Whiteley Creek Homestead

Jenn, a sweet guest that stayed this past weekend at my bed and breakfast, brought me a jar of homemade mixed berry jam. I have been eating it straight up from the jar on a spoon. Oooooooh… the blend of various summer fruits is perfect. Today, I spread some on a sweet potato scone. Yum! 

 
Waiting in my email inbox this morning was an organizing tip of the day that I had signed up for on Martha Stewart's site. It was a downloadable sheet of jam labels ready to print. The label with strawberries and raspberries was so very pretty and perfect for Jenn's jam jar. I had no self-adhesive labels, so I printed the label onto regular printer paper and haphazardly wrapped a strand of kitchen twine around the jar to secure it. Jenn's gift was perfect as it was… but the labels' arrival was so timely. 

   

My friend Connie kindly gave me a beautiful yellow squash freshly plucked from her garden, so I paired it with a zucchini that was in my most recent weekly CSA box to make a flavorful squash tomato medley topped with parmesan cheese. The recipe is from allrecipes.com.   

   

 

Squash Tomato Medley

Makes 6 servings.

1 tbsp olive oil

2 yellow squash, sliced

2 zucchini, sliced

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1-16 oz can diced (or stewed) tomatoes (I like the basil and garlic variety.)

½ tsp dried basil

2 tsp dried oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese (I used ½ cup.)

Preheat oven to 325°. In a large pan, heat olive oil over medium heat. (I used one notch up from low because I like to use the lowest temp necessary.) Add squash, zucchini, onion, and garlic. Sauté until all veggies are softened. (Don’t cook so long that the veggies get mushy. You want them to be crisp tender. I covered the pan with a lid, which isn’t standard procedure for sautéing, but I keep the cooking temp low, so using a lid speeds the process.) Add tomatoes with juice. Season with basil, oregano, salt, and pepper. Transfer ingredients to a glass baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and bake another 10 minutes.

Bread pudding… a perfectly nutritious start to the day if it's "Fantastic Fruity Flan" from Jane Kinderlehrer's Smart Breakfasts Cookbook. I renamed the recipe solely for memory recollection.  

 

Dried Fruit Breakfast Bread Pudding

2 eggs

1 ½ tbsp butter, softened

1 cup milk

2 tbsp molasses

½ tsp vanilla

¾ tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

2 cups cubed bread (I used 3 slices Ezekial Sprouted Grain Bread.)

¼ cup oat bran

1 ½ tbsp wheat germ

6 unsulphured dried apricots, slivered

6 prunes, slivered

¼ cup raisins

2 tbsp chopped walnuts

1 tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°. In mixing bowl or food processor, blend together the eggs, butter, milk, molasses, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. In a buttered 8 x 8 baking dish, combine the bread, oat bran, wheat germ, apricots, prunes, raisins, walnuts, and coconut. Pour the egg mixture over the bread mixture. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Serve with milk or cream to drizzle over the top, if you like. Makes 4 servings.

Tis the season for fresh garden veggies, so I searched for a healthier version of catalina dressing. This recipe from cdkitchen tastes even better than Kraft's version and takes only minutes to whip up. Kraft Catalina Dressing: soybean oil, tomato puree, (water, tomato paste), sugar, vinegar, salt, contains less than 2% of dried garlic, spice, xanthan gum, dried onions, phosphoric acid, vitamin E, natural flavor, Red 40, Yellow 6, Blue. Homemade Catalina Dressing: sugar, salt, paprika, chili powder, celery seed, dry mustard, vinegar, ketchup, olive oil.

 

Homemade Catalina Dressing

Makes 3 cups.

1 cup sugar (I used ½ cup.)

2 tsp salt

Dash paprika

½ tsp chili powder

½ tsp celery seed

½ tsp dry mustard

grated onion to taste (I omitted.)

½ cup vinegar

2/3 cup ketchup

1 cup vegetable oil (I used ½ cup olive oil.)

Place all ingredients into blender and mix. Store in refrigerator.

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On Thursday, I'll be picking up this week's CSA box, so I got busy and used up the string beans and cukes from last week's box by making the second recipe tucked into my CSA box. The recipe, from Food Network's Rachel Ray, uses a simple olive oil and lemon juice drizzle seasoned with salt and pepper that allows the fresh garden veggies to take centerstage. I'm going to experiment with the addition of some seasonings. This colorful combo of complementary veggies warrants exerting a bit of effort to tweak the drizzle just a bit. 

