Zucchini Week: Part Three

This past week I've been dedicating my blog to zucchini and only zucchini. I'm hoping to appease the plants I have growing in my garden so that maybe, maybe they will stop over producing and I can go back to a normal amount of zucchini again. Yeah right. The real problem was that I planted two zucchini plants and two squash plants. Since zucchini and squash are both self pollinating plants there is really no need to plant more than one of each, you know, unless you really like summer squashes.

The very first year I started gardening I made the rookie mistake of planting two zucchini  plants and two squash plants. I was up to my ears and drowning in all of it. Smart girl that I am the following year I only planted one of each and was much happier with the amount of vegetables I was hauling into my kitchen. You see, I can be taught. But for some reason, every few years I have a lapse of either judgement or memory...maybe both, and I foolishly plant two of each again. This was one of those years. 

So that is the reason why this week is dedicated to my zucchini plants. I have been apologizing to my family for the repetitiveness of our dinner. Here's a common conversation in our house right now:

"What's for dinner tonight?"

Me: "Squash."

Next night...

"What's for dinner tonight?"

Me: "Salad"

Next night...

"What's for dinner tonight?"

Me: "Oh, tonight it's different. We are having a squash salad!"

You get the idea. And I kid...a little bit. But, that pretty much has been the story in our house for the last month. The garden is dictating our meal plans. I bet my family can't wait for the Brussels sprouts!! They like Brussels sprouts, don't get me wrong, I'm just not sure they will like them every night.

When you are inundated with a crop like we have been you start looking for recipe help. There is a fabulous food community that I am a part of called food52. Any time you go to print one of my recipes it will take you there. I do this on purpose. Not because I couldn't make my recipes printable right here on my blog, but rather because it is a great site and I'm hoping you decide to take a look around, maybe even contribute yourself. So I opted to go there to search for recipes to use up all of the zucchini that I have. Here's what we've been eating...

Zucchini pancakes:

Photo taken by Sarah Shatz from food52

This is probably the one I've been making the most this summer. After years of trying to find the perfect zucchini pancake my search is over. This recipe was put on food52 by dagny a couple of years ago. These pancakes are everything I have been looking for. They are crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, and taste of zucchini, lemon, and parsley. It's like putting summer in your mouth. Warning: they are addictive. I highly recommend sour cream to spread on them. We've been eating them with a salad on the side to be able to serve them as a main course, but you could easily make them tiny and serve them as an appetizer. I don't know if they keep well in the refrigerator because they've never made it that far. The only thing I do differently is double the recipe. That way it serves my husband, my three children, and myself. You can get the recipe for these pancakes here.

Summer Squash Gratin:

Photo taken by Sarah Shatz from food52

You know you have a winning recipe when your kids are asking for seconds. That was the case with this recipe for a Summer Squash Gratin by Amanda. I suppose this could be served as a side dish, but it would steal the show. I love this gratin because even though it is super filling it isn't too rich due to the lack of cream in the recipe. It does use Gruyere cheese though so don't worry about a lack of flavor. I enjoyed it because more then half of the ingredients came straight from either my vegetable garden or my herb garden. I am planning to make this again next week to use up some more of my summer squash and zucchini. I know it says "summer squash" but I used a mixture of both my zucchini and my summer squash. Make this dish, it's really good. You can get the recipe for this dish here.

Summer Squash Couscous with Sultanas, Pistachios and Mint:

Photo taken by Sarah Shatz from food52

I have a soft spot for couscous. My oldest daughter does too because she says it was Bob Marley's favorite food. I have nothing to back up that claim. My husband does not share our enthusiasm. I am one of those people who believes that any food can be good if it is prepared properly. After all, I can get my kids to eat Brussels sprouts, and they used to make me gag as a kid. I have found that when I put a bunch of different stuff into couscous my husband is a little more open to the idea of eating it. So, when I saw  this recipe I thought I'd give it a go. And he liked it. It really is good, even better the next day. The Internet Cooking Princess nailed it on the head when she came up with this recipe. The pistachios give the right crunch, the raisins give the sweetness, and the squash and the zucchini give the right vegetable flavor. The dressing is perfect for a hot summer day and the mint gives it that cooling freshness that brings it all together. I bet it would be just as good with Israeli couscous. You can get this recipe here.

Summer Squash Salad with Mustard Mint Aioli:

Photo taken by aargersi from food52



The final recipe that I am going to recommend is this one for a summer squash salad with a mustard mint aioli by aargersi. This is such a great combination of flavors. It is another fresh, summery squash salad. This one combines the zucchini and the squash with onion, parsley, mint, feta, and pecans. It's has a really great aioli dressing to tie it all together. And then you can say "Sure, I can make an ailoi." The only thing I did differently was to lightly saute the squashes and onion. Then I let them cool before I added them to everything else. Oh, and I also cheated while making the aioli by using an electric hand mixer instead of whisking it by hand. I didn't need to feel like supermom. I served it on a bed of lettuce for a main course. You can get the recipe for this dish here.  

Those are the four recipes that I heave been repeating this summer. Hey look, they were all vegetarian :) All of them use up a good amount of zucchini and squash. There are two that I haven't tried yet that I would like to. One is for a Zucchini Lemon Cookie by KelseyTheNaptimeChef that looks really promising. The other recipe was suggested to me by my friend Mrs. A. It's for a Chocolate Zucchini Cake by Elsie on Simply Recipes. I am willing to try it strictly because she is an amazing cook and I trust her judgement. The picture does look divine though.

