Salsa Verde

This is the freshest salsa you can imagine. It's chock full of lime and cilantro. It's so easy to make and you'll probably keep eating it even after you run out of tortilla chips. It's great on chicken tacos with a little sour cream.

As always, measurements are not exact:
1 medium yellow onion (you could also use a Vidalia)
1 green bell pepper, seeded
10 - 12 tomatillos, outer husks removed, cut in half
1 jalapeño, seeded
1/4 - 1/2 cup cilantro
Juice of 2 limes
salt, pepper and cumin to suit your taste

Put onion, pepper, tomatillos, jalapeño and cilantro into food processor and pulse until well-combined but still chunky. Juice the limes over the mixture, add seasonings and pulse again. Now taste it to see if you need to add more of something.

We brought this to dinner with friends and they were instant converts.

A little Asian-inspired side

My sister-in-law joined us for dinner last night and I had picked up a bunch of assorted sausages to grill - kielbasa, chicken and apple sausage, and store-made chicken curry sausage (yum!) from the local co-op. As I surveyed the contents of the fridge yesterday morning trying to decide what to serve with it, I was thinking about the cilantro-lime dressing I had made for a salad the night before. I had another lime and more cilantro, plus half a green cabbage and some red cabbage too... I always like slaw when it's had a chance to marinate in the dressing for several hours and I had just enough time to put something together that could sit in the fridge all day. Here's what I came up with.

Ginger Lime Miso Coleslaw

for the slaw
1/2 head green cabbage, julienned
1/4 - 1/2 cup red cabbage, julienned
1 carrot, grated
1/4 cup red onion, yup, you guessed it, sliced very thin
1/4 - 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
(if I had a red bell pepper on hand, I would have given it a fine dice and tossed it in also - maybe 2 TBSP or so)

for the dressing
1" piece of fresh ginger
juice and zest from one lime
2-3 TBSP honey
2 TBSP miso paste (I had white miso paste on hand)
2-3 TBSP canola oil
1 garlic clove
1 tsp sesame oil
1-2 TBSP Rose's lime juice (which I used because I didn't have another fresh lime)
Sriracha hot chili sauce to your taste

Toss slaw ingredients in a big bowl. Put all dressing ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth. If it's too chunky, add a little more canola oil or lime juice. Pour the dressing over the slaw and toss to coat. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

A little reminder here that these measurements are approximate since I don't actually measure stuff unless I'm baking. Don't yell at me if your slaw goes awry...

All dressed up...

Yesterday was my little one's fourth birthday. We had her party at the local ice cream and candy shop (which I keep meaning to write about because we love it so much). It was a lot of fun. The kids got to have a lesson on how ice cream is made, there was a great ice cream cake, and I got to have a scoop of Guinness ice cream - one of the feature flavors of the day. It was an easy way to do a party - entertaining for kids and grownups alike. But, of course, the birthday doesn't end there.

Today, I had to bring in snacks for my darling's preschool class, so I wasn't off the hook in the baking department. Normally I love to do these kinds of things but for some reason (perhaps it's the weather), I just haven't been in the mood to bake. I did, however, rouse myself long enough to make some cute little cupcakes. I confess that I used a boxed cake mix, but only because I am just about out of flour at home and this was at the ready.

I had some leftover cream cheese frosting on hand to frost the belly and then I cut fruit leather bow ties and gum drop beaks and feet. The eyes are cream cheese frosting with a little cocoa powder added. I'm pretty sure there's not enough frosting on these guys to entice a roomful of 3- and 4-year olds to really eat them, but maybe they are just cute enough for them to try a bite.

Moroccan Chicken Stew

I love crock pot season. I was surfing the web looking for a Moroccan dish and I found a recipe that looked good but of course I had to tweak it. This dish turned out so well that I will make it again.


