Savory French Toast with Avocado and Egg

An easy meatless meal, a savory breakfast for dinner, a new twist on Fat Tuesday. No matter what occasion you prefer, this savory French toast with avocado and egg will be delicious.

My octogenarian parents tell me that Toast is a Thing. I really don't get the concept of high end artisanal toast [I mean decorating a cupcake takes skill, but making a piece of toast?] but I do like a nice piece of toast. I've never gone out for fancy toast like my trendy folks have, but I think I can say with certainty that

this is not high end artisanal toast.

This is my answer to Pancake Tuesday, or Fat Tuesday, or an easy meatless Monday meal, or a twist on Breakfast for dinner. Instead of using the milk & eggs to make pancakes [and whatever else it is we're supposed to make when everyone runs to the store at the threat of snow--have you considered a Finnish Oven Pancake?], why not make French toast? Who says French toast has to be sweet? If I'm not using eggnog in the batter (like my Pumpkin Eggnog French Toast recipe) then the components are just as savory as a fried egg sandwich.

A fried egg sandwich is one of the perfect comfort foods, and one of the first meals I fixed both my spouse and my brother upon their respective returns from Iraq. You know someone who needs some TLC? Fix 'em a fried egg sandwich. Or if they are of the canine persuasion, make this.

Using the magic of blog-time I made this last week. On Fat Tuesday, like darn near every Tuesday night of the school year, I'll be shuttling my daughter to sewing and hanging out writing/reading/knitting/playing solitaire on my phone. I will not be making this.
You could, though.

Taco Turnip Tamale Pie (Stretching Meat Part 4)

Taco meat, shredded turnips and enchilada sauce make up the filling in this tamale pie.

When I first started blogging, about 2ish years ago, I frequently talked about how I add shredded vegetables to stretch a pound of ground meat. I do this in tacos, in burgers, and in meatloaf. The benefits of this technique are twofold:  I am boosting the amount of vegetables in my family's diet in ways that my family will eat them [because I'll be honest, the kids are not Open-faced Shaved Beet Sandwich fans] AND I'm using the produce from our farm share in a timely manner.

In the long term I want to increase the amount of vegetables we eat [hey, it's part of the reasons we joined a CSA in the first place]. But when I open the fridge and see a crisper full of turnips 2 days before the next farm share pick up, the short term goal of using ALL the produce becomes paramount. I was getting desperate creative, looking for ways to use them, when I came up with this.

Normally if I'm clueless about dinner I'll thaw a package of ground beef and make tacos or taco salad. Because I add veggies to the base of meat often, we don't use the whole amount of taco meat and frequently have leftovers. This was a great way to repurpose a leftover and use turnips.  I've made root vegetable enchiladas [and need to make the photos of that one prettier], so I know the combo of enchilada sauce + turnip is pleasing to my family.  I just pumped it up a bit.

This could be another concept recipe--a way to incorporate a variety of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share vegetables into a dish--like my Fast CSA Greens and Pasta Concept recipe. Just with root vegetables this time.

For other tips to feed your family from the farm share, check out this post. For other recipes using turnips, please see my Turnip Recipe Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index. For other recipes using ground beef, check out this round up of 106 Food Blogger Recipes Using Ground Beef.

Passionfruit & Banana Muffins {Where Do You Get Your Food?}

Where do you get your food? 

Between articles in National Geographic Magazine about the evolution of diet and observations during the 4th annual Montgomery County (Ohio) Food Policy Coalition Summit last year, I think Michael Malone of Hungry Toad Farm sums up the answer perfectly:

"Either somebody brings it to you, or you go get it."

The theme of the summit was Distribution--Connecting Producers to Consumers. I sat in on a few sessions* and it was interesting to hear from Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farmers as small as Michael Malone's couple dozen subscribers on up to Carl Bowman of Bowman & Landes Turkey's multi-state reach.
What I learned was there is romance in knowing where your food comes from (I agree with Dennis Chrisman of Dorothy Lane Market's sentiment). Over the past 9 years I've enjoyed meeting the farmers who grow our food. At first it was 'oh look, kids, this is what an eggplant looks like in the field' but it has morphed into wanting to understand the motivations of folks who want to work so damn hard to feed me.

