Bring it on down to Omelette-ville!

Every once in a while I like breakfast for dinner.....especially eggs.  I am not good at flipping omelettes, however.  I thought I could do it in the oven instead, and I was right.  It's similar to a quiche or a strata, but just very thin layer so it as quite omelette-like.  I made a pepper- tomato- carmelized onion omelette for dinner last night.  Here's the recipe!

Green Pepper, Tomato, Carmelized Onion Omelette
- 1 cup diced, roasted green bell pepper (from Dilner's farm)
-1 cup diced, roasted tomatoes (from Dilner's)
- 1 onion, carmelized. (from Dilner's)
- 2 tbsp. butter
-olive oil
-6 eggs (organic if ya got 'em!)
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup shredded cheese (I used a tomato basil cheese from Finger Lakes)
- salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Melt the butter and 1 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Cut the bell pepper in half and remove the seeds and do the same with the tomatoes.  Place on a sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Put in the oven for about 15-20 minutes or until soft and roasted.  Once done, pull out and let them cool, then dice.  Meanwhile, slice the onion and put in the pan with butter.  Be sure not to exceed medium heat when carmelizing onions.  They will take about 30 minutes to carmelize. 

Beat the 6 eggs in a bowl.  Add in the diced peppers and tomatoes and carmelized onions.  Add the ricotta, cheese, and salt and pepper.  Mix well.  Pour into a 9 x 12 an coated with cooking spray.  Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes at 375 or until cooked through.  For the last 2-3 minutes melt some cheese on top.

I totally forgot to take pictures of my ingredients.  I only have one of the finished product.  This was pretty tasty, although, this is coming from the person who can eat carmelized onions as a meal by themselves sooo....

I also made French toast this weekend with the Amish bread that came in our basket last week.  I again, forgot to take a picture, but it was really good.  I put eggs, milk, vanilla, and cinnamon in my batter....and I don't measure, so I can't help ya there!

This week's CSA box on Thursday will have sweet corn, eggplant, green beans, peaches, cucumber, red bell pepper, and roma tomatoes.  Stay tuned!  I am thinking of some sort of Eggplant Napoleon, a green bean salad of some sort.  Tomorrow I am making scallops with garlic green beans with the beans I got last week!  Have a great night, and thanks for reading!

Sloppy Joe...Slop..Sloppy Joe

I know what you're thinking.  Sloppy Joes on a food blog?  Is she serious?  Well, this ain't no Mamwich :)  I had decided to make homemade sloppy Joes with grass-fed ground meat and the green pepper and hot pepper from my CSA box.  However, my green pepper was not looking so hot, and I sadly had to pitch it :(

Spicy Homemade Sloppy Joes
- 1 lb lean ground beef (I used grass-fed)
- 1/2 onion, diced
- 1 small hot pepper (I used half of the one in the picture below), finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, grated or minced
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
- 1 tsp. Dion Mustard (No HFCS in Dijon by the way!)
- 2 tbsp tomato paste (used this instead of ketchup since it also does not have HFCS)
- 1 can fire roasted crushed tomatoes (14.5 oz)
- 2 tsp. brown sugar
- 1 tsp. Worcestershire
- 1/2 cup sour cream (optional)
- whole wheat buns

In a large skillet or a dutch oven, pour about 1 tbsp. olive oil.   Cook the meat, onion, and pepper over medium-high heat until the meat is brown and the onion and pepper are soft.  Season with salt and pepper.

When the meat and onion and pepper are almost cooked, grate the garlic cloves over top.  (If you add them too early, they will burn.)  Drain the meat mixture in a strainer to get rid of any grease.  Return the meat and onion mixture to the skillet or dutch oven.  Add the tomato paste, Dijon, brown sugar, Worcestershire, and the fire roasted tomatoes.  Cover and cook over medium-low heat and let it simmer for about 25 minutes.  Remove from heat and let rest for about 5 minutes to thicken. 

Before serving, add the sour cream and incorporate into the Sloppy Joe mixture.

You don't have to do this, but that pepper was HOT so it served a few purposes.  The sour cream cooled it down some, made it a little creamier, and helped thicken the Sloppy Joes.  Put on a toasted bun and top with a slice of cheese, if desired. 

Tom ate two and he hardly ever eats seconds :)  The best part is we have left overs for tomorrow!  Thanks for reading :)  Let me know how they turn out!  I will definitely be making these again sometime.

Family Reunion Day

Today is our family reunion with my mom's family, the LeGrands.  Everyone brings a side dish.  I decided to make cucumber salad from the farm and a peach, plum, and raspberry crisp.  Delicious!