 

String Bean Salad with Red Onion and Tomato

1 pound fresh green and yellow string beans, washed and trimmed

¼ red onion, sliced thin

¼ European cucumber, cut into thin sticks resembling shape and size of string beans (I diced them instead.)

½ pint grape tomatoes, halved

extra-virgin olive oil

½ lemon, juiced

coarse salt and pepper

Steam string beans in ½ inch boiling water covered for 3 to 4 minutes. (I used just a touch of water… only enough to keep the pan from going dry. You are blanching the beans to heighten their color and make them tender crisp.) Cold shock beans by running under cold water and drain well. Place beans in a bowl and combine with onions, cucumber, and tomato. Dress salad with a generous drizzle of olive oil and juice of ½ lemon. Season salad with salt and pepper, to taste.

 

Inserted in my CSA box yesterday were two recipes that used this week's freshly-picked produce from the CSA farm. The farmers had taken time to search out appropriate recipes, so I knew I must appreciate their efforts by trying the recipes. I'm so glad I did. The first recipe, which came from 101cookbooks.com, used a head of cauliflower and green onions from the box. Heidi Swanson, creator of the 101 Cookbooks Blog, likes to eat it "over an open-faced egg salad sandwich for lunch."

 

Cauliflower Sautéed

1 head cauliflower

2 tbsp olive oil

a couple pinches of sea salt

1 clove garlic, minced

1 small bunch green onions, chopped

zest of one lemon

freshly grated Parmesan

To prep the cauliflower, remove any leaves at the base and trim the stem. Cut the head into tiny “tree” florets the size of grapes. Make sure the pieces are relatively equal in size, so they cook in the same amount of time. Rinse under running water, and set aside. Heat the olive oil and sea salt in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the cauliflower and stir to coat. (Instead, I sautéed the cauliflower over low heat with a lid on because I prefer to use the lowest temperature possible when cooking anything. When the cauliflower was tender but still firm, I removed the lid during the final few minutes and continued to sauté, and stir a bit, until the pieces browned to a lovely, golden color.) In the final 30 seconds, stir in the garlic. Remove from heat and stir in the chives, lemon zest, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and a pinch of sea salt.    

Since Dick and I were going to be eating spaghetti with meat sauce at the Legion in Ironton last Friday, I made tofu burgers for lunch using a recipe from Heidi Swanson's 101cookbooks.com blog. I only used half of the mixture, planning to make another meal of it today and write a post sharing this recipe keeper. Upon arising this morning, an email from my daughter Lisa was sitting in my inbox. The email's subject line was, "How good do these look???" with a photo attachment of Heidi's tofu burgers off her blog. Most of the time, life is just plain fun…  

 

Nutty Tofu Burgers

Makes 8 patties.

1 lb extra firm organic tofu, drained and patted dry, then sliced

2 large eggs

½ cup dried bread crumbs (I finely ground 1 slice bread in my food processor. If your bread is fresh and soft, toast it a bit before processing.)

½ cup cashews (I didn’t have any on hand, so I used whole almonds.)

½ cup sunflower seeds

½ cup sliced fresh mushrooms

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp shoyu or soy sauce (I used Bragg Liquid Aminos.)

1 tsp ground cumin

½ tsp ground cayenne

¼ tsp sea salt

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Place all ingredients except the olive oil in a food processor. Pulse until the mixture comes together and is free of most chunks, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice, if needed. Form into 1/3 cup-size patties. After coating a skillet with olive oil, arrange patties in pan and cover. Cook until browned on both sides, turning once during a roughly ten minute cooking time. Check to be sure the middle of the patties is cooked through. Serve atop a lettuce leaf on a slice of whole grain bread or bun.

 

I used tofu made with sprouted soybeans made by Wildwood Organics for "enhanced nutrition and easy digestion." Besides the soybeans being sprouted, I was impressed with the ingredients, as well. Ingredients: filtered water, organic non-gmo soybeans, and nigari (magnesium chloride, a natural firming agent)

 

Roasting marshmallows on our backporch…