Ben Jackle, together with his wife Emily, had 475 planting sessions last year at Mile Creek Farm. Holy cow! In order to balance what grows best in the climate and soil of their spread with what their customers want to buy, the Jackles must balance diversity with efficiency. It would be easiest to grow rows of the same crop and systemize the planting/growing/harvesting of a product, but as a CSA subscriber I wouldn't want to get a box of only tomatoes one week or only lettuce another week or only beets . . . ever. I appreciate the extra efforts that crop diversity requires.

Chickens go RVing at Keener Family Farm. Photo taken by my spouse.

"Convenience is a commodity itself"--another gem from Michael Malone. When he says "I don't sell peanut butter or toilet paper" he's right. I don't do all of my shopping in one place, nor would I want to do so. Everyone has skills, and while I appreciate our farm's ability to grow giant kohlrabi and my neighbor's buddy's ability to grow happy chickens and tasty beef, I also appreciate the volume discount on sharp cheddar cheese at Costco.

Keener Family Farm--photo taken by my spouse.

In addition to getting vegetables that have been grown near you by folks you've met, there are less tangible benefits to joining a CSA. George Mertz of Patchwork Gardens reminds me there's an aesthetic value of agriculture. Seeing farmland in production is pleasing to the eye, an having a box brimming with (pre-paid) brightly colored vegetables is so much prettier than a cart full of packages waiting for the final total price.

A typical late summer box: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, corn and greens.

People want local food, and according to Dan Carmody of the Detroit Eastern Market, the breakdown isn't in food production it's in food distribution. Folks all over are developing new ways to connect consumers to producers. In Seattle, Janelle Maiocco started Farmstr. Producers/Farmers can list their offerings on a central site online, and consumers can order the quantities and pick up locations that fit their needs. In Champaign County (Ohio), a Virtual Farmer's Market set up by Pam Bowshier and Mark Runyan meets in a YMCA. Folks order their items over a multiway period, then come once a week to pick up their orders.

Even CSAs are evolving. CSA models don't have to be just vegetables, or meat, or cheese. Heck, there's a beer CSA in Chicago--started by a former intern at our CSA, Patchwork Gardens. I'd love to have to empty my firkin before the next pickup date! According to a recent survey by Local Harvest, farmers are teaming up with other local businesses to sell add-on products (bread, meat, eggs) in addition to vegetables. Multiple payment options and varied length seasons are helping to reach new subscribers. Shoot, back when we started eating from a CSA we stopped getting food in late September. Now we get deliveries into December--and yes, now in February I've still got locally grown squash in the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve as well as put up vegetables in the freezer and pantry.

Beetloaf, a Story about a Meatloaf

Valentine's Day is coming, and I'm sharing pink food. Beets are my go to pink food coloring for that vibrant color that is surprisingly found IN nature.

This story, as all good stories do, starts with a package of beef liver. You may think that's a weird way to start a post entitled Beetloaf. Let me be clear--just because I'm calling this Beetloaf in no way implies a lack of meat. There are many excellent vegetarian loaf recipes out there and this is not one of them. This just happens to be a meatloaf that also contains beets and, as it happens on my FB page, when I post something innocuous sounding like Roasted Beet & Arugula Pizza, my friends nickname it Beet-za. Today I'm skipping the middleman and going straight to the nickname:  Beetloaf.

