Farmers’ Market Finds

Even though our Community Supported Agriculture farm has been supplying us with a wealth of great produce this season, I still like to visit farmers’ markets to supplement our table.  You see, the CSA box provides just the right amount for what a normal family would want to eat.  But what if you want zucchini coming out of your ears, like a real gardener?  (There’s an old joke in my hometown that you shouldn’t leave your car unlocked in the summer, not to prevent theft, but to prevent zealous gardeners from giving you their surplus zucchini.)  I have neither the time, space, skill, nor inclination to actually garden, so I market instead.  I wanted more than what we could eat for dinner, so I could bake with some, freeze some, and just revel in the surplus of it.

Besides, the farmers’ market was on our summer list.

I brought home enough zucchini to eat some for lunch, freeze four cups of it, and bake this zucchini bread and these zucchini brownies.  (Trust me.  Zucchini brownies = good.)

While we were there, I couldn’t resist some ears of corn and these herbs.

Even though I have three healthy basil plants on the porch, I couldn’t resist that beautiful bunch of basil for $1.  This is what we had for dinner that night.  I had enough pesto to freeze, and enough leftover basil for salad dressing.

The recipe is for Spaghettoni Al Pesto (Barefoot Contessa Parties!), and you’ll probably notice that the picture doesn’t show spaghettoni.  That’s rigatoni, which rhymes with spaghettoni, and that’s good enough for me.

I had less of an idea of what I would do with the dill, but seeing those big, flowery bunches reminded me of my grandmother.  She grew acres of vegetables and herbs every summer, and I remember the dill on the edge of the garden.  The smell of dill always brings me back to her, and that garden.  Unlike a lot of people, I don’t have a lot of good food memories of my grandmother – she was pretty much insane, and not in a charming way – but the garden and the dill made me smile.
I brought it home and made a small batch of creamy cucumber salad, from Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics.

Pasta with Pesto and Peas

When I was reviewing The List, I was surprised that I hadn’t blogged about this recipe yet, because I made it long before this blog was even imagined.  This is not your grandmother’s pasta salad.  I should know – I’ve perused enough old church cookbooks to know what your grandmother’s pasta salad probably contained.  The pesto gives this dish a nice, summery flavor, and it could easily be replicated in the dead of winter when you miss fresh basil, as pesto can be easily frozen.  It’s also a nice way to sneak some spinach into a dish without making it overly spinachy.  It could be combined with grilled chicken or salmon, served as a side dish at a barbecue, or just used as a meatless meal on its own, which is how we ate it.

Recipe from Barefoot Contessa Parties!

PS  It must be P week here.  First Peas with Pancetta and Pecorino, and now this.  Peter Piper picked a peck of…

Lemon Fusilli with Arugula

I’ve been drooling over this recipe (Barefoot Contessa at Home), waiting for our CSA to send more arugula.   The online version of the recipe also includes broccoli.  Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have known that, but because we have several friends participating in the same CSA, one of our friends e-mailed me the online version of the recipe and pointed out that our CSA box had all of the vegetables for this recipe last week.  It was as if it was meant to be.  This was even better than it looks, which is saying something.  I would definitely make this for guests (including vegetarians!), and the leftovers were just as good cold the next day.  I’m toying with the idea of making a spring version next year with asparagus and spinach.  I used a whole grain pasta (Barilla Plus rotini), which held up well to the flavors of the sauce and the vegetables.

Centennial

This marks my 100th post on this blog!  Yay!  So, in celebration, I bring you a double-header:  Taglierelli with Truffle Butter (Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics) and Broccoli Rabe with Garlic (Barefoot Contessa at Home).

First, a confession.  I had never tried truffles before making this pasta dish.  Oh my.  It’s probably a good thing that I didn’t know what I was missing.  Even just the little shaved bits of truffle in the butter in the sauce made me want to lick the bowl when I was done.  Think of this as a lighter, more sophisticated, elevated fetuccine alfredo.  The truffle butter was slightly pricey, but the overall cost of the meal was not high, because we didn’t have meat.  Still, we were not left wanting – the sauce was rich, and the broccoli rabe was filling, so the truffle butter was a worthwhile splurge.

The broccoli rabe, like so many Contessa vegetable recipes, was inspired.  Just a little extra oomph from the garlic and red pepper flakes made this green vegetable come alive.  We were not disappointed.    

Penne with Five Cheeses

Really, this became Penne with Four Cheeses, because I didn’t want to add the Gorgonzola, so I just doubled up on the fresh mozzarella.  Many of you may be questioning my Wisconsin upbringing, given my pickiness about cheese.  Let’s just say that I know what I like, and as long as I have to eat this for dinner, too, I might as well make what I like, right?  The Barefoot Contessa herself claims this to be a versatile recipe, with some forgiveness when it comes to the varieties of cheese and their amounts.  If I had wanted to stay true to the title of the recipe, I could have added some freshly shredded parmesan and called it a day.  But here I am, telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  While we’re on the truth subject, you’ll see that I didn’t divide the pasta into six individual serving dishes.  Because I don’t have six individual serving dishes, and besides, what if I want to eat 1/4 of the whole dish all by myself in one sitting?  Hmm?  What then?

As it was, my son crawled up into my lap five minutes into the meal and relieved me of most of my portion – it was that good.

I also doubled the amount of tomatoes to keep it from drying out, and because of the larger dish size, I reduced the oven temp to 450 and cooked the whole thing for about 25 minutes – long enough for the cheeses to melt and the sauce to become bubbly.  I thought that the finished product might be somewhat bland, given the general lack of seasoning in the sauce, but the absence of garlic and other spices just let the cheese do its lovely job of tasting great.

Barefoot Contessa Family Style, p. 89

Linguine with Shrimp Scampi

I’ve made this before with great success, but this time I overcooked the linguine, so it was a bit mushy.  Oh well.  It was still good, and well worth the effort of removing the tails and poop trails from two pounds of shrimp.  (Why don’t they do that while they’re deveining and peeling anyway?  Yuck.)  Anyway, it was a quick and yummy dinner, and I felt like we were doing something to fight off all these nasty winter germs with all the lemon, garlic, and fresh parsley tossed in.

Barefoot Contessa Family Style, p. 106

Broccoli with Bow Ties

This is listed under the kids’ section of Barefoot Contessa Families (p. 205), but the garlic, lemon zest, and pine nuts definitely jazz it up for an adult audience, too.