Cucumber Salad
- 4 cucumbers, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup sour cream
-1/2 cup greek yogurt
- 2 tbsp. snipped chives
-salt and pepper
- 2 tbsp. sugar
- 2 tsp. distilled white vinegar
- 1/4 to 1/2 diced onion (I used red because that's what I had, but you can use whatever, or none at all)

Combine the sour cream, Greek yogurt, salt, pepper, chives, sugar, and vinegar together until smooth.  Pour over sliced cucumbers and onions.  Mix well until cucumbers are coated.  Chill for at least 1 hour.  I am not crazy about the taste of raw onion so I didn't put a whole lot in there and used more chives since they have a mild onion flavor.  Hope people like it!  If not, I'm glad to bring home leftovers :)

 

Peach-Plum-Raspberry Crisp 

- 3 large peaches, peeled and thinly sliced

- 3 small plums, thinly sliced

- 1/2 cup fresh raspberried

- 1 tbsp cornstarch

-2 tbsp sugar

-2 tsp. cinnamon (divided)

- juice of one orange

-2 tbsp Gran Marnier (optional)

-zest of one orange

- 3/4 cup old-fashioned oats

-3/4 cup brown sugar

-3/4 cup whole wheat flour

- 1/4 cup butter, cut into pea-sized cubes

 

For the filling

 

For the crumble

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine the sliced peaches, plums, raspberries in a medium-sized glass baking dish.  Combine the orange juice, Gran Marnier, corn starch, sugar, and cinnamon.  Pour over the fruit and gently combine.  In a separate bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, oats, cinnamon, and orange zest (P.S.  Don't forget to zest the orange before you juice it into the fruit mixture!).  Combine the crumble mixture (I just use a clean hand to do it) so that you have pea-sized crumbles.  I suppose you could use a food processor too and pulse it, but I didn't have time to get it out.  Spoon the mixture over the fruit and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until top is golden brown and fruit is bubbling.  Let cool on a cooling rack for 15 minutes.  This would be amazing with some vanilla bean up on top.  We'll see how everyone likes it!

Mama Mia!

Good evening all.  Tonight's star from my CSA box is the tomato.  I made a tomato-basil panzanella (bread salad). 

I don't know about anyone else, but I see baguettes in the grocery store and think they look sooo tasty and then I forget there are only two of us at home and before you know it, it's stale.  Well, this recipe is perfect for that good, stale bread!  It's also a good vegetarian meal--AND it's quick!  Tom worked down in the basement all day and I wanted to make him a good Italian meal.  He loves Italian and I especially wanted to carb load him after a day of work. 

Ingredients:
- 1 baguette, any kind, I used sourdough, cubed
-3-4 tbsp. olive oil
-1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
- 1-2 tbsp. seasoning for the bread. (I used this garlic parm dipping oil seasoning I have)

-about 1 cup variety of tomatoes (I used the two in my CSA box and then a few grape tomatoes I had in the fridge, roughly diced and seeded
- 8-10 leaves of basil
- 5-6 fresh mozzarella bocconcini, diced in half or thirds
- salt and pepper
- pasta on the side, if desired

Preheat the oven to 375.  Cube the stale bread and set aside on a baking sheet.  This was tough!  Stale bread is not easy to cut, even with a serrated knife...got a little workout in for the upcoming carbs I was about to consume.  Cut the large tomatoes in half. GENTLY squeeze some of the extra juice from the tomatoes down over the bread cubes.  Roughly chop the tomatoes and put aside on a different baking sheet.  Stack about 6 leaves of basil on top of one another and roll into a cigar.  Keeping the tight roll, chop the basil and you get little ribbons of basil to put over your tomatoes.  Add about 2 tbsp. olive oil and 1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar over the tomatoes and basil and season with salt and pepper.  Drizzle about 2 tbsp. olive oil over the bread and sprinkle your bread seasoning (garlic powder, parm cheese, etc.)  Put both baking sheets in the oven for about 15 minutes.  Keep an eye on the bread so that it doesn't burn.

 I know it doesn't look like a lot, but remember its just the to of us :)

While the food is in the oven, cube the mozzarella balls.  Fresh mozzarella can be a bit expensive, so I usually get it from the antipasto bar.  It ends up being a good bit cheaper and just as fresh!

