The Benefits of Friends with Gardens: Butter Beans and Greens

I feel truly blessed that I have so many friends and colleagues who were kind enough to share the fruits of their gardens with me this Summer.

My dear friend and colleague, Elaine, brought me this gorgeous bounty from her brother's garden.  Elaine's brother's garden is his livelihood, so this is more than just a backyard patch of tilled soil with  His vegetables are featured throughout Farmer's Markets in the East Bay all Summer long, and Elaine has her pick of all vegetables, anytime.  I am so pleased that she though of me!

I have to say, these tomatoes we the most, red, ripe and luscious tomatoes I have had in a while.  Nothing like Summertime!

I made this salad above for an afternoon lunch with my dear friend, Neil.  The WHOLE salad looked spectacular, but alas, I lost the picture of the full platter on Instagram, due to an iPhone glitch.  Here are the leftovers I took to lunch the next day, which, I think, still looked good.

My folks are living in Italy for the next few months, so I was feeling a bit "Mediterranean".

Butter Beans and Greens
Here we have:
1 can of Butter Beans (cleaned out mom's pantry before her trip, thank you)!

Rinse and drain beans, then toss with:
2 chopped scallions
1 minced fresh red chili pepper, seeded (from the Farmer's Market)
2 roasted red peppers, chopped (another score from mom's pantry)
olive oil, oregano, salt and pepper to taste.
Set aside

Salad:
1 organic heart of romaine, chopped
2-3 cups fresh arugula (from the Farmer's Market)
1 large cucumber, seeded and chopped (from my dear friend, Tara's garden)
2 large garden tomatoes (from Elaine's garden)
1/3 cup kalamata olives (clean out the fridge)

Dress the salad greens with some olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper.  Toss with remaining vegetables, and then top with the beans.

We enjoyed this with a fresh baguette, and some pasta with roasted zucchini, eggplant and sweet peppers (pictured above) and tomatoes.  Buon Appetito ^_^

Chilis from the Farmer's Market - the one I used was right in the middle :)

Better Than V8

Don't let the slightly murky color of this photo fool you. This fresh, raw, vitamin packed, NO-salt added vegetable juice beats V8 any day!

L wanted me to write this one down, before I forgot:

Better-Than-V8 Salsa Fresca Juice
(serves two)
5 plum tomatoes
4 celery stalks
1 medium cucumber
1 jalapeño, seeded
1/8th of a large yellow onion
1 leaf of kale
1 small handful cilantro leaves, (my hands are small)
juice of 1/2 lime
juice of 1/4 lemon

Not quite spicy, maybe just a hint.  Perhaps I'll leave a wee bit of the rib from the jalapeño in next time.  I would like to work on the color a bit, because once you add "Green" to anything "RED" you get sorta blehhhh...

Perhaps, I will sneak a bit of beet in next time... shhhh, don't tell L!

Friday Night Cookin' Part II: Garden Bruschetta

Toasted Baguette, topped with Cashew Ricotta, Basil Pesto, Baby Spinach Leaves and Rosemary Oven Roasted Plum and Cherry Tomatoes...

(party in my mouth) ^_^

 How we did it:
Friday afternoons, we have a small but amazing Farmer's Market here on the campus where I work. It is literally two steps outside of my building, which is so very convenient. If you get there early, they usually have freshly baked baguettes for sale: perfect for bruschetta!

As an unexpected BONUS, Kathy harvested a bunch of fresh basil from her garden, and brought packages of PINE NUTS, the coveted dream ingredient for the perfect pesto. Pine nuts are pricey, to say the least, and I almost NEVER have them on hand. Most of the time, I make my pesto with toasted walnuts instead, so this was a nice treat!

I have to say, this was one of my better efforts!  I made it in my blender, so I used a bit more olive oil than I usually do.  But, I have to say, I really liked the consistancy of the pesto from the blender a bit better than the food processor.  Go figure...

And now for these gorgeous tomatoes!!

We decided to oven roast them at 450 for about 20 minutes, along with a head of garlic.  I had some lovely rosemary branches from another friend's garden, so Kathy pulled some of the leaves off and skewered the giant cherry tomatoes on the fresh rosemary branches.  This imparted the most WONDERFUL rosemary flavor, and made my kitchen smell absolutely divine!  It also looks really classy too.

Out of the oven!

So now we build our Bruschetta: 

Slice your baguette around 1/2" thick

Lightly brush with olive oil and spinkle with a bit of salt and pepper.