Now, before Robert Barker arrived in our lives I didn't know what to do with all the beef liver in the freezer. [My neighbors kept bringing me more, slipping it in the house alongside the eggs when I wasn't looking.] I looked for ways to incorporate liver into our lives, much like I look for ways to incorporate beets into our meals. I hit upon an idea--what if I used beets + liver together? I know I like pickled beets in my Open-faced Liver Postej Sandwiches, so it stands to reason that I'd like them together in the same pan. I decided to add a pound of pork sausage and a pound of ground beef to the liver + beets primarily because I'd already done a mostly vegetable meatloaf, my {48.3% Meat}Loaf, and I knew the additional meat would be a hit with the teenagers. It was--my daughter dumped ketchup on it and declared it 'acceptable' (when in doubt, ketchup is my #5 tip to get your family to eat from the farm share). My son went so far as to say it was 'good'--high praise from him--and complain after I started using all the liver for Robert Barker--that he wanted to eat more beetloaf.

BOOM! Liver + beets are in our bellies and out of the freezer. That's a big win in my book.

For other recipes using liver you're going to have to wait until I create additional categories for my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, but there is a search function on the left sidebar in the meantime. For other recipes using beets, please see my Beet Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other recipes using ground beef, please see my recipe round up of 106 Food Blogger Recipes using Ground Beef.

Mac & Cheese with Roasted Winter Squash

Classic comfort food--with the addition of a seasonal vegetable. Long-storing winter squash is cubed, roasted, and tossed into macaroni and cheese flavored with Italian sausage.

Long-storing winter squash are one of the ways that I feed my family from the farm share during the off season when we're not getting weekly boxes of fresh vegetables. For today's recipe I chose one of the squash that came from my compost pile. I'm thinking it's a cross between a butternut and a pumpkin or maybe it's an albino pumpkin like all the albino squirrels in my town. Who knows? Either way, it was a pale fleshed winter squash, part of the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve in my cold basement, and worked just as well as a pumpkin or butternut squash would in this recipe.

I don't combine this stuff on a whim, you know. [That's not exactly accurate. On Monday I posted a recipe that evolved as I was preheating the skillet and my daughter was throwing out ideas, which turned into Mardi Gras Fried Rice. Whims were involved.] Last year I took a sugar pie pumpkin from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share and baked mac and cheese in it. I got the recipe from the versatile cookbook, Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese (Amazon affiliate link). I first made that recipe before my spouse returned from a deployment. I was thinking that I had to make it again for him as the recipe is such a good one and because I crave comfort foods like mac & cheese when it's cold out. You can find that recipe here, or, if you're local to me, I donated a copy of the cookbook to my local library.

The thing is, I rarely re-make a recipe without tweaking it somehow.  [Heck, even my morning oatmeal is currently undergoing revisions.] When I was spooning that mac & cheese into the pumpkin, I wondered about skipping the adorable container/serving dish concept and instead stirring pumpkin into the mac and cheese and then baking it. I kept the rest of the elements the same because the flavors are so good together (I have made 4 or 5 recipes from MELT and each time was successful). Because the baking time is 1½ hours total, this is not a weeknight meal. However, it feeds 8 to 10 people and the leftovers reheat well, so it's a weekend meal making leftovers that could become lunches or fast dinners on hockey busy nights during the week.

For another mac and cheese recipe, please check out Macaroni and Cheese with Beet Greens, Ham and Manchego. For other recipes using winter squash, please see my Winter Squash Recipe Collection, part of my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Mardi Gras Fried Rice {Fried Rice with Purple Cabbage, Ham, Egg and Zucchini}

The colors of Mardi Gras in a fried rice--red cabbage, eggs and zucchini (with or without ham)--make this savory seasonal dish a colorful way to let the good times roll.

Why do Mardi Gras recipes have to involve pancakes or King cake? Can't we have some savory entrees alongside? I'm pretty sure the carbs and protein would help with alcohol consumption.

