Desiree Potatoes with Blue Cheese and Garlic

Ranui Gardens CSA
Last Pick of the Season 2012

In her well-researched tome, Vegetables, from Amaranth to Zucchini,  Elizabeth Schneider  describes the Desiree potato as a European favorite that is best steamed because it turns pearly alabaster with its flesh waxy, satiny and sliceable. “Pure delicate flavor with a high note–like sparkling wine.” This simple presentation is meant to showcase the potato’s quality.

2 pounds Desiree potatoes

3 to 4 cloves garlic

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

4 ounces mild blue cheese

Chopped parsley leaves, optional

Scrub the potatoes very well with a vegetable brush. Place them on a steamer rack over plenty of boiling water. Cover. Reduce the heat so that the water boils gently and cook until the potatoes are tender in the center when pierced with a knife tip, about 25 minutes. Lift the steamer rack and let the potatoes cool slightly.

While the potatoes are cooking, slice the garlic into thin slivers. Heat the butter in a skillet on very low heat. Add the garlic and salt and cook, stirring often until the garlic softens. If the flame is good and low, this could take 10 minutes—just don’t let the garlic turn brown.

Mash potatoes slightly and arrange them in a warm serving dish. Drizzle the buttery garlic and blue cheese on top. Sprinkle with chopped parsley if you want more color.

Figuring about 1/2 pound of potatoes per person–this recipes serves 4.

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Tempeh Pot Pie with Roasted Garlic Mashed Potato Crust

A yummy stew with golden potatoes baked on top, a vegetarian, if fact vegan, rendition of all-American comfort food—what more could you ask for during this cool fall weather?

Get the garlic roasting in the oven, and cook the potatoes.  Save some of the potato cooking water and any coconut milk for the gravy sauce. Plump the tempeh in boiling tamari-spiked water.

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes (October 12, 2012 post)

8 ounces tempeh

1 tablespoon tamari soy sauce

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 large carrots, cut in ½-inch dice

2 tablespoons whole-wheat flour

1 cup liquid (vegetable stock, leftover coconut milk and/or tempeh tamari water)

1 1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning or ½ teaspoon each sage, thyme and marjoram

1 cup frozen peas

1 1/2 cups cooked spaghetti squash or butternut squash

Real Salt

Pinch cayenne pepper

Make the Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes and set aside.

Put the tempeh in a saucepan and just cover with water by about ½ inch. Add the tamari and cook the tempeh for about 10 minutes to “plump”. Remove from water and allow to cool. Cut into 1/2-inch cubes.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and carrot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in the flour. Cook a few minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon so the flour coats the onions and carrots. Add the liquid, stirring continuously. The gravy will thicken into a sauce: if it becomes too thick, add more stock or potato water. Stir in the poultry seasoning or dried herbs. Add the peas and squash and reserved cubes of tempeh. Season to taste with salt and cayenne.

Preheat oven to 375° F. Lightly oil a 9 x 13-inch casserole pan. Spread the vegetables and gravy in the pan. Top with the mashed potatoes. Bake 20 minutes.

Switch the oven to broil. Broil until the potatoes are golden brown on top.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

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Random Vegetables with Savory Peanut Butter Sauce

I had some “Thai” peanut and sesame baked tofu in the fridge. I wanted to serve it with the spaghetti squash and beet greens from last week’s Farmer’s Market. The problem was I had already stirred quite a bit of basil pesto into the spaghetti squash the night before and I needed a sauce that was compatible with both pesto and sesame peanut tofu. I must have looked in five different cookbooks for inspiration when I came across Deborah Madison’s Quick Peanut Sauce in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. (I have said it before,” If you want the best vegetarian cookbook out there, that is the one.)

The random vegetables are just that—whatever you have on hand, whatever you feel like eating, or whatever you find in your CSA box or Farmer’s Market. Garlicky and tangy and sort of sweet, this, my variation of Ms. Madison’s sauce, enriches an assortment of vegetables, as well as grains and proteins. Serve it cold, spooned over your choice of goodies.

