Monday plan day, 10/19

Organic delivery this week: 3 mangos, 4 gala apples, 4 granny smith apples, 3 mangoes, 1 bunch each arugula, endive, carrots, celery, radishes, 1.25lbs each yellow oniones, jewel yams, 1 acorn squash, 1 vine tomatoes

Dairy delivery this week: Two 1/2 gallons of 2% milk, cottage cheese

Monday - Vegetarian kale soup and homemade whole wheat bread (using tomatoes from last week's delivery, and beans from our pantry)

Tuesday - Scallops and pecans over wilted greens (using arugula and endive from the delivery, and pecans from our pantry)

Wednesday - Leftover soup with freshly made multi-grain bread

Thursday - Cajun chicken stew and acorn squash (using squash, carrots, celery, and onions from the delivery, chicken from the freezer, and brown rice from the pantry)

Friday - Picnic dinner at band practice! With chicken salad and homemade bread, carrot slices, and mango (using extra chicken I'll reserve after starting the stew, celery from the delivery, and almonds from the pantry)

Saturday - dinner with family

Sunday - Leftover stew

Other things that are on our cooking list for this week—I still haven't tried making those bagels! Hopefully this week. Also we'll be making crunchy granola for nacks.

Grocery list - For dinners this week I will need kale, scallops, and more red wine vinegar. I will need the usual OJ for breakfasts, and Cheerios, since they're on sale at Meijer this week. I'll also be picking up fresh garlic, new salt, rolled oats, and unsweetened coconut flakes for the granola. I think that's it, but having just gotten back from a short vacation my wits are not all about me as yet.

Pumpkin cheesecake

Here is one of those wonderful pumpkin recipes I alluded to earlier. This is what Jon requested for his birthday cake. By making it entirely from scratch and using all low fat and organic ingredients (including whole wheat organic graham crackers, who knew such a thing existed?) it became a relatively healthy version (note the key word, relatively, of course) of this special dessert.

Pumpkin cheesecake

Ingredients:
Crust:
  ● 1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
  ● 3 tbsp. light brown sugar
  ● 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
  ● 1 stick melted salted butter

Filling:
  ● 3 (8-ounce) packages low fat cream cheese, at room temperature
  ● 1 15-ounce can pureed pumpkin (I used ~1.5 cups homemade pumpkin puree)
  ● 3 eggs
  ● 1/4 cup sour cream
  ● 1 1/2 cups sugar
  ● 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
  ● 1/8 tsp. fresh ground nutmeg
  ● 1/8 tsp. ground cloves
  ● 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
  ● 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

To make crust, in a medium bowl combine crumbs, sugar and cinnamon. Add melted butter. Press down flat into a 9-inch springform pan. Set aside.

For filling:
Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add pumpkin puree, eggs, sour cream, sugar and the spices. Add flour and vanilla. Beat together until well combined.
Pour into crust and spread out evenly. Bake at 350 for 1 hour to 1 hour 20 minutes. Cake is done when it seems pretty set, but still has a little jiggle to the center.
Remove from the oven and let sit for 15 minutes. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Remove outer and transfer to serving plate when ready to serve. This is great with homemade organic whipped cream (or, we even found organic whipped cream in a spray bottle today, if that's the way you like it!)

Real pumpkin puree (not from a can!)

It's pumpkin time! Pumpkins are plump and ready for harvesting everywhere you look. And when I say pumpkin I'm not necessarily talking about the spherical orange thing you might gut and carve up to decorate your porch this time of year, I'm talking about the winter squash that is incredibly delicious in a myriad of yummy fall recipes.  Just imagine—soups, pies, and cakes, oh my! Jon loves the pumpkin flavor and begs me very year to get him the "special edition" foods that crop up right about now, like pumpkin spice coffee cream, and pumpkin ice cream, and for his birthday, when I offered him anything he wanted, he did a quick internet search and found a recipe for pumpkin cheesecake.  Of course, these pumpkin-tastic foods are possible all year round if all you do is visit your grocer's aisle of canned "goods" (what, after all, is so good about food in a can?), but there is absolutely no substitute for fall dishes made with real pumpkin puree (as opposed to the kind that comes out of its vessel still shaped like a can). Thanks to Jon's predilection for it, I'll be sharing lots of great pumpkin recipes this fall, but since most of them call or "pumpkin puree" (usually even more bluntly put as "15.2 oz canned pumpkin puree") I thought I'd start with the basics, and share how I make my own, straight from the fruit itself.

Real pumpkin puree (not from a can!)

Ingredients
•Pie pumpkins (also called sugar pumpkins)

Directions
1. Select a heavy feeling pie pumpkin(s) with few blemishes on the skin. Clean carefully, then cut in halves or quarters (I do quarters) and remove strings and seeds (set seeds aside if you want to roast them later).

2. Now it is time to steam the pumpkin, and there are several different options for this. I have steamed pumpkin the microwave (although I don't recommend it), on the stove in a double pot steamer, and also in the oven in a roaster (which is how I did it this time). I put an inch of water in my roaster, added the pumpkin, then baked in the oven, covered, for sixty to ninety minutes, or until they were very soft and the skins peeled away easily from the flesh (you can test this by pulling at the skin with a pair of tongs).  When finished remove them from the oven and allow to cool until they can be comfortably handled.

