Holy Crap! Baked & Sliced Polenta with Tasty Goodness of Fresh Zucchini

KELLY * July 13 * Dinner

Just fyi, the "holy crap" was Liz's actual response to the dinner. It's a good day and can I again say how much I love Liz being home in the summer. Kelly's summer dinners have more historically been strings of tacos, occasional salads, etc. The variety of tastiness this summer is amazing! Anyway, because of the grandiose salad on Sunday (and the particular foods we got this week), we are short on veg and need to make a serious meat and starch oriented trip to the grocery store. Due to various polenta-buying mishaps in the past, we have a mess of polenta of various types. Tonight Liz went for the sliceable polenta with a very simple sautéed veg. I simply can't express how tasty it was. It truly is as if she is a genius. I can't say that her dad taught her to catch, throw, or change a tire (but my dad taught me all of that, so who cares). He did, however, teach her to cook the dickens out of dinner. Thank you Joe Flauto for raising me a dinner-making fool.

ELIZABETH * July 13 * Dinner

Holy Crap. It was VERY tasty. The polenta (tube variety) has actually been waiting for consumption since an epic Thanksgiving trip to Galucci's, a family holiday traditional grocery pilgrimage in Cleveland. In a (successful) attempt to avoid the additional chubbiness caused by pan-fried polenta slices, I brushed the slices with olive oil and toasted them in a very hot oven, flipping once. Meanwhile, I thin-sliced the zucchini, sweet onion, and green onion from the CSA box on my bargain mandolin, chopped some garlic, and sautéed the whole mess with some olive oil, crushed chiles, and black pepper, finishing it with fresh CSA thyme (herbs are here!). I topped the crunchy polenta with pecorino, dished up the zucchini and some red pepper-eggplant tapenade from Trader Joe's.

Meanwhile, I whipped up some tasty yellow squash salad for pot luck lunch! Again thin sliced, with green onions, chopped garlic, fresh thyme, olive oil, wine vinegar, fresh ground pepper, and salt. Dressed it and popped it in the oven to get some wilting going, then refrigerate and marinate until tomorrow!

Also feeling very inspired by Dad's swiss chard frittata - maybe tomorrow!

We Ate It Before It Wilted: Chicken Fried Bacon Salad and Beet Hummus!

KELLY * DINNER * July 9

Finally making it around to the blog. The last couple days have been plain hectic -- finished editing my book yesterday and had a lovely day out with Michael D (and the Joan Rivers doc). So, here are the Sunday delicacies. The good news is that I finally found a way to enjoy a beet: beet hummus (click for recipe). What is beet hummus you ask? Well, it's exactly what you think it is. Just switch out the chickpeas for boiled beets. (I also discovered that if you boil beets the peels just come right off. Cool. Who knew?) Anyway, our box-mates were coming over to pick up their veg so we had a beet hummus and cheese extravaganza. One bag of crackers, much hummus, and hunk of cheese...GONE! We had a couple beers. No one was very motivated toward moving or cooking. Conversations about Papa Johns were flying about. Liz and box-mate Brian decided that life would be easier and tastier if we just made a salad together. Jaimie and I were largely useless in this process, but Liz and Brian ultimately presented a lovely salad. True, there was a minor bacon burning debacle and they improvised by frying some of the leftover 4th of July chicken with the bacon pieces to make a lovely chicken fried bacon event. So, in the end, we had 2 kinds of fresh lettuce, kohlrabi, sweet onions, cucumber, and zucchini (all from the CSA box) spiced up with red pepper, blue cheese, chicken fried bacon (and chicken), and Liz's homemade honey-Dijon dressing. In short, I call it a win! (a bacon-y win.) My only regret was that we were totally starch-less (and I do NOT believe in a starch-less meal).

Kale, Kale, The Gang's All Here or... 6 Cloves of Garlic is a Good Start to Any Meal

KELLY * July 8 * DINNER

The latter part of the title was my lovely partner's comment regarding our dinner. We're trying to get back in the swing of cooking. The week has been very hectic and we had so many 4th of July leftovers that we had a hard time finding motivation. We almost cooked last night, but I was too pooped and hungry and ended up ordering Thai. Even so, we have managed to polish off most of the CSA box for the week. Tonight Liz used all the kale and all of the surviving chard. Dinner came late, as we favored a walk to the beach over immediate cooking. I struck a deal whereby I could watch TV and fold laundry while Liz cooked. (I like that deal.) In the end it was fabulous. I've been feeling like we've been lacking pasta as we've been attempting to cook it before it wilts. I was thrilled for the return of the starchy goodness. Afterall, half the reason I married into this family was for the Italian food. All I know is that I inhaled all of the kaley, chardy, bacon-y (YES, BACON), linguini-y, peppery, cheesy goodness. If only we could figure out how to cook without making the apartment hot.

