA: Fall Season Begins

The Fall season of the Sandy Spring CSA started this week. We got:

• Swiss chard
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Turnips
• Red Delicious apples
• Mustard greens
• Butternut squash

I gave our share partners the squash, in exchange for all the broccoli and carrots. This past spring, when we had put compost on our front flower beds, we got some "volunteer" vegetables growing due to lingering seeds in the compost - so we actually have a volunteer butternut squash that is ready for harvest now!

For this week's menu, I'm actually still working through some of the previous CSA vegetables.

• Monday: baked chicken with lemon and herbs, with leftover rice and leftover veggie stir fry
• Tuesday: [dish for our weekly potluck] beets and carrots with West Indian spices
• Wednesday: the rest of the chicken, the rest of the beets, and mashed potatoes
• Thursday: lima bean casserole (Joy of Cooking) and sweet potato stuffing (Vegetarian Times Cookbook) with tomato gravy (Vegetarian Times Cookbook)
• Friday: [date night]
• Saturday: ditto Thursday, with the addition of a green salad
  
• Sunday: butternut squash and pear soup, either broccoli or salad, and tofu turnovers (Cooking with Tofu)

The sweet potato, the broccoli, and the salad greens are from last week's CSA box, and the potatoes, the tomatoes, and the pears are from the farmer's market this past Saturday.

As for this week's produce, I may make another greens quiche to freeze. I'm thinking I may do another stirfry with the broccoli and carrots. Then for the turnips, there's a wonderful recipe that my husband invented with turnips, pears, and sausages, that I'm looking forward to trying again.