Howdy! I'm feeling a little sheepish here because if you subscribe via email [hey thanks!--if you don't, there's a widget along the right sidebar that makes it easy to do so] you'll know I messed up yesterday. See, I'm only sharing 3 recipes a week, but I'm cooking for the family, the team, the folks at work, and others all. the. time.  Any given week I've got a bunch more than 3 recipes that have the potential to be blog-worthy. These recipes pile up in notebooks and on scraps of paper. The photos pile up--in a well-organized fashion--in my laptop. Eventually I get around to typing them up for the blog, and when I do I tentatively schedule them for when they'd be appropriate. I've got a small butternut squash & spinach lasagna  recipe from last year that I thought would be good for February. I scheduled it for 2/1/2015 thinking that I'd sort out which Monday, Wednesday, or Friday would be best and get the post all buffed and shined [i.e., add photos and the sort of writing you're reading now].

Except I didn't realize that yesterday was February 1st, and there I was at Costco taking photos of my spouse while he tried on new eyeglass frames. [Ya know, if you need to wear glasses it's really hard to tell what you'd look like in new frames since you can't see out of them while you're trying them on . . . where was I?] Oh, right--so while I was at Costco the partially finished lasagna post automatically published, per the scheduling I did last year, and went out on email. I came home from the store to emails from my mom and Alanna notifying me. Whoops.

Now the cool thing of this very long and involved rambling is that Alanna taught me how to save all my partially finished posts as drafts, so theoretically this type of thing will never happen again. But I'd still appreciate it if you'd sign up to get the blog via email, because everyone likes bloopers now and again.

Loaded Pizza Fries #EatWithWest #ChubbyChasingMission #CysticFibrosisAwareness

Beef and salami sautéed with farm share vegetables then coated in a seasoned tomato sauce top these baked fries. Mozzarella and cheddar cheese covers the whole pan in cheesy goodness.

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For the first year of this blog I posted a new pizza recipe every Friday night. I shared recipes for pizza dough, savory pizzas with fruit, vegetarian pizzas and pizzas with meat toppings. I posted so many pizza recipes that I even created a Visual Pizza Recipe Index to keep them all tidy, and a Pinterest board devoted to pizza, Friday Night Pizza Night.
Over the second year I added to the Index more slowly, interspersing Friday pizzas with other types of recipes but broadening the types by adding Deep Dish pizzas [I'll probably add a Deep House Dish category to the VPRI at some point since I'm amassing a collection in my notebook].

Today's post is a three-way collision between a Friday pizza recipe & meaty appetizer, a bonus alternative use for the topping, and a request for my readers to help out a family in my town by posting photos on social media. Let's start with the food, which weaves its way throughout the post. I admit I'm slightly surprised by how this idea of mine turned out. When I started thinking about this recipe, I envisioned some sort of pizza-flavored sloppy joes served on slider buns. Kinda like these:

The flavor of the filling was fine, but it was too . . . sloppy for me. This is when the kids are pretty tickled to come home from school and hear "I'm trying a new recipe. Eat one of these pizza sliders for after school snack and tell me what you think." [They like those days better than the "we've got too many beets in the freezer, here's a smoothie" or "find something to eat, I'm busy editing" days].

I'm posting these photos of my kids eating on the blog for one reason--to encourage a little guy in my town, Weston, to take another bite of food. Weston is 3 and needs to gain some weight, and if he doesn't do it by eating he'll need to have a feeding tube inserted in his tummy. Seeing photos of folks eating tasty food encourages Weston to take another bite, so I've tagged this post with the hashtags #EatWithWest, #ChubbyChasingMission, and #CysticFibrosisAwareness. I'd really appreciate it if you could tag and share photos of you/your kids/your uncle eating and share them on your favorite social media channels too. 

You can read about Weston and his mom's social media campaign here.

Bacon Cheeseburger Tomato Jam Dip

Hot, hearty, cheesy, beefy--I've unpacked the adjectives for this dip, but the name pretty much says it all. It's a bacon cheeseburger dip using tomato jam to provide some bold summery flavor in winter.

Why is it that there's a big eating event in the dead of winter? Sure, sure, Thanksgiving is generally after a frost, but most of the Thanksgiving vegetables lend themselves to long storing or freezing. I'm talking about walking into 3 different grocery stores in 2 days [yes, I get around] and being assaulted with goal posts surrounded by mounds of fresh tomatoes and peppers and avocados. That ain't right.