Hopefully I have shared some recipes that have peaked your interest. I'm always getting asked for good vegetable recipes by my mama friends so this is a good roundup for zucchini. Now I'm off to finish packing. We're headed to visit my in laws for the weekend and to take the kiddos to the beach. Have a great weekend!

Zucchini Week: Part Two

I have fond memories of visiting both of my grandparents when I was a little girl. I have a lot of good memories. When I see and hear about grandparents that choose not to be involved with their grandchildren it makes me sad. They are really missing out.

One of the things I remember about the visits to my grandparent's houses were their gardens. There was nothing I wanted to do more than hang around my grandfather's heels while they tended their gardens. I loved finding frogs and putting them in my front overalls pocket (Yes, I was a total tomboy). I would disappear into the backyard while dinner was being prepared and stuff myself full of raspberries. Dinners were simple, a meat and some veggies from the garden. Maybe some cookies for dessert or a walk to get some ice cream. 

 Now that I am grown up and cooking for a family of my own I can look back and see that neither of my grandmothers were adventurous with their cooking. But they were good at what they did. Those staple foods I always ate when I went to their homes are still strong in my memory and I find myself referencing them a lot. Especially in the summers.

One of the things I always ate at my grandmother Frederick's house was her cole slaw. It was just what you wanted cole slaw to be; crisp, creamy, and sweet. It was one of the first family recipes I made on my own for my family. Cole slaw is an easy recipe to play with too. So when I was inside trying to forget the fact that zucchini was over-running my garden I decided to yield and try something new with that old family favorite. You can see where this is going now can't you?

Zucchini Cole Slaw

(Serves 4)

Ingredients for dressing:

• 2 Tbs. of miracle whip
• 1 tsp. of sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp. of apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp. of yellow mustard
• 2 Tbs. of milk

Directions:

1. Put all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Whisk to combine. It will look a little curdled, but it will smooth out. You want it to have the consistency of thick cream. If it is too thick add a little more milk to thin it out.

Ingredients for Slaw:

• 2 cups of zucchini; shredded
• 1 carrot; shredded
• 1 medium bulb of fennel; shredded
• 2 Tbs. raisins
• 1/4 cup of pineapple; diced (fresh is best but canned works fine)

Directions:

1. Combine all of the vegetables and fruit into a bowl. Add the dressing. Fold everything together.
2. Place in refrigerator until ready to serve. It is good right away if you're in a pinch but it's better after an hour of sitting in the refrigerator.

*Get a printable version of this recipe here.



When it comes to eating zucchini raw, my general rule of thumb is "no thanks", but I really like this slaw a lot. It is everything my grandmother's was with the same dressing but with a new group of vegetables to join the party.  Slaw is good for the summer. Bring it to a picnic or a backyard barbecue and you can be sure it will disappear. But maybe you might want to try it in something else.

This past weekend I was perusing some recipes I had saved in my favorites folder and I decided to try this hamburger recipe I had bookmarked. It was called The New Englandah Burgah, made up by Chef Jason. You can get the recipe here. It absolutely represents New England with the maple syrup in the burger (Yes, IN the burger), grilled apples, bacon and cheese. Yum. You should make it, you really should. It got me thinking what my regional burger would be. Slap dab in the middle of Pennsylvania, surrounded by farms, with the Amish not very far away., what would our burger look like? We talked it over while devouring our New Englandah Burgah's and came up with:

The Pennsylvania Dutch Burger

(Serves four)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. of ground beef
• 1/4 of a small sweet onion; chopped finely
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper; freshly ground
• 4 slices of bacon
• 4 slices of Swiss cheese
• Zucchini slaw
• Mustard ( I used a homemade mustard but you can use whatever your favorite is)
• 4 Pretzel rolls; halved and with a part of the insides picked out to make room for the burger and toppings. (If you don't want to make these, or can't get them anywhere, you could...in a pinch... hand your head in sorrow and use a potato roll. But, it won't be as good, and you will be missing out. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'. I used the recipe on STRESSCAKE by Kathy. You can get the recipe here. It's worth the trouble. OK, I'll let it go now.)

Directions:

1. Get your grill going. Get it going hot, you are going to be making some burgers here.
2. In a medium bowl mix the ground beef, onion, salt and pepper. Form the mixture into 4 patties and set aside. Note: If you make a well in the center of your burger when you are forming the patty it will grill up to be a nice flat burger instead of a poofy hockey puck.
3. Cook the bacon until crisp in a skillet. Set the bacon aside on a paper towel lined plate.
4. Grill your burgers to your preference. I grill 4 minutes on the first side, then I flip the burgers and cook them on the second side for 3 minutes. Once the burgers have cooked for the 3 minutes I put the bacon and then the cheese on top of the burger. I let them cook for an additional minute until the cheese is melted. Remove the burgers from the grill.

*Get a printable version of this recipe here.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you how good this burger is. You just need to make it to find out. I think the picture speaks for itself.

