food

food : zucchini!

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In a moment of enthusiasm or weakness, I accepted hand-me-down enormo-zucchinis from a neighbor’s friend’s garden. Thankfully, it coincided with a zucchini-free week in the CSA and I was able to make it all go away with a little bit of concerted effort. First, I made stuffed zucchini from one of the squashes, using ground pork and ratatouille from the freezer, plus some rice. The result was edible but suffered typical mistakes: didn’t precook the rice and left the walls of the zucchini boat too thick so it was all a bit undercooked. But we still ate it for two days.


Another batch of zucchini muffins.

Next up: some of our favorite Moosewood muffins. With the ability to stock them in the freezer I can make as many batches as I like without feeling compelled to just eat them all at once. Each batch takes two cups of shredded zucchini, so I just shredded the entire second squash and dove in. Three dozen muffins later, I’d passed them along to friends, had a freezer full, and had used half the squash. It was a start.


Zucchini brownies.

A few years ago I tried to make zucchini brownies from the recipe in Simply In Season and failed miserably. Failed to actually follow the recipe, that is, which resulted in a hot mess. This time around I used properly shredded zucchini and yogurt, which turns out to be key to making the brownies rise rather than remaining a dish of flat goopy gunk. The chocolate chips on top made the whole thing much more brownie-like; without them the dish is more like chocolate zucchini cake (still good). Out of deference to the sprout’s ongoing dairy intolerance, I did use sheep milk’s yogurt and figure this will be a good way to test the assertion that it’s easier to digest.


Gluten-free zucchini fritters.

Finally, I used the last four cups (!) of shredded zucchini to make fritters, which are tasty but soft and not really ery fritter-ish at all. Zucchini and minced garlic or onion, 1/3 cup of flour (or gluten-free pancake mix as the case might be), and two eggs makes it a super easy addition to dinner. Which I’m sure we’ll revisit the next time we have cups and cups of zucchini to eat.

food : zucchini!

food : exciting blueberry pie

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The finished product straight from the oven.

A couple of weeks ago, upon our return from vacation in the Great White North, I made a blueberry pie. The pie was exciting for a few reasons: it had a gluten-free crust (I’d say the best one so far, but the most recent always seems like the best); it was made with blueberries both from the ancestral homestead and from our CSA; and it used lemon verbena from our garden (the first use I’ve found for it, since “muddle it into a fruity drink containing hard alcohol” is great advice but only works when you are actually consuming fruity drinks containing hard alcohol). I combined the filling from this recipe with the gluten-free crust from The Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook that I’ve previously used for apple pies, and it was not a bad pie at all. (I don’t even feel the need to qualify that with “for a dairy-free gluten-free one.”)

The assembly of the pie was pretty standard, now that I’m used to working with the sticky tart-like dough that results when you are using starches held together by egg to make a crust. The filling smelled very lemony, as I just tossed the berries with the juice and zest, not seeing any instructions otherwise in the recipe. I remembered the shortening inside the pie (which I often don’t) but did forget the rice milk wash for the top. That turned out to be a lucky mistake, as I preferred the flakier drier crust and it didn’t have the overly-ricey taste that some of the other versions have had. When I took the pie out of the oven curiosity got the better of me and I spooned up a taste of the filling that had overflowed onto the cookie sheet. I then became very nervous as the filling tasted like nothing more than a blueberry Lemon Drop, a “martini” that I hadn’t had in years because of the cloying sweetness. In the end—where the end is the next day after the pie had cooled completely overnight—the lemon was not overbearing and the pie was quite good. I will definitely chop the verbena more finely next time, but I’d make it again. Blueberry is a good combination with the gluten-free crust, too, as the color and flavor permeate the lower crust and the tart berries stand out against the bland backdrop.


The filled shell. Mmm, blueberries.

After blueberry, the next seasonal pie is usually sour cherry. Well, sour cherry is usually first (here in DC) and blueberry usually follows (after we return from our summer trip in early August). This year we missed sour cherry season entirely and the blueberries were a few weeks early so we had barely cleared Canada Day when we had blueberry pie. Which means that next up is most likely peach, as those are already rolling in to our CSA. After a banner year of plums two summers ago I suspect that the one little bag I have in the fridge might be all I have to work with, so a peach-plum (dairy-free gluten-free) crisp might be in the making. What could possibly go wrong?

food : exciting blueberry pie

deep in the land of the CSA

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This is the time of year when my to-do list starts to be mostly recipes centered around using up the vegetables and fruits that are flowing in our house. (Most of the other items on the list are some subset or variation of “clean house.”) When I have the time and energy, I find myself trying to knock out three or four items at once to stay on top of things: something baked, some kind of salad, and something for dinner are pretty typical. Earlier this week I tackled about half of the zucchini, turning it into muffins and fritters. I also used the cabbage to start homemade sauerkraut for the first time; I just couldn’t face more cabbage soup, as we are still working our way through last year’s freezer stash. The sauerkraut is still fermenting on the counter and won’t be ready for a few more days at the earliest, so I have no sense of whether it’s a success or not. Or rather, whether it’s edible: it’s a success either way since there is no longer a cabbage in my fridge! Yesterday I made two salads and yellow beans (with savory from our garden) for dinner. That was only a qualified success, since I had to buy tomatoes for one of the salads (it’s hard to find recipes using up cucumber that don’t also require tomatoes).