Heaping 1/3 cup chunky (unsweetened) peanut butter

¼ cup rice wine vinegar

2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced

1 ½ tablespoons tamari soy sauce

2 teaspoons brown sugar or honey

1 teaspoon chili oil

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

¼ teaspoon Real Salt, or to taste

¼ cup water

In a bowl, mix the peanut butter, vinegar, garlic, soy sauce, brown sugar, chili oil and water with a fork. Taste and add the salt if you deem necessary.

Makes about 1 cup.

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Roasted Carrots with Polenta and Anasazi Beans

A road trip from Durango to Moab, down in the Four-Corners area of southern Utah and Colorado, takes you through the “don’t blink” town of Dove Creek. If you don’t blink, on the north side of the road you will pass the Adobe Milling store that sells local pinto beans and the more gourmet Anasazi beans, named for the ancient Pueblo culture that lived in this area. Dove Creek Colorado calls itself the “Pinto Bean Capital of the World”, but I came away with a bag of Anasazi beans from the store. Paired with polenta and Roasted Carrots—well, tonight will be our third meal of the same.

I make a 1 cup recipe of polenta beforehand and let it cool in a 9 x 13” dish. Robbie cuts the cold polenta into squares and into the oven it goes—along with the carrots roasting to perfect golden tenderness.

ancho and guajillo chiles

I followed my basic recipe for pot beans, adding a couple of chiles, because they were sitting in a bowl on the kitchen counter asking to be used. The same with my go-to polenta recipe—easily cooked in the microwave. The roasted carrots are “simplicity itself”, to quote Anna Thomas, whose recipe I followed. In her cookbook, The New Vegetarian Epicure, Ms. Thomas suggests a meal of roasted vegetables and polenta. She includes roasted whole garlic and sautéed greens along with the roasted carrots and other surprises. I highly recommend the cookbook.

The vegetable broth and lemon juice add bling to the carrots. Since I keep a jar of Rapunzel powdered vegetable broth in the pantry, I mixed one teaspoon of powder with 2 tablespoons of hot water.

Roasted Carrots

1 pound small carrots

About1 tablespoon olive oil

Real Salt

2 tablespoons vegetable broth

1 ½ teaspoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice.

Preheat the oven to 400° F. Trim the carrots and scrub them well. If the carrots are not small, cut them into stick no more than ½ inch at their thickest point.

Put the carrots in a shallow baking pan and drizzle the olive oil over them Sprinkle lightly with salt. Toss them around so the oil and salt are evenly distributed. Mix the broth and lemon juice together and sprinkle over the carrots.

Roast the carrots about 45 minutes, moving them around every 20 minutes or so. The broth will evaporate and the carrots will become golden. If they are turning too dark before they are tender, add a wee bit more broth, but not so much that there will be liquid in the pan when the carrots are done.

Makes 4 to 5 servings.

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Tri-Color Orzo with Tomatoes, Dill and Feta Cheese

Our home office file cabinet’s lower drawer is all about cooking, bulging with file folders, from Appetizers to Yule Logs that reflect my dual interests of vegetarian and desserts. I am always tearing and tucking away possible ideas, articles and recipes that I think someday I might want. Admittedly it is clutter, but at least the clutter is labeled files in a cabinet, right?

Nowadays one can simply Google an ingredient and glean a recipe, but it’s not the same as the tactile feeling of paging through a cookbook or sifting through a folder of recipes. Just like I am positive this orzo recipe from July 2008 Gourmet Magazine is available on epicurious.com, I am pretty sure it would not have come across my radar without a thumb through my folder labeled “CSA Recipe Ideas.” The torn-out page is from a regular column titled Gourmet Every Day Quick Kitchen, and says “35 minutes” in the bottom corner. There is a photograph of this Orzo dish, juxtaposed next to Grilled Oregano Shrimp and its recipe. The vegetarian in me is musing, “Hmmm, grilled oregano tofu?”