Zucchini Week: Part One

I know God has a sense of humor. If you have any doubts you should come and check out my garden...soon to be re-named my zucchini patch. In case you missed it , in the beginning of the summer some starlings made off with half of the baby plants that I had slaved over for months in my basement getting them big enough and strong enough to move outside at just the right time. Initially I had hesitated to replant straight from seed out in my garden, I wasn't sure there would be enough time to get them going. In the end I did direct sow some seeds in the garden and covered them with milk gallon jugs with the bottoms cut off to give them a sort off a greenhouse effect. After all, what did I have to lose? The squash and the zucchini took off. Now almost two months later I have lost the rows I used to walk down to the squash and zucchini that is now spreading over and saying hello to the vegetables in the parallel beds. I'm just not sure all of those other vegetables were planning on having visitors.

At first it was all good. I have collected all different kinds of recipes for squash and zucchini. I was quite content to can it, bake it, grill it, and saute it. I was keeping up with the influx. But then the inevitable happened. In the middle of the night there came a banging on my back door. Crap...It was the zucchini, they wanted to come in. Like a garden thug they had taken over and were bullying my other plants. I've never had squash and zucchini like this. Taller then my waist and spreading wide, with yellow flowers everywhere. There is a catch 22 in gardening. You want to pick the zucchini when they are small. But maybe you aren't quite ready for it. So you wait a day or two. All of a sudden that cute little vegetable has grown to the size of your arm and that recipe you had won't quite cover that amount of zucchini you now are in possession of. Plus, once you cut it...more will grow. That's just plain rude if you ask me.

In honor of my excessive zucchini plants I am going to dedicate a week to just them. Just them and nothing else. So if you are up to your ears in zucchini and not even your neighborhood can consume it all, this weeks posts might give you some new ways to go through it. 

The first two entries in my week of zucchini are going to give you two recipes that I came up with this summer to give a new twist to some classics. The last post will be a roundup of other peoples recipes that I am in love with and are my "go to recipes" when summer squash season comes rolling in.

I think one of my favorite things when it comes to zucchini is a lot of other peoples favorite too...Zucchini bread. It's sweet, moist, and one of the few things I will happily turn my oven on for even on the hottest of days. Besides the taste, zucchini bread does another wonderful thing, it freezes well. So you get to stash a loaf in the freezer for a later date and not feel the need to hoard the one loaf  being devoured on the counter.

However, sometimes...I find myself wanting it to be a little different. The cinnamon version is wonderful, and I'll always make it, but I was looking at that slice on my plate a couple of weeks ago and wondering what other flavors I could put in there. Don't say chocolate. Go ahead and make a chocolate zucchini cake if you want to, but don't make chocolate zucchini bread...that's just not right. It's like zucchini trying to be something it's not. My favorite zucchini bread recipe is one I found on Smitten Kitchen. It is the moist, flavorful zucchini bread you are craving when you go to make a couple of loaves. You can get that recipe here. Inspired by that recipe, I was looking out my kitchen window into my herb garden and I saw my rosemary plant. Now there's a thought. So I thought a little more and came up with this:

My New Favorite Zucchini Bread

Inspired by Smitten Kitchen

(Makes 2 loaves)





 Ingredients:

• 3 Large eggs
• 1/2 cup of plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 1 3/4 cup of sugar
• 2 cups of zucchini; shredded
• 2 tsp. fresh rosemary; finely minced
• Zest of one orange (I used a navel orange)
• Juice from 1/2 of the orange
• 3 cups of flour
• 1 tsp. of baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. of baking powder
• 1 tsp. of salt
• 1 cup of toasted pecans; chopped ( Or pine nuts if you can swing that)

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease two loaf pans and set them aside.
2. In a large bowl beat the eggs. Mix in the yogurt, oil, and sugar. Then mix in the shredded zucchini, rosemary, orange zest, and orange juice. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and toasted nuts.
4. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
5. Once the batter is well combined divide it evenly between the two loaf pans.
6. Bake the loaves for one hour, give or take a few minutes, until a tester inserted comes out clean. My loaves took exactly one hour and were perfect.
7. Remove the loaves from the oven and allow them to cool for 10 minutes inside the loaf pan before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

*Get a printable version of this recipe here.

Your kitchen will smell like sweet oranges as the bread is baking. The bread itself has just a background note of rosemary. It's there, but you taste it after the orange. The loaves themselves are lighter in appearance compared to the traditional zucchini bread due to the lack of cinnamon. This makes those little flecks of green from the zucchini bread really stand out visually. The pecans add the right amount of texture. I am in love this zucchini bread recipe. It's just what I need on a hot summer day.

Jaboticaba Amongst Friends

I've been meaning to write this post for awhile now, but you know how it goes, life, blah blah blah. I actually had to put up a piece of paper on my refrigerator so I wouldn't forget to write about all these little tid bits.

At the beginning of the summer, or maybe it was even somewhere in spring one of my old friends (we will call her Ms. Y) posted this picture on facebook.

Ms. Y's Jaboticaba tree.



She lives way yonder in Hawaii and was showing off some of the edibles growing on her property. Another old friend (who we will call Mrs. A) and myself immediately started hounding her, asking what that was. Apparently it is a Joabticaba tree, one of those tropical beauties that you can only dream of here in the Northeast. The fruit is colored and shaped like a grape but is probably about 2-3 times the size. I found this website which gives a good overview of the Jaboticaba plant  She also posted  a picture with her daughter holding one so we could reference the size, but I won't share that one here since her adorable chubby face was in it. You know how it goes, safety first.

