Tonight we picked up our last box, of the season, from our CSA. Well, technically the last regular season box was delivered a few weeks ago, but we had also opted for the late season storage share. I can’t wait to eat my way through all the killer produce that was delivered. But, before I go on, I really should thank Nicole and Joe, and family, of Good Earth Farm. Through their hard work and tremendous efforts my family was supplied with a bounty of produce all summer and fall long. It was truly a pleasure to get to meet some of the people that supply us with our food. It’s heartwarming to see and meet people with such a passion about the food they raise and their impact on the environment. I look forward to next season and seeing what Good Earth Farm has in store.

Back to the cauliflower; in this box we received both the standard white variety and a beautiful orange variety. Knowing that I was hungry for caramelized cauliflower I decided to skip the orange variety for now as I wasn’t sure how it would look once caramelized. But hey, that leaves me with some cauliflower for another day, not a bad thing in my book.

The spicing I use in this recipe is quite subtle, almost to the point of not realizing its there, but I selected these spices to help play up the earthy quality of the cauliflower while the cinnamon helps to elevate the inherent sweetness of the vegetable. Feel free to leave them out if you choose, but I think they really help to make this dish.

If you aren’t a fan of cauliflower this dish won’t change your mind, but if you’re kind of on the fence out this vegetable, try it this way, it might just make a fan out of you yet.

Caramelized Cauliflower
serves 4

1 large head cauliflower
3 Tbl. butter, melted, divided
12 each Ritz crackers
1 pinch nutmeg, freshly ground
1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground cumin
1/8 tsp. ground coriander
salt
pepper

Preheat the oven to 475°F. Crush the Ritz crackers and add 1 Tbl. of the melted butter. Stir until well mixed. Cut the cauliflower in half, cut out the core and split into 1-2 bite florets. Mix the cinnamon, cumin and coriander with the remaining butter and drizzle over cauliflower to evenly coat all pieces. Season with salt and pepper. Place in an oven proof skillet and put into the oven. Bake for 12 minutes, stir and cook for 8 minutes longer. Stir again and sprinkle the crushed crackers over top. Return to the oven and cook another 4-5 minutes or until the topping is golden brown. Serve immediately.

Okay, one more post about beets, and I promise I will be done for awhile. As a kid I wasn’t fond of beets, to say the least. The first time I really enjoyed beets is when I finally gave in and tried my parents pickled beets. They were a revelation. I couldn’t believe that I had disdained these bright red root vegetables for so long, although I don’t think at age 10 I actually used the word disdained. I doubt I even knew the definition of that word at the time. Well, for the first time in my life my parents did not have to force me to eat my beets. Since then, I’ve come a long way. I love beets, and find many ways in spring and fall to incorporate them into my cooking often.

Back in October 2009 I posted a recipe for Pickled Golden Beets. You can use the same exact recipe to pickle red beets if you want. The recipe I offer up today is almost the same as that older recipe with a few small changes. Use either recipe.

Pickled Beets
makes 1 quart

1 1/2 pounds Beets
1 cup Cider Vinegar
1/2 cup Water
1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
2 tsp. Canning Salt or Kosher Salt (do not use table salt)
1 each Cinnamon Stick
10 each Cloves, whole
1 1/2 tsp. Allspice, whole
1/2 tsp. Yellow Mustard Seed
2 each Bay Leaf
1 each Onion, small

Place beets in a deep baking dish. Add 1/4 cup of water, cover with aluminum foil and bake, at 375°F for 45-60 minutes or until just barely tender. Allow the beets to cool. Peel the beets and remove any stems. The skin should slip right off the beets. Slice or dice the beets to your liking. Personally I like to cut them into larger chunks about 3/4 – 1 inch in size. Peel and slice the onion into 1/4 inch rings. Toss with the beets and place into a sterilized glass canning jar. Meanwhile, combine the rest of the ingredients in a nonreactive sauce pot and simmer for 8-10 minutes. Strain, return to the pot and bring to a boil. Pour boiling liquid over beets and onions, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Top with sterilized lid and allow to cool to room temperature. Place in fridge and allow to mature for at least 2 weeks before eating.

While I usually just make these and refrigerate them, these beets can be easily and safely canned for long term storage. Follow the same directions as above, but leave the beets slightly undercooked. Once you have covered the beets with the pickling liquid, place the lids on the jars and place in a boiling water bath and process for 15 minutes. Make sure the water covers the jars by at least 1 inch, and don’t start timing until the water returns to a boil. After 15 minutes remove the jars from the water and allow to cool to room temperature. Immediately refrigerate any jars on which the lids did not seal properly. Store the rest in a cool, dark place and they should last a year.

