Stuffed Patty Pan Squash

Patty pan is a cute lil squash. Probably my favorite shape. I found a few recipes online for stuffing it, but none that suited my taste just right. I came up with this version that is basically cheese calzone filling inside a squash. That makes it healthy, right?

This recipe is just for one squash, but of course you can easily double, triple, quadruple, etc. It took about 10 minutes of actual prep work to make this -- super simple!


You need:

One medium patty pan squash (approx 6-8" diameter)
1/2 C ricotta cheese
1/4 C mozzarella cheese
2 garlic cloves, minced
herbs - oregano, basil, etc. - fresh is always best!

First you need to boil the patty pan until it's about 3/4 of the way done. This should take about 12-15 minutes. While that's going, pre-heat the oven to 350 and mix up the cheese, garlic and herbs. When the squash feels slightly tender when poked by a fork, yet still pretty firm, take it out, let it sit for a bit til it cools down. Then slice the top off -- top being the part where the stem was, the narrower end. Scoop out the insides, leaving at least half an inch of the lining. Be careful when you're scraping out the bottom - don't bust it! Fill 'er up with cheesy goodness, wrap in aluminum foil, and bake for 25-35 minutes, until the cheese is nice and melty. Eat that sucka up!


Another awesome way I like to eat patty pans is sliced thinly, about 1/4" thick, sauteed with garlic and olive oil, patted dry, then put on a sandwich or in a quesadilla. Yummmm.

Fettucine with Garlic Cream Sauce and Roasted Beets

I have a confession: I'm not much into the straight up taste of beets. But they're so dang pretty that I have to keep trying them. I've discovered that, when paired with a delicious garlicky buttery creamy sauce, beets taste pretty good. Add in a lovely friend and you're all set for the perfect Saturday lunch!

This time around I used golden beets and Chioggia. I think they're prettier than the standard dark red, and the taste is about the same.

Here's what you need:

1/4 cup butter
1 cup cream OR 1 cup milk with 3 tbsp flour
2-4 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped finely
3-4 large garlic cloves
A bunch of beets
A box of linguine

Here's what you do:

First you need to roast the beets. Rinse and wrap them in tinfoil. Put them in the oven at 375 for about 45 minutes, til they're tender.

About 30 minutes into the roasting, get started on your sauce. Melt the butter and stir in the milk -- but first, take a bit of the milk and stir it up with the flour in a cup or bowl, til the flour is mostly dissolved. Crush the garlic (I loooooove my garlic press so so much for this), add it and the parsley in. It'll take this 5-10 minutes to thicken up; give it a little longer if you want it to set more. Add a bit of salt, but make sure you're careful with it, since salted butter obv has salt already. Make your pasta. Mix 'em up. Enjoy.

As with most of what I cook, this can be tasted and tweaked according to preference. You can't have too much butter and you CERTAINLY can't have too much garlic.

Swiss Chard Pasta with Cream Sauce

I'm fighting off a bit of a cold and wanted to get some yummy, colorful chard into my dinner as a vitamin/antioxident pick-me-up. Generally only the leaves are used, but this includes the ribs/stems, which are tasty too.

Chard has quickly become one of my favorite veggies from the farm. Not only is it beautiful, delicious, and versatile - it can be happily included in pasta, omelets, soup, dips, and so much more - but it is also TOUGH. Not tough as in hard to chew, but tough as in not needing to be babied. Some veggies are wimps. Lettuce is one of them. If you so much as LOOK at lettuce the wrong way, it crumples up and then turns brown. Chard, however, is tough and can handle a good amount of rough handling. Let's give a big round of applause to chard! And then put it in our stomachs.


1 cup milk (I used unflavored almond milk)
2 tbsp flour
1/4 cup butter
1 bunch of chard, chopped
Garlic, minced
Onions, minced

Sautee the onions, garlic, and half the butter in a large pan or pot. In a cup, mix together 1/4 a cup of the milk and the flour. After a couple minutes, add the milk/flour mixture, the rest of the milk, the chard, and the rest of the butter. Cook for several minutes and then mix with whatever pasta you'd like (I've been super into penne lately). Enjoy!

Rye Toast with Roasted Beets and Goat Cheese

Holy goodness, this turned out even better than anticipated! I've been craving beets and beet greens for weeks now. Finally remembered to pick some before leaving work last night. My tummy is sooooo happy right now. Not to mention that I now am super charged with folate, vitamin B, vitamin C and potassium. Pink-stained fingers are just a side benefit.

What you need:
BEETS with greens
Extra virgin olive oil
Bread (I used rye sourdough from Silke's)
Goat cheese (I used Noble Springs' cherry berry chevre)
Vinaigrette

Wrap beets in aluminum foil, drizzling a bit of olive oil and salt on top. Roast at 375 for approximately 45 minutes (will depend on the beet size - you can tell if they're done by sticking a fork in 'em). Remove from oven, wait a few minutes til they've cooled down, then peel the outer skin off. Slice thinly and add to toasted bread topped with goat cheese.

For the greens, chop, pour a bit of vinaigrette on top, and add in some of the roasted beets.

Gleaning! & my very first published recipe

While harvesting carrots at Paradise Produce this morning in the hot hot sun, I asked Farmer Stacy if it would be okay if I took home the small carrots that weren't big enough to bunch and sell. To my delight, he said yes! I am officially a gleaner, just like Ms. Ruth from Biblical days. I left the farm with three bunches of itty bitty carrots (about 2" long): one went to Miss Sheila, Maggie's daycare teacher, one came home with me, and one was traded for a bar of Olive and Sinclair chocolate (coffee bean, mmm).

Today also yielded several tidy bunches of garlic scapes, an exciting piece of garlicky goodness that I only recently discovered. Garlic plants send up these flower stalks when they feel ready to produce seeds, a process that also leads to the plant shutting down its growth. Today it was my job to snap off the scapes to allow the plant extra time to fill out the underground bulbs that will become the familiar garlic I dearly know and love.

Garlic scapes are wondrous things, lovely to behold and tasty to chomp. I threw these curly, wonderful lovelies into the soup pot with the baby carrots and some potatoes and whipped up a nice little spring meal for myself and my dear friend Colleen. Perfect end to a hard day's work.


Potato and Garlic Scape Soup

• 1 cup diced onion
• 1 cup diced carrot (I used babies)
  
• 1/2 cup garlic scapes, chopped (more if you're feeling adventurous!)
  
• 6 cups diced baking potato (about 2 pounds)
• 4 cups vegetable bouillon
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cup 2% milk (I used raw!)
• 2 tbs flour
  

Chop garlic scapes as you would green onion. Drizzle some olive oil in a pan, add onions and sauté 5 minutes. Add potato, carrots, broth, salt, pepper, and bay leaf; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes or until potato is tender; remove bay leaf.

Use a potato masher (or a big spoon, or really anything capable of mashing) to break down some of the potatoes -- but leave it chunky. Take 1/4 cup of the milk, add the flour and stir together. Slowly stir this mixture into the soup, then add the rest of the milk. Cook over low heat until thoroughly heated.