Zucchini & Tomato Soup

What else do you do with a giant zucchini - or two - but make a pot of soup (if you aren't making my Zucchin-Carrot Relish!) -- here are a couple recipes I have made recently, and since I put the information in on a web app - actually have the caloric data for it!

I threw in 3-4 frozen cubes of home made basil-garlic-raw almond pesto - so made the almonds an optional ingredient here, as well as the olive oil.  I also have a lot of roasted red padron puree in the freezer from last fall - one ice cube is roughly 1/4 c, I think, and I added that in - you could substitute Harissa paste (if you want heat), or chopped fresh red or green bell peppers.  Or throw in any spicy chopped peppers!

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 c zucchini, skin on, cut into large chunks (remove pithy parts and large seeds) (168 calories)
• 4 c crushed canned tomatoes (312 calories)
• 2 oz dried shitake mushrooms (200 calories) - or - 16 oz fresh button mushrooms, sliced
• 6 Carrots (150 calories)
• 1-2 c broccolini greens & florets (45 calories)
• 8 Garlic, Cloves, Fresh (35 calories)
• 1/2 c chopped basil leaves (4 calories)
• 2 c sweet/Vidalia onion, chopped or sliced to preference (128 calories)
• 2 T dried Thyme (or double fresh) (16 calories)
• 3 c cabbage, chopped (66 calories)
• 1/2 c green onion, chopped (9 calories)
• 8 c vegetable stock (160 calories)
• 2 packages Westsoy Chicken Style Seitan (770 calories)    
• 1 bunch of chopped parsley (16 calories)

Optional:

• 1.5 T Red miso (the refrigerated kind) (45 calories)
• 3 tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil (120 calories)
• 3 Tb raw almonds, finely ground (102 calories)
• 1/4 roasted red padron puree (9 calories)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Break up the dried mushrooms into quarters or smaller and place into a heat proof dish or pan; pour boiling water over the mushrooms and allow to steep while you assemble the rest of the soup.
2. Pour the stock into the pan - note - I used tomato juice from canning tomatoes last year -- which is just the water that was around the seeds.  As I seed the tomatoes before putting them in the pot, I put all the seeds into a metal mesh strainer and then stir them around to get all that water out separately and save it for soups.  In this case, about 5 cups of my vegetable stock was tomato water (not sauce!).  If you like more tomatoey flavor, throw in another can or pint jar of crushed tomatoes -- they'll break down and give you plenty of flavor.
3. Add the Westsoy Chicken-Style Seitan - be sure to keep the broth in the container, it's tasty stuff - and tear up any extra large pieces of seitan with your fingers.
4. Add the carrots first - I slice them on the diagonal for nice big chunks, and put them into the stock first while it's heating up.  Add in the rest of the veggies items as ready -- and add additional water to cover if needed.
5. Reserve for last (as in - just a few minutes before serving) any fresh herbs and the red miso paste (which you can dissolve with a small whisk separately before adding in).
6. Salt & pepper to taste --  and yes, this a HUGE pot of soup but you can eat as much as you want because the entire thing is a whopping 2300 calories -- 12 large servings at 191 calories each!

   
   

Zucchini Vegetable Farro Soup (no onions/no garlic)

I made this giant pot of soup and shared it with my family - the corn kernels mix in with the similarly sized farro and provide a nice counterpoint of flavor and texture.  Tarragon & thyme provide the flavor - no onions or garlic in this soup, resulted in a soup that was sweet from the corn and carrots only.