Remove the bread and tomato basil mix from the oven and toss together in a bowl with the mozzarella.  I chopped about 3 more leaves of basil to put over the top and drizzled a bit more olive oil.  For some reason, I didn't think this would be enough to eat on its own so I made some pasta to have on the side.  It was definitely enough food without the pasta and the bread was so nice and crispy.  However, it DOES need a nice glass of red wine :)

Oh Deer

I think I have mentioned before that my Uncle Don is a hunter (and a very good one at that!)  He loaded us up on venison last time we saw him.  I will never say no to lean, organic, local meat!  Tom and I have been on vacation this week working on the basement....(maybe he will start a blog on that), which means I have been cooking more meals than usual.  Tuesday night I made venison steaks on the grill with a grilled zucchini and spinach gnocchi.  I finally used up my last zucchini!

Not much to this "recipe." 

Venison steaks with spinach gnocchi and grilled zucchini
- 2 venison boneless steaks
- salt and pepper
-half box of spinach gnocchi that I had in the pantry
- zucchini
- spice rub
-olive oil

Pretty easy!
I preheated the grill and boiled water on the stove for the gnocchi.  Sliced the zucchini lengthwise and seasoned with a tsp. or so of dry spice rub and olive oil.  Put the steaks(seasoned with salt and pepper) and zucchini on the grill and the gnocchi in the water.  The steaks took about 4-5 minutes per side and the zucchini about 3-4.  It was great because everything was done at the same time.  Don't you love it when that happens!?

 

In other news my CSA box arrived today!  They give you so much food!  And I have the small box, too.  We got a cantaloupe, peaches, nectarines, plums, corn, green pepper, tomatoes, and a cucumber.  We also stopped at Reilly's to go raspberry picking, as you see on the side.  The CSA pick up site has a "swap box" so we swapped one of our ears of corn (they had given us 3) for a hot pepper.  I hope we can eat all of this!

Since it was so nice out tonight, we decided to grill out again.  On our trip to Finger Lakes this past weekend we got some great cheeses!  One of them was roasted garlic cheese.  I decided to make Venison (surprise, surprise) burgers with a roasted garlic cheese center with grilled sweet corn on the cob.

Ingredients

- about 1 lb. ground venison (or whatever meat you'd like)
- 4 one-inch cubes of your favorite cheese, I used roasted garlic)
- dash of Worcestershire sauce
- 1 clove of garlic, grated
- 1/4 onion (optional), grated
- salt and pepper
- toppings, as you'd like
-2 ears of corn, in their husks

Begin by soaking the corn (in the husk) in a pot of water for about 15-20 minutes.  Preheat the grill to medium heat.  Cut 4 cubes of the cheese and set aside.  To make the burgers, in a bowl put the ground venison and grate the onion and garlic overtop with a microplane grater (this gives the burger some moisture, especially the onion since venison can be dry.)  Add a splash of Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper.  Mix gently, but do not overmix.  Score the meat into 4 even sections to make the burger patties.  Form each burger around a cube of the cheese.  Be sure they are well-formed so they do not fall apart on the grill.  Set the prepared burgers aside.  Remove the corn from the water.  Pull back (but do not remove) the husks and remove the silks.  Wrap the husks back up the corn.  Put the corn on a medium-heat grill, turning every 2-3 minutes for 2-3 turns, then put to the top rack of the grill.  Put the burgers on the grill.  They take about 5 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness.  For the last 2 minutes, feel free to put more cheese on top!  I had some extra Mango BBQ sauce from my BBQ chicken last week, so I put some on top of the burger along with some Romaine lettuce my neighbor gave us from her garden.

This one was a winner!  That cheese is amazing!  Tomorrow: A caprese bread salad with fresh tomatoes!  Thanks for reading, everyone :)

Recovering

Hello, all!  Sorry for the lapse in posting.  Tom and I have been away since Thursday.  We went to the Finger Lakes and bought a TON of wine.  If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it.  Be prepared to spend money if you like wine.....some of them you taste and you just have to have them!  Anyways, we came home with 2 cases of wine.  We went with Tom's sister, Kathryn and her fiance, Mike to get wine for their wedding.  I am excited to drink it! :)  We also got a few different cheeses that I am excited to cook with!

We then went to the Poconos and had planned on hiking and doing some water sports.  It was chilly and rainy, so we didnt get to get in the water, but we did get a hike in.  They had some really cool waterfalls and dams.  It started pouring as soon as we got to our car, so I would say it was good timing!

We stayed near the town of Jim Thorpe, PA, which is a really cool town!  We ate at this place called Flow.  It is a restaurant built on top of a natural stream...you can see it through the glass floor and window.  I tried to get a picture, but it didn't come out!  I had quail with quinoa and a raspberry coulis.  I plan to try to replicate some raspberry coulis once we go raspberry picking at Reilly's.  I hadnt had quail before, but it was pretty good.....similar to chicken!  Tom had scallops with a carrot ginger puree over top of lentils.  He liked it!  I might fuse our dishes and do scallops with raspberry coulis!

