Green Beans for Lunch @ Work

From the Vegetable Box: Green Beans

From the Store: Bacon (any bacon), sliced almonds, dried cranberries

Cleaned and cut green beans, cut bacon in small pieces.

I cooked quinoa in another pot (can be replaced with rice or mashed potatoes or baked potatoes).

Put the bacon pieces in a cold pan and got them slowly brown when the pan got hot  (slow process). Added green beans when the bacon was ½-way brown but far from crisp. Mixed and cooked for another 3-4 minutes, added almond slivers and cranberries, cooked for another 2 minutes. ATTENTION: almond can burn fast.

Add salt if needed, bacon could have enough salt for the mix.

Added 1-2 cups of quinoa into a bowl mixed with green bean-mix.

Green Beans

Green beans, also known as French beans (British English), string beans in the northeastern and western United States, snap beans or squeaky beans, are the unripe fruit of specific cultivated varieties of the common bean.

Green bean varieties have been bred especially for the fleshiness, flavor, or sweetness of their pods. Haricots verts, French for "green beans", may refer to a longer, thinner type of green bean than the typical American green bean. It is known in some parts of the world as the squeaky bean due to the noise it makes on one's teeth whilst eating.

The first "stringless" bean was bred in 1894 by Calvin Keeney, called the "father of the stringless bean", while working in Le Roy, NY. 

Fruit / Vegetable Salad

From the Vegetable Box: Fennel / Apple

From the Farmer’s Market: Persimmon

From my pantry: Salt, Pepper, Vinegar, Oil, and Mustard

Vinaigrettes: mix 2 spoons of oil, 2 spoons of vinegar, ½ spoon of mustard (any mustard), salt and pepper.

Salad: sliced fennel, apple and persimmon thinly and mixed it right away with the vinaigrettes. Taste and add some more salt if needed.

Fennel

The bulb, foliage, and seeds of the fennel plant are widely used in many of the culinary traditions of the world. For cooking, green seeds are optimal. The leaves are delicately flavored and similar in shape to those of dill. The bulb is a crisp vegetable that can be sautéed, stewed, braised, grilled, or eaten raw.

Apple

There are more than 7,500 known cultivares of apples, resulting in a range of desired characteristics. Different cultivars are bred for various tastes and uses, including in cooking, fresh eating and cider production. 

Persimmon

Like the tomato, persimmons are not popularly considered to be berries, but in terms of botanical morphology the fruit is in fact a berry.

The American Persimmon is native to the eastern United States and is higher in nutrients like vitamin C and calcium than the Japanese Persimmon. Its fruit is traditionally eaten in a special steamed pudding in the Midwest and sometimes its timber is used as a substitute for ebony (e.g. in instruments).

Pumpkin Soup and Pumpkin Cheesecake

My farm fresh pumpkin!

Start by removing the top stem from the pumpkin, removing the seeds and cutting into equal halves.  Bake both halves of the pumpkin in the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour.


Pumpkin Soup

1/2 cooked pumpkin
1 cup of chicken broth
1/2 cup of half and half
3 tablespoons of maple syrup
1 teaspoon of Penzey's Pumpkin Pie Spice (cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, cloves)
dash of salt

Spoon out cooked pumpkin pulp.  In a blender combine pulp, broth, half and half, syrup, pumpkin pie spice and salt.  Blend everything together until smooth.

Pour contents into a saucepan and cook until heated.  Serve hot.

Serves 6

Results: Yummy Soup!

A yummy pumpkin soup that was neither too creamy nor too sweet.  Vegetable broth might have been better to use but I only had chicken on hand.  Still it was pretty yummy.  I got this recipe off thepioneerwoman.com.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

1/2 cooked pumpkin
16 oz of cream cheese
1 cup of sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon of Penzey's Pumpkin Pie Spice (cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, cloves)
1/4 teaspoon of salt
20 oreo cookies
4 tablespoons of butter
whipped cream for topping

For the crust, crush up oreos.  A food processor would probably work best for this but I don't own one so I tried to use the blender.  It didn't really work so my pie crust was a little chunky.  Add in melted butter.  Mix well and spread out in the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish.

For the filling, spoon out cooked pumpkin pulp.  Combine pumpkin, cream cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, pumpkin pie spice and salt with an electric mixer one ingredient at a time.  Mix well (I had to put everything in the blender to liquify and combine everything evenly and then moved it back to the electric mixer).

Cover crust with the filling.  Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  Let cool at room temperature and then chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.  The brunch was fast approaching so I put it in the freezer for 1 hour.  The edges set but the middle was still a little soft (it needed more time to set).

Serve with whipped cream if desired.

Serves 9

Results: Delicious Cheesecake!  

Even though I didn't have enough time to let it set before serving, it was still delicious.  The oreo crust was a perfect compliment to the cheesecake.  I got this recipe off of myrecipes.com.  I'd never used a whole pumpkin in cooking before and I think both dishes turned out really well, especially the cheesecake.

Fall Baking Brunch

After our trip to the farm we all got together for a fall baking brunch.

For an appetizer we had pumpkin soup by Kieu.

For lunch we had pomegranate couscous by Meli...