INGREDIENTS:

• 10 c zucchini, skin on, cut into large chunks (remove pithy parts and large seeds if using monster zukes) (210 calories)
• 6 carrots (150 calories)
• 4 c crushed canned tomatoes (312 calories)
• 2 c farro (400 calories)
• 4 c broccoli or other sturdy greens like collards (140 calories)   
• 1 oz dried shitake mushrooms (100 calories) - or - 8 oz fresh button mushrooms, sliced
• 16 c vegetable stock (400 calories)
• 2 packages Westsoy Chicken Style Seitan (770 calories)   
• 2 ears of corn, cut off the cob (147 calories)
• 3 Tb "Mellow" white miso (90 calories)
• 4 tsp red miso (45 calories)
• Dried herbs to taste - I used lots of tarragon & thyme

DIRECTIONS:

1. Break up the dried mushrooms into quarters or smaller, place in a heat proof dish or pan and cover with boiling water to steep while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.  When they are soft, add the pieces and the water to the pot.
2. Pour the stock into a very large pot -- if you cut down the stock by half and use water instead, the soup will probably taste just as good!  Use what you have on hand!
3. Add the carrots first - I cut them up into big chunks, and put them in the pot so that they cook up faster.
4. Be sure to add the stock from the seitan package - it's yummy!  If you don't have this brand available where you live - substitute your favorite seitan or even some nice smoked tofu (yum!).
5. Add the miso paste last -- you will want to take some stock or hot water and dissolve it so that it mixes into the soup better.
6. Don't cut yourself cutting the fresh corn off the cob - after cutting off the niblets, be sure to scrape the cob with the back of your knife over the pot to get all the juice and flavor out of the corn cob (yum!).

Weekend Canning Round-up: Tomato Sauce, Zucchini Relish and Bread & Butter Pickles

Nine weeks out from my knee surgery, I am up and about almost back to normal in time for autumn canning season.  Tomatoes, basil, squash, apples, ground cherries, quince, persimmons - I just need to lay my hands on some lemons!

STOCK:  I made my best batch of stock yet, using the bag of veggie scraps I store in the freezer, along with the beet green stems from 3 bunches of white beets, stems from a bunch of radishes, and the seeds & skins of the tomato sauce making.  I even threw in the seeds & stems from a couple jalapenos used in salsa - giving the 2 gallons of stock a bit of zing but it's so rich and flavorful that I am going to use it to make some udon noodles this week. 

My newest favorite trick for making stock:  throw in a 1/4 cup of dried porcini mushrooms.

TOMATOES:
Tomatoes have suffered the worst of this chilly growing season -- as a result, nobody has tremendous backyard tomato production.  Even local farmers are finding the fruits are coming late and small.  I had been banking on picking 200# of tomatoes at Mariquita's "U-Pick" weekends this fall - the 150# I picked last fall didn't get me through the spring.  However, Julia said that they might not have a U-Pick event this fall (my fingers are still crossed, okay?). 

I bit the bullet and bought two 12# box of Early Girl tomatoes for $29 each.  I made up a big batch of marinara.  My friend Serafine helped me process the first batch of cooked tomatoes - we used the food mill attachment for the Kitchen Aid.  I think she was impressed by how easy it was to make sauce - she had seen cooking shows where they pour hot water on tomatoes to skin them and then cut out the seeds.  That's a PITA, IMO. 

Two weeks later, I bought two more 12# boxes of tomatoes last Thursday.  I spent all day cooking down the sauce - even pulled out 4 quarts of sauce from the first batch out of the freezer.  I ended up with a mere 9 quart jars of sauce, plus about 2 quarts that went into dinner each weekend - that's just under $10/jar to make my own sauce.  I guess I could go to Berkeley Bowl and buy sauce cheaper - but it doesn't taste at all the same.  After spending $120 on tomatoes (which is more than I spent last year for 150# at 50 cents/pound) - I think I am going to hold out and wait for tomato season to perk up so I can do the U-Pick event.

I didn't use all of the tomatoes for sauce - I also used some in a black quinoa tabouli, and made a quart of killer salsa (which goes great with carrot-flax crackers).  I still have a few in the fridge because those Early Girls are good eating!

YIELD:  
14 qts tomato sauce
1 qt salsa


APPLES:
Last Thursday I also got 20# of Pippin apples ($11 for 10#) from Mariquita - which I made into applesauce & dried apple rings.   The apples were mostly fairly large, a bright green and super crisp and delicious.  I saved about 8 of them for eating, put about 7# into the dehydrator and turned the rest into applesauce.

