Aug 17
2012

It’s been hot here. So hot. I haven’t been wanting to cook much, but dang it if I didn’t want to eat at home tonight, and I wanted warm food that wasn’t too heavy. Been eating out way too much lately.

About 45 minutes after raiding the fridge for whatever was in it, I came up with this:

Completely Impromptu Krab Casserole

  • Half a large onion, diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • Splash of olive oil
  • Kernels from 1 ear of corn
  • 1/2 lb. krab or real crab, whichever you prefer, chopped
  • 1 hot pepper, minced
  • 4 Kalamata olives, minced
  • Dollop of Lemonaise (or the best other mayonnaise you can get your hands on)
  • Dollop of lowfat yogurt
  • About a cup of shredded jack and Fontina cheese, divided
  • Half a jar of the Desert Pepper Trading Company black bean-corn salsa
  • Salt and pepper to taste

 

To serve: tortilla chips and guacamole (preferably homemade)

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Chop the onions and garlic, and saute in the olive oil until translucent. While those are cooking, cut the kernels off the cob, mince the pepper and the olives, and chop the krab, and place all of them in a medium bowl. Add the onions and garlic. Stir to combine, then mix in the Lemonaise and yogurt and about half the cheese, and season to taste with the salt and pepper. Spread in a greased 8×8″ baking pan.

Top the krab mixture with a layer of the black bean-corn salsa, spreading it over the surface, then top with the remaining cheese. Bake at 350°F until the cheese is melted and the casserole is bubbly, about 20 minutes. Serve hot with tortilla chips and guacamole, or roll into tortillas. (Make sure you include the guacamole. The cool creamy taste with the little pops of sweet corn and krab is to die for.)

Serves 4.

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Aug 6
2012

I suppose technically, this is a quiche, since it involves eggs and leftover bits and pieces. But I like pie. Mmmm, pie.

Since my stovetop is currently unreliable for simmering, I’ve started baking for breakfast. Or more accurately, baking ahead of breakfast and reheating. Pies are easy to reheat — plop a slice or two on a pie pan, cover with tin foil, set your oven to 350°, pop the pan into the oven, and wait 10-15 minutes. Not quite as good as fresh, but way better than the microwave. The tin foil helps retain the moisture in the crust, so don’t go without it.

This week’s breakfast is using up some meat and mushroom crockpot ragu that I made last week; it’s a recipe from The Italian Slow Cooker by Michele Scicolone. (By the way, it’s an excellent book. Everything I’ve made out of it has been dynamite.) This particular leftover includes ground chuck, Italian sausage, and mixed mushrooms. I’m also using up some poor zucchini that got left in the bottom of the fridge. Such a sad thing — try not to do that to your zucchini. (; The recipe is infinitely flexible; about six cups of cooked mixed meat and veggies, three eggs, some cheese, and a pie crust.

I love making pie crust by hand, but the high around here has been in the 90°s (that’s about 33° for you Celsius people) for the past week, and it’s going to continue for the rest of the week. So hand-making the crust is not very practical right now. Too melty. Fortunately, the food processor is a great tool for making pie crust in the heat, so I’m including the recipe for that as well. Make the pie crust first, and let it chill while you put together the rest of the ingredients.

Food Processor Pie Crust

  • 1/2 c. whole wheat flour, plus more for dusting
  • 1/2 c. white flour
  • 1/2 tsp. sugar
  • generous pinch salt
  • 1/4 c. butter, cold
  • 1/4 c. bacon drippings, cold (you can use all butter, but I like bacon drippings for meaty pies)
  • 2-3 Tbsp. milk

Put the flours, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor, and process just to combine. Cut the butter and bacon drippings into chunks and add to the food processor. Process just until they are incorporated into rough pea-sized bits. With the motor running, add the milk slowly through the feed tube, stopping immediately when the dough gathers itself into a ball. You may need to whip the dripping feed tube out of the processor. Remove the dough from the food processor, wrap it in plastic wrap, and tuck it in the fridge for at least half an hour to chill out.

Leftovers for Breakfast Pie

  • 3-4 c. zucchini, small dice (about four small zucchini)
  • olive oil
  • about 2 c. leftover cooked meat and mushroom ragu, or whatever meaty thing you have left over, well drained
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/4 c. milk
  • 1/2-3/4 c. shredded cheddar, or whatever cheese you like (cheddar was just what I had on-hand)
  • salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Saute the zucchini, seasoned with salt and pepper, in a generous splash of olive oil until nicely browned.