3. Peel skins away from flesh of pumpkin and discard. Put pumpkin flesh in a large bowl and first mash (I use a potato masher to start), then puree until smooth. Since the pumpkin is still warm when I am pureeing I avoid using the food processor, which is made with plastic, and use my submersion mixer instead. I get a wonderful consistency with that tool!

4. Pour any excess water off, then transfer puree to a fine mesh colander, or a colander lined with cheese cloth. Set colander inside a large bowl and refrigerate, covered, overnight or for 12-18 hours.

5. Remove colander and divide puree into 1.5-2 cup portions (about 1.75 cups is equivalent to a standard can of pumpkin from the store). Pumpkin puree can be used right away, kept in the fridge for about a week, or frozen for several months, but it is not recommended for canning.

Monday plan day, 10/12

Organic delivery this week: blueberries, pomegranates, kiwi, red pears, radishes with tops, spinach, carrots, celery, gold beets, red onions, red potatoes, romaine lettuce, shallots, tomatoes

Dairy delivery this week: Two 1/2 gallons of 2% milk, eggs,

Monday - Satisfying lentil soup (using onions, celery, and carrots from last week's delivery, homemade veggie stock from our freezer, and lentils from our pantry), with twice baked sweet potatoes and yellow squash on the side (all items from the organic or dairy deliveries). This is a vegetarian meal.

Tuesday - Penne with chicken sausage, beans, and greens (spinach from the delivery, sausage from our freezer, beans from our pantry)

Wednesday - Leftover soup

Thursday - Dinner with family

Friday - Leftover penne

Saturday - It's a home football day, so snacks for dinner it is! Cheese, homemade bread, and fresh green veggies.

Sunday - Hosting a family dinner, menu is yet to be decided.

Other things that are on our cooking list for this week—green tomato salsa (the tomatoes all had to come in off the plants, so it's time to use them up), sandwich bread, and bagels (I never got around to trying those last week, so they go on this week's list instead).

Grocery list - For dinners this week I will need grape tomatoes and white wine for the penne dish.  We also need more yeast and flour.  Clavin has requested apple sauce, and I'm too lazy to make it when Meijer offers the organic affordably (we'll make it some time this season, though). We also need the usual OJ, of course, and a few things for canning the salsa, including sweet peppers, jalapenos, lime juice, and garlic. Oh, and more cans to add to our collection!  Happy week!

Oktoberfest

What is October without Oktoberfest? There was an interesting recipe in our local newspaper a few weeks back, so we saved it for just the right time, and tonight we takled German cooking.  Well, sort of.  The recipe called for coarse ground mustard, so I settled for one that looked chunky and had a picture of a guy wearing lederhosen on it (hard to go wrong there, right?) It also called for sauerkraut "not from a can," which, because I know nothing about sauerkraut, made me laugh because we don't buy anything in a can. On the other hand, "fresh sauerkraut" is an oxymoron, isn't it?  I came home from the local organic market with sauerkraut in a glass jar shaped like a barrel, ha ha ha.  Also, the recipe called for two small local red apples.  We got large organic green apples in our delivery, so that's what I used. The dinner was fantastic. I think the caraway seeds added just the right touch. 

Oktoberfest sausages and applekraut

Ingredients:
  ● 1 tbsp butter or canola oil
  ● 1 large onion
  ● 1 tbsp brown sugar
  ● 1-2 large fresh (red) apples, washed, cored, thinly sliced
  ● 1/4 cup German or micro-brewed beer
  ● 4 cups sauerkraut (not canned)
  ● 2 tsp caraway seeds
  ● 6 freshly made German sausages, i.e. brats, knocks, or weiswurst
  ● course ground mustard

Directions:
1. Prepare grill to high heat or heat oven to 350. Oil rack and grill sausages, or cook in pan, 20-30 minutes, or until done, turning to cook evenly. Do not pierce sausages while cooking as that will cause them to lose their savory juices and become dry.

2. Meanwhile, in a large saute pan heat oil over medium-low.  Add onions to pan and saute with brown sugar and pinch of Kosher salt for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Raise heat to high, then deglaze pan with 1/4 cup beer.  Stir, let reduce a minute, then add sliced apples to the onion mixture. Simmer an additional 10 minutes. Stir in rinsed sauerkraut and caraway seeds and cook until heated.

4. Serve sausages over applekraut, passing mustard.

And just a side note, or tip: if you have trouble when trying to evenly and thinly slice an onion, fancy cooking catalogs, like Williams-Sonoma or Pampered Chef, sell fancy tools that will help you hold the onion in place while you are slicing.  Those tools always reminded me of fancy forks, so that's what I use.  I first trim the ends off the onion, then peel it, cut in half lengthwise and remove centers, then I stab one half right in its middle with a fork and use the fork to hold it in place while I make even, thin slices moving inwards from each outside edge.  Works like a charm (bad picture, though. That doesn't really look like a thin slice, does it).