Notes from Debbie's Kitchen
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Click here to go to recipe database.

How did you do with the Padron peppers last week? I finally fried up three as a test. After frying and sprinkling with salt, I cautiously cut a tiny piece off the tip of each, and touched them to my tongue to assess heat level before eating. The smallest one was tasty with only a bit of heat - ate the whole thing (well, not the seeds, but all the flesh!), the next was hotter; ate it in tiny bites mixed with other things. But the third was screaming hot when I just barely touched the cut piece to my tongue... yowza! I saved it in the fridge, wondering what to do with it; maybe I'll roast some of the sweet peppers and blend it with them and some seasonings to make a hot sauce! Tom says he's going to give us more in the share... just not this week.
 
Great news: the eggplants and tomatoes have arrived! Hooray!! They'll be in alternating shares this week (tomatoes in one, eggplant in the other), but once the tomatoes get going, we'll all be getting them in quantity, so hang in there! With this recent heat, we should be there soon.
 
Now I could just launch into eggplant and tomato recipes, but what I really want to talk more about is cooking... especially after reading Michael Pollan's article, above. He pegged it: what I've been trying to do with 'Debbie's Kitchen' all these years is simply help people reestablish 'everyday cooking' in their lives. That's been my goal all along, it just took Pollan to put it into the right words! Especially in this day and age of food-borne illnesses from anonymous food sources: I find no satisfaction in eating out anymore; I prefer my own cooking, 'cause I know where my food came from! So until I find restaurants that can reliably name the farms that grew their ingredients, I'd rather cook at home thank you. Anyway, I'm digressing a bit, but it's all related, in that enabling an ethic of 'everyday cooking' in our lives, elevating it to the level it deserves, will go a long way towards getting us through until that magical time in the future where all farmers, food establishments and eaters work together to restore ethical, sustainable agriculture. - Debbie


Recipes are a tool
Recipes are great. They're fun, instructive, and a wonderful way to begin learning the ropes of cooking. Two weeks ago I talked about 'playing with your recipes'; this week I want to show you another trick: looking for trends and patterns, and then extrapolating them. This is the sort of thing that (for me) generates those 'aha' moments. Let me show you what I mean (this is just one example).
 
Go to the recipe database, to 'green beans'. Consider these recipes:
 
Green Beans with Pecans, Lemon & Parsley
Lemon Sage Green Beans
Lemon Green Beans with Cashews
Green beans with Mustard and Thyme
Lemon-Garlic Green Beans
Green Beans with Toasted Hazelnuts
 
What do they have in common? What's the trend? Nuts and or herbs and or lemon (juice, zest). If you look at the individual recipes, they're very simple, yet each brings it's own variation of flavor. One is not necessarily better than the other, they're just different. But I see more... what this really tells me is: I could probably make my own combination of green beans, nuts and/or herbs and maybe lemon, and it'll probably be good! So let's try it: gonna make this one up right here, right now:
 
Green Beans with Walnuts (multiple ways)
 - and lemon zest
 - and parsley
 - and lemon zest and parsley
 - and lemon and cilantro
 - and... what do you have?
 
Wash and trim as many green beans as you want to eat.
Figure a small handful of walnuts per serving.
Zest a lemon and mince up the zest.
Chop up the fresh herbs.
 
Steam the green beans a few minutes; brown the nuts in butter in a skillet, throw in the zest for a minute, add the lightly-steamed beans and stir-fry toss a little; add the herbs, sprinkle with salt to taste and stir-fry toss a little more, until everything looks and smells good. If you like, squeeze some of the lemon juice over all at the end. That's it! If you don't have one of the ingredients, leave it out (except the green beans, of course!) ;-) If you think of something else you'd like to add or do differently... go for it! See how easy?
 
Oh, and one last twist: I made the Beans with Pecans Lemon and Parsley last night, only I embellished it by cutting up a potato into sticks of a similar diameter to the green beans, steaming the potato with the beans, then adding both to the pan with the butter, nuts, etc. And I almost forgot the parsley - started eating, actually (it was fine!), then remembered, and added it. Good both ways.
 
 
Okay, that's enough o' that for today! Now for some recipes that you can enjoy all on their own, or compare with others in the database (or your own cookbooks or whatever you find on the internet) and modify to work with what you have in your kitchen!
 
 
This is a recipe I dug out of my old 3x5 card file (which I've had since I was a teenager). I was reminded of it last week, when talking to a member about 'could you cook cucumbers?' Yes, as a matter of fact, you can. It's so funny to gaze upon my own childish handwriting... and to see how dated the recipe is. Of course I immediately see how I'd modernize it now. I'll give you the original, with my 'mods' in brackets [].
 
Cucumber Steak
source: I'm pretty sure this was a recipe I made in 'Home-Ec' class in Jr. High (that's "Home Economics", for those of you born more recently; it was a popular class in the '70s, anyway!).
serves 6
 
1 lb. round or rump steak, cut into quarter-inch thick strips [any similar beef cut will do; use your Morris Grassfed if you have it!]
1/4 C salad oil [I'd use olive oil now]
1 tbsp. finely chopped spring onion [substitute regular onion if you don't have scallions, but scallions would be better]
2 1/4 tsp. salt [I love this exact measurement! More-or-less two is fine.]
1/2 tsp. pepper [again, more or less... to taste]
1 tbsp. shortening [I'd use butter or olive oil or even bacon fat]
3 C sliced cucumbers
1/4 C beef stock
2 tsp. cornstarch
 
Marinate steak strips in the salad oil, onion, salt and black pepper for 1 hr. Melt shortening in a 9 or 10" skillet. Add beef and onion. Cook until browned. Add cucumbers and stock mixed with cornstarch. Cover and cook 5 minutes. Serve with rice.
 