Fresh tomatoes, everywhere on the mainland US that I've lived, don't taste very good in the dead of winter. It's almost criminal to tantalize shoppers with the prospect of fresh vegetables when the flavor doesn't back up the promise.  I turn to preserved tomatoes (those that I've canned, slow roasted and frozen, or jammed) for my winter time tomato flavor. I'll happily buy a jar of salsa [or crack open a jar of strawberry salsa] but make fresh tomato salsa from the store stuff to eat during the game? Not happening. Not now. I will GORGE myself on fresh tomatoes from July-ish through October-ish, but then I put up as much as possible so that I can enjoy these summer flavors in winter.

Here's another way I use my preserves.

If you're watching the game in shorts and a t-shirt, this recipe may not apply to you. While I like my room temperature snacks, our TV is in the basement along with the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve and I need something to keep me warm while watching.

Sure, sure, having 2 to 3 dogs piled on my lap [occasionally tap dancing on my hard cider-filled bladder] does provide an extra 120 pound layer of insulation. However, it also prevents me from getting up to pee get refills of this savory dip. I suppose that's a form of portion control. You can see a quick pic of us on my FB page.

I made this dip last year* after being inspired by the Bacon Double Cheese Burger Dip at Closet Cooking. I thought that using some tomato jam (from Marisa's recipe at Food In Jars) would provide a bit of bold spicy sweetness to play off of the bacon, so I got busy with some of the cow that lives in my freezer.  This recipe works both as a dip for a sturdy tortilla chip and a filling for a slider bun (those pictures did not turn out as well though).

For other recipes using ground beef, please see my Ground Beef Recipe Round Up, 106 recipes from a whole host of food bloggers covering a variety of eating styles and categories [though there are no desserts using ground beef in this round up. that's icky to me]. Need a hot vegetarian dip? Try my Baked Artichoke and Arugula Dip instead.

5 Tips to Feed Your Family From the Farm Share {Roasted Celeriac and Potatoes}

What do I do if my kid/spouse/guinea pig* won't eat _______ [insert name of vegetable]?

I hear from folks who join Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm shares that a prime concern is family members not liking particular vegetables. When we started eating from a farm share my kids were 6 and 8. The older one liked potatoes and occasionally tolerated baby carrots and apple slices [unless he absolutely loved them or abhorred them. It changed. A lot. Since his congenital brain malformation--Chiari, if you're wondering--comes along with a wicked gag reflex, he'd lose the contents of his stomach when forced to 'eat just one bite'. We learned to cut our losses. Probably TMI.] The younger one ate broccoli stems for fun and hadn't met a fruit she didn't like. My spouse? He's spent a year eating in Korea, a year eating in Iraq, and has been eating my cooking for nearly two decades. Awww . . . we've got an anniversary this year . . . but the point is he'll eat anything.

You'll notice only green things are left on his tray. He didn't like green back then.

When we started getting cabbage (a typical early season green) it went smoothly. Sautéed with a little salt and pepper, shown in my Simple Sautéed Chinese Cabbage, it was a hit with my girl and tolerable to my boy. Then the eggplant appeared. How on earth was I going to get that into them? In desperation I roasted everything roastable [is that a word?] from that box (NOT shown below, I wasn't blogging way back in 2006) and made spaghetti sauce. It worked! They ate it!

a typical late summer box

That recipe--the first one I ever posted on the internet [you can see it here at tastykitchen] opened my mind to the possibilities of produce. I could add some sort of pun thinking outside the farm share box, but I won't. In the ensuing years--I've just signed up for our 10th season--I picked up a couple of tips through friends, relatives, and trial and error. No tricks, though--I've always been aboveboard with my family about what we're eating.  They don't even ask if there are beets in the smoothie anymore, they just drink it. 

A few lessons learned (and then a recipe):

Baked Artichoke and Arugula Dip

This recipe combines farm share arugula with artichoke hearts and loads of cheese in a baked vegetable appetizer.

