Cooking from Scratch
A dish that isn’t quite up to standing on it’s own. Still good, though.
We took this dish and turned it into a full meal by serving it on top of some fresh, 50% spelt pasta (just make fresh pasta with 50% spelt flour, or any whole-wheat flour if you don’t have spelt), but we think that this will also work just fine as a side dish by leaving out the pasta. And, while we made some crispy sage leaves for an extra topping, you could leave those off, too. It just depends on how much scartchin’ you want to do.
Continue reading “Sage Cauliflower with Crispy Bread Crumbs”
We’ve gotten a number of cabbages from our CSA this year, and, for the most part, we turned them into our Light Coleslaw. It’s easy, cool for summer, and it uses a lot of cabbage, making it great to put together for a lunch or dinner side dish. But, after making Light Coleslaw three or four times, it’s time for a change. So, we came up with this Asian-insipred version of coleslaw. Try it and let us know what you think.
Continue reading “Asian Peanut Slaw”
We don’t think we’ve ever had Brussels sprouts from our Tucson CSA, but we really happen to like them, so, once in a while, we break down and pick up some at the store. As with just about everything we buy, we don’t know exactly how we’ll cook it, we just know that we’ll figure out something when the time comes. We started with a batch of our Maple-Glazed Brussels Sprouts, but, we noticed that these sprouts tasted slightly mustard-y. Interesting.
Continue reading “Brussels Sprouts in a Mustard Cream Sauce”
To be honest, we can’t remember the last time we ate fast food. We just don’t do it. Even when we’re traveling we won’t hit a fast food place. Instead, we’ll bring a lunch with us, or we’ll find a local restaurant where we can sit down and properly enjoy our meal. But, we can tell you that our Crispy Cauliflower Nuggets won’t be anything like that greasy chicken paste that fast food establishments shape into nuggets, coat with breading, freeze, ship around the world, then deep fry. We think they’re far better.
Continue reading “Crispy Cauliflower Nuggets”
We had picked up figs the other day at the CSA. These weren’t part of our share; instead, they’d come from the Mission Gardens, and one could buy baskets on a first-come first-served basis. Now, I couldn’t remember if I’d ever had figs before, but, we happen to know that the Mission Gardens are working to grow food that was grown here historically, going so far as to search out abandoned orchards to get cuttings for fruit trees from the time the Jesuit missionaries lived in the area. It’s a cool idea, and we think that buying a basket of figs is the least we can do.
Continue reading “Caramelized Honey and Figs”
Occasionally we need to make up a little something for a dinner meeting that takes place once a month. It’s never any trouble; in fact, often, the hardest part is deciding what to make. This month, we discussed various options for a vegetable side dish, but none was “vegefied enough.” They all relied on some sort of starch to bulk them up: you know, pasta- or rice- based casseroles, that sort of thing. So, we went back to the stacks in The Scratchin’ It Central Library, and came up with this recipe.
Continue reading “Summer Vegetable Gratin”
Looking for the best way to cook broccoli? We think we may have found it; after you scratch up a batch, feel free to thank us. This recipe is so good it might even convince broccoli haters to have a few bites. Now, we aren’t broccoli haters. We happen to love broccoli. We’ll eat the florets raw, we like cream of broccoli soup, we like steamed broccoli on baked potatoes — basically, we’ll eat broccoli regardless of how it’s prepared, but this recipe has them all beat.
Continue reading “Broccoli Strascinati”