YIELD:
12 16 oz jars of applesauce
4 8 oz jars of applesauce


SQUASH:
Despite the problems my tomato plants are having in the garden - my squash are doing great.  The cocozelle is still going nuts with three vines that are about a total of 22' in length.  The yellow sunburst squash is more compact and still producing several a week.  The Rond de Nice - which I transplanted to a mini raised bed - has just showed signs that it is going to take off and be the rockstar of autumn.  The fourth zucchini plant that I bought - perished after it was sat upon at my "bon voyage" party on 7/9 - it limped along but transplanting it to another pot just resulted in speeding up the death.

I've been collecting squash all week - the small squash went into zucchini bread & butter pickles, the large squash went into the cuisinart to be shredded for zucchini relish.  I also saved the carrot pulp from the juicer to put into the relish - it made it a really pretty color.

YIELD:
12 8oz jars of zucchini relish
3  4 oz jars of zucchini relish
4 16 oz jars of zucchini bread & butter pickles
2 12 oz jars of zucchini bread & butter pickles
2 8 oz jars of zucchini bread & butter pickles


GROUND CHERRIES:
I'm collecting lots of ground cherries - mostly they are ripe but some are not.  I am experimenting with ways to ripen the green cherries - and have put them cleaned on a tray in the kitchen in the sun.  They might go into a bag soon.

Coming up - a trip to Larissa's house to check on the quince & persimmon trees!

Pickled Zucchini Relish

The last batch of bread & butter zucchini pickle chips I made with tiny courgettes came out so well with a dash of hot curry powder, that I could think of no other use for the overgrown squash yellow and "black beauty" squashes from James' garden than to make up a zucchini relish - basically the same sort of sweet & sour brine as bread & butter chips but with coarsely grated zucchini & onions.

Relish Ingredients:

• 12 cups of overgrown squash - skins on but cut out seedy/pithy areas if needed
• 4-5 fist size red onions
• 5 Tb sea salt
• Optional: coarsely grated carrots or red or green sweet pepper

Coarsely grate squash & onions, toss with sea salt and let sit for a couple hours or overnight.  Drain & rinse well - squeeze gently with your hands to get out the liquid.

Brine Ingredients:

• 3 cups sugar
• 2 1/2 cups cider vinegar
• 1 Tb mustard seed
• 1 Tb turmeric
• 1 tsp hot curry powder
• 1 tsp coriander seeds, ground
• 1 tsp fenugreek seeds, ground

Combine the brine ingredients, dissolve the sugar and bring to a boil.  Add the vegetables, bring to a simmer and cook for 15-20 minutes.   Ladle into hot sterilized jars and process in hot water bath depending on size of jar - 10 minutes for 8 oz jars, 15 minutes for 16 oz jars - time starts from return to boiling.

YIELD:

• TBD

Bread & Butter Pickles - 3 ways!

I just can't resist the allure of making up pickles to snack on over the winter and into next spring - I love bread & butter pickles. I made a promise to myself that next batch will be dilly - I'll do more dilly beans because the batches that I did with a half habanero quartered (but not separated) and pushed into the top of the jar turned out amazing!

Tonight, I turned my attention to the very large striped cocozelle and zucchini in the fridge, as well as 3# of 6" long pickling cucumbers from the garden. I also decided to take the last few unripe green tomatoes and sliced them up and did a bread & butter treatment just to see how it would turn out...

YIELD:
6 - 12 oz jars cucumber bread & butter pickles
4 - 12 oz jars zucchini bread & butter pickles
1 - 12 oz jar green tomato bread & butter pickles
1 - 8 oz jar green tomato bread & butter pickles

In a pickle...

It is traditional, for me, to suffer from adequacy syndrome. That is, biting off more than I can chew. So, I find myself in a pickle - with large quantities of food to preserve and a schedule to leave town tomorrow around 1-2pm for camping by a river in the Trinity Forest. And yet - I am still in the kitchen!