This is the crux of the challenge: using the vegetables you get without either too much supplementation or endless days of eating sliced cucumbers for lunch. There are some things I don’t mind getting, like the leek I use in the beet salad recipe. My partner is not a huge fan of the beet and we eat them only one of two ways, in the salad that requires a leek or roasted, the latter way not being really appropriate for the longest heat wave in local history. It pains me to buy tomatoes, though, since I know we’ll be getting more soon and I know the local heirloom ones that will start to appear at the market are vastly superior in all ways to what’s currently available, even at the local organic store. However, it also pains me to continually throw away food and we are coming off the second winter of doing so with the majority of our winter CSA. We just haven’t been able to stay on top of it since the sprout joined our family. Also, the types of vegetables we get in the winter are delicious when prepared well but not the sort that are easy or good raw; a large part of their appeal is the satisfaction of turning something bitter and kind of unappealing into a tasty meal. Which requires the creativity, energy, and time to turn something bitter and kind of unappealing into a tasty meal.

Now that the more amenable vegetables of summer are here, I’m determined to use them. This weekend’s list includes a blueberry pie (with gluten-free crust and lemon verbena from the garden), refrigerator pickles, another batch of beet salad, another batch of zucchini muffins, and possibly some rhubarb muffins if I haven’t left the rhubarb too long already. Probably also roasted potatoes one night, although there’s less time pressure to use the potatoes. Then on Tuesday it will be time to start the process over again.

Oh, and let’s not forget the effort to use up last year’s stores from the freezer, too!

deep in the land of the CSA

food : dairy-free gluten-free apple pie

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Apple pie, round two.

Never in a million years, after spending years tweaking the ingredients of my pie crust until I had it just the way I like it, did I expect to be attempting to make pies without flour or butter. Never! Yet, here I am, as it wouldn’t be autumn without apple pie. Partly because I myself can no longer eat butter and partly because the sprout now wants to be sure that he’s eating what we’re eating by feeding himself directly from our plates, I went in search of a dairy-free gluten-free pie crust recipe that would taste decent. For this, I invested in The Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook, which promised to deliver.

The first attempt at pie was not a success, pretty much entirely because I didn’t follow the recipe exactly. Yes, I know, you would not be the first, last, or most vociferous to point out that not following the recipe at least the first time I make something means that we never actually know what the recipe tastes like. Point taken. In this case, I didn’t follow it because the very expensive special rice flour had not yet arrived in the mail AND I wanted to see if the very expensive special rice flour was actually necessary or if the only fairly expensive special flour mix from the store would work just as well. The answers are yes and no respectively, mostly because the gluten-free flour mix from the store is mostly bean flour and as you might imagine, bean crust does not taste super fabulous in a pie. I addressed the problem by dousing each piece in maple syrup (should you ever find yourself in this situation and need a solution). In addition, I forgot the dollops of fake butter for the filling in my rush to get the crust on before it dried out and totally fell apart, so there were some challenges all around.

The second attempt produced a respectable (albeit ricey) pie, using Pascal’s crust and baking instructions and my regular apple pie filling. The quirks of the gluten-free crust are that it doesn’t move as it bakes. It basically dries out and keeps its shape, so the big domed up top you make over the raw apples is still a big domed up top once the cooked apples have compressed into a normal-sized pie. While perfectly edible and nice looking when it comes out of the oven, it’s a bit of a pain in the keister to cut a piece without breaking the crust or to fit the pie into the handy-dandy pie container when it’s time to store it. The best way to address these issues is to only share the pie with really good friends and eat it all as soon as possible so it doesn’t need to be stored.

food : dairy-free gluten-free apple pie

becoming the parent of a toddler

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I can hardly believe the sprout is a year old, and yet he’s definitely turning into a toddler. He’s been practicing his tantrums, perfecting the art of going boneless and throwing himself onto the ground to sob when frustrated. Not very often, just frequently enough to let you know there’s no going back to the compliant baby stage. He’s also nearly walking running, standing well on his own and launching himself toward you as long as you’re within about 10 quick little steps. He finds something new to get into every day, although he has not yet turned out to be a climber *knock wood*.

Most notably, he’s starting to show distinctly toddleresque food preferences. Banana imported from Peru? Yes. Delicious chicken chili made from scratch with love and local organic veggies? No. Avocado imported from Mexico? Yes. Delicious homemade organic mushroom and barley stew with fresh thyme from the garden? Not so much. Applesauce? Yes. Brown rice and lentil stew? A few bites on a good day. Instant oatmeal? Definitely. Zucchini and millet with fresh basil? Haven’t tried it yet, but I’m pretty sure I know where this is heading. Hummus, peaches, enormous bites of apple just like Daddy takes that lead to mouth sweeps? Yup. Delicious and nutritious sweet potato in all its forms? Apparently a babyish delight that he gave up just in time for Rosh Hashanah.

I am trying to be a good sport and chalk this up to teething, taking time to warm up to new tastes, a renewed preference for nursing following a cold, and the desire to feed himself whenever possible. We are still working on finding appropriate finger foods while avoiding dairy and wheat, and that’s presenting a bit of a challenge; while we don’t seem to be dealing with true allergies, an intolerance that keeps us up all night with a writhing crying baby is not something we can ignore in good conscience. Still, I fear I am staring down the tunnel to fish fingers, and I’m not liking it. That won’t be happening any time soon, though, as there remains a whole mess of veggies to chop, dice, steam, roast, mash, and purée before we even consider throwing in the towel.

becoming the parent of a toddler