recipe | East Sac Edible

February 10, 2015
by East Sac Edible 4 Comments

From Garden To Table: Bowl of Croutons and a side of Kale Caesar Salad

Right now I don’t have much to harvest in my garden other than kale. As my garden is in transition, I have to settle putting kale into everything which I don’t mind one bit. A couple of weekends ago we spent a beautiful day out in Point Reyes with some friends and picked up some Mt. Tam cheese, bread, olives and a kale salad from Cowgirl Creamery for a picnic. The kale salad was delicious, packed with cheesy goodness and I decided to recreate it for my lunch today.

My motto is that salad is basically an excuse to eat croutons. An all kale salad can be hard to pull off so dressing and extras are a must… and croutons are those extras…

I harvested about 100 grams of kale, which I thought looked like a pretty big bounty for one personal salad but I always forgot that the kale really reduces in size when you massage it with oil and lemon juice (an absolute must for a good kale salad). After washing the kale (aphids are always hiding in the folds), I cut out the ribs and chopped it up a bit. I put a drizzle of olive oil and a squirt of lemon juice over the kale and gave it a good massage for a few minutes. Recently I have been having all kale salads in restaurants around Sacramento and it horrifies me that they don’t massage the kale! Eating a bowl of unmassaged kale is really hard to handle… not even croutons can help.

For the dressing, I whirled 4 cloves of garlic, 1/2 cup of full-fat greek yogurt, 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, the juice of half a lemon, a dab of mustard, a squirt of red wine vinegar, a shake of salt and a few grinds of pepper in my food processor. I added about a tablespoon of olive oil while whirling. I put the dressing into a jar and put it in the fridge. This made about a jam jar of dressing so I envision many more meals of Caesar salad in my future.

Croutons were made with day old bread on low heat with a drizzle of olive oil and shake of salt.

So in my defense, I had two little toddlers eyeing my salad and I knew I was going to have to share so I made double croutons… but my bowl of salad really was more of a bowl of croutons with a side of kale. I added a few shaves of parmesan to the top.

Did I mention I like croutons?

August 20, 2014
by East Sac Edible 2 Comments

From Garden To Table: Roasted Tomato Sauce

During the summer months there is always a glut of tomatoes to harvest although this year my tomato harvest has been quite disappointing. Nevertheless, I love this roasted tomato sauce recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg cookbook. The recipe is easy, and can be used many different ways. I was excited that I had all the ingredients on hand from my garden (minus the olive oil and salt and pepper)! It was really nice to know that everything in this particular batch of tomato sauce came straight from the garden.

Roasted Tomato Sauce

from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg

Ingredients

3 to 4 pounds of tomatoes, larger ones halved
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
A few springs of thyme
A couple springs of marjoram (optional)
2 tablespoons olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lay the tomatoes, cut side up if halved, on a baking sheet. Scatter over the garlic and herbs and trickle over the oil. Season with plenty of salt and pepper. Put the baking sheet in the oven for about an hour, maybe a bit longer, until the tomatoes are completely soft and pulpy, and starting to crinkle and caramelize on top. Set the tomatoes aside to cool for half an hour or so. Then tip them into a large sieve set over a bowl and rub the pulp through with a wooden spoon or use a food mill. Discard the skins and seeds. Your tomato sauce is now ready to use.

My notes:

I don’t use marjoram but replace it with a few springs of fresh rosemary. Also, after I pull the tomatoes out of the oven and they have cooled, I put the tomatoes in my food processor for a few whirls until I get a nice sauce-like texture. I don’t bother to food mill my sauce because I don’t mind skins in my sauce. I transfer my whirled sauce into a sauce pan and let it gently simmer on low heat for about a half hour. Then I season to taste.

If I am not going to use my sauce right away I put it in mason jars and freeze it. Because there is a bit of oil in this recipe, I don’t can it.

