Fifty Second Friday: My Last Asparagus

The last, the very last. Yes, that brief spring period where asparagus dominates the menu has come to an end. As temperatures become warmer, these little stalks can think of little else but going to seed. But the time is ripe, as summer produce beings to proliferate. Tomatoes, basil, and zucchini have started to show their lovely faces at market. 

That is something we just have to embrace when eating with the seasons. Sometimes they are just excruciatingly short. Black raspberries only stick around for about three weeks. Green garlic and garlic scapes only last until the bulb has grown up. Strawberries are done (for now), and there will be a flurry of figs in the late summer/early fall. And while this may be difficult to stomach, in a culture where we are accustomed to buying whatever we want, whenever we want, there is a certain beauty in it. The anticipation of the season's first blueberries; the juicy decadence of a perfectly ripened, height-of-summer peach; the crunchy sweetness of the prolific peas (sugar snaps, please).

So in an attempt to pay homage to the outgoing season and the one incoming, I melded everything on top of a baked crust. The aging asparagi met the fresh garlic, at the apex of its life; first of the season summer squash and basil fraternized with last-year's canned tomatoes. It was heavenly.

Spring Meets Summer Pizza Pie

crust

1/4 cup buckwheat flour

1/4 cup millet meal

1/4 cup corn meal

1/4 tsp xanthan gum

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tbs olive oil

1 tbs almond milk

1. Combine all ingredients until you can form a ball. If it's really sticky, as some additional flour. Roll out to about 1/4 inch thickness (I made three mini pizzas).

2. Top with tasty veggies (see below). Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes. Enjoy!

toppings

1 small or 1/2 medium yellow summer squash, thinly slices

4 asparagi chopped

1/2 cup chopped tomatoes

1/4 cup basil pest (I made mine with basil, olive oil, salt, lemon juice, and pepitas)

Sprinkle of nutritional yeast 

Happy second day of Summer!! For more, check out Wellness Weekends. 

You're Invited!

This time of year, the proportion of zucchini in my diet peaks, although lags slightly behind tomatoes and peaches. While I enjoy it simply prepared, roasted or sauteed, sometimes it is necessary to infuse a little something extra. My fellow DC bloggers, Victoria of the District Chocoholic and Valerie of City|Life|Eats, have invited any interested blogger to participate in a Zucchini Chocolate Blog Party. Yes, you heard me right, a celebration of two spectacular edibles!

The idea is to share a recipe of your choice that involves chocolate and zucchini. It can be sweet or savory, use any type chocolate or summer squash, and ascribe to one of four challenges:

• Challenge: A recipe using chocolate and zucchini
• Plant-Based Challenge: A vegan recipe using chocolate and zucchini
• Gluten-Free Challenge: A gluten-free recipe using chocolate and zucchini
• Ultimate Challenge: A vegan and gluten-free recipe using chocolate and zucchini

Based on my track record, you can probably guess what I chose. My situation was complicated slightly due to the fact that I am residing at my parental units' home, but I managed to scrounge up a few ingredients and make use of the large patty-pan squash from Sunday's farmers market. Some leftover frozen cherry halves were icing on the cake. Enjoy!

Chococherry Zucchini Cookies (yields 12ish large, vg, gf)

1 cup grated zucchini

1/4 cup vegetable oil (can substitute applesauce for lower-fat version)

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1/4 cup brown or turbinado sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla or almond extract

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup almond meal

2/3 cup oat flour (or other gluten-free flour)

1/2 cup tapioca starch

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Cherry halves - about a dozen

1. Grate zucchini into a bowl. Add oil, sugars, extract, and cocoa powder, mixing until uniform.

2. Combine rest of the dry ingredients until it all comes together. For cookies, the dough should be pretty thick, so add more oat flour as needed. If you decide to make mini cakes, it can be a little more batter-like.

3. Use a tablespoon to scoop the dough onto a lined cookie sheet. Press a thumb into the center of the cookie, and the place a cherry half in the dent.

4. Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes until outside of cookie set. Allow to cool before consuming... or, plop a scoop of vanilla soy ice cream on top and dig right in!

I think this is one of those "bake your cake and eat it too" moments.

Taste of Summer

Washington DC supposedly empties as August rolls around. People go on vacation, escape the oppressive humidity of the swamp that houses our Nation's Capital (...I don't think it's so bad...). As such, one would assume that the city turns to a ghost town. But you wouldn't think that after seeing the packed stalls at the farmers market this morning. Perhaps this was the last hurrah before people skip town. Perhaps it was in celebration of National Farmers Market Week! Even so, I think that the crowds today were a testament to the fact that farmers markets in the summer are festive, alluring, and downright breath-taking.