It’s been a long, hard couple of weeks the last few weeks. Work has been difficult as I’ve had supervisor out sick so I’ve been covering her shift, along with all of my work. It finally culminated on Friday when I had to let go of one of my supervisors. While normally I have no problems firing someone (because most often it has been because they weren’t doing the job and I have no tolerance for that kind of thing) this one was different as she had been doing a good job. Unfortunately, a drop in revenue made it necessary to eliminate a position. While the rational side of me knows I had no choice as I had to do what was best for the company, and for my remaining staff (if I didn’t lay off one then they would all have had to go to part time) the emotional side of me was wrecked over this difficult task. Unfortunately, this scenario has been playing out way too often in the recent years. Too many people I know have lost jobs due to downsizing or loss of revenue. I feel lucky that I still have a job, but my heart goes out to the many that have been unemployed for months and months. It is my hope that our elected officals can come together, put their petty partisan politics aside and come up with a solution to help the economy and the American people get back on their feet.

While I could go on and on about politics and the crappy weeks I’ve had, that’s not what you are here for so I should probably bring it back around to food. In my last post I promised a number of beet inspired dishes so today’s offering is a wonderful Autumn time side dish, Roasted Beets. Add to those beets some onion and a few cloves of garlic and you have a dish that delights both the sense of taste and smell.

While this recipe works well with red beets, I prefer to use golden, Chioggia, or candy stripe beets. These beets tend to bleed off less color than your standard red beets, keeping the onions and garlic from taking on a pinkish hue. If that doesn’t bother you or you can’t find anything other than red beets go ahead and use the red.

Roasted Beets with Garlic and Onions
serves 4

2 pounds beets (I used a mixture of golden and Chioggia beets)
1 large onion
8-12 cloves garlic
3-4 small sprigs rosemary
3 Tbl. extra virgin olive oil
salt
fresh ground black pepper

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Peel the beets and cut into 1-1 1/2 inch cubes. Place in a baking dish. Peel the cloves of garlic and place in a bowl. Peel the onion and cut into bite sized wedges and add to the garlic. Add the olive oil to the garlic and onions and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper then pour over the beets. Add the sprigs of rosemary to the baking dish then cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake. After 45 minutes minutes remove the foil, increase the temperature to 400°F and continue to cook, stirring occasionally until the vegetables are tender and slightly browned (approximately another 20-30 minutes). Serve immediately.

It’s Fall and that means that our CSA box is starting to fill with root vegetables. Onions, potatoes, celery, and beets have all made appearances in recent weeks. Hopefully they will continue to show up in our boxes along with other root vegetables such as rutabagas, parsnips, and turnips. Take well to all sorts of cooking techniques, from frying and sauteing, to boiling, roasting, braising and pickling. Raw they can often have a sharp, but pleasant bite, but cooking them slowly oftentimes draws out their intrinsic sweetness, mellowing them and lending a deep, rich earthiness to many dishes.

As a kid I hated beets, and even as an adult they were probably the last root vegetable for me to imbrace, but now that I have I love them and look forward to both the Spring and Fall crops when beets can be found fresh, locally. Luckily for me, our CSA farm did produce both a Spring crop which was quickly used up and a Fall crop which has been showing up in our boxes the last couple of weeks. The first week was a nice large bunch of typical red beets, but the other week saw a mix of golden and Chioggia (red and white striped) beets.

Hopefully, you like beets as much as I do. If not, your out of luck as the next 3-5 posts will all be revolving around beets. I hope you enjoy these brightly colored, gifts of nature as much as I do.

Beet and Blue Cheese Spread
adapted from Cooking Light Feb. 2008

1 pound beets, medium sized
2 apples (any tart variety will work well)
1/3 cup blue cheese, crumbled (I used Gorgonzola)
1 1/2 Tbl. horseradish

Trim beets of any greens, rinse well, removing all dirt and place in a baking dish. Add 1/4 cup of water, cover with foil and bake at 350°F for 1 hour, or until the beets feel tender when pricked with a knife. Allow to cool then trim off root and stem ends and peel. Roughly chop and place in a food processor. Peel, core and chop the apples, placing them in the processor along with the blue cheese and horseradish. Process until well blended and somewhat smooth. Serve with crackers or toasted pita chips.