Sauteed Zucchini

This is just about right, could be a little browner

Add the drained ragu and set aside to cool.

Zucchini and meat

Zucchini and meat

Beat the eggs well with the milk, season with salt and pepper, and set aside. Shred the cheddar. Check your pie crust and see if it’s firm enough to handle.

Eggs and cheese

Eggs and cheese

When the pie crust is firm enough to handle, roll it out, dusting with extra whole-wheat flour to prevent sticking.

Pie crust to roll

This entire post is just an excuse to show off my super-awesome Amish-made rolling pin that my Mom got me. (;

Scoop it up with the rolling pin and drape it into the pie pan, and flute the edges however you like. I used a fork because to be honest, I didn’t wait long enough to roll the crust out and it was sticking.

Fluted pie crust

This is a wonderful deep-dish plate that my Auntie Deb gave us for our wedding. If you’re using a standard-size pie plate, you may want to reduce the amount of filling by a cup or two.

Fill the pie with the zucchini-meat mixture and top with half the cheese. Pour the eggs over, then top with the remaining cheese.

Filled pie

All ready for the oven now. I could have put more filling in that if I’d had more leftovers!

Bake at 350°F for 30-40 minutes, until a sharp knife stuck in the center comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes and serve, or let cool completely, cover, and store in the fridge for breakfast.

Finished pie

Mmmm, yummy!

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Aug 1
2012

Garden Left Side

Italian stone pine, hydroponic bed, and boysenberries

Other half of garden

Boysenberries, baby kumquat tree, miniature rose, live oak (doing well), black oak (doing poorly) and Aleppo pine

This is my current garden, such as it is. Kind of a far cry from the old house, but you make do with what you have. And I’m not allowed to get any more plants just now, or I won’t be able to get into/out of the storage closet and the hot water heater closet. ^_^; The perils of trying to garden in an apartment!

We’re still waiting on the new house, though our agent tells us we should hear something by the end of the week. I’m trying very hard to be patient. Been getting lots of practice with that lately. So in order to distract myself, let me tell you about the wee hydroponic bed.

My dad, my husband, and I all went to the AgPals demonstration last weekend at the San Diego Botanic Garden. We got to make the spiffy tub you see pictured above, which is put together out of really basic household materials, filled with planting medium, and then planted. Check out the interior:

Hydroponic tub under construction

An 18-gallon tub, a third of a Home Depot bucket, three heavily pierced Gatorade bottles, a wide length of PVC, an old groundcover container, and some zip ties make the beginnings of a basic hydroponic tub.

What you don’t see in this picture: the groundcloth that’s placed over the groundcover tray to keep the medium from falling through, the planting medium, and the plants, of course. You slit the groundcloth to fit over the pipe and the bottles, press it on securely, then fill it up with planting medium, making sure to jam the medium into the bottles tightly so that they will wick up the water. Make sure the planting medium is well dampened, plant your plants, then fill up the reservoir with water and a bit of the right kind of fertilizer, using the PVC tube, and you end up with this:

Hydroponic bed

From top left, clockwise: Hungarian Wax pepper, green onions, basil (it’ll have to be thinned), Early Girl tomato, more onions, strawberry, and lettuce in the center.

We capped off the fill tube with a ceramic drip tray to prevent the mosquitos from getting in. The tub took about five and a half gallons to fill, and I’ve topped it off with a quart of water so far. We’ve had it since Saturday, and it hasn’t needed more water since — it’s stayed beautifully damp and just barely draining the reservoir. I’m sure that’ll change once the tomato and pepper really start going, but to be honest, I’m both shocked and pleasantly amazed at how little water it seems to want. I may try to do a lot more of this; water is the biggest cost for a garden here in SoCal.

It’s so nice to have a veggie garden again, even just this little scrap of one. If I were going to be staying in an apartment for a long time, I’d be seriously considering about four or five of these, instead of the trees that I’m hanging on to, to bring to the new house. You can grow a lot in these little beds! Ag Pals had several examples of these at the San Diego County Fair that were full-up and producing like crazy.

More pix of the garden below. (:

Garden Pictures

It’s a pretty little space.

Miniature roses

Miniature roses, from my niece’s baby shower — both she and the roses are two years old now!

 

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