I've been sharing a lot of game day appropriate appetizers lately since it's 'tis the season and all, but I've been feeling a bit . . . well, guilty . . . since I've been using a fair amount of meat in them.  I'm glad to share a meat free [and vegetarian if you select a vegan Worcestershire sauce] hot appetizer to join in the line up. 

This is a tasty way to eat up arugula from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, your garden, your folks' community garden plot, or the farmer's market. Usually when we get a big bag of arugula we're also getting a bag of salad mix, a cabbage, bok choy and perhaps another leafy green. I've talked about Greens Paralysis before, and it really comes down to this: if I can use arugula as a recipe component, not as a loose leafy green, I am more likely to use it up. If I wait for the perfect opportunity to add a handful of fresh arugula to a recipe . . . I end up tossing slimy forgotten leaves into the compost bin.

One easy way to get arugula processed into something yummy is Arugula Asiago Pesto (recipe here--scroll down to the bottom). This freezes well and I use it like I use basil pesto (large volume 'empty the garden before frost' recipe here), though not the same as I use Fresh Tomato Pesto (recipe here).

I came up with this appetizer because I had a late season bag of arugula and a desire for a hot appetizer. Using my food processor to combine everything made quick work of the vegetable preparation, and this was a warm and cheesy way to enjoy an early evening adult beverage.

I haven't tried it, but warming this dip in a little slow cooker should work fine, similar to my Slow Cooker Salmon Artichoke Dip. I'm just happy to turn the oven on while there is frost inside my window!

For other recipes using arugula, please see my Arugula Recipes Collection, part of my Visual Recipe Index. For other Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks, please see my Pinterest board of the same name (linked).

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.

Herbed Butternut Squash and Cottage Cheese Muffins

Creamy cottage cheese blended with roasted butternut squash puree for a savory muffin great with soups and stews.

What is cottage cheese to you? A diet food? A comfort food? To me, it's the base of the most wonderful potato chip dip. I haven't shared the old family recipe [can you have an old family recipe for chip dip? We do] but one of these days I'll measure the "pinch of this, shake of that" that's involved and share with the rest of the class. The key is great cottage cheese.

While living around the US (and enjoying the terrific Danish and German dairy products while stationed in Germany) I've come to realize that it is possible to find an equivalent to the amazing cottage cheese I grew up with, Nordica (purchased at High's Dairy Stores in the mid atlantic region). I've found one here in Ohio, oddly branded Michigan cottage cheese. I don't care what the name is, it is a small curd and relatively dry cottage cheese that rocks. [I'm not being paid to say that. They don't know me. I buy it--and in mass quantities when I find it marked down--on my own.]
What happens if you only have access to national brands? No worries--you're mixing it up in a muffin after all, not scooping it up with a chip. [Note to self seen by anyone else reading this blog--consider putting up the Olson Family Chip Dip recipe either the Friday before the Super Bowl or in the summer for cookouts.]

This savory muffin is excellent with soup or stew. Often I'll make a big pot of soup which we will eat over multiple meals. To keep it enticing the second or third go round, I'll serve hot muffins alongside. They are easy to throw together and bake while the soup is reheating gently on the stove.
For other recipes using butternut squash, please see my Buttercup/Butternut Squash Recipe Collection or my Winter Squash Recipe Collection, part of my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Pretzel Roll Sliders

Green Tomato Bacon Jam flavors these sliders, tucked into soft pretzel buns and topped with guacamole and sharp cheddar. Your team will demolish a plate of these burgers.

Did you know one of the founding teams of the NFL was in Dayton Ohio?

One of the cool aspects of being a military family is the opportunity to explore new towns every few years. It seems that when you know you're only living in a region for a short time, you tend to dive right in and explore the new home.

Before moving to Dayton, I knew about the Wright brothers*, but I didn't know about Ermal Fraze (inventor of the pull tab that we all use to open cans--like a can of Ermal's Belgian style cream ale). I didn't know that mass production of the cash register started here. Nor did I know that the Dayton Triangles were one of the founding teams that started what is now known as the the NFL.