Well, I’m finally back up and running. What a pain that was. If you read my previous post you know that my computer got hit with a major virus that left me without a computer for the past few weeks. Unfortunately, this little nasty buried itself in my root directory which means that even though they would get it cleaned up each time the computer was rebooted the virus reinstalled itself. This meant a complete wipe of my hard drive and a reinstall of my operating system. This in turn meant reinstalling all my programs, finding all my data on the backup they created and basically reconfiguring everything the way I had. But everything is good now…I hope. I’m sure there will be more work to do, but at least I have enough done to get a new post up.

I was really excited about this recipe when I first made it. Unfortunately it is now a bit past both peach and corn season although you can still find them in the stores and markets. And with the new round of warm weather we’re having here in Wisconsin this dish feels right at home.

Peach Salsa

2 peaches
1/4 cup onion, finely diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and finely diced
2 Tbl. cilantro, minced
1/2 lime, juiced
1/2 Tbl. sugar
salt

Peel the peach by cutting a shallow “X” in the blossom end of the peach, dipping it in boiling water for 30 seconds then plunging it into an ice bath. Once it cools down the skin should slip right off. Pit the peach and cut it into a small dice. Combine with remaining ingredients and stir to mix. Set aside.

Corn Fritters
serves 4 as a first course

2 cups corn, cut fresh from the cob (frozen will work also if you can’t get fresh)
1/3 cup red pepper, finely diced
1/4 cup green onion, minced
3 slices bacon, thick cut
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 Tbl. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup milk

Chop and fry the bacon, reserving rendered fat in skillet. In a large bowl combine the bacon with the corn, pepper, and onion. In another bowl combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Add the egg and milk and mix to form a batter. Add batter to the corn mixture. There should be just enough to bind all the ingredients with not too much batter.

Add a couple of tablespoons of oil to the bacon fat in the skillet and reheat. Make fritters by placing a scant 1/4 cup of batter into the hot oil, spreading it slightly.

Fry for 1-2 minutes or until starting to brown around the edges. Flip and fry another 2-3 minutes.

Drain briefly on paper towel and serve, topping with peach salsa.

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It’s late August and that means I am right in the middle of that 2-2 1/2 month window when I will eat a BLT. While I try not to be a “food snob” too often, when it comes to BLT’s I have to admit, I am a full blown food snob. If you haven’t read my rant about BLT’s, and wish to, you can find it here. This week our, when I went to pick up our CSA share it not only contained tomatoes and a mix of baby lettuces, but our bread share included a wonderful sourdough bread. All I needed was the bacon, already sitting at home in the fridge, as was the mayo. Score!!!!

Because I wasn’t really in the mood to do much cooking, and because we received yet again, more cucumbers in our box, I decided to wipe up a quick Asian inspired cucumber salad to accompany the BLT’s. This salad doesn’t get much more simple, but for it to be at its best it should be made at least 3-4 hours before you plan on serving it. Overnight is even better.

Cucumber Salad
serves 4

2 large cucumbers, seeds removed, and peeled if skin is thick
1/2 onion, red or yellow
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
2 Tbl. sugar
1/4 tsp. sesame oil
1/2 tsp. sambal (garlic-chile paste)
1 tsp. soy sauce

Slice the cucumbers and onion as thin as you can and place in a bowl. In another bowl, combine the remaining ingredients, adjusting the sambal to suit your heat level. 1/2 tsp. of sambal will give the cucumbers a pretty good kick. Pour the sauce over the cucumbers and toss to coat. Cover and allow to marinate for at least 3-4 hours or overnight.

Don’t adjust your computer monitor, the sauce on the pizza, in the picture is yellow. Don’t worry, it’s supposed to be that way! In general, I am not a big fan of BBQ pizzas. To me, and I know this is strictly a personal preference, something just doesn’t taste quite right about a pizza crust slathered with BBQ sauce. It’s strange that I feel that way as I am a huge fan of both pizza and BBQ, but together I’m not so keen on it. That is unless it is BBQ Chicken Pizza done my way.

I hate to say it is “my way” as I was introduced to this style of BBQ pizza back when I was working in Atlanta, somewhere around 1994. We served this pizza at City Grill when it was under the direction of Chef Roger Kaplan. The biggest difference between this style of BBQ pizza and the stuff you find at pizza joints across the US nowadays was the sauce. While most places slather the crust with BBQ sauce and then toss plain, cooked chicken on top, we were making a “corn cream” to spread on the crust (thus the yellow sauce) and tossing the chicken with BBQ sauce just to glaze it. The corn cream added a sweet,fresh flavor to the mix, keeping the pizza from becoming too heavy with BBQ sauce.