A closer look at Ms. Y's Jaboticaba fruit.

Mrs. A and myself started running around the Internet looking up information and recipes in the hopes that we could convince Ms. Y to send us some of her Jaboticaba fruit. There were lots of recipes for Jaboticaba jelly, which is, let's face it, just fun to say. The only thing was that Ms. Y had never canned anything before and Hawaii is a little far to take a trip to do it with her for her first time...sigh... However, Ms. Y is a good sport and she decided to take the canning leap and try it out on her own. Mrs. A and I gave her some tips and she set out to make her first batch of jelly.

The ripened fruit.

She gathered all the ripe berries (yum) and got them boiling in a big pot to release all their juicy goodness.

Ms. Y's first attempt at making jelly.

When Ms. Y was done she had produced a fine batch of Jaboticaba syrup. I know, it was supposed to be jelly but it was her first time, give the mama a break. My first batch of jelly turned out the same way years ago when I first started canning. Ms. Y was not to be deterred though so she canned the syrup and the second time around she did in fact produce a jelly. Mrs. A and I were cheering with our pom poms here on the East coast.

I pulled out a couple of jars from my pantry of goods I had made, to send to her to make it a fair trade. Let's face it, Hawaii is fabulous but we still have a few things here in the continental USA that Ms. Y doesn't get over there. Then I put on my "patient" face and waited the couple of weeks that it takes to get a package all-the-way from Hawaii.

Finally the package arrived. Inside were two jars. One with the syrup and one with the jelly. I popped open the jelly right away to get my first taste.  If I was going to compare it to some taste I've had before I'd say that Jaboticaba fruit tastes somewhere between an blackberry and a cranberry. I used the jelly on toast and Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches. I used the syrup to mix in with yogurt and stir into some sparkling water for a homemade soda. It's really good and I highly recommend making friends with someone in Hawaii or some other tropical place where it grows so you can have some.

On the off chance that you don't know anyone in a tropical place I came up with a good mock-jaboticaba syrup. It's not a dead ringer for the taste and I wouldn't want it to be, but it does taste a lot like it and is a good Northeast substitute.

Blackberry Cranberry Syrup

(Makes 1 half pint)

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of blackberries
• 2 cups of cranberries
• 3/4 cup of sugar

Directions:

1. Combine the berries and the sugar in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
2. Once the berry mixture has come to a boil reduce the heat to low and simmer the berry mixture for 10 minutes; until the cranberries have split. Using a wooden spoon smoosh all the berries into a pulp to release all the juices.
3. Strain the mixture into a clean container and refrigerate until ready to use. This is not safe for canning as it is written. It will keep for a couple of weeks in your refrigerator though.

The top spoon is the Blackberry Cranberry Syrup. The bottom spoon is the Jaboticaba Syrup. The Blackberry Cranberry Syrup is slightly thicker, this is due to the high pectin levels in cranberries. But both work well for homemade soda.

Mock Jaboticaba Pop

(Serves one)

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. of seltzer water
• Blackberry and Cranberry syrup
• Ice

Directions:

1. In the bottom of a glass spoon in 2-3 tablespoons of the blackberry cranberry syrup. Add in the seltzer.
2. Stir the two to combine them. Toss in a couple of ice cubes and serve.

*Get a printable version of both recipes here.

This mock Jaboticaba will hold me over until I get another batch of the real deal from Ms. Y. I have lots of canned goodies to trade so I don't think it will take much pleading. It's a very refreshing drink either way.

Taking on the Lunch Lady

The time has come for another entry in the Charcutepalooza year of meat. For July we were tasked with blending meat. This meant making bratwurst, weisswurt, hot dogs, or mortadella. Since the beginning of this year I had been hoping that we would challenged to do hot dogs for the 4th of July. I had been working on recipes for months in my head, mixing childhood favorites with grown up twists. I was ready. I was excited, like, "WOO HOO!" excited when I saw that it was the challenge for July.

Then a strange thing happened. I was reading over Mrs. Wheelbarrow's blog entry for July and I saw her mortadella. Mortadella is basically (coughing into hand and clearing my throat) bologna. But it's the kind of bologna that could take Oscar Meyer outside and rough him up a bit for ever making his bologna what the general public here in America accepts as being  the standard for bologna. So, I was reading Mrs. Wheelbarrow's blog, and I saw that she had made her mortadella in a beef bung. A what???? Her exact words were that "...it was a casing with an opening on only one end? I’ll leave it up to you to do the research." I have a morbid curiosity at times and so I began to research what a beef bung was. Let's just say that I did find out roughly what it was and then I stopped because I have officially decided that sometimes ignorance truly is bliss. I was grossed out enough. However, for the next several days, my mind kept drifting back to mortadella. I wanted to make it. It was one of those things I wanted to be able to say I had done just once. In Ruhlman's book, Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing he had mentioned that you could cook the mortadella in plastic wrap. But, I had an itch to do it the traditional way. So, out the window went homemade hot dogs for now and in the front door walked my beef bung.