With cucumbers and zucchini from James and my gardens, I put together some bread & butter pickles (yes, I know the cukes are too big around but...) and have a bowl of onions and squash layered with salt and ice to turn into zucchini bread & butter pickles in about an hour.

In that hour, I will make jelly from 16 cups of plum juice, cut up a small honey dew and small watermelon for breakfast and lunch tomorrow, juice 20 lemons, pack all my clothes and put together all the details for campgrounds on my itinerary in a PDF to print at Scott's house.

But seriously - the bread & butter pickles look great. Once the zucchini bread & butter pickles are in the jars, I'll have three types of pickles ready to eat in about 2 weeks.

YIELD:

Cucumber bread & butter pickles

• 8 - 16 oz jars
• 1 - 8 oz jar

Zucchini bread & butter pickles

• 4 - 16 oz jars
• 8 - 8 oz jars

RECIPE:
4lbs cucumbers or zukes
2lbs onions

Slice and layer with salt, cover with ice and let sit at least 90 minutes - then drain, rinse, drain, rinse...

In a pan, 4 cups vinegar, 2-3 cups sugar and spices - mustard seed, cinnamon, fresh ginger or dried, black or white pepper - whatever you think works.

Bring to boiling - then add drained vegetables - bring to boiling again and then put into sterilized jars, wipe the edges of the jars and put on the 2 part lids, process for at least 10 minutes in hot water bath.

I put a serrano chile with the stem end snipped off with scissors in the bottom of each jar but you don't have to - you could put in a dried cayenne pepper!

Let the pickles sit for 2 weeks - then refrigerate to chill and eat. Try not to get caught eating them out of the jar with the refrigerator door open at 3am in your birthday suit. So embarrassing.

Panzanella, Zucchini Blossom & Zucchini Fritter Dinner for 3

My friend Eric and I went to mess up James' kitchen - I had another pile of squash blossoms and some zucchini from our gardens. Eric decided a panzanella would be a great idea -- with some yummy tempeh cubes, sauteed with soy sauce to make them brown and savory. Eric also brought some killer Wellington wines.

The squash blossom fritters were stuffed with cashew nut cheese, same as before. I made it before heading to James house but overprocessed it so it was less cheesy and more like tahini, but it still worked.

Zucchini fritters are pretty easy to make - just shred the zucchini into a colander, sprinkle some salt, toss and let sit 20-30 minutes before squeezing out as much liquid as you can. Then toss the zucchini with some flour and pepper, add a bit of water (not the zucchini juice though - it might be too salty). Once you have a consistency that holds to gether well enough to drop on hot oil and fry, you're ready to go.

Panzanella is a classic Italian salad -- ours had Japanese cucumbers, some cherry tomatoes that Eric picked out at Whole Foods on our way over, tempeh cubes, basil, rosemary, oregano, finely diced red onion, pine nuts, white corn, and some croutons (sauteed in olive oil) all tossed with olive oil, seasoned and sprinkled with balsamic.

Super yum!

Zucchini Madness

ZUCCHINI FRITTERS: After perusing several recipes this afternoon, I decided to make up my own zucchini fritter recipe and it came out darned good.

4 c. grated zucchini
1/2 c. grated onion
1/4 c. grated carrot
handful chopped squash blossoms

Usual directions about salting the zucchini and leaving it set in a colander for 10-20 minutes apply. I used my potato ricer to squeeze out the juice right into a bubbling pot of veggies that I later turned into a zucchini-golden chanterelle bisque.

For the batter:

1 c. flour of your choice
2 T. baking powder
2 T. crushed black pepper
2 T. fresh, chopped thyme
2 T. fresh chopped oregano
handful of fresh chopped parsley


Add enough water until it starts to resemble a thick batter instead of a dough, then mix in the zucchini and veggies. Stir in more water until it reaches a consistency that will form nice 1/4 cup globs that you can pat flat on the frying pan with your fingers. Brown on both sides until done. Eat with some delicious Pottsfield Relish* or chutney or fresh salsa. Maybe an almond-lemon pesto.