1 TBSP olive oil
4 whole chicken legs
1 medium onion, sliced thin
salt and pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp turmeric
chicken stock
8 prunes (cut in half)
1 can (14.5 oz) stewed tomatoes
1 carrot, in rough chunks
1/2 cup orange juice
1/3 cup almonds
1/2 cup frozen peas

Heat the oil in a large skillet. Season chicken legs on both sides with salt and pepper. Place them in the hot oil to brown. After about 2-3 minutes, flip the chicken legs and add the onions. After another 2-3 minutes, if chicken is pretty evenly browned, remove to place in a crock pot (I used a big one so the chicken fit in one layer on the bottom). Add the spices to the onion in the skillet and cook until the onion is almost caramelized and the spices are fragrant. Put the onion on top of the chicken in the crock pot and put the skillet back on the heat. Add about 1/2 cup of chicken stock and deglaze the skillet. Turn off the heat and pour the stock into the crock pot. Add the prunes, the can of stewed tomatoes (I made sure to cut any big chunks into bite-sized pieces), and the carrot. Pour in the orange juice and more stock to make sure everything is covered. Before I added the almonds, I toasted them lightly in a pan over high heat for a few minutes but you could just add them. I put the crock pot on low and left it for the day. When I get home, I'll throw in the peas and while they thaw in the stew, I'll make some couscous to serve it over.

Our Simple, Local Supper

Another long week, which meant that I needed to make something quick and nourishing. I had thawed some lamb sausage from our meat farm share and dug out the last of the collards from our veggie farm share. It seemed like a good idea to put them together.

This dish took about 30 minutes to make and it was so worth it.

Here's the recipe (more or less):
1 TBSP olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, roughly chopped
1 lb lamb sausage links, cut into 1" slices (you can substitute another kind if you like)
1 clove garlic
8 collard leaves, stems removed and sliced in 1" ribbons
1 can white cannellini beans
1 can stewed tomatoes (or if you are a canner, you can use your own - I didn't have the time this year)
1/2 - 1 cup Chicken stock (depending on your taste)
good Parmigiano Reggiano to shave over the top

Heat the olive oil in a skillet. Add the onions and cook until soft. Add the sausage and stir occasionally while it browns. When the sausage is mostly cooked, add the garlic and greens. Let the garlic get fragrant (30 seconds to a minute). Add the cannellini beans and the stewed tomatoes, including their juice. I like to make sure the tomatoes are in bite sized chunks, not too big. Stir this together and bring up to a simmer, put a cover on top and let it cook for 5 minutes and then check it. If it starts to look dry, add enough chicken stock to make sure everything is coated with cooking liquid. I like this dish to be more like a stew than a soup. Once the collards are cooked to your taste, it's all done. Serve in bowls with plenty of shaved Parmigiano Reggiano on top and good rustic bread on the side.

Chicken Pot Pie

So good for a cold fall night. A little leftover chicken, some peas, carrots, onions and potatoes and a lot of yummy gravy, all topped with a puff pastry crust. Happiness.

Pasta for comfort

Friday nights are all about comfort food. By the time I get home, I don't have enough time or energy to do much, but I need to make something that satisfies and fortifies. Tonight I came home to a big bunch of broccoli rabe from the farm share and the memory of a pasta dish that I had at one of the more upscale Italian restaurants in the area.  This was my chance to try to recreate it.

While the pasta water came up to a boil, I toasted pine nuts and soaked some golden raisins.Then I sauteed 3 or 4 small cloves of garlic in olive oil. I coarsely shredded the rabe and added it to the skillet with the garlic. I let it cook down for a little while and then added a splash of balsamic vinegar, a little chicken stock, a few cranks of the pepper mill, along with the raisins and their soak liquid and let that simmer to bring the flavors together. When the penne was just about finished, I drained it and added it to the skillet. I threw the pine nuts over the top and folded it all together, letting the pasta absorb most of the remaining liquid in the skillet. I served it with lots of fresh Parmigiano Reggiano and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

This dish is so easy to throw together and it's incredibly satisfying. The pungent flavor of the garlic and the slight bitterness of the rabe blend perfectly with the woodsy taste of the pine nuts and the sunny sweetness of the raisins. Served with a glass of Spanish red, some good rustic bread, and the last of the garden's tomatoes, it was a perfect way to end the day.