I know I saved the article because dill shows up in our Ranui Gardensbox a few times a year and I wanted to be ready for just this occasion.

plain, spinach and tomato orzo

Tri-Color Orzo with Tomatoes, Dill and Feta Cheese 

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

½ cup finely chopped dill

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

½ teaspoon Real Salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

2 cups diced tomatoes

1 cup tri-color orzo pasta

1 ½ cups (6 ounces) crumbled feta

In a serving bowl, toss together the oil, dill, zest, salt and pepper and tomatoes. Let stand at least 10 minutes, or while you cook the orzo.

Bring a pot of well-salted (1 ½ tablespoon: 4 quarts) water to a boil. Stir in the orzo and cook just until it is tender to the tongue. Drain the orzo and into with the tomato dill mixture. Add the feta and toss again.

Serve immediately.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

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Carrot Macaroons

We always have carrots in the fridge. Most evenings there is a carrot in our dinner salad and Robbie slices carrots and puts them in our sandwiches for color and crunch. They flavor our soups along with onion and garlic and at times we enjoy carrots roasted or steamed. I love it when we find fresh garden carrots in our CSA box—I take advantage and think outside the eating “box.”

This cookie is Alice Medrich’s recipe from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-your-Mouth cookies. I added cayenne pepper and subbed orange for the lemon zest. The cookies are delicious and different but not that easy to make. I mixed them together last night; right after I pulled them from the oven, I went to bed. This morning Robbie came from the kitchen and said, “Good news and bad news. Those cookies are really good but they stick to the parchment paper—I can’t get them off.” I thought not-to-worry because I’d read a note in the recipe telling how to remove the cookies from the parchment:  hold one cookie at a time while gently peeling the parchment away from it. But when we pulled a cookie off the paper, some of it still stuck to the bottom of the cookie. Robbie had figured out a solution by the time I got to the kitchen—he had turned the cookies over—the sheet of parchment with cookies stuck on it–and rubbed the paper with a wet kitchen sponge. Voila! The cookies released from the paper. I think if I ever make them again I will put them on a silicone baking mat—most everything releases easily from a “Silpat.”

Be sure to use unsweetened coconut—available in specialty markets that sell nuts and dried fruits, and in natural food stores. The highly sweetened coconut we use in German Chocolate frosting is not a good substitute.

Carrot Macaroons

¾ cup whole almonds

2 large egg whites

1 cup organic cane sugar

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Pinch cayenne pepper

¼ teaspoon Real Salt

1 1/3 cup finely shredded carrot

¾ cup unsweetened dried shredded coconut

Heaping ¼ teaspoon grated orange zest

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

In a food processor, pulse the almonds until you get chopped almonds ranging from finely chopped to mostly finely chopped.

In a stainless steel bowl, whisk the egg whites with a fork until frothy. Stir in the sugar, pumpkin pie spice, salt and cayenne. Add the carrot, coconut, almonds and orange zest and stir until everything is moistened. Set aside for 10 minutes to dissolve the sugar and hydrate the coconut. (This is when I took a shower and brushed my teeth.)

Set the bowl directly in a wide skillet of barely simmering water and stir the mixture with a silicone spatula, scraping the bottom to prevent burning, until the mixture is very hot to the touch and any liquid at the bottom of the bowl has thickened and turned from translucent to opaque.

Drop by heaping teaspoons 1 inch apart on parchment lined baking sheets or on silicone baking mats on the baking sheets. Bake about 25 minutes, until the tips of the carrot shreds begin to color. Allow to cool completely. (This is when I went to bed.)

Remove the cookies from the pan as best you can—use Robbie’s trick if you line your pans with parchment.

Keep in a box loosely covered—they will loose their crunch if kept airtight. Alice says do not freeze and I have not tested her caution.

Makes 48 small cookies.

