Broccoli au Gratin

Day 294

We had this alongside last night's leftovers, of which there wasn't much since I also took some to work for my lunch, but we were excited to have what was left to go with our broccoli tonight.

Broccoli au Gratin

Broccoli au Gratin

Original recipe
This was made using our garden broccoli! We had it one other night, but this time Laura harvested seven of the nine heads, which were small, but already showing signs of going to seed. More broccoli will grow back.

Broccoli

I followed the recipe to a T but next time I will use more salt and more cheese. This one contains 3/4 cup grated sharp cheddar and 1/4 cup grated Swiss.

Ingredients

Broccoli
2 tbsp peanut oil
1 1/2 cups coffee cream
1 1/2 cups water
Sea salt & pepper
3/4 cup cheese

Topping
1 1/2 cups panko crumbs
2 more tbsp peanut oil
1/4 cup cheese

While it's cooking in the bubbling milk (we actually used half coffee cream and half water), it looks really yummy.

Broccoli simmering in cream

Broccoli au Gratin

Reviews/Comments

Ignore the unflattering photo of the broccoli. It was a really yummy dish and I'll definitely make it again. But let's talk about our carrots.

Last night, I didn't give much of a review, so tonight I would like to elaborate some on the carrots. O. M.G. They are sooo amazing. They're sweet, and tender and carroty, and Laura says they were the best carrots she'd ever had in her life. They weren't earthy like carrots usually are, and even though she doesn't usually love carrots, she thought they were the best thing on her plate last night, even better than the green bean casserole. And the best thing is, there are lots more in the ground!

Roasted Vegetables & Green Bean Casserole

Day 292

Clearly I don't have enough time for daily blogging during the summer. Noted. I generally do remember to take the pics, but time just gets away from me, most notably during the weekends. This past weekend, for instance, I traveled to Westbrook, ME for a wedding.

Roasted Vegetables & Green Bean Casserole

Roasted Vegetables

Everything from the garden, then roasted in 1/2" water at 350 degrees F for about 40 minutes.

Garden stuff

Ingredients
Carrots
Parsnips
Potatoes
Garlic
Fresh herbs: the Scarborough Fair combo (parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme) plus oregano

Roasted vegetables

Green Bean Casserole

Inspired by our beans from the garden! There is really no better way to eat green beans. Just steam the beans, put them in a casserole dish, pour the soup over top and finally, sprinkle the fried onions over everything. Bake about 20 minutes at 350.

Steamed green beans

Ingredients
Green beans
Homemade cream of mushroom soup (recipe can be found here)
French's fried onions

Green bean casserole

Roasted Vegetables & Green Bean Casserole

Let's Back Up

On Saturday, at the wedding itself, I had some great food, mostly finger food, plus some mac n cheese, but I didn't get a pic, because I didn't realize at the time that it was supper. On the way home, I stopped in Hampden where I took a pic of a fantastic lady - Wendy Pace - making some peach salsa, but that's as close as I came to seeing any food preparation the entire day.

Wendy making peach salsa

After I came back from the wedding trip last night, I had some of Laura's pitas with some spinach/artichoke dip she had made, but failed to take a pic. But tonight, I was in full blogging spirit, so here we are.

Let's Back Up More

The evening before the wedding, Laura and I cooked some veggies from the garden, but I was super busy getting ready for the trip and went to bed early in order to get an early start for a long drive. The evening before that, I was away visiting a relative from the time I got home from work until at least 10 pm and I think I skipped supper that night. No, wait. I think we ordered something. And the evening before that, on Wednesday, it was Eggs Florentine.


Wednesday, August 6: Eggs Florentine
Old stand-by for us.

Eggs Florentine

Friday, August 7: Garden Veggies
Everything from the garden: potatoes, yellow beans and Swiss chard.

Fresh garden vegetables

Reviews/Comments

What on earth is better than this? Hardly anything. Sooo yummy. Got a 10 from us both.

Linguine with Fresh Summer Veggies & Feta

Day 286

Linguine with Fresh Summer Veggies & Feta

Fresh Summer Veggies

There is no shortage of veggies around here this time of year, and usually the only question is how to use them. I have enjoyed other variations of this meal in the past couple of months, so I grabbed some linguine and feta and a few more veggies from Sobey's and whipped this up in an hour and a half flat. Ugh. I was not expecting it to take that long.

Summer vegetables

The washing and chopping took about half the time and the cooking took about 40 more minutes, just to get the carrots to a desirable softness.

Garden Ingredients (Organic)

Carrots
Broccoli
Snow peas
Snap (shelled) peas
Kale (about 1 1/2 cups chopped)
1 bulb garlic
Oregano
Basil

Carrots & kale

Store Ingredients

Feta
Package of linguine (I used 3/4 of the package)
Grape tomatoes
Red pepper
8 oz fresh organic white mushrooms

Some of the veggies beginning to cook

Directions

I am not always the best cook, despite having some of the best ingredients to work with. Booo. I threw the carrots, broccoli, peas, tomatoes, mushrooms, red peppers and garlic into the pot with a bit of peanut oil and began to saute them. Before long, I could see that the peas and broccoli were much farther along than the carrots. I removed the broccoli and peas from the pan and continued cooking the rest, but the garlic cooked away, unfortunately.

