Hot, Cheap & Easy

Crunchy, Salty, Sweet: Cabbage and Apple Slaw Two Ways (one vegan, one not)

My brother and his family are in town and we are taking a couple of weeks (yes weeks) to celebrate our parents’ 50th wedding anniversary and there is a whole lot of eating and drinking going on.

One of my favorite pictures!

But in between the grilling and giggling, I pause to give you these two very successful recipes for summer slaws. Regular readers know that my dad is on some crazy-ass vegan diet (the parameters of which change with bewildering frequency), so I do try to be accommodating.

This one has mayo and yogurt

This slaw is vegan!

Therefore my sister-in-law and I chopped enough for two salads and dressed them differently. Both were delicious! Next time I may also add a handful of corn kernels…(credit to Beth Greer for inspiring these slaws)

Bright and beautiful, Crispy and Snappy!

Cabbage and Apple Slaw (with dairy)

1 Cup finely chopped red cabbage

1 Cup finely chopped green cabbage

1 Tbs finely chopped red onion

1 Cup diced apple (Granny Smith, Gala, or other sweet-tart firm apple), peel on

1 Tbs chopped walnuts or slivered almonds

Dressing

2 Tbs prepared mayonnaise

1 Tbs plain nonfat or lowfat yogurt

1 tsp your favorite mustard

1 pinch salt (optional, depending on your mayo and mustard)

Place vegetables, fruits and nuts in a bowl and mix. Add mayo, yogurt, and mustard. Mix well, play with proportions and salt to taste.

Vegan Cabbage and Apple Slaw

1 Cup finely chopped red cabbage

1 Cup finely chopped green cabbage

1 Tbs finely chopped red onion

1 Cup diced apple (Granny Smith, Gala, or other sweet-tart firm apple), peel on

1 Tbs chopped walnuts or slivered almonds

Dressing

2 Tbs prepared balsamic vinaigrette

3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

2 Tbs white vinegar

Salt to taste

Place vegetables, fruits and nuts in a bowl and mix. Add prepared dressing. In a separate bowl, whisk the oil and vinegar together until emulsified. Add to vegetables. Mix well. Salt to taste.

Tasty, Beautiful, Healthy: Grilled Veggie Kebabs

15 Aug

NOTE TO READERS: Yes, I am kind of on vacation this week, thus the reblogs…but of course I AM cooking! We grilled last night and I did my quickie marinade for veggies. My brother asked for the recipe, so here it is!

Hot, Cheap & Easy

More from our recent camping trip…veggie kebabs are crunchy and fresh accompaniments to all that heavy meat you are throwing on the grill. They are fun to make and fun to eat and look beautiful on a picnic table. The marinade has just five ingredients…the taste of summer produce shines through!

VEGGIE KEBABS

Dozen wooden skewers, soaked in water for 20 minutes (soak them as you cut vegetables)

MARINADE

3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

1 generous tsp oregano

2-3 tsps fresh lemon juice

2 generous pinches salt

VEGGIES

About 2 lbs quick-cooking mixed vegetables such as

1 Cup grape or cherry tomatoes (whole)

1 Cup green/red/yellow/orange peppers, cut into 1” squares

1 medium zucchini, sliced into rounds

1 medium yellow squash, sliced into rounds

8 oz. button mushrooms, wiped cleaned, stems trimmed and cut in half top to stem

(eggplant is not recommended for a…

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Big Bang Burgers: Four Ingredients, Deliciously Juicy

14 Aug

NOTE TO READERS: Another summer recipe reblog…to go with the Sauteed Onions and Mushrooms….We are having them today, actually. Happy Grilling!

Hot, Cheap & Easy

Do you buy frozen beef patties for summer grilling? Really? Please tell me you don’t. Or at least, please tell me that you have done it for the last time! When you see how easy it is to make tasty, juicy burgers that are infinitely superior to those tasteless wooden slabs, and only use four ingredients, I know you will make your own next time. And your family and guests will be glad you did.

