Cheesy Broccoli Pizza with Mascarpone

The classic combination of broccoli and cheese--in pizza form! With a creamy layer of mascarpone cheese on the crust, this pizza lets the beloved flavors of broccoli and cheddar shine through.

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On Friday nights I make at least two pizzas. One is usually a vegetable-topped vegetarian pizza for my spouse, the other is something I know the kids will eat. Rarely do I make a pizza exactly the way I want it [but when I do, it's My Deployment Pizza--why is it that I'm comfortable putting my wants last?] however I generally like every pizza I make. I'd better like it, since we have pizza weekly!


I'm always looking for ways to incorporate vegetables into our meals, partly because I want to use up the contents of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box and partly because vegetables taste good and are good for you. No nutritional advice I've ever seen tells you to cut back on carrots or celery, you know? So it seems to me that increasing the amount of vegetables in my family's diet is a worthwhile goal.

Broccoli is a pretty tame vegetable pizza topping from my perspective, but I realize I'm kinda out there. Honestly, if you're making pizza every week and you have vegetables to use up, you'd be kinda out there too. I think broccoli is a good bridge between fresh tomatoes like my Tomato Basil Pizza and shaved kohlrabi like my Shaved Kohlrabi with Meat (or No Meat) Pizza. Last year I put up a large amount of chopped broccoli (blanched, then frozen) for use throughout the off season. It's one of the ways I feed my family from the farm share year round.

Tuna Broccoli Casserole with Potato Chip Topping

Full of broccoli and tuna, with a creamy sauce and the crunch of potato chips, this noodle-less tuna casserole is a family-friendly 5 ingredient dinner ready in under 30 minutes.

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This is the tuna casserole of my youth. Other folks grew up on Tuna Noodle. Not us. My mom left the pasta for other dishes and fed us this simple 5 ingredient dinner.

After years of fixing my spouse's favorite Tuna Noodle Casserole, from his mom's recipe, I realized how much I missed the one I grew up with--so I made it for my kids. It's important not to lose sight of your childhood favorites when you join your life with someone else.

I'm using locally grown broccoli from my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share in my version. Growing up, mom always used boxes of broccoli spears and arranged them across the bottom of the dish with the 'tree tops' to the outside of the dish and the 'tree trunks' in a line down the middle of a 9x13 inch pan.

The combination of tuna, broccoli, creamy sauce and crunchy chips is an addictive one--and a terrific way to use up those chips at the bottom of the bag. If you've got bigger chips, I recommend making up a batch of Spiced Cottage Cheese Chip Dip and making quick work of those. I'll help.

This casserole is fairly dry when you first serve it. That means it just begs to be smushed around on your plate. I fixed this for lunch one day and my daughter had a rare second helping, then the kids fought over the leftovers.

For more recipes using broccoli, please see my Broccoli Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me poking in the farm share box and wondering what to do with all the vegetables that have appeared all at once in my home. I'm pinning more casserole recipes to my Pinterest boards, follow me there to check them out. I'm sharing recipes and articles that catch my eye on my FB page, follow me there. And for what's up in the kitchen or with the dogs, check out my Instagram feed. Want to know How To Use This Blog?

Farm Share Pasta Primavera

Fresh spring vegetables, lightly blanched and tossed with pasta in a creamy sauce. A simple, fast vegetarian dish to let the flavors of Spring shine.

Joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share typically means you make the choice to eat more seasonally. Being a seasonal eater means by the end of one season I'm anticipating the next. Being a seasonal eater with a food blog means I'm working 9 months to a year behind as we approach the end of a season. Perhaps I could turn the frown upside down and say I'm working ahead. I mean, yesterday I made 2 desserts that will appear in April and July, respectively.

As my spouse and I resume our evening walks I see signs of Spring all over--except for my garden, which is still looking like a not-quite-ready compost pile. [It makes me realize how impressed I am with the ingenuity of farmers. With hard work, hoop houses and row covers, they manage to get a jump on Mother Nature every year.] It will be a couple of months until the local vegetables are ready for me to share current recipe ideas.  Instead, I rely on notes [notes get misplaced, it's a spiral binder for me now] a notebook and a well-labeled photo library to bring ideas for what to do with your produce.