I tried to see if my butcher could get me a fresh bung, but alas the time had finally come when he was not able to attain what I needed.  He was able to provide the pork and the back fat for me though, so I was a happy camper. This is where my post this month turns into a love story. Not one between my butcher and myself, certainly not between the beef bung and myself *shivers*, but rather between my husband and I. You see he did something wonderful that Friday. He gave me the day off from being a mom so that I could have the house to myself and make the mortadella. He had offered to help make it during the kiddos nap time but I told him that I would never ask him to handle my bung. A husband should never have to do that for his wife. You see, it's already a love story.

So there I was, with the house all to myself, grateful that I didn't have Naiya there to question what organ I was stuffing my meat into now.  I was more nervous this time more than any other challenge, because I knew that if I didn't do it just right, there was a chance that I was just going to lose everything. This was a tricky process that had to be constantly monitored, and I was remiss to give the dogs three pounds of ruined mortadella (much to their dismay).  But in the end, after a few hours, I managed to make a perfect batch of mortadella.  I do have to say, there was a smell to the bung, and it lingered in the kitchen to the point where I had to burn a candle to eradicate the foul smell.

But it's pretty amazing right??

And then, after all the work I had put in, I realized that essentially what I had done was make three pounds of lunch meat.  Which we really don't eat that often.  And what was I going to do with three pounds of lunch meat??  With all the other challenges, I had recipes in mind when I set out to make the meat.  This was the reverse.  I had set out making the meat because I was intrigued by the process, and I had absolutely no idea to do with it all when I was done.  Luckily, it takes three days for the meat to marry its flavors, so I had some time to think.  I came up with four ideas, all of which came out really well. 

 The first thing I did was make an anti pasta platter for dinner.  I also served it with gapes and sweet rosemary buttermilk biscuits

Then there was the obvious: make bologna sandwiches for lunch.  Of course in this house, that includes homemade bread, homemade mustard, homegrown lettuce, and now, apparently, homemade lunch meat.  (Take THAT lunch ladies!)  I guess sometimes it's the simple things that matter, because my husband totally caught the drift that he was getting a completely homemade sandwich.

Then, I started getting a little more creative.  One of the things I noticed when I was looking online was that the majority of recipes that use mortadella were for a muffaletta sandwich.  It's a New Orleans signature sandwich, and is essentially a frisbee sized sandwich a few inches thick... for two.  Even in my hungriest of dreams, I couldn't imagine consuming that much food in one sitting.  But looking out my back window into my garden at the nearly knee-high lettuce plants, an idea struck me.  Instead of a sandwich, how about a salad?  So I took all of the ingredients for a muffaletta sandwich, and adapted them into...

Muffaletta Salad

Inspired by the muffaletta sandwich at roadfood.com

(Serves 4)

 Ingredients:

 Dressing:

• 1/2 cup green olives; finely minced
• 1 Tbs. fresh oregano; minced
• 2 Tbs. red wine vinegar
• 2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
• 2 tsp garlic; finely minced
• Pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup olive oil

 Croutons:

• 4 slices of bread (1 per person)
• 1 garlic clove; minced
• 2 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 Tbs. fresh oregano; minced
• Salt and pepper to taste

Salad:

• 2 large handfuls of lettuce per person
• 1/4 lb. thinly sliced genoa salami
• 1/4 lb. thinly sliced Italian ham
• 1/4 lb. cubed mortadella
• 1/4 lb. thinly sliced provolone cheese

Directions:

1. Combine all salad dressing ingredients in a pint mason jar.  Shake well to infuse.  Set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. In a small saute pan, heat olive oil with minced garlic clove over low heat until oil is infused with garlic.  Set oil aside.
4. Cut slices of bread into 1/2 inch cubes.  Toss with garlic oil and fresh oregano.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Spread croutons on a greased baking sheet and bake until the croutons are dry and crispy, about 15 to 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes.
6. Once croutons are dry, pull out of oven and set aside.
7. To assemble the salad, lay down one or two handfuls of lettuce per person, then top the salad with the salami, ham, mortadella, provolone cheese, and the croutons.
8. Drizzle the top of the salad with the olive dressing.

*Get a printable version of this recipe here.

This is a dinner salad.  Meaning, it's the main course.  The dressing is thick but mimics the olive salad that is traditionally served with the muffaletta sandwich.  "Ok, so how about hahahahahahahhahahha hee hee. Ohhh.  Hahahahha. Ohh. Umm.  Hahahahha. Ok, now you're just having fun.  Ohh.  It was good though, It was, the olives helped out, and gave it a nice richness to the salad, and made it filling.  Now you're just having fun.  Alright next p..."

***You just raised your eye brows didn't you? That will all make sense at the end, I promise. Remember, it's a love story. 

The other thing that I came up with to do with the mortadella was a drink/appetizer.  Or.... a "drinkatizer" or even an "appertini."  (We have yet to come up with a good name for it.  It's new, what can you do?)  Where I started was with the anti pasta platter idea.  But that's been done before.  So I wanted to come up with something new.  So I started thinking appetizers, and skewering things.  Mortadella and cheese was an easy fit.  When I made the sandwiches, my husband mentioned that he thought sharp cheddar cheese would have gone really well with it.  So mortadella skewered with sharp cheddar.  It needed something more.  Something green.  It didn't take long for me to think of olives.  And what goes better with a green olive, than a dirty martini?  That train of thought led me to...