August is perhaps what I consider to be the epitome of summer, at least in terms of food. Today marked the first Sunday farmers market of August 2011, and you could tell immediately that summer is in full swing. While the berries are winding down (unlike in the Pacific Northwest), stone fruit abound. Hot weather vegetables include zucchinis, eggplants, and tomatoes (really these are also all fruit...) start to claim real estate.

Considering the prevalence of these last fruits of the earth, it seems only reasonable that one should take this into consideration when preparing meals for the coming week (and believe me, the peaches have already been accounted for...). So here I offer you a very simple, very easy, and very delicious summer stew that takes advantage of the height of summer produce. It's scalable, storable, and takes virtually no effort.

Slow-roasted ratatouille

1 medium Italian eggplant

1 large yellow summer squash

1 large or 2 medium tomatoes

2 cloves garlic

1 sprig of fresh oregano

1 stem of fresh basil

salt to taste

olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan

1. Slice eggplant into rounds (about 1/4" thick). halve, and then place in bowl and salt. Allow to sit thirty minutes. Meanwhile, slice up squash into rounds, slice tomatoes and garlic.

2. Coat bottom of a pyrex casserole with olive oil or spray. Layer eggplant, zucchini, some garlic, and tomatoes. Salt. Place basil and oregano here. Continue with a second layer of eggplant, zucchini, garlic and tomatoes.

3. Cover casserole with lid (or foil) and bake at 325F for an hour, or until everything is really soft and the garlic literally melts in your mouth.

4. I like to add red lentils or split peas. Can serve with crusty bread or polenta. Would also be tasty adding fresh corn from the cob or caramelized onions. ENJOY!

Ricki's holding a weekly roundup of recipes. Check out other healthy summer eats at Diet, Desserts and Dogs!

Dare to Bake: Sweet Eat and Summer Bounty

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

Let's just say I took a few liberties with this month's Daring Bakers' challenge. I really did intend to make the cake and some vegan pastry creme, but the hot weather and lack of portability of said dessert (so I could take it to work) ultimately found me scrambling on the 27th to throw something together. While I enjoyed consuming the results of my labors, neither one was the "fraisier" we were challenged to make.

Instead, I took advantage of the fact that I had been bequeather a large sum of tomatoes that had been bequeathed to me at the market on Sunday. Now, many of you know that the tomatoes you find in a grocery store are good for little more than flavorless additions to a sandwich. They pale in comparison to a vine-ripened, fresh-picked fruit. A month ago, NPR's Terry Gross interviewed food writer Barry Estabrook about his new book, Tomatoland. Estabrook takes the reader on a journey through the evolution of the tomato to the modern industrialized crop bred for durability on the grocery shelves.

Without incentive to maintain flavor, farmers and breeders have essentially focused in on the appearance, transportability, and storability of the tomato. That does not make for good eatin'. But my tomatoes were ripe and bursting with tomato-y goodness. What did I do with them? I made a baked polenta and zucchini-tofu Napolean with roasted tomato and garlic sauce! mmm...

Tomato Sauce

5 large tomatoes, diced

2 large cloves garlic, sliced

drizzle of olive oil

sprinklin' of salt

dash of red wine

tossed in a bit of basil

...and placed in a covered pan at 350F for 45-60 minutes until soft and melty!

Zucchini Tofu

1 package of mori-nu firm tofu

2 zucchini sauteed with some salt and garlic powder

2 tbs nutritional yeast

sprinkle of salt and either basil or oregano

...pop in a food processor and go at it until smooth.

Assembly

some disks of polenta (can use the tubed stuff or make your own)

ramekins, greased

...layer polenta, tofu, polenta and then place in oven for about 25 minutes. Top with tomatoes!

And for dessert, no baking for me. Top and bottom made of ground almonds, dates, cocoa powder, and a little agave. The inside, pictured frozen, is a chocolate mousse made with silken tofu, melted chocolate, cocoa powder, and some stevia to sweeten. Low GI, packed with protein, and does not involve an oven!

That is all folks. Next time I promise to have a better DB post! Look out for some more chocolate and summer produce on its way.

A Dinner on the Brink of Destruction

About two weeks ago, I regaled you with the story of the Vanishing of the Bees. As if to prove this was an issue that merited my attention, another article came across my radar in March's issue of National Geographic Magazine. Through its usual array of breathtaking images, the magazine reminds us that recent declines and threats to pollinators (including bees, birds, bats, and small mammals) rock the foundation of many of our fruit and nut crops. Last time I wrote about possible causes for colony collapse disorder (CCD), particularly systematic pesticides, parasites, or a combination, but apparently the debate goes on.