This recipe has been on the second* page of my current spiral notebook for 10 months. I made it in the early weeks of the farm share, when the fast-growing crops--like peas and radishes--are abundant in the box. This pasta reminded me of the satisfying and quickly assembled meals my vegetarian roommates and I would fix, then enjoy on the porch while the evenings were ever-lighter and the weather still cool enough that a warm bowl of pasta was appreciated. [You could totally eat this cold, I just prefer the flavors warm.]

For other recipes using broccoli, please see my Broccoli Recipes Collection, for other recipes using carrots, please see my Carrot Recipes Collection, for other recipes using peas, please see my Pea Recipes Collection, for other recipes using radishes, please see my Radish Recipes Collection. These are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient--since it's the easiest way to figure out what to fix in my opinion. If you want to pin your ideas, you're welcome to follow me on Pinterest.

Chicken & Roasted Vegetable Couscous Salad

Sautéed chicken and a blend of roasted sweet potato, broccoli, corn and peppers combined into a main dish salad with couscous.

I thought I'd share a bit about how my cooking style changes once our weekly Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share has ended for the season.

First, I give a big sigh of relief because I know I've made it through another season. I've nurtured my family with food grown by our farmers, our garden, our friends and a rogue compost bin. We have tried new foods with both successes and failures [the failures appear on my FB page, not on the blog].

Second, I'm still doing some vegetable triage. The remaining greens and root veggies in the crisper have priority over the squash and potatoes of the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve (SWSR) in my cold basement. When the fridge is cleared out (celeriac, a red cabbage and kohlrabi are the last holdouts) I'll plan meals based on the items in the SWSR and the freezer.  That's the key--plan meals.

Instead of winging it based on what needs to be used up NOW, I could take stock and thoughtfully plot out meals, thaw meats and vegetables, and work to eat down the supply of food in the house.

As if I will thoughtfully plan anything beyond what's for dinner tonight.

Even if I forget to plan ahead and end up just winging it for dinner, having bags of frozen chopped vegetables sure makes things easier. I can make quick soups using put up stocks and frozen chopped vegetables. The other night my girl wasn't feeling well [she claims she has the plague as she coughs daintily into her hand] and within an hour I had a turkey & wild rice soup, with curry and ginger, ready to eat thanks to my freezer.

This main dish salad works along the same lines. Using prepped and frozen CSA farm share vegetables (broccoli, corn and bell peppers) along with some sweet potatoes from the SWSR and a red onion I fixed us a hearty meal without too much pre-planning. Eating local vegetables while the frozen backyard turns into the muddy back yard--that's a Good Thing. [Three dogs and a muddy back yard? Not so much of a Good Thing.]

With luck, the foods I've canned and frozen will last until next summer, just in time for the CSA season to begin [note to self, mail check out this week to the farm!]. In the meantime I will be shopping for fruits, mushrooms, fresh salad and whatever else looks good or is marked down.
I'll keep blogging, too, sharing seasonal recipes all along the way.

Beef and Broccoli Pizza (Pizza Night!)

Roast beef and roasted broccoli seasoned with layers of Asian flavors. You don't miss the cheese

OMG there's no cheese on this pizza, will they revoke my home-pizza-maker card? Will someone come and steal my blackened and broken, pizza stone?

I've got greens on my mind, so it makes sense to share a pizza with a green topping today. Want to know how many types of edible greens we got in the farm share this week? The photo is on my FB page, but I'll just tell ya--seven.  Seven types of greens.  Plus all the other delicious Spring vegetables.  Whoa. I've got my vegetable triage work cut out for me.

I did make a few command decisions right off the bat. While I know that radish greens are edible, the spiky edges put me off and the composting pig won't touch them--so into the compost bin they go. Ditto the turnip greens. My spouse commented "that's a handsome turnip" when he saw the giant beauty, and while I do like slow cooked turnip greens and cornbread in the Fall, I'd rather use my freezer space to put up berries right now. Into the compost bin with the turnip greens.
That leaves us [pun unintended] with lettuce, kale, kohlrabi greens, a big bag of cooking greens, and my beloved beet greens.