Corn cream is really easy to make, but requires a juicer to extract the optimum amount of juice from the corn. It also relies on really fresh corn to get the best flavor. Besides being used as a sauce for pizza the corn cream can be thinned out to make an elegant summertime sauce for chicken or pork, or even be used as a base for a wonderful corn chowder or chilled corn soup.

This pizza is a bit on the sweet side but trust me, it is tasty. I know it may look a little strange, but the flavors work really well together turning this into the perfect summertime pizza.

Corn Cream

6 ears corn, as fresh as possible.

Shuck the corn and remove all the silk from the ears. Using a knife cut all the kernels from the cob. Once this is done, turn the knife around and using the back of the blade scrape down the corn cobs, removing any leftover pulp and adding it to the cut corn. Using a juicer extract all the juice from the kernels. I found that I needed to run the pulp through 3 times to get all the juice. Depending on the corn you should get about 16-18oz. give or take. Discard the remaining solids and place the juice in a nonreactive saucepan over medium high heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until the juice comes to a boil. Boil for 1-2 minutes, again stirring constantly, scraping the bottom of the pot so that the sauce doesn’t burn. The juice will thicken considerably, almost to the point of thin mayonnaise. Remove from heat and chill until needed.

Grilled BBQ Chicken Pizza
makes 2 14″ pizzas or 4-6 smaller individual pizzas

1 1/2 cups water, lukewarm (100-110°F)
1 package (2tsp.) dry active yeast
1/2 cup flour, all purpose
3 cups flour, all purpose
2 Tbl. olive oil
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. sugar

4-6 chicken thighs, boneless, skinless
1 cup BBQ sauce, either homemade or your favorite brand
1 tsp. chipotle powder (optional)
1/2 onion, sliced paper thin
1 tomato, diced small
2 cups cheddar cheese

In the morning, mix up the pizza dough. Combine the water, yeast and 1/2 cup of flour. Allow to sit for 10 minutes to allow the yeast to activate. You should see it starting to bubble slightly. Add the remaining flour, oil, salt and sugar. Mix until a smooth dough forms. Turn out onto a work surface and knead for 10 minutes, adding more flour if dough is too sticky. Dough should remain soft and still just slightly sticky though. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge to proof throughout the day.

Dice the chicken into small, bite sized pieces. Place in hot saute pan and saute until browned. Season with a bit of salt and pepper, and chipotle, if using. Add 1 cup of water along with the BBQ sauce and cook until the chicken is glazed. Chill until ready to use.

30 minutes before you are ready to cook divide the pizza dough into equal portions (either 2 large or 4-6 small). Roll into rounds, cover with plastic and allow to rest for 20 minutes. Prepare your grill to ensure a medium hot fire. Stretch or roll out the dough to the appropriate size and thickness. While I am usually not a big fan of really thin crust, I prefer thinner crust when grilling pizzas.

One at a time, place the crust on the grill, close the cover and cook for 1 1/2 – 2 minutes, or until the bottom of the crust starts to brown and the top starts to blister.

Repeat with each crust until all crusts have been cooked on 1 side (the top side will still be raw but should have firmed up significantly. Flip the crust over so that the top is now on the bottom. Spread the corn cream over the grilled side of the pizza, making sure to cover completely but not using so much that it pools on the crust. Top with the cooked chicken and then a sprinkling of cheese. Finally top with the onions and diced tomato, dividing up the ingredients evenly among the pizza crusts.

Place the pizzas, 1 or 2 at a time back on the grill, cover and cook until the cheese has melted and the crust is done (another 4-7 minutes depending on how hot the grill is and how thick your crust is). Remove from grill, allow to sit for 3 or 4 minutes then cut and serve.

For the second week in a row we have been blessed with a good amount of cherry tomatoes in our CSA box. Last week, my wife got her hands on them and I never saw them again, so this time I made sure I grabbed them before she did. My goal was to place them into our dehydrator and turn them into little flavor bombs. Freshly picked, perfectly ripe cherry tomatoes, on the own, pack a hefty amount of flavor, but dry them out a bit and you can up that flavor to epic proportions.

It’s important to note that what I am acheiving by this is not a way to preserve the tomatoes; I don’t remove enough moisture for that. I am merely trying to remove enough moisture to concentrate the flavors and provide a bit more texture to them. Once finished, these tomatoes will need to be refrigeratored or they will go bad. Even then, this procedure will only buy you a bit more time than you would have with competely fresh tomatoes.

