Tag Archives: summer CSA recipes

Grilled Broccoli

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Welcome to Emmy Cooks!  You can see some of my favorite recent recipes by clicking the “My Favorite Recipes” category on the sidebar (here are June, July, and August).  If you like what you see here, you can sign up on the sidebar to receive a daily recipe by email, add the RSS feed to your own reader, or follow Emmy Cooks on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.

I’m starting to feel rushed now that summer’s days are numbered.  I never told you about my favorite summer cocktails!  We haven’t even talked yet about whether to drench tomatoes in brown butter!  We’ve hardly grilled together at all, except for a lonely piece of fish and those eggplants.  Tune in next summer, friends, because some of those may have to wait.

But this broccoli can’t wait.  Besides, broccoli is a vegetable that will come along right into fall with us.  And once you taste this grilled broccoli, you’ll be firing up the grill every chance you get, even after summer’s gone. Continue reading →

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Spicy Pickled Peppers

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While we’re enjoying September’s fine harvest of assorted spicy peppers, why not preserve a few to enjoy when the season is over?

Honestly, my standard method for preserving peppers (of any kind) is to slice or chop them, pile them into a freezer bag, and put them in the freezer.  But you don’t need a recipe for that, do you?

You don’t need much of a recipe for this, either, but I always like to pickle a jar or two of mildly spicy peppers to enjoy in the fall.  This a a quick refrigerator pickle, which takes little time beyond slicing the peppers and simmering a simple brine for five minutes.  The investment will pay off many times over, since it only takes a few of these pickled pepper rings to spice up any meal. Continue reading →

Baked Fish with Thai Basil and Peppers

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Today I put my money where my mouth is and bought a thirty-pound watermelon.  Yes, you read that right.  Thirty.  Pounds.  Thirty pounds!

Does this ever happen to you?  One minute I was innocently stopping by the store to pick up a piece of fish, and the next minute I was staggering to my car carrying a small child and a melon that weighed more than her.  Truth be told, I hadn’t even thought of buying a watermelon today.  The only reason I bought it was that it was sitting beside a much smaller but more expensive “petite” watermelon, making this organic behemoth an irresistible deal at $8.50.  Those marketing geniuses at my co-op know me so well.

And now I have thirty pounds of watermelon to dispatch.  Ideas?

Of course I started off by stuffing everyone with sweet slices and encouraging the children to organize a backyard seed-spitting contest.  And then I made a double batch of that outstanding Chilled Watermelon Soup with Thai Flavors–have you tried it yet?  And that, of course, meant Thai flavors for the fish I’d gone to the co-op to get in the first place.  (You thought I’d forgotten the point of this post, didn’t you?)
Every time I make this, J says it’s his favorite dish.  (I think he says that about other things too, though–isn’t that sweet?)  My favorite dish would probably be something involving chocolate, or maybe these baked eggs, but I agree that this dish is quite good.  And if fish isn’t your thing, you could certainly toss the pepper mixture with cubes of fried tofu and serve it over rice instead. Continue reading →

Bok Choy Slaw with Radishes

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Emmy Cooks is Foodista’s Food Blog of the Day today!  What a nice compliment.  If you’ve made your way here from there, welcome.  We’re glad to have you.  Grab a fork and come dig in!

I’ve had a bok choy and radish slaw rattling around in my brain ever since I saw this recipe on another beautiful Northwest blog (did you check out yesterday’s?), The Plum Palate.  I had in mind a radish slaw that gave me the first hope that I could ever love radishes, and I envisioned the pungent flavors of raw bok choy and spicy radishes tamed with a bit of sweetness and the acid bite of vinegar.  Do you do that too, imagine how things should taste and then tweak until you get them there?  I was happy with how this turned out, and even happier after the flavors had the chance to blend for an hour or so. Continue reading →

Lemony Carrot Salad with Cumin and Smoked Paprika

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To what lengths do you go to give away your surplus produce at this time of year?  Are you the proverbial neighbor who rings the doorbell and runs, leaving behind a 4-lb. squash that will take all afternoon to grate for zucchini fritters?  Do you casually drop by a friend’s house and “forget” a basket of plums that you don’t have time to make into jam?  Do you foist carrot salads upon unsuspecting dinner hosts?I admit nothing. Continue reading →