I usually broil the bruschetta on high for 3-5 minutes, but since we already had the oven set to 450, we toasted them on the top shelf for 10 minutes or so.

Remove baguette slices and then rub each piece with a garlic clove.

Spread each slice with tofu ricotta and top with a spoonful of fresh basil.

Top each slice with a baby spinach leaf (or two), and then finish it off with some oven roasted tomatoes

Kick back with a glass of red wine, and pat yourself on the back for creating: Bruschetta of the Gods

Friday Night Cookin' with Becky & Kathy

Another fabulous Friday of cooking with my favorite vegan friendly omnivore!

In an attempt to highlight the bounty of tomatoes and herbs from Kathy's garden, we planned a night of Bruschetta, and Homemade Garden Tomato Soup.


Kathy was kind enough to bring most of the ingredients right from her garden (YES!).  She only requested I make ricotta cheese, (or "some ricotta cheese vegan thing-y", as she calls it), which, I could gladly oblige.

This one came out really well. I was pleased!

My new favorite method for making vegan ricotta is actually a mix of the Tofu Ricotta AND the Cashew Ricotta recipes from Veganomicon.  The texture of the tofu is a perfect base, and the pureed cashews, lemon juice and olive oil add just the right creaminess. I also like to add nutritional yeast to taste, which gives the ricotta that extra nutty, cheese-like flavor.  The addition of nutritional yeast is only in the TOFU Ricotta recipe, and not in the Cashew version.  I like to live large and add it anyway.

And now for the soup:  I think Kathy harvested every plum tomato she had!  So we went to work washing and scoring the bottoms with a little "x", then dropping them into a pot of boiling water.  About 20 seconds later, we plunged them into a giant bowl of ice water and started peeling!  I must say, this task is much more fast and painless with two rather than one! :)  And boy was it worth it.

No fancy recipe, just taste as you go!

GARDEN FRESH TOMATO SOUP

Half a large onion, diced

2-3 cloves, chopped garlic

3 pounds plum tomatoes, peeled and chopped

Olive oil

Vegetable Stock

Fresh Rosemary and Oregano

Salt and Fresh Ground Pepper, to taste

Sautee onions and garlic for 5 mintues until tender.
Add tomatoes and stir well.
Simmer for about 20 minutes, and puree in a blender to dseired consistancy. 

A stick blender would have come in really handy here.  I'll get one of those someday...  We decided to leave the soup with a bit of texture instead of pureeing it totally smooth - mostly because it was molten hot, and we were too hungry to wait for it to cool and safely blend it all the way.


Place 1 large spoonful of cashew ricotta in the middle of your soup bowl, then ladle in the garden fresh tomato goodness...DELICIOUS! ^_^

Tomato-Rice Soup

Cookbook Challenge Week 2 - Veganomicon

I have a special fondness in my heart for Veganomicon, as it was the very first vegan cookbook I purchased.  With that said, for the cookbook challenge,  I wanted to be sure to make recipes from the book that I had never tried before.  With all the snow lately, and temperatures being down in the single digits, the Tomato-Rice Soup with Roasted Garlic and Navy Beans sounded too good to be true.

What I like so much about this recipe is that is was simple, and that it called for BROWN rice, something I had been really craving. I followed the original recipe almost exactly, except for a couple things:  Instead of the roasted garlic, I used six whole cloves of garlic, smashed, and simmered those along with the soup, and I used 1 tsp of dried basil instead of marjoram.  I ate my first bowl as is.  Once the soup had cooled, I added the slightest touch of agave nectar, just to round out the acid of the tomatoes.

Simple, warm and comforting, and certainly puts that can of condensed Campbell's to shame!

*This recipe make A LOT of soup, so half went into a container in the freezer, and the rest will be for my lunches the rest of the week. ^_^

Farewell, My Summer Love...

The fruits of the Summer are becoming a dying breed, so I probably won't be seeing too many more of these gorgeous babies:

And so, for my last two deliciously juicy pints of local grape tomatoes of the Summer, I went for plain and simple:

I sliced the tomatoes in half, drizzled them with extra virgin olive oil, and sprinkled them liberally with salt, italian seasoning, (a bit of Sandwich Sprinkle by Penzeys), black pepper and crushed red pepper.  I added to that four cloves of fresh garlic, squeezed through my garlic press and mixed gently. 

By the time I boiled my whole wheat pasta, the flavors had combined nicely.  

If only I had some fresh basil left... Maybe next time! ^_^