Whipping Up Some Dinner

Well, the Halloween Party preparations are in full swing, and when I came home from work today, there were talking skeletons in my stairwell! My husband had already started decorating! It made me smile, and I'm starting to get very excited for Saturday night. I made some labels for my ghoulish dishes, that look like they are on aged parchment, and I think the menu is set. We went out to gather some materials for our costumes, but the shopping trip was sort of a bust. The pet store didn't have the costume I wanted for Oia in her size, and the art supply store didn't have the fabric I was looking for, so...I had to get creative with some felt. We'll see what happens!

When we got home, it was already 7pm, and we hadn't eaten so I looked in the fridge for something I could throw together rather quickly. I had some mussels in the fridge, some zucchini and summer squash, and in the pantry, I found a box of penne. I did a little googling and found this great recipe on the Food & Wine website for Pasta with Mussels. Well, that works, let's give it a go!

While I waited for my water to boil, I debearded the mussels and set some white wine and bay leaves to boil in a dutch oven. Once it came to a boil, I steamed the mussels, covered, for about 5 minutes and then drained the broth into a bowl. The mussels got pulled from their shells and placed in a melted butter bath, while I sprinkled some saffron into the mussel broth.

I had also put some thickly sliced zucchini and summer squash into a 350 degree oven, seasoned with salt, pepper, olive oil and some dried thyme. I allowed that to just cook in there while I was doing everything else, since it's not dinner without a veggie side dish! Once the mussels were sitting in their bath of butter, I poured some olive oil into the pot and fried up some thinly sliced garlic cloves, until lightly browned, adding some red pepper flakes at the very end. At that point, the broth was added to the pot, along with some lemon juice, and I continued to reduce the concoction until the pasta was done. I drained the pasta, added it to the pot with the broth, and the butter and mussels, and tossed everything around until properly coated.

I served the dish alongside the roasted zucchini and summer squash, and voila, a meal in less than an hour! If you have ingredients, and you aren't in the mood to get creative, do some google-searching and I guarantee you'll find something you can throw together. If you always have some spices on hand, along with olive oil, garlic, onions, lemons and chicken broth, I find that it's pretty simple to find a recipe that can at the very least be improvised upon! There's even a little time to put my feet up and relax before bedtime! It was a very productive day!

Farm Fresh Produce in the House!

The CSA share from Harvest Delivery arrived this evening! I thoroughly enjoyed unpacking the box full of goodies, since I had no idea what would be arriving in the delivery! The gentleman who delivered this wonderful package was named Ed, and he was very friendly and sunny! He told me a bit more about the CSA shares and how their deliveries work. They have a very cool (no pun intended - ha!) system that involves an insulated cool box that stores your deliveries until you arrive home from work and unlock the box to retrieve your fresh produce.

Look at all that beautiful fresh produce that I was lucky enough to receive! So, let's take a short inventory, shall we? We have two bunches of crispy, bright radishes and a giant bunch of fresh beets, with the greens attached! Radish greens and beet greens can be used in recipes separate from their root counterparts too, so I'm going to try and make the most of these bunches! We've also got some summer squashes, and some cute little cucumbers. The bunch of scallions are enormous - I've never seen scallions that big! We have a carton of deliciously sweet blueberries, and a half-dozen farm fresh eggs as well!

There are two huge heads of different lettuces that will make us salads for a week and a half! We've got a gorgeous bouquet of swiss chard, as well as a giant bunch of basil!  Since basil goes bad fairly quickly, I think I might use that first and make some pesto sauce for a pasta dish for tomorrow night's dinner. There's also a bag of delicious, peppery arugula which I can't wait to eat! I had to try a leaf, just to TASTE it ... and OH...so good! Lastly, I got two little heads of a strongly flavored green, but I'm not completely sure what it is - I think it's baby bok choy.

So, let's see, so far, I'm thinkin' pesto sauce...which isn't exactly the most creative use of basil, but when you have a lot of it, and want to use it all before it goes bad, it's the best way to go! I'm also thinking of some sort of curry, using those summer squash, since I also took a little trip to Penzey's Spices today. I picked up quite a few Indian spices, even though they weren't on my list of refills. Sometimes you see things, and you just think..."yes, I will be able to use that for something in the very near future." We'll be having lots of salads to use those two giant heads of lettuce, and I love the crunch of crispy radishes sliced in salads as well! I think I'll stop by the farmer's market booth that sells locally-made goat cheese, for a nice big salad full of greens, feta and some roasted beets as well! And I think...maybe a pasta carbonara with the addition of some wilted swiss chard. Sound good!?

Join me as I work my way through this CSA share...I love a new adventure and this one is exciting! Next up: I'll teach you how to make pesto sauce!