We certainly were. Several days before our recent beach camping trip to Hither Hills State Park here on the East End of Long Island, I made about a dozen burgers (which took all of five minutes, even with Leandro doing the burger formation), cooked a couple for dinner, then wrapped and froze the rest. Ours are a variety of sizes, as a certain almost-six-year-old was in charge of forming the patties. I like having many…

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Pasta Frittata: A delicious solution for leftovers!

13 Aug

I recently had a delicious veggie-filled frittata during a boat trip with my friend, Chef Deborah Pittorino of The Greenporter Hotel in Long Island’s wine country. We ended up fishing for baby bluefish off the dock

Baby bluefish

and having some luck there (and enjoying an incredibly show of juvenile ospreys…I will include Leandro’s amazing picture here!)

Osprey, by Leandro

The frittata was a wonderful pick-me-up after a morning of unsuccessful fishing. It fueled us just enough to keep trying. I have yet to get the recipe for Deborah’s version but it reminded me that I have been sitting on my own frittata recipe for a couple of weeks and it is high time to share it with you, especially during summer high season for eggs!

A frittata is a wonderful way to take tiny bits of this and that and bind them in egg to make a hearty yet light picnic-worthy meal that is totally fun. You can slice them into wedges and make them into finger food, or serve them on a proper plate with salad greens and crusty bread, sliced thin.

Light but filling, rustic but delicate…these are a perfect light meal

I learned to make them in Italy, where folks take leftover pasta and cook it up with eggs so it is similar to a Spanish tortilla or an omelette with the ingredients blended into the egg as opposed to being wrapped in egg. You will want a skillet that can go from stove top to broiler to finish the top. The following recipe is designed to use up leftovers, but you may also want to try my Duck Egg and Asparagus Frittata or a classic Spanish Tortilla.

This is really easy to do and the results are so satisfying so read on for the recipe!! Continue reading →

Tags: eggs, frittata

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Categories eggs, Food, Italian, lunch, Party Snacks, Pasta, Recipes, Vegetarian

Stuffed and Roasted Patty Pan Squash (Yes, you can eat the rind!)

11 Aug

NOTE TO READERS: this is a reblog of one of my most popular posts, in exactly the season for pattypan squash!

Hot, Cheap & Easy

Yes! Those adorable yellow Madeleine berets next to the zucchini and yellow squash are edible! You can even eat the rind!

Pattypan squash is the single most searched for recipe on this blog, so I know many readers are out there trying to figure out whatever to do with them. I was equally mystified when we first started getting them at our weekly CSA pick-up. But a little experimenting later, now I know they are loads of fun.

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Happy 50th…to my parents!

10 Aug

Today my parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary!

It is an amazing achievement to stick together so long through all the ups and downs, to build a life from their beginning together as newly-married graduate students with $12 in their pockets, the promise of a job in New York City and a baby on the way.

August 10, 1963

Today they have two kids, a terrific daughter-in-law, two grandchildren, and a lot more. They travel and cook and bicker, and socialize and entertain, drink wine, and talk, enjoying the fruits of a satisfying and busy retirement after many years of work, mostly helping other students find their way in a confusing world.

So, I am very happy that we will all be together to celebrate this momentous milestone. Who is luckier than us?

Congratulations Myrna & Pedro!

Myrna & Pedro, 50 years later

Tags: wedding anniversary

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I’ll Give You Made in China! (Inner Martha vs. Inner McGyver)

7 Aug

Apropos of nothing, I submit to you this story of triumph over adversity that is one of my favorite moments of the summer.

It was one of those brutally hot days in July when my son was at summer camp and I should have been at the beach with my friends, relaxing, except that I needed to put in two window air conditioners and since there was a gentleman painting the deck for my dad, I figured I should jump on the opportunity to get some assistance with the problem. (For all my dear friends who are wondering where this is going…control your excitement. It is NOT going THAT way).

My secret weapon

So we got the window units secured in the window and since I finally had air conditioning, I decided to run out to Home Depot and get a small shelf unit for my son’s toys and finally sort out that awful corner of the room that was making me crazy.

So, I picked out a Martha Stewart nine section shelf, figuring, how hard can it be if it’s Martha? She wouldn’t risk alienating all her devoted fans with instructions that were impossible, would she?