When the carrots were finally getting soft, I added the chopped kale.

Adding chopped kale

Meanwhile, I cooked the pasta then mixed in with the vegetables. Next, I crumbled the feta into it and stirred everything in.

Adding the pasta & feta

Finally, I added the broccoli, peas and fresh herbs, let it cook about 2 more minutes and served it. The broccoli was still a bit crunchy, but that's not the worst thing.

Linguine with Fresh Summer Veggies & Feta

Tip: When using fresh herbs, always add them at the end, to retain their flavor. Same goes for garlic. Cook just until aromatic.

Reviews/Comments

I loved this so much. I rated it a 10, because there were so many awesome flavors and it was pretty nutritious and not difficult to make. Laura rated it an 8, and thought regular tomatoes, chopped fine, would have made it a better meal because it would have made a saucier cheese sauce. Filing that away for next time.

Bistro 140: Portobello le Cendrillon Penne

Day 283

Portobello le Cendrillon Penne

Tonight we had dinner at the Bistro 140 for the annual Miramichi Pride Dinner & Cruise. The dinner selections are pre-ordered in order to serve the entire crowd at once, but there are a few options for everyone. I don't know what the meat options were, but this year our options included:

• Eggplant Parmigiana
• Portobello le Cendrillon Penne
• Vegetable Lasagne Crepe

Portobello le Cendrillon Penne

We both opted for the Portobello le Cendrillon Penne. No regrets! Overall, it was a terrific meal to kick off a terrific evening.

Paul serving his guests

Another shot of the Portobello le Cendrillon Penne

Gisele was here

Reviews/Comments

Amazing, amazing, amazing. OMG. We have discussed at least three times since dinner how amazing it was. Now we know what the world's best cheese tastes like!! Gets an 11 from both of us.

Veggie Burgers, Potatoes, Yellow Beans & Grains

Day 282

Tonight, I had dinner with my mom, dad, sister, niece and nephew at the Boom Road homestead. Dad got these awesome veggie burgers at Costco, and BBQ'd them on the grill. We also had roasted potatoes, fresh yellow beans and a kale/grain dish that my sister cooked up.

Burgers

Dad grilled burgers for them and veggie burgers for me.The veggie burgers he found at Costco were super good. Will probably get some next time I go!

Dad at the grill

Grilling burgers

Yellow Beans

I think they got these at the Newcastle Farm Market earlier in the day. I slathered mine with butter and seasoned liberally with salt and pepper. Soooo good. Can't wait for ours to grow.

Yellow beans

Kale with 10 Grains

Tara made this side dish so I'm not sure about all the ingredients, but I know it had a 10-grain mix, chopped kale and minced garlic. I did not see what she used for seasoning, but it tasted good.

Kale with 10 Grains

Burgers, Potatoes, Beans & Grains

Jacob with his dinner

Veggie burger with potatoes, beans & grains

Strawberry Dessert

Dessert was strawberry-themed with the option of strawberries 'n' cream or strawberry shortcake. I had strawberry shortcake.

Mom preparing strawberries

Lily making strawberries 'n' cream

Strawberry shortcake

Reviews/Comments

The meal was delicious and the evening overall, was fun and relaxing.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Day 278

I took a week off from blogging. Let's call it my summer vacation. We didn't have anything fancy or new, so it's all good. :)

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Filling
Original recipe
2 leaves lettuce
3 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint leaves
3 tbsp finely chopped cilantro
4 teaspoons finely chopped Thai basil
12 - 15 snap peas
2 radishes
4 small carrots
3 green onions
52 grams Vermicelli noodles

Veggies for spring rolls filling

Brown rice vermicelli for spring rolls filling

Peanut Sauce
Original recipe
(Substituted 3 TBSPs General Tso's sauce for Hoisin and omitted sugar)

3/4 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup water
3 tbsp General Tso sauce
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
4 1/2 tsp soy sauce
2 1/4 teaspoons chile-garlic paste
1 medium garlic clove, mashed to a paste
1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil

Peanut sauce for Vietnamese spring rolls

Wrap in rice paper.

Vietnamese spring rolls unwrapped

Wrapping Vietnamese spring rolls

Serve with sauce. Make extra for lunch.

Store in a container on a damp paper towel so they are not touching each other.

Reviews/Comments

OMG. I can die happy now.

Chinese Stir-fry & Cheese Rangoons

Day 270

Leftovers rock.

Chinese Stir-fry & Cheese Rangoons

Chinese Stir-fry

We added more veggies to this to freshen it up and also because there was too much sauce. I ran out and picked more snow peas, then chopped more carrots and another onion. I also threw in some garlic scapes and spinach that was in the fridge.

More fresh veggies for yesterday's stir-fry

Before & After

In the before and after pics below, you can see in the first pic that there is a lot of sauce for the amount of veggies in the top pic. 

Before

After

Cheese Rangoons

We had more wonton wrappers left so I picked up a new package of cream cheese and Laura grabbed more green onions outside and I made 15 cheese rangoons to have with the stir-fry tonight. Because we ate all the ones I made last night, since we had this meal for lunch today, too.

Cheese rangoons & veggie stir-fry

Reviews/Comments

The rangoons weren't as good as last night's bok choi rangoons, but the stir-fry was even better. Gets a 10 from me again.