While I use a dehydrator for this, you can do these in your oven also. Hopefully, your oven’s lowest setting is 150°F. Preheat the oven to 150°F. Place the prepared tomatoes on a rack, covered with cheesecloth, cut side down and place in the oven. check after 1 1/2 hours and every 20-30 minutes afterwards, removing tomatoes as they are done. Doing it this way is a little less forgiving, but still not very difficult. Just keep an eye on them.

Dried Cherry Tomatoes

1 quart cherry tomatoes (or any small variety of tomato)
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. finely ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Finely mince the garlic then, using the edge and side of your knife mash it into a coarse paste. Grind the dried oregano and dried basil into a powder and mix with the garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. Remove any stems from the cherry tomatoes and slice, in half, through the stem end. Toss with the olive oil mixture. Lay out on your dehydrator racks, making sure that none the the tomatoes are touching.

Set dehydrator to about 140°F, cover and allow to dry for 2 hours. After 2 hours rotate your trays, if necessary and continue to dry for another 1 1/2 hours. Rotate trays again and start checking the tomatoes every 45 minutes to 1 hour, removing any tomato that is done. Tomatoes are done when they have loss about 1/2-2/3 their size, are starting to feel firm to the touch, and are just slightly dry around the edges. It will take anywhere from 3 1/2-6 hours to dry. I can’t be any more specific as lots of factors affect the drying time; type of dehydrator, size of tomatoes, humidity in the air, etc. Mine took approximately 4 1/2 hours to reach the moisture level I wanted.

Once they are done place in the fridge for storage. They will last a week or 2. For longer storage you can cover them with olive oil, but you will still want to keep them in the fridge.

These little flavor bombs make a great addition to simple pastas, salads, or vegetable medleys, but really my favorite way to eat them is to simply pop them into my mouth, right out of the jar, although it is easy to get carried away and consume an afternoon’s work in just a short time!!

I first discovered Elote when I was living in Chicago. There were all these Mexican street vendors in my neighborhood pushing carts and selling, what I discovered, was corn on the cob. But this wasn’t ordinary corn on the cob has I had known it. Instead of slathering it with butter, salt and pepper they slathered it in mayonnaise, dipped it in grated cheese and sprinkled it with ground chile and a squeeze of fresh lime. I have to admit, at first I was kind of disgusted. Mayo on corn on the cob?! But being a chef and a rather adventurous sort I had to give it a try. Besides how bad could it be? Ultimately it was just corn on the cob. Well, I tried it and fell in love. And let’s face it, what’s not to love; creamy, rich mayo, salty, nutty cheese, a bit of spicy heat, and the freshing tang of lime juice, all backing up that wonderful sweetness of fresh corn.

This week, our CSA share contained 5 ears of freshly picked corn on the cob. I racked my brain, coming up with all sorts of wild and crazy things to do with this corn (and hopefully I’ll get to do one or 2 of those things in the near future) but ultimately decided the best way to showcase such wonderfully sweet, freshly picked corn was to serve up in the ultimate summertime fashion; on the cob. But that wouldn’t be much of a post, which got me to thinking and wondering how many other people had never had corn on the cob done the Mexican way. See how I selflessly put my readers first. Trust me it has nothing to do with the fact that I’ll use any excuse to add as much fat and dairy as I can to just about any recipe…really.

Just a few notes before I get to the recipe. First off, I often talk about how produce is so much better the fresher it is. While this is true of most all produce, it is especially true of corn. Corn is the sweetest the moment it is pulled off of the stalk. Once picked those sugars begin to get converted into starch, losing much of its sweetness at an alarming rate. While supermarket corn, in the middle of summer, may taste pretty darn good, I challenge you to stop by your local farmer’s market, pick up a couple of ears of corn that were picked early that morning and have them cooked off by noon. If you have never indulged in this summertime luxury you’ll be amazed at the sweetness and depth of flavor that you never knew you were missing.

Traditionally, the cheese used in making elotes is Cotija Anejo (Queso Anejo). Outside of cities or in area without larger hispanic populations, this cheese may be difficult to find. Not a problem. Just use parmesan cheese instead. As always I will state that doesn’t mean that nasty stuff that comes in a green container and has a shelf life of a million years. Use the real stuff!! Cotija Anejo is not exactly like Parmesan, but close enough that the vast majority of people couldn’t tell the difference.