I don't usually pair greens with cheese--unless it's cheese in a salad--so I'm glad to share a pizza without cheese.  My first pizza without cheese, as a matter of fact.  But not the last--the kids snapped this one up quickly, and that's high praise for me to make further variations on this theme.

Guinness-braised Brats and Broccoli-topped Baked Potatoes

A seasonal topping for a St Patrick's day supper, this simple meal consists of sausages braised in Stout coupled with fresh broccoli and a baked potato, covered in cheese.

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I made this as a simple 'use what we've got from the fridge/pantry' supper.  As I thought more about what I wanted to write for March/St Patrick's day I realized this simple meal would make an excellent alternative to a more traditional bill of fare.  I mean, I love corned beef and cabbage, especially in the form of New England Boiled Dinner, but I dislike eating it when the marketing hype tells me to do so.  Don't get me wrong--in March I love to buy cabbage and potatoes on sale, and at the end of the post I'll share some other cabbage recipes--I just don't like being told when to eat things.

If you want to go rogue for St Patrick's day (heck, I'm not even Irish) join me.  This starts, as do all good Irish tales, with a bottle of Guinness.  I confess the only time I've actually relished a glass of Guinness was in a pub in Ireland--possibly in Baltimore but I'm not 100% sure which town, though of my time in Ireland, Baltimore and the Dingle peninsula was my favorite area.

For more recipes using broccoli, please see my Broccoli Recipes Collection. For more recipes using potatoes, please see my Potato Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me scrambling around in March trying to keep eating seasonally and locally and running out of fresh food and freezer inspiration.

I'm sharing more recipes on Pinterest, follow me there. If you like good reads, I share articles that catch my eye on my Facebook page, follow me there. If you like a good peek behind the scenes as much as I do, follow me on Instagram. Want to know How to Use This Blog?


Note--I microwaved my broccoli.  I probably should have roasted it, seeing as I had the oven on anyway, but this post on roasting broccoli wasn't on my mental radar screen.

Final note--do you like crispy baked potato skins with creamy potato insides?  Alyssa has a tutorial for Perfect Baked Potatoes at Everyday Maven.  Do check it out.

Sherried Black Bean and Broccoli Stem Soup

A smooth and elegant vegetarian soup made from humble ingredients--black beans and broccoli stems--finished with sherry and egg yolks. Unpretentious? I'm not talking 'bout wine here . . .

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If you want to be technical, I have had a teeny tiny smidgen of formal culinary training.  When I lived in Richmond, Virginia I took a class at a local cookwares store. The class was taught by Nancy Maurelli and was all about Bean and Grain Cooking. That's where I first tasted this soup--and I'm a packrat kept most of the class handout through seven moves.  Key word--most.

The internet is an amazing thing.  From that stapled class handout I'd removed the page with this recipe since I kept fixing it for my spouse during our early years together.  I had the rest of the handout, which included Nancy Maurelli's name, so I started a quest to find Nancy and see if she still had the recipe.  In 2008 that quest paid off (interestingly, through the Local Harvest website where you can find Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] farm shares and other local foods near you) and now that the recipe is back in my clutches, or at least the clutches of my Recipes email folder, I won't lose it again.  This post is merely planned redundancy.

Since I've been reading about Julie's experiments with Roasted Broccoli Stem Dip and Meghan's experiences with Broccoli Stalk Pesto, I thought I'd share this soup.  It tastes wonderful and presents so beautifully.  The idea of garnish on a soup was awfully high falutin' to me at the time, and still is to be honest, but I do it anyway--it's easy and fun. I can't say that my kids love it--though they do eat a small bowl when we have it--but that's OK.  Coupled with a mushroom appetizer such as my Skillet Mushroom Dip for Two or Soy Sriracha Roasted Mushrooms, this makes for a lovely "just for adults" Valentine's meal at home.  Add a steak and/or a salad if you like, though don't get too full for Love!


If I suggested one of the desserts from my recipe index and intimated that we'd be eating it this year for Valentine's day I'd be lyin'--my spouse wants Killer Brownies and I love him so that's what I'll get for dessert.  Perhaps with some Salted Caramel Ice Cream.