The Dirty Mortadella

via Johnnie Martini <- Read this because it's hilarious

(Serves 1)

Ingredients:

• A handful of ice
• 3 oz. Gin (Or Vodka if you just can't stomach the thought of Gin)
• 1/2 oz. of olive brine (This is not in his recipe but I like it in there)
• 1 tsp. Vermouth
• 1/2 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 oz. Mortadella; cubed
• 1 oz. Sharp cheddar cheese; cubed
• 3-4 green olives

Directions:

1. Put your martini glass in the freezer. Then heat the olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Brown the mortadella a little on all sides. Once it's browned, remove it from the heat and set aside.
2. On a wooden skewer alternate between the mortadella, the cheese, and the olives until the skewer is full. Set aside.
3. In a shaker put the handful of ice, the Gin, and the olive brine. Shake it gently until the liquid is cold.
4. Retrieve the martini glass from the freezer. Put the Vermouth in the glass and swirl it around to coat the glass. Once the inside of the glass is coated dump out the remaining Vermouth. Shake the glass until as much of the vermouth has been removed as possible. You only want a hint of it in the drink.
5. Pour the martini into the glass and top with your mortadella skewer.

When I first pulled out the martini glasses Naiya was there looking at me quizzically, "What are those for?". When I told her it was for the mortadella I think she questioned my sanity. Then I realized that she was thinking I was going to puree the mortadella and put in in the drink. Ewww! No, no sweetie, mommy's not that far off her rocker just yet.

I have to say that I am not the girl who is ordering a classic martini when I'm out at a bar. If I get a martini it's more likely to be of the vodka variety and flavored in some really cool way. But, with that said, this was alright. The mortadella skewer acted like the lime and salt do for a good shot of tequila. A chaser of sorts. I also really like the mortadella browned and a little crispy. Maybe it just makes me feel like I'm not just scarfing down cubes of lunch meat like some deranged teenager.

This is normally where I would have ended this post but there is a bit more to this story left to go. Last night I was supposed to put this post together. You see these Charcutepalooza entries have to be put out on the 15th of the month to count. I like going to bed knowing that all I have to do is wake up and post it. Well yesterday afternoon I was canning some dill pickles when I did a stupid thing. I burned my hand with the brine when I was ladling it into the jars. I burned it and then there was no dinner, no post, no anything except for a small frozen water bottle held tightly in my hand. Oh, and me silently cursing my own stupidity. In the door walked my husband from work. We opted to go out to dinner since he was tired and dinner wouldn't be until too late for the little ones if he went in and made it. When we got back home and everyone with an early bedtime was all tucked in, I went and got myself a glass of wine and started to type out this post one handed. Enter my husband on his white horse with a beer in his hand. That's my kind of knight in shinning armour. "Move over baby, I'll type this for you. You just sit there and tell me what to type". He really is amazing. And he has his fun like that "craziness" up above that made you raise an eyebrow at me. He's a fast typer so he can fit in all those little gems while still keeping up with my current train of thought. So truly the mortadella this month was able to come together due to my husbands love for me. You see? I told you it was a love story.

-The End-

Sour Cherry Chai Butter

This is my sour cherry tree. We panted it this past spring. As of now it only stands about 5 1/2 feet tall, but one day it will stretch it's limbs and give us a crop of sour cherries every July. Until then I will continue to go to one of our local Farmer's markets and buy locally grown sour cherries.

This has been a tradition for somewhere around 5 years now. Every year when the sour cherries come in season I go out and get 3-5 quarts of them. I come home and spend an extraordinary amount of time pitting all of the cherries. Then I turn 6 cups of those cherries into a sour cherry pie. I found this recipe on Epicurious and I have yet to find one that's better. And by that I mean we loved it so much I never bothered trying any others. Sometimes that's how it goes, you get lucky and strike gold the first time. Who am I to question the pie?

That's the love

My exact comment on the print out is "So, so much work. But worth every minute...at least once a year." And that is exactly how many times a year I make it...once. Cherry pie is one of the few desserts that I make,  just because. Just because I love my family. Just because it's that good. You get the picture.

After the cherry pie is made I still have at least 6 more cups of cherries, and sometimes more depending on how many quarts I picked up. Some years we have made Cherry Garcia ice cream, which I love on with a big fat spoon. Also, for the past 2 (?) years I have made what I think is my hands down favorite jam, Sour Cherry Rhubarb jam. It was one of those happy culinary accidents that happened one summer when my rhubarb plant was being particularly overachieving and I was throwing it into everything I could. But I'm not here to talk about sour cherry rhubarb jam.

This year when my family picked 10 lbs. of blueberries, I used the last several cups to make some blueberry syrup with the juice and some blueberry butter with the pulp. I am a total fan of using every last bit of something so it was a perfect recipe for me. And it got me thinking of other berries that I could do something similar with. Well sour cherries were on my list for the upcoming week so I decided that I would give that a try. But then I had a little thought of combining sour cherries with chai flavors. I could almost taste it.

