Swiss Chard and Ricotta Ravioli

VEW

This is a nice mellow recipe and a great way to incorporate Swiss Chard into a meal if you find yourself at a bit of a loss as to what to do with it (like me). A friend of mine who is a great cook made this as written and raved about it. I had extra time on my hands so I made pasta from scratch rather than use the store-bought wrappers the recipe suggests. Homemade pasta will never disappoint you and it really is very easy. It is a bit time consuming until you really get the hang out of, that is the only conceivable argument anyone could have with it. We have been enjoying making pasta for about 9 years now. I remember in the beginning we would make it with friends and we'd end up eating at 10pm. The meals were always fabulous, so it didn't seem to matter. These days the process is much faster, so if you're put off by the time factor, keep going! I will post more later on making fresh pasta as the comfort food season is almost upon us and what is better than pasta?

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes!

VEW

The perennial question of what to do with the abundance of in-season tomatoes is upon us. Here are a few good recipes that I have made this week.

Rustic Tomato Tart. You can use purchased pie crust or puff pastry to make such a tart, which is what I do in a pinch but I don’t love them. Homemade is definitely the way to go if you have the time (you can use a basic pate brisee recipe like this). While you can use just about any cheese that suits your fancy, I have had great success with Brie, Fontina and goat cheese. You can add in any combo of fresh herbs that floats your boat as well. I like the pepperiness of thyme to offset the sweetness of basil, but really, anything goes with tomatoes and cheese right?

1 recipe tart dough (see above)

variety of fresh tomatoes, sliced in 1/2" slices

variety of fresh chopped herbs

Parmesan cheese

Your choice of cheese, thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 375. line a baking sheet with parchment paper.Roll dough into a circle and transfer to parchment. Sprinkle with some freshly grated Parmesan and put in the oven for about 8 minutes, or until just beginning to turn golden (not brown!). Remove and layer tomato slices in concentric circles leaving about 1 inch of dough at the edges. Sprinkle with herbs. Top with cheese. Gently fold the edges of the dough inward, pleating as you go to form a rustic looking tart. Bake until the cheese is melted and the crust is golden brown.

The finished product

Roasted Tomatoes with Herbed Goat Cheese and Lavash Crackers
This past weekend the number of tomatoes gracing my countertops slowly threatening to go bad were causing me a fair amount of stress. So I cut up a bunch of the Garden Peach variety that is growing like mad in my garden and tossed them in a pan with salt and olive oil and roasted them at 350 until they were soft and carmelized. At this point my husband announced that he would like to make the appetizer, so we ran out to our garden in the pouring rain and cut some chives, oregano, parsely, thyme and basil and came in sopping, but triumphant. My willing sous-chef finely diced the herbs and mixed them into about 4 oz of goat cheese with a little cracked pepper and then dropped mounds over the roasted tomatoes. We served it with some homemade lavash crackers and voila!

Shrimp Tikka with Mango Chutney, Coriander and Cilantro Flatbreads with Raita

VEW

This is FANTASTIC. So good, so fast. It is perfect as written, but when I want to make it even faster, I skip the skewering/grilling of the shrimp and just throw the whole batch in a frying pan and cook it up.

The flatbreads (pictured above) are so tasty and easy! I have made them one at a time in a frying pan, but tonight I made the whole batch at once on my griddle and they were great. Please try this if you have even a small affinity for Indian food. It is one of my favorites.
Oh, one more thing. I am usually die-hard about making everything homemade, but as good mangoes are generally hard to find where I live, I have used a mango chutney that a local farm makes instead of making my own and the recipe doesn’t suffer one bit. Enjoy!

Avocado-Feta Salsa

CLN
I am a self-proclaimed queen of dips and this one is a favorite. I recently brought this to a party where is was promptly devoured by my neighbor.

2 plum tomatoes, chopped
1 avocado, chopped
1/4 C. finely chopped red onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 T. fresh parsley
1 T. fresh oregano
1 T. olive oil
1 T. red or white wine vinegar
4 oz. feta cheese, coarsely crumbled

Combine all but the feta and gently stir. Add in feta and cover and chill for up to 6 hrs. Serve with pita or tortilla chips.

Curried Zucchini Soup

CLN

I have been getting my fair share of zucchini lately from my farm but unfortunately, my husband is not as fond of it as I am. I started making this recipe and even my husband enjoys it now. I tried freezing it with moderate success. The taste wasn't compromised but the texture was a bit. I have served it with a variety of things including: frittatas, salads, sandwiches and grilled bread with cheese melted on top ....enjoy!

Eggplant

VEW

Eggplant: (n.) A vegetable that inspires apathy, boredom and even fear as it begins to show up in increasingly larger quantities in my farm share.

This is one thing I haven't loved seeing in my farm share basket. There are some people who can make eggplant taste good, even interesting, but I am not one of them. I usually find it bland and soggy at best. Tonight as I trolled the crisper for ideas for dinner, I had 3 white eggplants glaring at me at if to say, are you really going to let us go the way of that first batch of Swiss chard?

No, I decided, I am not. I will conquer you! Of course this conquering was occurring right around 5pm with 2 children getting more ornery by the minute, desperately needing something to eat. So I tried this recipe for Rigatoni with Eggplant, Tomato and Ricotta despite the fact that it sounded utterly bland.

I was wrong.

It was actually quite tasty. My uber-finicky eaters even ate it. Go figure. I made it as written using a white eggplant and I used linguine because it's what I had. It worked just fine. If I were to make it again, I would toss it with freshly made pasta, and perhaps toss in a mixture of fresh herbs in addition to the basil that is called for. If you give it a try, note that the recipe is for 2 and didn't make much, so you may want to double it.

Peach Cobbler Scones

VEW
It’s August and we’ve just begun getting fresh peaches from our farm share. I love peach cobbler but would feel a little guilty about eating it for breakfast so I came up with this slightly better-for-you alternative.

2 C unbleached all purpose flour (I prefer King Arthur)
2 T white sugar
Scant ¼ C packed light brown sugar
1T baking powder
2T flax seed meal (bob’s red mill)
1t salt
1/8 t cinnamon
Bit of nutmeg*
6T sweet cream butter
1 egg
Scant ¼ C half & half
1/2t vanilla
1 ripe peach, skin removed and cut in a dice
Demerara or Turbinado sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 375degrees. Mix all dry ingredients and cut in butter with a pastry cutter until mixture is the size of peas. Pat diced peach with a paper towel to remove moisture; toss in flour mixture until each piece is coated. In a separate bowl beat egg, half & half and vanilla. Gently mix into dry ingredients and knead until dough comes together. It will be fairly wet and sticky after a brief bit of kneading. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and form dough into 6-8 rough balls. Sprinkle with sugar and bake for about 15 minutes until golden.

*Using whole nutmeg and grating a bit with a small microplane grater is easy and far better than using the store-bought pre-ground kind.