Baked Whole Wheat Orzo with Late-Summer Vegetables

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The lazy cook in me was intrigued by the baked pasta recipe that appeared on Smitten Kitchen today.  Because the pasta it used was orzo and (why did I never think of this before?) the orzo can be baked without pre-boiling, thereby saving you six minutes and the washing of an extra pot.  You’re welcome.Deb’s recipe, adapted from our favorite Yotam Ottolenghi, is for a cheesy (just-cheesy-enough, she says) bake with the usual Ottolenghian flourishes of lemon zest and oregano.  And it sounds lovely.  But once I started browning perfect summer vegetables–eggplant, zucchini, peppers, falling-apart fragrant tomatoes–I couldn’t bear to adulterate them much.  (If your tomatoes are less than perfect, by all means try out the original recipe’s suggestion to jazz them up with a few tablespoons of chopped oregano and the zest of a lemon; you could even add that chopped mozzarella.)  For me, whole wheat orzo, salt, and the heat of the oven were enough to make the pan of vegetables a hearty late-summer meal.  I crumbled feta on top at the end and browned it under the broiler, but it’s perfectly delicious without the cheese.  A tomato salad on the side provided a sweet little bite of acid to compliment the richness of the cooked vegetables.  (The Indigo Rose tomatoes were almost too pretty to eat.  Almost.) Continue reading →

Five-Minute Fresh Tomatillo Salsa

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Oh, school.  Its arrival is so bittersweet.  Even though I liked school as a kid, I was never quite ready for summer to end–who is?  And now that it’s my own kids heading happily back to class, a part of me is sorry to see them go.  (Another part of me is looking forward to a few mornings a week alone with my baby, of course, and to the single hour of silence in my day at her naptime.)

So yesterday we celebrated the Last Day of Summer Vacation with swimming, ice cream cones dripping onto the sidewalk, and an afternoon in the park.  Today dawned all business instead: breakfast, brushed hair, a stocked backpack, and then a bike ride to school to deliver our oldest to the rigors of first grade.  (It looked pretty fun, actually.)

And by the end of the day we were all exhausted.  Quesadillas, rice, beans from a can.  And this salsa.  This salsa!  It brightened everything right up.  Bring home a pound of tomatillos and a lime next time you’re out, and in five minutes you’ll be cheered right up.  Have the energy to go beyond quesadillas?  I love tomatillo salsa on black bean tacos, taco salads, huevos rancheros, and chilaquiles.  Especially chilaquiles.  Maybe it’s a good thing that the seasons are changing after all. Continue reading →

Three Pepper Breakfast Burrito

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I understand that school is starting again.  Like, this week.  Like, maybe tomorrow.  Soon.  I am so not ready.  Here’s how I like to start my mornings: slowly.  With a cup of coffee.  Here’s how I start my mornings on school days: “Put on your shoes!  Where are your shoes?  Where’s your other shoe?  Has anyone seen the other shoe?”  Times three.Yes, I understand that you have a better system for school mornings.  Which is why I’m giving you this recipe.  Continue reading →

Zucchini Bread with Rye, Basil, and Mint

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Welcome to Emmy Cooks!  You can see some of my favorite recent recipes by clicking the “My Favorite Recipes” category on the sidebar (here are June, July, and August).  If you like what you see here, you can sign up on the sidebar to receive a daily recipe by email, or follow Emmy Cooks on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.

It took me all summer to get around to making zucchini bread.  I don’t have a go-to recipe, and I wasn’t feeling inspired.  I didn’t want spices.  I didn’t want nuts.  I didn’t want chocolate.

I wanted this, although I didn’t know it yet.  Butter, infused with basil and mint, so flavorful and delicious that I almost canned the baking idea in favor of just tossing that butter with shredded zucchini.  (I’ll be doing that too, you can be sure.)  The subtle tang of rye.  A little sugar, but not so much that you couldn’t still slather a slice in raspberry jam.  And we have.  Oh, we have. Continue reading →

Zucchini Fritters

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The challenge with zucchini at this time of year, I find, is how to wrangle overgrown clubs of squash into something that you actually want to eat.  With all due respect to the lovely Mollie Katzen (to whom much respect is due), this is not the season for stuffed “Zuccanoes.”My answer to the annual giant zucchini quandary usually involves my food processor.  Grating zucchini is therapeutic, first off; literally cutting the squash down to size shows it who’s boss and lets it see that you are not intimidated.  Continue reading →