And chili riano casserole by Evelyn and Coelho.

For dessert we had pumpkin cheesecake by Kieu.

Thanks to everyone who came.  Feel free to post your recipes in the comments if you'd like to share them.

Fall at Underwood Family Farms

Last trip for the year to Underwood Family Farms for our fall baking.

 They had a corn maze.

 And various pumpkin patches.

 Even the sunflowers were orange.

Persimmon Pudding Squares

My produce items: Persimmons, Delicata Squash

1 delicata squash
1/4 cup of maple syrup
2 persimmons
1 cup of milk
4 tablespoons of butter
1 egg
1/2 cup of flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons of Penzey's Pumpkin Pie Spice (cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, cloves)
1 tablespoon sugar
whipped cream for topping

Cut off tops and peel persimmons.  Chop into pieces.  Blend together persimmons, milk and melted butter.  Remove from blender and place in a mixing bowl.  Beat in egg, flour, baking soda, salt, allspice and sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.

Cut delicata squash in half and seed.  Chop into 1/2 inch moon shaped pieces.  Spread out on a baking sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.  Turn pieces over and bake another 15 minutes.  Remove from baking sheet and place in a mixing bowl. Coat with maple syrup (sprinkle allspice if desired.

Cut out a square of the persimmons pudding.  Top with delicata squash pieces.  Top with whipped cream if desired.  Can be served hot or cold.

Serves 6

Final Verdict: Yummy.

The pudding recipe is a variation I got off of cooks.com.  The pudding isn't really a pudding.  It's more like a pumpkin pie but the flavoring is a little different.  I can definitely see persimmons being a pie filling.  It was a yummy dessert.  I wasn't sure if it really needed the delicata squash topping but I was told that the squash gave the dish a nice balance so it wasn't too sweet.  Persimmons are pretty sweet on their own so I thought they'd be good for a dessert.  I had read that delicata squash is a very sweet squash that turns custardy when baked.  I'm not really sure that I agree with that, but it was sweet enough to use for the dessert.  I was originally going to put the squash in the pudding mix but I'm glad I didn't.  Both flavors are pretty different from each other.  The way to eat it is to have some pudding and then a bite of squash eating them together but keeping the flavors separate.

Vegan Cupcakes

My produce items: Lemon, Avocado

3 cups all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup of avocado (1 medium avocado well mashed)
2 cups water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 can of frosting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Sift together flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, baking soda.  Mix together avocado, vegetable oil, water, lemon juice, vanilla extract.  Combine wet ingredients to dry mixture and mix well.  I used an electric mixer.  Pour batter into cupcake holders.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Let cool for 15 minutes before applying frosting.

Makes 24 cupcakes.

Final Verdict: Delicious

I was skeptical at first but after trying vegan cupcakes I absolutely loved them and wanted to try my hand at making them. They taste exactly like regular cupcakes except way more moist.  They're super moist chocolate cupcakes.  I actually got the recipe from jbahr who sent it to me.  This recipe is a slight variation from joythebaker.com.  I didn't have any white vinegar so I substituted lemon juice.  Because of the substitution I also added an additional teaspoon of vanilla extract.  I think it turned out well.

Mini Chicken Pot Pies!

INGREDIENTS:

Green Zucchini, Sweet Potatoes, Fennel, Peppers

I recently acquired a mini pie pan and have been dying to make mini chicken pot pies. Originally I intended to buy store bought crust. However, the stores decided to work against me so I ended up making my own crust. I included the crust recipe along with the pot pie recipe if you are feeling ambitious.

CRUST RECIPE:

1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 Butter (1 Stick - room temperature, cubed)
1/4 Tsp Salt
1/4 Cup Water (You most likely will not use all of this)

1) In a bowl or food processor, mix together the flour and the salt.

2) Slowly add in cubes of butter. The mix will start to resemble cornmeal.

3) Once all the butter has been added, slowly drizzle 1 tsp at a time of water and mix together with the flour and butter. Continue this process until the dough starts to form into a ball. You will probably not use all the water as you don't want to use to much; this will cause your dough to become sticky.

4) Refrigerate your dough for at least 1 hour or overnight.

POT PIE RECIPE:

2 Chicken Breasts (medium size - cubed)
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped fennel
2 Sweet potatoes (small - cubed)
2 Peppers (small - cubed)
1 cup Peas
1 Zucchini (cubed)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 3/4 cups Chicken broth (from 32-oz carton)
1/2 cup Milk

1) Heat oven to 425°F. Roll out your dough and place into mini pie pan. I placed the bottoms in and left the tops of parchment paper for after the pies are filled. 

2) In 2-quart saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion; cook 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until tender. Stir in flour, salt and pepper until well blended. Gradually stir in broth and milk, cooking and stirring until bubbly and thickened.

3) Stir in chicken and mixed vegetables. Remove from heat. Spoon chicken mixture into crust-lined pan. Top with second crust; seal edge and flute. Cut slits in several places in top crust.

4) Bake 30 to 40 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Let stand 5 minutes before serving. 

These were delicious! And the mini pie size is perfect for a one person serving. I have already made them again and will probably make them again later this week. Enjoy!