And indeed, everything was progressing very well when I realized that the instructions had left out an important detail about which slabs were finished and which were not and I got caught putting the wrong piece in the wrong spot. So I had to take one shelf out after having hammered it in. That would have been okay, except that in removing the shelf, I broke off the little pegs holding them together. And there were no extra pegs., There were a lot of little white tabs that were meant to cover the screws, but didn’t, but no extra pegs.

S**t, s**t, s**t (and other expletives which don’t belong on a family blog, but which I took great pleasure in spitting out in the absence of the little man). I had a lot to say about Martha Stewart and her devotees, writers of shelving instructions, cheap s**t furniture, stupid Made in China crap…wait a minute…Made in China, Made in China….then I had a look at those pegs and I had my solution:

Continue reading →

Tags: Martha Stewart, McGyver, solutions

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The Long Island – Yes, Long Island – Fair

5 Aug

Check out my latest blog post on Edible Long Island!

The Long Island — Yes, Long Island — Fair | Local Food Magazine of Long Island

via The Long Island â€“ Yes, Long Island â€“ Fair.

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At Least We’ve Got Some Beautiful Garlic….

31 Jul

Our vegetable garden has been fairly catastrophic this year. Aside from a decent harvest of peas and some nice lettuces, much of what we have planted has been eaten by critters, rotted by excessive rain, wilted by excessive heat, or inexplicably stunted. The radishes never took off, the broccoli hasn’t produced a single floret, the eggplant looks like an bad bonsai experiment — utterly lacking in buds to boot — even the basil has been chewed to a lace and ribs, and do you know ANYONE who can plant zucchini two years in a row and only have ONE, that’s right, ONE SINGLE SOLITARY, zucchini to show for it? That’s just pitiful.

Helping out with garlic harvest at Restoration Farm (in 100 degree heat!?!)

Well, I could go on, but that might jinx the tomatoes, which actually look quite good, except I think my watering has not been consistent and there could be some blossom end rot in my future.

So, I will look on the bright side and say that not only did our garlic produce lovely scapes earlier in the season, but we are also drying a healthy bunch of our own garlic bulbs, planted last October in our raised beds from a head that I reserved from Restoration Farm last season.

Accentuate the positive...our homegrown organic garlic is beautiful and heady with fragrance. My friend Vic Munoz calls this stage: terrestrial jellyfish

Accentuate the positive…our homegrown organic garlic is beautiful and heady with fragrance. My friend Vic Muñoz calls them terrestrial jellyfish for their look!

So, no recipe today. Just a deep breath, thanking goodness that I am not depending on my crop to feed my family. A celebration of what has gone right. And a resolution to keep trying. Because knowing how to grow your own food is important and because perseverance is important and because everything takes time to master.

Wish me luck with the fall vegetables, some of which are already planted….

Tags: gardening, garlic, planting

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Categories CSA, farming, Food, gardening

Finally! A Summer Alternative to Roasting: Tender and Crunchy Grilled Beets

29 Jul

We are awash in beets in the summer and while roasted beets are fantastic, the recent heat wave has not made me (or anyone else) eager to run the oven at all!

Vinny buying the beets at the Greenport Farmstand…Vinny might make a better blogger than me…he was very insistent that I photograph everything!

So, thanks again to the Macchiroles, I learned a new technique for an old favorite. it was great at theirs and then this week my dad gave it a try and they were sublime.

Capturing Vinny’s every move

So, without further ado, here is the recipe (this is a very busy week of kid stuff — all good, but more in-depth posts will not be happening for a while!)

These are simple and delicious…beet sweetness

That caramelization balances the saltiness!

Grilled Beets

As many beets (the root part) as you’ve got

Olive oil

Pepper and salt (or Adobo seasoning)

Top, tail and peel your beets (Note: Vinny does not peel, his but scrubs them well. It’s up to you!). Slice into ¼ inch rounds. Rub with olive oil until evenly covered and add salt and pepper or Adobo to taste. Alternately, you can marinate them for a while in the olive oil and seasonings while you do other things.

Lay rounds on a hot grill and cook, turning after about four minutes. Check after eight minutes. They won’t get soft like roasted or boiled beets, but they will be tooth-tender. Serve as a side to any summer dish!

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