I have a favorite chai recipe that I use from Art & Lemons. You can check out the recipe here. It's the only one I use now. Mixing up your own batch of chai on a cold winter morning is just about the most wonderful thing to do when you are stuck indoors. So I adapted the syrup/butter recipe from Ball's Complete Book Of Home Preserving with Art & Lemons Chai recipe and I came up with:

Sour Cherry Chai Butter

Adapted from Ball Complete Book Of Home Preserving and Art & Lemons

(Makes 2-3 half pints)

Ingredients:

• 6 cups of sour cherries, rinsed, destemmed, and pitted
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 3 cups sugar
• Grated zest from 1 lemon
• 1 Cinnamon stick
• 8 cardamom pods; crushed
• 2 whole star anise
• 1/2 tsp. whole cloves
• 2 inch piece of ginger; thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp. whole black peppercorns

Directions:

(These are almost word for word from the Ball canning book, with the exception of my alterations)

1. In a stainless steel saucepan, combine the cherries with the water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring and crushing the mixture with a potato masher. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.
2. Transfer cherries to a dampened jelly bag or a strainer lined with several layers of cheesecloth set over a deep bowl. Let drip until 2 1/2 cups of juice has been collected, adding water if necessary to yield the required quantity. Set juice aside to make syrup, add it to some sparkling water, or a shrub would be good too. Puree remaining pulp and juice in a blender or a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Set puree aside.
3. Prepare canner, jars and lids.
4. In a piece of cheesecloth combine the crushed cardamom pods, star anise, cloves, sliced ginger, and black peppercorns. Tie into a loose bundle and set aside.
5. In a clean large stainless steel saucepan, combine the sour cherry puree, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, cinnamon stick, and spice bundle. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium and boil, stirring frequently, until mixture thickens and holds it's shape on a spoon.
6. Ladle hot butter into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Remove air bubbles and adjust head space, if necessary, by adding hot butter. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
7. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

*Get a printable version of this recipe here.

There it sits in a pint jar in my pantry, squeezed between blueberry butter and sour cherry syrup. I have to say that I really like this combination of flavors. The first thing you taste is the chai and then the cherry follows with it's natural tartness. My husband thinks it would be great around Christmas time, which works for me since that's probably about when I'll crack that jar open. If you like chai you will like this butter. And I now have a new sour cherry recipe to add to my arsenal.

10 Pounds of Blueberries

Last Friday my family went blueberry picking. Besides getting a great price...like, $2.50 a lb. great... My kids got to see where blueberries come from. We do have two small blueberry bushes that we planted on our property this year, but it will be years before they are as big and bursting with blueberry goodness like this farm had. So it was nice to let them pick their own and get a feel for what real food is like when it's at it's peak.

Everyone developed their own technique. Jude needed reminding as to which blueberries we wanted in our buckets, but he's not even 2 yet, so he'll learn.  There were rows and rows of blueberries.

We were there for an hour. It was blueberrytastic. It was a blueberrypalooza. And those buckets they gave us looked so small.

I know they told us that each bucket held 5 lbs. but I'm  more of a cup and quart kind of a girl. It's hard for me to picture how much 5lbs. of blueberries really is.

When we were done we lifted our filled buckets onto the scales. We had picked just shy of 10 lbs. of blueberries. Then I transferred them to my containers. Apparently 10 lbs. of blueberries is a lot...who knew? We had something like 40 cups of blueberries...that's like 10 quarts. A bit more blueberry than I had bargained for. But what can you do?

Well we had a few ideas. It took us almost a week but we got through all of them. This is what we did...


Day One: Blueberry pancakes

This was an obvious first choice. Namely because making pancakes is a weekly occurrence in our house. It's my husbands way of bonding with the kids in the kitchen. Pancake day. Every Saturday morning they all have their part and I get to sit back and adore all of them while they are working together to make breakfast. I guess my job in all of it is to swoon.


Day Three: Blueberry Rhubarb Jam

This is a jam I make every year. My in laws gave us a rhubarb plant from their garden when my husband and I got married. It means a lot to my husband because it is from one of the plants that his parents have kept growing since he was a kid. Every year his mom would make him a rhubarb pie for his birthday from that plant. So it has sentimental value. Besides the nostalgia it gives it also provides three crops of rhubarb every season. One in the spring, then again in the middle of summer, and once more in the fall. I have, shall we say, an "abundance" of rhubarb recipes at my disposal to help use up the overabundance of rhubarb that is marching in my back door during the warmer months of the year. I started using it in jams to stretch those costly berries and I have had great results doing so. I got the recipe I use here.  It makes a good deal of jam. I usually get between 8-9 half pints. This time it was 9 and I got to give one to a friend when we went to their house for a 4th of July picnic.

Day Four: Blueberry Ice Cream

Honestly I'm not a huge fan of the fruit varieties when it comes to ice creams. That is unless we are making them at home. Fresh fruit ice cream at the peak of it's season...well there is no store bought ice cream that can compare to that. A few years ago I came across a Ben and Jerry's ice cream recipe book, I got it for my husband one year for Christmas. It has a lot of their popular flavors as well as some specialty ice creams that don't mass produce well so they gave the recipes for smaller batches in this book. We love the strawberry ice cream recipe in the book, so we just adapted it for blueberries, and viola! We ended up with a very generous quart of fresh blueberry ice cream.