Finally, when I make elotes, I use ground cayenne pepper as my choice of chile. You could use ground ancho, chile de arbol or even ground chipotle if you want a bit of that smokiness that comes from chipotle, but please stay away from “chili powder.” While chili powder has its uses for this dish it doesn’t work so well, in my opinion. Of course there are plenty of recipes, gracing the web, for elotes that use chili powder, but I disagree with its use here. Chili powder is a spice mix containing, not only, ground chile, but usually ground cumin, ground oregano, and other various herbs and spices. To me this muddles up the flavor a little too much, taking away from the bright freshness of the food.

Elotes

fresh corn on the cob, still in the husks
mayonnaise
finely grated Parmesan cheese (see my rant above about the stuff in the green container)
ground cayenne pepper (or your choice of chile, not chili, powder)
lime wedge (cut limes into 1/6ths)

One and half hours before you are ready to eat prepare the corn. Rip off the exposed part of the corn silks but leave the husks intact. No need to remove them completely as they are easy to remove after being cooked. Submerge the corn in cold water. After the corn has been soaking for 45 minutes to 1 hour, fire up your grill and set it up for direct grilling over medium high heat. Place the corn on the grill and cover, checking every few minutes and turning every 4-5 minutes. Don’t worry, you will have the occasional flame as loose bits of husk or stray bits of corn silk catch fire. Unless your fire is too hot that initial soaking should prevent the entire ear from catching fire. If this is your first time cooking corn on the grill you might want to keep a spray bottle with water, just in case. The corn will take approximately 20 minutes, depending on the size of the corn, how hot your grill is, how often you remove the lid, yada, yada, yada. You can tell the corn is done by gently peeling a bit of the husk back to expose the kernals. Raw corn will have a dullish look to it. Cooked corn will have a slight sheen to it and the colors will be a bit more vibrant.

Once done, remove from the grill and serve. I usually make this a serve yourself affair. Everyone grabs an ear of corn. I peel the husk down to the stem, which I have left on to serve as handle for eating the corn. Most of the corn silk should come with the husks, but it is easy to remove any strays that still cling to the corn. I then liberally slather the entire ear with mayo, just like you would with butter. I probably use between 1 and 2 tablespoons per ear. Next sprinkle with the grated cheese. Don’t be shy…load it on. Next sprinkle with the chile powder. This is a personal preference on how hot you like it. I like medium hot. Just enough to get a bit of burn but not enough to interfer with the taste of the corn. Finally grab a lime wedge and squeeze the juice all over the ear and enjoy. Since the cheese is usually pretty salty no need for any added salt unless you are a complete addict!

I’ve been rather lax, the last few weeks, letting you all know what kind of goodies we have been getting in our weekly CSA box. It’s not because we aren’t enjoying everything (although I can do without the zucchini and summer squashes). It really has to do with crazy busy work schedules and just not making the time to sit down and write.

As I stated in my last post, tomatoes are in full swing, but we also receive some of my all time favorite vegetable, fennel, this past week. I absolutely love the subtle anise (licorice) flavor and the fresh flavor it can bring to so many dishes. I will often shave it paper thin and make it into a little salad to accompany seafood or slowly cook it, like onions, until well caramelized, which deepens the flavor and brings out its intrinsic sweetness.

This pasta dish pairs fennel with tomatoes, fresh basil, olive oil, and a bit of garlic to celebrate the flavors of summer. It makes the perfect hot summer evening dinner as it remains light and fresh and doesn’t require a whole lot of cooking (or heating up the house).

Summer Vegetable Pasta
serves 3-4

1/2 pound spaghetti, dried
1 bulb fennel, fresh
1-2 tomatoes, preferably home or locally grown and at their peak of ripeness, diced
8-12 leaves fresh basil, torn into small pieces
1 scallion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbl. butter
salt
fresh ground black pepper

Julienne the fennel by slicing it in half, across the wide side. Remove the core and julienne the individual “petals.” Bring a large pot of water to boil, while heating a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the spaghetti to the water and at the same time add half of the olive oil and all of the fennel to the saute pan. Allow the fennel to slowly sweat while the spaghetti is cooking. Just before the spaghetti is done add the garlic to the saute pan and cook without allowing the garlic to burn. Add 3 Tbl. of the pasta water to the saute pan and drain the spaghetti. Once the spaghetti is drained add it to the saute pan allong with the tomato, basil, scallion and the remaining olive oil. Toss to warm through then remove from heat. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Finally add the butter and stir until it has melted. Serve immediately.