July 12, 2014
by East Sac Edible 2 Comments

From Garden to Table: Pesto

The other day I harvested basil and made pesto so I have decided to do a post about my pesto. The first pesto recipe I used was a vegan recipe from Ida Chandra Moskowitz’s Vegan with a Vengeance. Over the years, I have changed the recipe to meet my tastes. I love my pesto to be super lemony and garlicky. I never measure any of the ingredients because it usually depends on how much basil I harvest at the time. I’ve made it so many times that I can eyeball what I need and then I always have a baguette around to taste test as I go along… sometimes I end up eating it straight out of the mixer. I also make huge batches of pesto at once usually a few quarts at a time since I harvest so much basil.

Pesto Recipe

1 & 1/2 cups walnuts
About 6 cups of packed basil leaves (usually I fill my 9 cup food processor once, quickly blitz the leaves and fill it up a second time)
3 to 6 cloves of garlic
1 to 2 teaspoons sea salt
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Juice of one or two lemons

Pick your basil straight from the garden (it is freshest this way and makes for better tasting pesto). Wash the leaves, put through a salad spinner or dry on a towel. Make sure the basil leaves are completely dry before making the pesto. Toast the walnuts in a toaster oven (or regular oven) at 350°F for about 5 minutes on a baking sheet. Let the walnuts cool. If you make pesto with hot walnuts the nuts will wilt your fresh basil leaves.

Blitz the basil in a food processor (or blender) first. Then add walnuts, garlic, salt and lemon juice. Blend in the food processor until combined, scraping down the sides as you go. Continue to process while adding the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Sample at this point and add more ingredients to your taste.

You can add parmesan cheese to your pesto if you would like but honestly if you up the lemon and garlic you really don’t miss the cheese. I make my pesto without cheese and add it when I eat it. This is because I freeze pesto in quart Ziploc bags and it is better to add the cheese in right before you eat it. The pesto freezes really well in these bags. I lay the bag flat on a cookie sheet so it freezes flat, then I stack them in my freezer. When we want pesto I take a bag out of the freezer and open it up while still frozen. I transfer the pesto into a container to let it thaw (it is much easier this way and isn’t a mess trying to get the pesto out of a bag later). Making pesto fresh in the summer and freezing it allows you to enjoy pesto all winter long!

Many people make their pesto with pine nuts. I find that walnuts have a much bolder, darker flavor which I love about this recipe. Also walnuts are so much cheaper than pine nuts. When making pesto in bulk, walnuts are the way to go! I think one day I will need a walnut tree to match my field of basil. Once you make your own, you will never buy expensive, flavorless store-bought pesto again! We eat the pesto with pasta, on sandwiches, or slathered on a toasted baguette. Enjoy!

June 10, 2014
by East Sac Edible 6 Comments

Quick Refrigerator Pickles

Since I have been harvesting so many cucumbers, I decided I needed to start processing them other than eating them raw in salads. My cucumbers are perfectly straight so great for making pickles! Trellising your cucumbers allows your fruit to hang down letting gravity help you grow straight cucumbers. Plus cucumbers are great climbers and trellising prevents the fruit from rotting on the ground. I used Food in Jar’s Refrigerator Dill Pickles but added and subtracted to fit my tastes. I wanted to make a small batch and I didn’t feel like canning on a day when our projected high is going to be 100°. Plus a girl can only eat so many pickles!

First I washed and then cut off the ends of the cucumbers. I cut each cucumber into 8 wedges. One cucumber was a little too long so I had to trim off the ends a bit to have it fit into my 16 oz. canning jars. I wish I had used my wide mouth jars so I could have fit the cucumbers in a little better. I added two cloves of garlic to each jar and a 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper as well.

I measured 3/4 cups of apple cider vinegar, 3/4 cups of filtered water and 2 teaspoons of pickling salt which I brought to a boil on the stove. When the brine came to a boil, I transferred it to a measuring cup and poured it into the jars leaving about a 1/4 inch gap on top. I popped the lids on and let them cool on the counter before putting them in the fridge.

I can’t wait to eat these in a day or two! I have a whole month to eat them before they go bad but I have a feeling they wont last that long! I foresee many batches of these pickles during the summer months. The whole process, including clean up, took me about 15 minutes so this is a super easy recipe to do. If I end up having a glut of cucumbers and more time on my hands I am going to try canning them too!