 

In more exciting news, we get our first CSA box on Thursday!  It will have peaches, nectarines, tomatoes, cantaloupe,  cucumber, green pepper, plums, and sweet corn in it.  And that is the SMALL box!  Here are my plans for the upcoming days:

- grass-fed beef homemade sloppy joes

- Cucumber Salad (for our family reunion on Sunday)

- Peach and Plum cobbler

- Caprese Bread Salad

- Venison burgers filled with garlic cheese (from Finger Lakes) with sweet corn on the cob

Stay tuned!!  I'll get cooking soon!

 

Clean Eating Inspiration

I can't take much credit for this one.  I subscribe to Clean Eating Magazine, and I love it.  Most of the recipes use stuff you can find in your local grocery stores and keep it "clean."  Only a few really overdo it on difficult or specialty ingredients.  I saw a recipe in there for Mango Barbeque Chicken.  BBQ sauce is delicious.  My favorite was always Sweet Baby Rays, but unfortunately almost every condiment out there now (yes, even Heinz Ketchup) has High Fructose Corn Syrup in it.  So I really wanted to make my own condiments and sauces as much as possible so I can control what goes into them.  Tom wants me to start canning.....I'll get there once I have a bigger kitchen...hint hint :) 

Mango BBQ Chicken (I will put the recipe from CE Mag and add my modifications)
- 5-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (I used Nature's Basket legs, since I had some on hand)
- 1 large tomato, seeded, peeled, and diced (Farmer's Market)
-1 mango, peeled and cubed.  (P.S.  THIS is how I cut Mangoes.)
-1 small red onion, finely chopped
-2 TBSP. plus 1 tsp. of apple cider vinegar
-2 tsp. Dijon Mustard
- 3/4 tsp. sea salt
- 1 TBSP. Sucanat (I couldn't find this so replaced with trusty Agave nectar)
- 1 lemon (I used lime because I forgot to get a lemon :)
- olive oil and cooking spray
-black pepper

I made the sauce the night before as follows:
In a medium pot, heat 2 TBSP. olive oil on medium heat.  Add the onion and sweat and soften until lightly brown and soft for about 8-10 min.  Stir in tomato, mango, agave, vinegar, 1/4 cup water, and Dijon.  Bring to a boil then put heat on low, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Once the sauce has reduced, use immersion blender or food processor to combine sauce until smooth.  (By the way, this sauce smells amazing.  We wanted to eat it last night while it was cooking!)  I refrigerated it until the next day and just heated it when I was ready for it.  Set aside about a half cup for brushing on the chicken and keep the rest for dipping.

 

Sauce components (missing Dijon in this pic!)

Sauce

Heat charcoal or gas grill to medium heat.  Spray the chicken and season with salt, pepper, and lime juice.  Cook chicken for about 15 minutes or until juices run clear (we had to do a little longer with the legs).  Brush on sauce for last 5 minutes of cooking.

Served with grilled asparagus and brown rice.

 

Chicken on the bottom, asparagus in the foil.

 

I love to plate food!

 

Clean plate club :)  Tom loved this one too!

Thanks for reading, all!  Let me know what ya think!

Ole!

Tonight is Mexican night at the Tweedle house :)

On the menu is: Venison Chili con Queso and Avocado Corn Muffins

Venison Stew:
My Uncle Don is a fantastic hunter, so he is our hook up on venison meat (steaks, ground meat, etc.)  That's considered grass-fed and local, right??  He just gave us a stash last week so I decided to make chili with it.  Best part is you can do it in the crock pot which means two things..1) Minimal clean up and 2) Minimal work!  Venison can get tough easily because it is so lean so we cooked it low and slow.  If you do not like venison, you can certainly substitute ground turkey, chicken, or beef.

-1/2 lb ground venison
-1 large can (28 oz) of crushed fire roasted tomatoes (I use Muir Glen brand)
- 2 peeled, chopped tomatoes (I had these from my neighbor's garden, you probably don't need to do this step if you don't have extra tomatoes.)
- 1 green pepper, chopped (farmers market)
- 1 sweet onion, chopped (farmers market)
- 1 jalepeno, chopped finely, seeds discarded
-2 Tbsp. spice mix (We have a great one from Soergels, it's actually a Steak and BBQ spice rub, but its good on anything that needs some heat.  Or just add in some Paprika, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper...whatever you want!)
- 1 can (14 oz) kidney beans
- shredded cheddar for topping (optional)
- sour cream for topping (optional)

 

Put all the ingredients except the beans into the crock pot and stir them up.  Cook on low for about 4 hours.  Add the beans and cook an additional 1 hour.   Props to Tom on this one too...I got the ingredients all chopped and ready for him last night and he put them in the crock pot this afternoon since he was off today!  It was pretty tasty.  Perfect amount of heat for me, but Tom added some Red Hot to his.  Very filling!!