ELIZABETH * July 8 * Dinner

It is lucky K likes this dinner, because I basically only really cook one thing - endless variations on this theme. It starts with garlic. In this case, I sauteed the garlic in some bacon fat and olive oil with crushed red chiles and black pepper. Then I added a couple cups of chicken broth and the kale, de-ribbed and rough-chopped, plus the chard stalks split lengthwise, and cooked until kale was tender but chewy. I then added the chard leaves, rough-chopped, and a sliced red pepper (we had to break down and buy peppers. They are not in season yet in the box, and we cannot live without them. This was an Ancient Sweet, one of my faves, from Fresh Farms, aka Heaven in Skokie.) These steamed for awhile while the pasta cooked. When pasta was done and draining I added a chopped seeded tomato. The veg went on top of the pasta in a big bowl, then got topped with some bacon pieces, more crushed chile, and pecorino cheese.

The really good news is you can change any number of things about this and it tastes really good. Olive oil for butter for bacon fat. Alliums or not - onion, shallot, leek... Any number of veg - spinach, arugula, zucchini, green beans... Add thyme, lemon, any number of herbs, wine. Add protein - beans, sausages, meats, anchovies. Put on top of pasta, polenta, bread, or a spoon. If any of you have ever wondered, basically this is the secret of our marriage. Good luck to you.

Took Us Forever to Blog About the 4th of July Corn Dogs, But We Were Recovering from a Corn Coma

NOTE: You can totally tell that Kelly took the pictures, as they are the least attractive yet. She's nice, but an eye she does not have. - K

KELLY * July 4 * PAR-TAY!!

So, it has taken a while to get this up here, but it's largely because we have been recovering from the 4th of July weekend. As we have done on many occassions, we threw a 4th of July party. When living in NYC, we started doing 4th of July corn dogs and fried chicken. We did the same here last year. All I know is that it was a hit. The other thing I know is that baking wildly and deep frying for hours in the middle of the summer in an apartment with no A/C is rough, BUT in the end it was totally worth it. I started baking on the 3rd (after delivering a 2nd anarchy cake to a friend's house). I decided to do mini cupcakes, as I could make fewer batches. In the end I went back to the mingmakescupcakes site and chose a chocolate Guinness cupcake with sour cream frosting and a red velvet cupcake with butter cream frosting (that I colored blue). Everything was topped with fresh blueberries. Liz spent the 4th making slaw materialize from the CSA items and deep, deep, deep, deep frying. In the end, the folks seemed to enjoy all of the fried items. We had food to feed Steppenwolf Costume Shop for days. I wish we could have corndogs all of the time. (My butt thinks otherwise.) I am also pleased that my need to watch the hot dog eating contest does not hamper my ability to eat corn dogs. That said, Joey Chestnut is a pariah.

ELIZABETH * July 4 * Partay!

She is not kidding. We were exhausted.

The party was great fun - I deep fried for 3 1/2 hours, turning out 40 pieces of buttermilk double-crusted drumsticks and 48 corn dogs. (My attitude about deep frying is thusly: It is a big pain and a big mess. It smells up the house and is hard to clean up. It creates delicious foods. If you are going to do it, do it up. In for a penny...) We made up a new cocktail. We set some stuff on fire. The guest contributions to the potluck were plentiful and creative. See recipes below:

* Aunt Ginny's Corn dogs
(This is enough for one package. We made 5.)

Dogs on sticks (we used all-beef ballpark augmented with one pkg jalapeno-cheddar dogs because Kelly is a teenage boy.)

1 c. Flour
1/2 c. Cornmeal
1 T. Sugar
1/2 t. Salt
1 t. Baking Powder
1 Egg
3/4 c. Milk
1 T Vegetable Oil
1 t. Mustard Powder

Mix this business together and get it to stick to the dogs (this is easier if they are dry, but not easy at all. Silicone spatula helps. Work fast or it falls off.

Drop in hot oil until yummy. (Thanks Ginger.)


* Double-Dipped Buttermilk Fried Chicken

I augmented this recipe with some beer in the batter, but otherwise stuck to it.


* Creamy Coleslaw

Started here but upped the sour cream to mayo ratio and added some honey and water. The veggies included kohlrabi, cabbage, carrots, red onion, and cauliflower.


For the PDR (Piece de Resistance), drumroll.... Our Signature Cocktail

* The Lee Greenwood. (It was gone in an hour.)