ZUCCHINI (Golden Chanterelle) BISQUE: I had a monster zuke from the new friend who has opened her yard to my foraging for apricots, green gage plums and apples. Big zukes are good for zucchini bread, fritters and bisque.

If you did not know, a bisque is a soup that uses rice (and potatoes, sometimes) to create a nice creamy, starchy consistency. No dairy, cheese or bizarre thickeners required, I swear.

Cook up 1/4 c. of arborio rice and let sit in the hot water.

Cook over med-high heat until tender:

5 c. zucchini, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 c. carrots, chopped
2 c. fingerling potatoes, chopped

In the dutch oven, heat enough water or vegetable broth to cover the veggies (start low and add more once the veggies are done sauteeing). I added 1 packet of dry sauteed, sliced golden chanterelles and about 1 c. of golden chanterelle broth to the pot. Once the water is hot, add the rice, too - what the heck. Also added 1 T crushed black pepper. Don't add any salt yet -- remember, you added miso!

After adding the softened veggies to the pot of broth, I added about 3 T of miso, along with 1/3 c fresh parsley leaves, some fresh oregano and thyme. I let everything cook until it was very soft.

Cool the veggies and broth. Process in blender or food processor. At this point, I pulled out two more 8 oz (before dry sauteeing) baggies of chopped golden chanterelle and let them defrost in the bisque. It tastes pretty good -- I will let it cool and check the seasoning tomorrow when I heat it up. This bisque will be great to freeze in individual portions for lunch!

PLUMS: James pitted most of the plums -- I had to stop him so we'd still have some to snack! Even then, we were plucking plums out of the pot as they warmed up, these are the tastiest plums we've ever had. The plums are resting - skins and meat - I am going to strain some and just make jam out of the meat tomorrow. I think I may pull out plum skins with tongs if it is easy enough, otherwise I will just leave the in.

APPLES: Apple sauce requires a lot more peeling and paring than I think I have time this week. I now have a whole big milk crate of apple from my friend Lawrence -- when I called to check on our morning carpool he said, "I have a surprise for you - you're going to hate me!" So, I have apples from Larissa's house on Sunday - light yellow, and a crate full of tart green beauties (much bigger) from Lawrence's place in Danville. I'm thinking I should make some canned apple pie filling -- he had told me he was going to make a rum raisin apple pie, so I think I should make at least one batch of rum raisin apple pie filling. I can leave on the peels and just slice up the cored apples, cover them with the syrup/batter and hot water process them. Any other ideas on what to do with apples and limited appendages and waking hours?

APRICOTS: While the plum jam is cooking tomorrow, I may focus on the apricots since they'll go off earlier than the apples. I wish the solar dehydrator was done! Hoping my brother will finish it off on Tuesday, then I can do some dried apples!



*Recipe for Pottsfield Relish coming soon. I promise. I just opened my last jar in anticipation of a bumper tomato crop. I swear - pictures are coming soon for everything!

Garden Update

GARDEN: The tomato plants seem happy - I have to get out there and check on the grow, re-tie them to stakes and such. The basil is starting to take off. I picked up a few small plants on Sunday - zucchini, lettuce, a red bell and a habanero pepper and planted them all before work on Wednesday. The peppers went into pots and I put the zucchini by the fence on the driveway so it can spread out -- I want to have some yummy fried, stuffed zucchini blossoms since James won't let me eat his!

Zucchinis taking off, but the ladybugs are sticking around!

Lettuces are slowly starting, container garden not as big as ground garden.

Tomatoes are growing like gangbusters!

CSA: The CSA is coming along with problems every week -- they allow customization and print these great labels, but the team in the packing room disregards the labels. I keep getting stuff that is on my "do not send" list. Today, I got more summer squash (still have some from last week), rosemary (two plants is enough, thanks!), and lettuce (I still have some from James' garden). And I did not get strawberries or plums which were on the list to go to my house. One more week -- if next week has too many problems, I'm going to give up and go shopping at the store or Farmer's Market for my produce like I did before. Boo!