Tag Archives: book

Springtime Frittata

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Hi There.
So it’s safe to say I’m more than a day late on this post.  Sorry about that, work got away from me a little this week.  But as promised, here’s the frittata I was telling you about.  I used a recipe from Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks.  I was given her latest cookbook for Christmas this year and I’ve enjoyed every recipe I’ve tried so far.

Making a frittata was fairly easy and it’s a flexible recipe that allows you to use whatever veggies are in season. I used new potatoes, shallots, peas and my farmer’s market eggs.  One of the biggest things I liked about this recipe was that it allowed me to use up 10 of the 12 eggs!  I always run into having about half a dozen left over after baking something or just making an omelet.  They’ll sit there until i’m not sure when I bought them and then it’s just a waste of food.  No longer!

 

Making this did get me thinking about some of my kitchen supplies.  My skillet was a bit small and the straight sides made it difficult to run my spatula around the side to keep the edges from getting too brown.  My spatula is also permanently curled on the end from forcing it…. maybe I just created the perfect frittata spatula

Orzo Salad

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Remember that photo I posted back on Sunday of every pot and pan I own, dirty, on the counter?  Well besides the cookies and icing, the rest of the mess came from making myself lunches for the week.

Since I started doing this blog, I’ve been making a concentrated effort to bring my  lunches to work.  It helps save money but it also makes it possible for me to know what’s going into my food.  I’d gotten stuck in a little bit of a rut, cycling in between sandwiches (deli meat and bread from MN, cheese from WI) or pasta casseroles (meat, pasta and cheese from MN).  Not horrible, but definitely getting old and a little on the heavy side.

So this week, to change it up, I took out a cook book I haven’t tapped into to find something new.  I found an Orzo Salad recipe in Super Natural Every Day.  The cookbook is written by Heidi Swanson.  She also writes the blog for 101 Cookbooks.  It’s a great blog full of vegetarian recipes and her pictures make everything look like a million bucks.

Back to the salad.  First up, I got my Orzo into some boiling water to cook.While that was going, I cooked up some frozen broccoli in place of fresh, fresh isn’t very available in MN the second week of February.

With the broccoli done (frozen cooked up pretty fast in hot water) I made my pesto with 2 Cups of the broccoli, 2 cloves of garlic, 2/3 pine nuts and 1/3 cup parmesan cheese and lemon juice in the food processor.  The recipe called out only using a portion of the pine nuts but I tossed them all in:)

When that was pretty well blended I added in the creme fraiche and olive oil and blended until smooth.

By the time the pesto was finished the orzo had finished cooking.  I drained it, rinsed it with cold water and drained again.

Then I added about 2/3′s of the pesto in with the pasta until it was pretty evenly coated.  The rest I’ll use for another quick pasta dinner this weekend.

I bought an avocado per the recipe (obviously not a local product) and chopped it up and blended with a little more lemon juice to help prevent browning.  It didn’t last past the second day, it just got too brown and gross.  I would only use it if you had access to really fresh avocados and were going to be serving it that day.

Besides the salad, I cooked up 3 chicken breast with just a little bit of salt and pepper, shredded them and then used them to top the salad.  It was a really good change of pace and made me feel a little healthier come Friday.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

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I wanted to stop in and share a good reference book about how to eat locally in your community.  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle follows Barbra Kingsolver and her family through a year of living only off of what they grow themselves or what they’re able to buy locally.  Along with the story of their day to day life, she includes recipes for homemade bread and pizza as well as how they made their own cheese.

It kept me interested in keeping up trying to eat locally even after growing season ended and winter (tried) to set in.  She also has a website that includes all of the recipes, resources for eating locally, and an update on how they’re doing after the first year of eating locally.  After reading it I wanted to move to my own acreage and start my own farm complete with chickens, goats and bees.  Check out her site here.

Hope you all have a good weekend!  I’ll be back Monday with a new project I’m working on.