What does this have to do with these sliders? Well, honoring the spirit of Dayton inventors who left such a rich legacy, I developed a recipe for Green Tomato Bacon Jam. I've used this easy freezer jam in summertime burgers and, because I think it is a terrific use for green tomatoes, I'm calling your attention to the recipe via these sliders. Even if you don't get green tomatoes in your community supported agriculture (CSA) farm share, chances are good you'll know someone twiddling their thumbs over a pile of green tomatoes when the days shorten and frost threatens.

In addition to developing recipes to preserve the seasonal abundance, I want to share how I use these preserves all year long. [I don't know if I'll ever use Apple Fig Chutney as anything other than a condiment for Indian food like my Squash and Beef Masala, though.] So consider this another tickle in your brain to grab some green tomatoes in September and get jamming.

Other recipes (not one of them fried) that use green tomatoes can be found on my Green Tomato Recipe Collection, part of my Visual Recipe Index. For 106 more ideas on what to do with a pound of ground beef, see my Ground Beef Recipe Round Up.

Farm Share Vegetable & Wild Rice Pilaf

Farm share vegetables--carrots, radishes, celery and onion--sautéed and combined with wild rice for a side dish that goes with a wide variety of dishes.

My 5 yr old daughter: Where is the soy sauce?

Me: There is no soy sauce. This isn't that kind of rice. It's Uncle Ben's.

My 7 yr old son: Who is Uncle Ben?

The first summer we spent in the midwest we ate at a country buffet restaurant. It was a new experience for all of us. My son earned a coupon from a summer reading program so we explored our new environment through food. My kids had never seen long grain rice and were mystified that you could eat rice with butter, not soy sauce.

[After being stationed in both Japan and Hawaii, and learning how to make my own sushi even before joining the military, I'd forgotten all about long grain rice. Our staple rice, cooked in the rice cooker because I'd burn it any other way, is yellow bag calrose or hinode rice.] 

This recipe is not some wow amazeballs novel innovative dish. It's just a simple way, when you're looking at a pile of vegetables from the community supported agriculture (CSA) farm share, to get those veggies out of your refrigerator and into your family. We ate it as a side dish with ham. I stirred chicken chunks and bok choy into a batch. My kids ate bowls as an after school snack [it is a Costco-sized container of rice after all].

Ham and Turnip Stew

Ready in about half an hour, this tasty stew has turnips and carrots simmered with a meaty ham bone.

I appreciate the readers on my Facebook page!  I couldn't decide which recipes to post this week and posted a list of options. Sandy chose this recipe, so here it is! I apologize for the poor quality photos--I expected this would make a leftover that I could photograph for lunch in natural light, but we cleaned the pot out. You're getting a quick pic that was snapped at our dinner table.  Simon thought it smelled delicious as well.

The other dogs are too short to have 4 paws on the floor and reach the table.

I've been on a mission to use what I've got in the fridge, freezer, and pantry lately. One of the issues with hating to waste food is the accumulation of items. For example, if we eat ham for dinner, we'll enjoy the leftovers in sandwiches, quesadillas, meatballs and/or pizza. There's usually still a chunk of ham left and we're hammed out, so into the freezer it goes. Ditto the ham bone. Normally I'll make {No Salt Added} Ham & Bean Soup with the bone, but I found a spare ham bone while rooting around in the freezer [I know, everyone should be so lucky].

On a whim, and why there are no 'ingredient' or 'process' photos, I grabbed some of the ubiquitous turniips from the crisper and made a quick stew. Turnips are one of the cool season crops that grow really well for our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farmers, so we get a bunch when they are in season. The saltiness of the ham bone plays nicely with the sweet turnips and this stew was gobbled up. I'm remembering this one for Fall, since I'm always looking for ways to enjoy turnips.

For more recipes using turnips, please see my Turnip Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index.