For more recipes using black beans, please see my Beans (Legumes) Recipes Collection. For more recipes using Broccoli, please see my Broccoli Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource or folks like me trying to use up every last stitch (does this metaphor work?) of produce from the farm share box. I'm sharing soup recipes on Pinterest, follow me there. I'm sharing articles that catch my eye on my Facebook page, follow me there. For a curated look behind the scenes of the blog, follow my IG feed. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Fennel Pizza with Chicken Sausage and Roasted Broccoli

Italian-flavored chicken sausage and roasted broccoli on a fennel pizza dough

I have fennel seeds drying on a baker's rack/computer stand in my dining room, and I owe it all to Alyssa of Everyday Maven.  She showed me how to crush fennel seeds to add Italian sausage flavor, and it looked so easy I knew my daughter could do it picked up a bag of fennel seeds during my next Penzey's run.  I handed the mortar and pestle to my girl and the result was delicious.  

Then I bought a couple of fennel plants, and (in addition to feeding the Black Swallowtail caterpillars, can you see 4 in the photo above, and one wee Oliver?) I saved the seeds which are now drying on the baker's rack.

Did I use the fennel bulbs?  Um, no.  When I was ready to harvest the fennel and add it to spaghetti sauce there were 6 caterpillars simultaneously munching away, and I couldn't be that cruel.  I can harvest strawberries--leaving the poor varmints chipmunks to find something else to eat, but to deprive the world of 6 butterflies?  Not my style.  The fennel bulbs are now buried under snow and some of the descendants of those caterpillars are overwintering in cocoons nearby.  Perhaps there will be more fennel next year--enough to share.

I've been sticking these fennel seeds in soups, in ground meat, in bread . . . and now pizza dough.  This was a very versatile spice purchase.  Thanks, Alyssa!

(Leftover Ham Week) Ham and Broccoli Stem Quesadillas (Quick Take)

I can appreciate the head-scratching that a vegetarian would do upon seeing me wash the farm share broccoli, remove the cabbage white caterpillars that had been feasting on it, escort them outside--away from my garden but with a leaf so they won't starve--then head back inside to dice ham.

What can I say?  I love food, and currently have no medical reason prohibiting me from eating all of it.  Not all at once, of course.  And I love that my farm share doesn't use pesticides on the food my family and I eat.  I can escort a few bugs outside knowing that the food us critters are eating is safe.

I'm happy to say I've finally mailed in my check for this year's summer CSA.  I'd been meaning to for weeks, but now it's a done deal.  Let the countdown begin!  I don't know how we'll handle a large farm share with only 3 eaters, so expect a lot of posts about the 'putting up' of anything that I can put up.  Thanks to Tammy of Agrigirl I've got ideas for lettuces, but today, we're talking about broccoli stems.

You know I hate to waste Swiss chard stems, and broccoli stems are no different.  While living in Richmond I learned how to make a delicious black bean soup that called for diced broccoli stem, and ever since then haven't looked at them as an afterthought.

Note to self--make that soup and blog about it.

After I wrote up this post, I saw this post by Karen of Soup Addict about making an open faced quesadilla with a fried egg on top.  Next time, I'm totally trying that--ham and eggs and broccoli? Yum!

Broccoli and Cheese on a Boboli® (Pizza Night!) Plus Bonus: How to Grow Celery

UPDATE:  It's a pet peeve, but I don't like reading a blog post about how someone starts a new venture.  I want to hear how it turned out, as well.  So scroll down and see the rest of the celery story.

This is clearly not a pizza.  I felt kind of bad posting something so simple to make, like the pizza below, so since I've had some questions about it on my FB page, I've included a bonus How to Start Celery on your Kitchen Windowsill below the recipe. Though it's also incredibly simple to do. Pizza now:

There are times when my best intentions (of making dough Monday before heading out of town, knowing that we're rolling home Friday afternoon hours before Friday Night Pizza Night happens) are OBE. (Is this common knowledge or one of those military acronyms?)

OBE:  Overcome By Events.