Day Five: Blueberry Pie Filling

At this point, believe it or not,  I was still staring at a mountain of blueberries in the fridge, even with all of the snacking we had been doing in between all the cooking. I was thinking of making a blueberry pie, except that I was already planning our annual sour cherry pie because those are in peak season right now too. Plus My one of my friends had just let us pick wild raspberries on his and his wife's property and given us a bunch of eggs from their chickens, which I had made a sort of a pie with. I'm not the kind of mom to be shoveling sweets down my family's throat. I think of dessert as a once in a while sort of thing. I will make a dessert at most once a month and usually less then that. Then I came across this recipe online on canning blueberry pie filling from the naptime chef. You see there is always a solution to a problem if you look hard enough. This way I get to save freezer space and still have blueberry pie at some point in the dead of winter when all I can see is white and I'm dreaming of warmer days. The recipe is supposed to make 2 quarts, enough for two pies. I cut the recipe in half so I could make one more thing with the blueberries after the pie filling.



Day Six: Blueberry Syrup and Blueberry Butter

That one more thing I wanted to make I had seen in my Ball canning book. It's a recipe that yields two products. I'm a big fan of multi-tasking and getting a syrup and a butter from the same batch of blueberries was a win win for me. With that recipe I got 3 jars of syrup and 1 3/4 jars of butter.

When all was cooked and done and every berry was consumed or processed in some way or another we had 9 jars of blueberry rhubarb jam, a very generous quart of blueberry ice cream, 1 jar of pie filling, 3 jars of syrup, 1 3/4 jars of butter, plus the pancakes we had eaten, berries we had snacked on, and a partridge in a pear tree. And that is how to use up 10 pounds of blueberries.

Raspberry Love

This past weekend a friend messaged me on facebook to ask me if I wanted to come over and pick some wild raspberries growing up the hill on his and his wife's property. Well, you don't have to ask me twice. My family was already headed down that way to go to a 4th of July picnic so we just left a little earlier to pick raspberries and hang out.

Their house was built by a woodworker/artist so it's pretty cool. The guy that built it put in all kinds of unique features like a floor that had cut up jeans sealed in it. Another one of my favorite features was one of the cabinet doors in the kitchen. He had done all the cabinetry himself and had gotten a piece of maple that had tap holes in it from people making maple syrup. So the tap holes were visible in this one cabinet door. Too cool.

Besides all the wild raspberries on the property my friend and his wife also raise chickens. They have a nice piece of land so they let them free range for most of the day. They were generous enough to give my family 2 dozen eggs before we left.  That night after I had tucked the eggs and the raspberries into the fridge I snuggled under my covers and dreamt of all the good foods I could make.

Years ago...we don't talk about how many years, I got a recipe from my oldest daughters "Georgia Anma" for a raspberry meringue. It's name is misleading because when you hear it you are probably going to think of raspberry meringue cookies. Do not allow yourself to be mislead. What this dessert really is, is a meringue crust topped with a raspberry whipped cream. It's like a light, fluffy pie. It's delicious. I find myself turning to that recipe every coupe of years, usually on a hot summer day when I want a refreshing dessert to take the edge off.

What a coincidence that I had just been gifted with fresh wild raspberries and eggs. I don't think I can showcase the ingredients in a better way than this dessert. The only things I changed from Georgia Anma's original recipe was the meringue crust and the size. Her recipe calls for a plain meringue, I changed it to a chocolate meringue. I also halved the recipe for my family so that it would disappear in one sitting. It doesn't keep well into the next day.

I have yet to be able to come up with a proper name for this recipe that isn't too long winded. If you have one please leave it in the comments section for me and I'll happily change it to a better one to suit the dessert.

 Raspberry whipped cream Chocolate Meringue Pie

Adapted from Georgia Anma

(Serves four)

Chocolate Meringue:

Ingredients:

• 2 egg whites; room temperature
• 1/2 tsp. of vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp. of cream of tartar
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 1/2 Tbs. of cocoa powder

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 225 degrees. Grease a 4 inch cake pan; set aside.
2. Beat egg whites until foamy. After they are foamy add in the vanilla, and the cream of tartar.
3. Continue to beat the egg whites. While you are beating add in the sugar a little at a time until stiff peaks form.
4. Once the meringue will hold a stiff peak, gently fold in the cocoa powder.
5. Swirl the chocolate meringue to form a bowl shape inside the cake pan.
6. Bake for about an hour (Mine took 1 hour and 15 minutes) until the meringue feels dry and sounds hollow. Set it aside to cool.

Raspberry Whipped Cream:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of heavy whipping cream
• 2 Tbs. of sugar
• 1/2 tsp. of vanilla extract
• 2 pints of fresh raspberries; mashed in a bowl until pulpy
• extra raspberries for garnish (optional)

Directions:

1. Whip the cream with the sugar and the vanilla until stiff peaks form.
2. Fold in the mashed raspberries until they're fully Incorporated.
3. Once the chocolate meringue is cool, spoon the raspberry whipped cream into the meringue "crust".
4. Garnish with raspberries. Serve immediately or chill until serving time.

*Get a printable version of this recipe here.

Note: This recipe can easily be doubled. All you need to do is change from a 4 inch cake pan to a 9 inch pie plate and double the recipe. You can also use a package of frozen raspberries that have been thawed and drained if fresh ones are out of season.


The star of the dessert is the raspberries. They make the whipped cream just tart enough so that you keep wanting that one last bite. But the chocolate is there, lingering in the background, flirting with your taste buds. The meringue is crunchy on the surface but soft and chewy on the inside like a brownie. The raspberry whipped cream is soft and cool. It's light enough for a summer dessert but decadent enough to end the meal on a satisfying note.