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Breakfast Potatoes

We’ve been getting some interesting not-your-ordinary potatoes in our Ranui Gardens CSA boxes the last few weeks. I made Simple Leek, Garlic and Potato Soup using last week’s red-fleshed Mountain Rose varietal and I’ll be hoarding the Maris Pipers from this week because I want to use up the ones from the week before in these breakfast potatoes. Since we make smoothies for breakfast around here—we prepare eggs for dinner every so often. I love homemade breakfast burritos with hot breakfast potatoes, farm-fresh scrambled eggs, melty cheese and salsa—all wrapped in a warm sprouted wheat tortilla.

We spent a few nights last week with Robbie’s aunt and uncle in Durango Colorado. She and her husband used to own a dude ranch in Wickenburg Arizona and they know how to cook authentic farm breakfasts for their guests. Our last morning we enjoyed breakfast potatoes that were impressively perfectly diced; Aunt Nancy confessed that she did not make them and I didn’t have the heart to ask their brand name. I have inside knowledge that most restaurants drop their diced potatoes into the deep fryer—for an even crunch on all sides. These potatoes won’t be like the aforementioned, albeit addicting ones. These breakfast potatoes are hand-diced and pan-fried. They are best made with a potato on the waxy side of the floury/waxy scale, like a new potato. Since Piper Maris potatoes rate right between floury and waxy, they cook up just dandy in this recipe.

Breakfast Potatoes

About 2 pounds potatoes

1 onion

1 tablespoon plus 2 tablespoons canola oil

Real Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Scrub the potatoes and put them in a saucepan. Cover with water—at least ½-inch above the tallest potato. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender when you poke them with a fork, about 20 minutes. Cool about 10 minutes, until you can handle them.

Meanwhile, dice the onion into ½-inch pieces. Over medium-low flame, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large skillet. Add the onions and sauté until they are translucent, stirring often. Remove the onions from the pan.

When the potatoes have cooked and cooled, cut them in cubes about ½ to ¾ -inch square. Heat the remaining oil in the skillet over medium flame. Add the diced potatoes and stir them around to coat with the oil. Press them into the pan with a spatula. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and let the potatoes cook 5 to 10 minutes without stirring. The potatoes should get crisp and lightly golden on the bottom.  When they are golden on the bottom, break them up with the spatula, stirring in the reserved cooked onions. Sprinkle the potatoes and onions again generously with salt and pepper and let them cook until the new bottom is nicely golden brown.

Spoon them into breakfast burritos or serve with eggs—any style.

Makes about 6 servings.

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Green Lentils with Kale and Steamed Quinoa

We are finding gorgeous tomatoes in our Ranui Gardens CSA box this month. You could use them in this stew-like dish, but I like to savor the rarity and freshness of the heirlooms in salads, sandwiches and raw—and use canned tomatoes here. I choose quinoa as the bed underneath the vegetables—feel free to substitute rice or any other cooked grain.

Precook the kale in another saucepan and add it at the last minute to the lentils.

1 ¼  cups red or tri-color quinoa

1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 onions, chopped

2 tablespoons smoked paprika

2 teaspoons ground cumin

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 cup green lentils, sorted and rinsed

1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes

Real Salt

1 bunch Lacinato kale, stems removed and discarded

Freshly ground black pepper

Rinse the quinoa well to wash away the saponin coating. (Saponin is a natural pesticide quinoa produces so birds won’t eat it. It doesn’t harm humans; it just makes the quinoa bitter if not rinsed well.)

Bring 2 ½ cups of water to a boil and add the quinoa. Cover and reduce the heat to low. Simmer until the water is absorbed, about 30 minutes. Just as with rice, do not stir—tilt the pan to see if there is any water left. Set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium flame. Add the onions and cook, stirring often until the onions are translucent, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the paprika, cumin and red pepper; cook and stir for several minutes.