Oh, you know what I'd readily add to the above recipe?? Sliced radishes. Add them with the cucumber step. It'd be great! Trust me on this. People are always asking me for other ways to use radishes, so this is a perfect example.
 
 
Last week member Jennifer Gonzales emailed me with these great ideas. Thanks Jennifer... you're making me hungry!
 
Fun with peppers
from Jennifer Gonzales
 
Every week, my family has enjoyed the delicious variety of produce. This week, we had had fun with the peppers. Last night's dinner had one of the white onions, thinly sliced and sauteed with all of the dark green mild peppers, with 1/2 lb. of lean beef chorizo, and one of the round squash, thinly sliced. I cooked it all cooked together and served in whole wheat tortillas.  It was amazingly delicious.
 
This morning, I took all of the very hot green peppers from the box [the Padrons] -- seeds and membrane removed -- chopped them into small pieces, then added them with whole corn kernels to whole wheat corn bread muffins. Delicious muffins. Thank you again for growing such a wonderful variety of healthy produce.
 
 
Okay, so here's something with eggplant!
 
Eggplant Rice Pilaf with Lamb Brochette
from an old SJ Mercury News clipping, recipe by Pierre Franey. His original focus was on the lamb, of course; I'm focused on the eggplant, so I reversed the order of their importance. ;-)
Serves 4
 
Eggplant Rice Pilaf
1 small eggplant, about half a pound
2 tbsp. olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1/2 C finely chopped onion
1 tsp. finely chopped garlic
1 C rice [original recipe called for 'converted rice'; I'd just use something like Basmati]
1 1/2 C chicken broth
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/4 tsp. Tabasco
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro or parsley  [Note: if you ever see "fresh coriander" in an older recipe - that's cilantro! This recipe called for it.]
 
Trim off the end of the eggplant. Do not peel it. Cut it into half-inch cubes.
 
Heat oil in a saucepan. Add the eggplant, salt and pepper and cook over medium heat, stirring for 2 minutes. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until wilted. Add the rice and stir [to coat with the oil]. Add the chicken broth, cumin, turmeric, Tabasco and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, stirring. Cover and simmer 17 minutes or until rice is tender and all the liquid is absorbed.
 
Remove the bay leaf. Add the butter and parsley [or cilantro] and fluff rice with a fork. Serve hot.
 
Lamb Brochette, Middle-Eastern Style
I wasn't originally going to include this part, 'cause it didn't really have any farm veggies (other than onion and garlic), but it just sounded so good as something to have with the eggplant pilaf!
 
1 1/2 lbs. lean lamb, cut into cubes (approximately 24 cubes)
1/3 C grated onion
1 C plain whole-milk yogurt
1 tsp. finely chopped garlic
1 tsp. loosely packed stem saffron
2 tbsp. olive oil
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tbsp. chopped fresh mint or 1 tsp. dried
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
 
Heat the broiler to high or heat an outdoor grill.
 
Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl. Cover and let stand until ready to cook. This can be left overnight in the refrigerator.
 
Arrange the pieces of meat on 4 skewers. If wooden skewers are used, it is best if they are soaked in water for an hour before using them. Cover the tips of the skewers with foil to prevent burning. Reserve the marinade for basting.
 
If broiling, arrange the brochette on a rack under the broiler about 2 to 3 inches from the source of heat. Broil to desired degree of doneness with the door partly open. Baste with the reserved marinade and turn the skewers as the meat cooks.
 
If grilling, cook the meat over a hot fire to the desired degree of doneness. Baste with the marinade, turning the skewers as the meat cooks. Serve piping hot and brush with the remaining marinade.
 
 
This is from yet another old clipping... but the source is completely missing. You can tell I was noodling around in my old 3x5 recipe card file today!
 
Zucchini Cornmeal Crust/Tomato-Herb-Topped Pizza
Serves 6 generously
 
Crust
1 3/4 lbs. zucchini or crookneck squash [or any summer squash!] (comes to around 2 cups, blended)
2 1/4 C cornmeal
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. honey
2 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp. olive oil
 
Topping
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 large onion, chopped fine
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. ground cumin seed
1 tsp. ground coriander seed
2 large ripe tomatoes, chopped small
1 tsp. dried basil leaves
1 1/2 C grated jack or jalapeno jack cheese
 
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
 
Cut squash in large chunks and steam until tender. Blend in blender until smooth.
 
Combine cornmeal with salt and baking powder. Mix honey, eggs, and olive oil with the blended squash. Add dry ingredients to wet, stirring just until smooth. Turn into a greased 12 1/2-inch by 18-inch baking pan or a large pizza pan (spread mixture to about 3/4-inch depth), and bake 12 to 15 minutes - just until cornbread starts to pull in from the sides of the pan.
 
While cornbread is baking, saute onion in olive oil along with chili powder, oregano, cumin and coriander. Spread onion mixture across top of cornbread, then scatter tomatoes atop that. Sprinkle with basil, then scatter cheese all over it and return to oven for 10 minutes.

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