Avocado Corn Muffins
If you are noticing I use Avocado a lot, you're right.  I love it.

So what goes with chili?  Cornbread, right?  Why not add avocado in it??  Sure!

 (I followed the corn bread recipe on Bob's Red Mill Cornmeal package and then just added a few things...)

- 1 cup Bob's Red Mill cornmeal (or whatever corn meal you have), I used a medium grind
-1 cup whole wheat flour
- 4 tsp. baking soda
-1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/4 cup softened butter
- 1 cup milk
- 1 egg
- 1 Avocado, diced
- 5-6 chives, finely chopped
- juice of one lime
- 2 Tbsp. agave or honey

Preheat oven to 350.  Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  In a separate bowl, combine the butter, milk, egg, lime juice, and agave.  I used a hand mixer to incorporate the wet into the dry.  Do not overmix.  Once combined, fold in the avocado and chives.  If you do not want chunks of avocado, then put it in when using the electric mixer.  You will get 11-12 muffins out of this.  I used an ice cream scoop so that they were all even.  Bake for about 25 minutes.  Serve with the chili, warm if possible!  These were good.  Had nice texture around the edge.  The best was when you got a chunk of avocado!

CSA Box

Hooray!  I recently tried to sign up for Dillner Farm CSA box, but they were full for the season and I was way too late since they go from June-October.  I got an email today from Mrs. Dillner and she said I could get on the list for the remaining 11 weeks of the harvest!  I am so excited!

What is a CSA box you ask?  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  They send fresh produce to a variety of local drop sites and you pick up your box for the week.  Dillners has a drop site right down the road from us in Franklin Park.  Score!  We get our first box on August 18th and it runs until the last week of October.  Its actually decently prices, about 15 dollars per week.  We got the small box, but even still I am afraid Tom and I won't be able to eat it all!  A small box has a variety of 5-6 fruit and vegetable products per week.  We'll see how it goes and hopefully we can continue it next summer again.  I will definitely be getting inspiration for my recipes from the CSA box :)

Don't Forget to Eat Your Peas

Okay, so, I know the title of the blog is FRESHcipes and that means I should use fresh produce.  However, my exception is peas.  I honestly think they are better in their frozen form than fresh....but hey, what do I know!  Anyways, Tom inspired this dish.  When I first met him, he would eat frozen ravioli with red sauce and peas like at least 3 nights a week for dinner...So, I decided to make my own ravioli and put the peas inside the ravioli.

Pea Ravioli:
- 1 shallot
-1 or 2 cloves garlic
- olive oil
- about 1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock
- about 1 cup of frozen peas (or fresh!)
- about 40 won ton wrappers -- I really wanted to use whole wheat, but I could not find any!
- about 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
- juice of one lemon
- about 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
- any sauce of your choice

In a medium pan, saute finely chopped shallot in olive oil for about 2-3 minutes then add minced garlic and saute for about 1 minute.  Add the chicken stock and let it come to a simmer.  Add in the peas for about 2-3 minutes, just until tender.  With a slotted spoon, remove peas and shallot mixture to a mixing bowl or food processor. 

I used my immersion blender for this, but you could also use your food processor and puree the pea mixture.  (I left some lumps).  Add in the ricotta, lemon juice, and parmesan cheese until your mixture is well blended.

Start boiling a large pot of water.  Get a clean dry surface ready for your wonton wrappers.  Get a small bowl of water to dip your finger in to seal the ravioli.  Spoon a teaspoon of your mixture into the center of one of the wrappers.  Trace the border of the wrapper with some water.  Place a second wrapper on top and use more water to seal the edges.  I used a spatula to transfer the ravioli from my cutting board to parchment paper so that it did not tear.  I also kept a clean, dry dish rag nearby to wipe the cutting board dry after each one since the water would sometimes drip onto the board when sealing the ravioli.

Once they were all ready, we boiled them for about 2-3 minutes and packaged the rest of them in parchment paper in the fridge and ate them another night.  I suppose you could freeze them also.

Finish product with the rest of my leftover vodka sauce.

 Packaged:

These were goooood.  We ate them last night and tonight for dinner.  I love the idea of having a good vehicle to try so many different fillings.  Look for my Venison Chili the end of this week :)

Go Bucs!