Fried Green Tomatoes

When green tomatoes popped up on our CSA list, Whitney was very excited to make some fried green tomatoes. This delicious recipe for comes from our Fresh Every Day cookbook.

Fried Green Tomato and Ripe Red Tomato Salad with Goat Cheese and Sweet Basil Vinaigrette

2 large ripe tomatoes (about 1 lb), cored and sliced 1/2 in thick

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 c flour

1/2 c cornmeal

2 tbsp sugar

1 egg

1/2 c buttermilk

Oil for frying

4 large green tomatoes, cored and sliced 1/2 in thick

1/2 pint grape tomatoes, halved lengthwise

4 oz goat cheese, crumbled

Sweet basil vinaigrette (1/2 c each balsamic and olive oil with lime juice, basil, salt, and pepper)

8 fresh basil leaves, cut into thin strips

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Line baking sheet with paper towels. Arrange ripe tomato slices in one layer on a large platter or on plates. Season with salt and pepper. Stir flour, cornmeal, sugar, 1 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper in small bowl. Whisk egg and buttermilk together in separate bowl. Dip green tomatoes in egg-buttermilk, dredge in flour mixture, and fry in 1/4 inch of hot oil (about 2 min for first side, until golden brown). Transfer slices to baking sheet and put in oven while frying remaining slices. Arrange fried tomato slices on top of fresh slices. Scatter small tomatoes and sprinkle goat cheese. Drizzle with vinaigrette and top with basil strips.

Farm-fresh tomatoes!

Working the frying pan.

A close-up, halfway through flipping.

Yum! Forgot to slice the grape tomatoes.

Lunch up in the air!

Last month Patrick and I visited Chicago to celebrate his nephew Will's first birthday!

If you follow the blog any you'll notice every now and then that a Giada DeLaurentiis recipe will be used because I love Giada! One day when I was browsing her website I found a list of some of her favorite restaurants and things to do in cities she visits a lot. And Chicago was on the list! (Come to the Triangle, Giada!) Here's the link to all the cities on her website. So I picked out a place and put in a request to Patrick for the Signature Room on the 95th Floor of the John Hancock Center and being the wonderful boyfriend that he is, he made reservations for us!

Here we are!

Patrick enjoyed a Grilled Portobello with a ricotta salad, garlic spinach, and pretzel roll.
And I enjoyed Blackened Salmon Tacos with coleslaw and 7-grain pilaf. I felt just like a celebrity!

And this is the view we took in during lunch.

Pickles!

Our experimental item from the CSA this week was pickling cucumbers. We picked out this recipe from my Fresh Every Day Sara Foster cookbook. In the past, I haven't particularly enjoyed pickles, but I found these ones to be particularly delicious and addictive, especially with some sharp cheddar and wheat crackers.

1 c white vinegar
1/4 c sugar
1 tbsp sea salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
6 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 tsp dill seed
4 to 5 small pickling cucumbers, peeled in stripes and sliced into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
1 small white onion, thinly sliced into rounds


Combine the vinegar, sugar, salt, black pepper, cloves, bay leaves, red pepper flakes, and dill seed in a quart jar. Place the lid on the jar and shake until the sugar has dissolved.

Layer the cucumbers and onion in the jar using a wooden spoon to press them tightly into the jar. Place the lid on the jar, shake it well, and refrigerate at least 4 hours, shaking the jar occasionally to keep the ingredients mixed. These pickles will keep in the refrigerator for at least 1 month.

Everything ready!

I used two pint jars instead of a quart. What am I going to do with the other ten jars?!

Zucchini Bread

Here's a great recipe for surplus zucchini... but the bread is worth making on its own too! My mom originally tried this recipe from a Southern Living magazine. It's really easy too. 

Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

3 eggs, beaten

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 cups peeled, coarsely grated zucchini

Here's my grated zucchini!

Combine eggs, oil, sugar, and vanilla; mix well. Combine dry ingredients; add to oil mixture, mixing well. Stir in grated zucchini. Pour batter into a large greased loaf pan (or two small ones). Bake at 350F for 55 to 60 minutes. Allow to cool for 20 minutes before removing from pan.
*Be aware that it will not rise a whole lot in the pan.

Pesto Pizza

Whitney got the idea for this one while looking for a way to use the arugula from the week's CSA box, and came across this recipe for arugula pizza. We mostly followed their formula. We prebaked the Pillsbury crust per the instructions on the can, then added pesto, tomato slices, goat cheese, green onions (CSA!), and prosciutto (Whitney's side only), then baked until the crust was brown and threw the arugula on top. The pesto was homemade with basil, olive oil, garlic, and almonds.

The result impressed us both - it was very delicious! The arugula went well with it, but wasn't really manageable the way we dumped it on top. Perhaps we could have shredded it or tried to wilt it. The Pillsbury thin crust was very good.

Ready for the oven!

It's almost as if someone just threw some arugula on a pizza.

Ranch Pork Chops

Hidden Valley Ranch had a successful commercial! They advertised making these super easy ranch pork chops and I made them the next night. Really you just sprinkle pork chops with the dry ranch dressing mix and bake them. However I still found the recipe on their website (find it here!) to make sure there weren't any secrets stuck in there.

For the pork chops
1 packet (1 ounce) Hidden Valley® Original Ranch® Salad Dressing & Seasoning Mix
Salt and freshly ground black pepper*
6 pork loin rib chops about 1-inch thick*
Dash of paprika (optional) 
  **A few notes here: I did not include extra salt and pepper; figured the dressing mix had plenty of flavor! I also used thin sliced pork chops.

Preheat the oven to 450ºF. Liberally sprinkle the porkchops on both sides with the dressing mix.
Arrange the chops on a baking sheet or try with a rack. Bake the pork chops for 20 minutes, turning once until browned or an internal temperature of 160ºF is reached. Serve immediately.
  **Obviously with our thin sliced pork chops we adjusted the cooking time dramatically. I can't remember exactly how long they took now though.

Served with sauteed squash
Our first batch of squash from the CSA! We love squash. I could probably get our whole allotment of CSA goods in squash for a week. This is our simple sauteed squash that we do a lot--sauteed squash and onions with some seasonings in evoo.

And here's the dinner! File this away in your 30-minute meal folder.

Birthday Blowout Cookout Celebration!!!

It's birthday month!! And on the last weekend in May we celebrated with a party that's now three years in the making. And each year it's gotten a little bigger and a little better! We asked that everyone bring a small contribution of food or drinks. Look what we got!

Our guests went above and beyond the call of cookout potluck duty. They brought all sorts of yummy cookout goodies. I was definitely impressed. :-) There was fruit, potato salads, pasta salads, bean dips, chips, carrots and ranch, lettuce wraps, and vegetable medleys... And I haven't even mentioned what was on the grill! Roasted corn, burgers, hot dogs, brats, steaks, marinated chicken breasts, and skewers were grilled until our tummies were content. 

Then when we thought we couldn't eat anymore... there was birthday cake!

Patrick decorated both a chocolate cake and vanilla cake with the secret buttercream recipe.

They've gotten older but not much better at blowing out candles!