Pollination 101

We're not going to dwell on the blame game of what is killing off the bees. Instead, I thought we could explore the magic that is pollination (in a very unscientific way). Plants produce pollen, contain half of a genetic makeup (essentially the equivalent to sperm). Because our leafy friends a rooted to the ground, they can't reproduce as animals. So, they rely on elements like wind or critters like insects and birds to transfer pollen from one flower to another. A pollen grain will then fertilize the ovary of its new host flower, which over time develops a seed (fetal plant?) and a fleshy exterior. This juicy fruit is your apple, peach, or plum and the seed is your almond, walnut, or cashew.

Some plants are generalist, while others seem to have been carefully designed to perfectly match a specific moth, etc. Now note, not every flower becomes a fruit; some flowers are only that, but they do need to pollen to produce seeds. Almonds, grown throughout California, are one of those crops mentioned in the article that are pollinated exclusively by honey bees. However, there are many other plant-based food items that rely on pollinators to produce fruits. Zucchini and squashes, tomatoes, and asparagus fall under this category.

The Meal

Well, I made a very precarious dish (in terms of pollinators, at least) this evening. For this month's SOS Kitchen Challenge, I barely squeaked by. Asparagus only surfaced about a week ago at the farmers market in DC, so haven't had too much time to play with it. And since I have been eating raw this week, it was not on the time of my veggie list. Then tonight, I decided to make a colorful meal of...

Zucchini Linguini Primavera alla Asparagi

1 zucchini, julienned or spiralized

1 tomato, diced

1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped

1/4 cup asparagus tops

1 tbs olive oil

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

Salt to taste

1. Toss all ingredients together and let "marinate" for about 30 minutes. Once again, it's that easy. Consume!

Hopefully, my fresh veggie (and fruit) "pasta" doesn't represent a dying breed. The NGM article wasn't too uplifting, ending on a note of imminent doom and loss (goodbye chocolate). But Claire Kremen, researcher at UC Berkeley, offers up some solutions. Many of these require a shift in our approach to agriculture - limiting pesticides, diversifying crops and surrounding vegetation, and cultivating more bee/wildlife-friendly habitat. Not another technological bandaid, staving off the larger collapse of a system, but a restructuring of the system as a whole. Now, that's something worth cultivating.

Produce of the Week and the End of Summer

I honestly don't know where August went. Maybe to the invisible DC-housing monsters that haunt me on a daily basis? As such, I will plead lack of baking paraphernalia, cookware, and well, time, as my excuse for not posting or completing last month's Daring Baker's Challenge (which I will do someday). Despite still not having settled into a place of my own, I have managed to freeze away four gallon bags of sliced peaches. If anything, this was a successful hoarding of summer's bounty.

But peaches are not our produce of the week. Pattypan squash are a variety of summer squash (as is the traditional zucchini). Native to the Americas, squash has been consumed by humans for at least 7000 years. All falling under the same species, squash have a long history as part of Native Americans' diets - along with beans and corn. If you have ever been to a farmers market in late summer, you have probably witnessed the immense varieties. Squashes tend to be quite promiscuous, their flowers being openly pollinated by bees.

Most of the dishes I make with zucchini stem from the Italian tradition. Granted, Italy's warmer temperatures and sunny skies lend themselves better to growing zucchini than most other European countries. But there is so much more to do with zukes than sautee them with some tomatoes!

Ok, here is what I uncovered (and have yet to try):

Heidi of 101 cookbooks has a slew of recipes - most of them are very un-vegan, but I liked the sound of the Vegetable Cianfotta, the Spinach and Zucchini Soup, and a Chickpea StirFry.

NY Times made my day with a Summar Farro Salad and a Zucchini Panzanella Salad.

I also really like zucchini taking an Indian twist. So, Honey and Spice's Curry recipe caught my attention. You can also just sautee up some zucchini with mustard seeds, curry powder, and onions.

Finally, Sweet Beet and Green Bean has an awesome recipe for a gluten-free, vegan zucchini pizza! Or, you can check out my concoction I brought to work:

Scrumptious Zucchini Bread

1 large patty-pan squash (about 3 cups grated)

1 1/3 -1/2 cup turbinado sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tbs starch

1 1/3 cup flour

½ cup corn meal

¼ cup oil

½ cup almond milk

2 tsps baking powder

½ tsp salt

(optional) heaping handfuls of chocolate chips

1. Whisk together sugar, oil, and milk. Incorporate zucchini fluff.

2. Add in all dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

3. Throw in some chocolate chips, if you want.

4. Split between two loaf pans (or 4 small) that are oiled and floured. Bake at 350F for 35-45 minutes, until a knife comes out clean. It will be moist, but that's what is so wonderful!

Next post (hopefully soon): The Meat of the Issue, followed by some apples.