This was one of those times.  No pizza dough in the house, though I had plenty of sauce, cheese, veggie, and meat topping choices in the pantry and freezer.  Had I hit Trader Joes, I would have picked up some of their bags of pizza dough.  But our beer/milk/eggs run took me to the rare grocery store that had no pizza dough. Not in the deli.  Not in the freezer section.  Ok, pre-baked crust it is.

I got a Boboli® instead.  I was surprised at the high cost of a Boboli® crust--a bag of uncooked dough is less than half  the cost of a Boboli and isn't that much harder to work with! [I bought the Boboli® myself and this post is completely unknown to the Boboli® corporation, but I feel I should clarify in case you were wondering.]

If you have a pathological fear of uncooked pizza dough and will only use a prebaked crust such as Boboli®, rock on.  You too can make amazing pizzas using ingredients from your CSA farm share.

Because we love pizza here on Friday nights, I bought 2 Boboli® and made 2 pizzas. (And will write 2 blog posts from 1 meal).  This one is the kiddie pizza--because during the grocery store run, while not finding dough, I found a marked down bag of precut broccoli florets.

Broccoli Floret, Bacon, Mushroom and Red Onion Pizza (Pizza Night!)

I decided to test my spouse's theory that everything goes better with bacon.  We had a bag full of broccoli from the farm share, and I used the stems for another recipe, saving the florets for tonight's pizza.

Then the grocery store had mushrooms and fresh mozzarella on sale, so I couldn't resist.  Love those mark down stickers. Add a couple of slices of bacon from the freezer stash, a bit of red onion, and we're good to go.

It did occur to me to throw on some raisins, but I resisted the impulse.  Another time.

I'm saving my all-purpose flour for cookies, so this dough is made from King Arthur White Whole Wheat.  It works great, even if my circle is decidedly square-ish.  I really cheesed it up (that sounds so not right) by sandwiching the toppings between a base of fresh mozzarella and a lid of shredded fontina.

No one complained ;)

JEN's Divine Turkey Divan aka Rice Casserole--Thanksgiving Leftover Remake

Why yes, I did take this.  While snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. Thank you.  I think it rocks, too.

It's not that difficult, once you get into it, to eat seasonally when you live in a place that has actual seasons.  And, I suppose, it's not that difficult when you eat from the farm share all year 'round, even though you're only picking up goodies from mid-May through Thanksgiving (if you're lucky!).

But what happens when you don't live in a place that has real seasons?  How can you look forward to the comforting soups and stews of winter, to heating up the kitchen baking bread, to enjoying your favorite casseroles when it's paradise all year 'round?

I lived in Hawaii for more than 3 years.  I lived there long enough to notice the subtle changes in season--the times when the mango tree next to my daughter's preschool littered the parking lot with ripe fruit, the times when it was a little hotter than usual because the trade winds had slowed down, the times when the surf on the North Shore was so awe-inspiring we'd drive up just to watch it.  (And eat garlicky shrimp from the shrimp truck, but that's another post).

It was hard for me to get in the mood to cook heavy 'winter' dishes.  Frankly, it was more fun to go out for a big holiday meal, because roasting a turkey and all the trimmings when it's in the 80s is just . . . wrong.

Don't misunderstand--I loved living in Hawaii and loved raising my little kids there.  Even though my spouse considers it a honeymoon [Me:  I want to go on a honeymoon.  We never went on a honeymoon.  Spouse:  I took you to Hawaii for 3.5 years.  Me:  I was changing diapers for most of that time.  If you're changing diapers it's not a honeymoon. Spouse:   (the sound of crickets, cuz he knows he's got no response)] it was a great experience and one I will treasure forever.

There is one fall/winter casserole type meal that I did cook during our time in Hawaii--this dish.  The official name of this recipe is Turkey Divan, but my family just calls it Rice Casserole (if you've had little kids, you can see how it got it's name).  My friend JEN brought it to a gathering long ago, and I got the recipe and made it soon after.  When the kids were little, I'd blend up the cooked casserole and mix it with rice, hence our family nickname for it, but now they are old enough to eat it as is.
It's a great way to turn leftover turkey into a totally different dish!