Add the lentils, the tomatoes and 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat; cook and cook for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, adding more water if needed. The lentils should be tender to the bite.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the kale leaves and simmer them until the greens are tender to your tongue, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from the water and let the kale cool on a cutting board.  Chop—about 1 inch apart with your knife, in both directions to cut the leaves. Stir the kale into the lentils. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve over the steamed quinoa.

Makes about 4 servings.

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Green & White Gazpacho

We Ranui Gardens CSA members are lucky that John loves garlic and grows about 10 varietals of hardneck garlic. Hardneck garlic is valued for complexity of flavor, fares well in cooler climes and has a shorter storage life.

Early in the season we enjoyed scapes, the edible green stalks shooting out of the middle of hardneck garlic plants.  Cutting off the scape sends more nutrition to the garlic in the ground, though if the scape is not cut, the tip forms bulbils, or flowers, also edible.  We’ve also had “green” or young garlic in our boxes this year, pulled from the ground before the cloves are well formed. Now Ranui’s garlic is mature and cured, having cured for three to four weeks and we are getting some in our boxes as often as zucchini.

This time of year I make gazpacho, a cold soup of Spanish origin, with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and garlic. (And why not add some of those tender small zucchini?)

There are thousands of gazpacho recipes out there, variations on the hot weather and summer harvest theme. Because tomatoes are not in the mix, this recipe is untraditional. But it does have a good dose of garlic.  I wrote an article about Garlic and Gazpacho for Salt Lake City’s Catalyst Magazine’s August issue. Here is the recipe I gave. Hint: If you hit a clove of garlic with the side of chef’s knife, the skin will loosen and make it easy to peel.

3 cloves garlic, (peeled and crushed)

3 medium cucumbers, peeled, seeded and chopped

1 small green pepper

2 green onions, chopped

2 tbs. chopped fresh basil, cilantro or parsley

2 cups cold vegetable broth

2 cups plain yogurt

2 to 3 tbs. sherry wine vinegar or fresh-squeezed lemon juice

3 tbs. extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt

White pepper

Cherry tomatoes, red or gold, cut in tiny wedges

Fresh basil, cilantro or parsley, chopped, for garnish

Put the garlic, half of the cucumbers, green pepper, green onions, basil and vegetable broth in a blender and puree until smooth. Add the remaining cucumbers and puree. Transfer to a bowl and whisk in the yogurt, vinegar and olive oil. Season to taste with salt and white pepper. Chill until cold. Serve garnished with the tomatoes, and more green onions and fresh herbs.

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Sprouted Bean Trio Salad with Grilled Zucchini and Leeks

Sprouted Bean Trio Salad

I made this salad for a neighborhood potluck dinner—using some more of the 3 pound bag of truRoots Sprouted Bean Trio that I bought months ago at Costco. It says on the bag to boil in water for 5 minutes. Don’t believe everything you read—it takes 15 minutes and then needs to stand, covered for another 10. After that you can drain the beans and finish this protein-rich salad.

1 cup sprouted beans

3 to 4 small zucchini

1 leek, white part only

1 carrot, grated

¼ cup chopped summer savory leaves

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

¼ teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon Real Salt

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Bring 3 cups water and the sprouted beans to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and let stand, covered for 10 minutes. Drain and place in a bowl. Refrigerate.

While the sprouted beans are cooking and standing, heat up the grill and slice the zucchini. Toss the zucchini with some extra virgin olive oil, a sprinkling of red wine vinegar and salt and pepper. Cook on the grill until much of the zucchini has golden brown marks. Dump onto a cutting board and chop into 1-inch pieces. Add to the sprouted beans.

Cut the leek in half and spray the cut sides with cooking spray. Lay the leek halves face down on the grill and cook until a light char appears. Chop the charred leeks and sauté them in a bit of olive oil until soft. Add to the beans along with the grated carrot and the summer savory.

Make a dressing with the ¼ cup of olive oil,  red wine vinegar, cumin, salt and cayenne. Pour over the sprouted beans and vegetables and stir very well. Cover and refrigerate at least one hour or overnight.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

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