1.75 L Svedka Lemon Vodka
1.75 L Welches White Grape Juice
Juice of 1 Lemon
2 L Seltzer (courtesy of Soda Stream via Dr. Caroline Frick-Page, Thanks)
2 c. Blueberries
2 c. Strawberries
Handful Fresh Mint

Mix ingredients and bash around fruit with a spoon. Steep as long as you can before someone drinks it.

It's Anarchy!!! Ironic 4th of July Baking

KELLY *July 3* Dessert

Just a quick post. This is in no way from our CSA box, but a lovely fresh dessert that I highly recommend. We're heading off to a 4th of July party and will be arriving with really, really cheap Trader Joe's beer and a lovely raspberry and blueberry anarchy cake. I found the recipe a couple years ago on epicurious. You bake it in a springform pan (the only thing remotely complicated, as the pan and I often argue). It only rises to about an inch high, but is lovely and tasty and light and fresh. See the link for specific amounts, but it's just a bit of flour, sugar, milk, egg, baking powder, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and fresh fruit. It bakes for a little under an hour at 350 and is always a hit (and a bit of a balsamic surprise). (In addition, I do enjoy the ironically titled dessert for this particular holiday weekend.) Off to the party.

Bloggy Come Lately, But Bloggy Come Tasty. The Risotto Conquered the Giant Zucchini.

Kelly * Dinner * July 2

So, this one is going up a little late and I think Liz will have to add her part later. Last night we polished off the majority of the remaining box items for this week: the rest of the ENORMOUS zucchini, the remaining swiss chard, some green onions, the beets, and the radishes. We shared our bounty with our good friends Danny and Rachel (who provided us with homemade challa and wine). The good food and excellent company (enjoyed in the actual dining room rather than the sun room) wholly prevented us from blogging in a timely manner. Alls I know is that the zucchini/chard/garlic scapes risotto was lovely (and plentiful, as we sent a wad of it home with our CSA box-mates today when they dropped off our week's veg). I still find beets sketchy (although gladly ate the goat cheese that was slathered on them). (NOTE: I have not eaten beets since an unfortunate beet incident in the 5th grade. I have not been convinced I was wrong yet. Liz, however, did a beet dance.) The challa was lovely. I made an anarchy cake for dinner (see post for July 3). In short, win, win, win. More from Liz at a late date on the specifics of the risotto.

I'M THE LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE!! Chili in the summer rocks!

KELLY * July 1 * Dinner

So, sometimes the best dinner comes from sheer fear or laziness. Upon leaving the house this morning Liz said, "figure out what to do with that roast." It was as if she knew me not at all. I don't figure out what to do with large pieces of meat. Roast scares me. It's too big. It's mysterious. So, about an hour before she came home I texted that I had done nothing. My fear, laziness, and resistance to food research led to the Kelly who sits here blogging. She's full, smiley, and finished 2 bowls of chili before Liz finished one. I also have to say that my ineffectiveness also led to a tasty side dish. Defaulting to Jiffy cornbread (really cheap, but I stand by it), I rushed to make the mix. Okay, so I didn't really pay close attention and I made the corn pancake recipe rather than the cornbread recipe. I am not sorry. Let me just clarify, I'm not sure if people know this, but chili is hands down one of my favorite foods. It's like a present with beans. The spicier the better. I feel that my life's work is (a) making students watch Tootsie and (b) finding the perfect bowl of chili. I'm not sure if this was the perfect bowl, but it only reinforced the notion that I married well.

ELIZABETH * July 1 * Dinner

When I got home at 6:35 and it was true that K had not even touched the roast I had defrosted for dinner, and knowing it would take a full three hours minimum to roast the roast, I offered that cutting it up for chili would be faster. This suggestion was met, as you see above, with great enthusiasm. A departure from vegetables - we have only a few left and have big plans for beets and zucchini tomorrow night - tonight was all protein and carbs in freezers, cans, and boxes.

Impromptu Pot Roast Chili Stew

- Pot roast, cut into 1.5" chunks and dredged in flour, salt and pepper, is seared in olive oil in dutch oven. Pan is deglazed with beer, and beef and liquid set aside.

- Onions, garlic and diced jalapenos are sauteed in olive oil.

- All of the above are combined in dutch oven, then added are the rest of the beer, chili beans, pinto beans, two cans Rotel tomatoes w/green chiles, a can of pozole, and lashings of Dallas Dynamite Chili Powder (CM Austin yeah).

- Above is simmered 1.5 hours, then topped with chopped green onion (CSA!) and eaten with the aforementioned accidental pancake.

Kelly is not wrong. This is good.